In most forms of journalism today they tell you never to read the commenters. At worst, it’ll kill your spirit. At best, it’ll ruin your day. But in this feature, we say throw caution to the wind: read the goddamn commenters. The nutballs, misinterpreters, fans and friends. Read them all. Here we take the temperature of commenters around the net. The more rude the better. Occasionally we’ll cleanse with some online kindness.
Earlier this week the NYT reported that White House pastry chef Bill Yosses is leaving to work on a food literacy project. Yosses spoke of shifting to healthier cooking under Michelle Obama‘s first lady reign. “I don’t want to demonize cream, butter, sugar and eggs,” Yosses said, noting that his departure from the White House is a “bittersweet decision.”
One might detect a note of jesting in Yosses’ remark. One might not. Whether joking or not, working in the White House kitchen was no doubt a sweet gig for him that should pop on his resumé.
Commenters, as you might imagine, went apeshit over this story. On The Daily Caller website alone, there were 2,725 comments about it. Things quickly turned political. Sammie Jo remarked, “I doubt a classy pastry chef would have anything to do with a lowly community organizer. lol” And Rick said, “I couldn’t even imagine working for those elitist scandalous jerks!”
FlyNavy, along with a number of other readers, takes issue with the writer including the chef’s sexual orientation, asking, “What does him being gay have to do with this story? Have we gone so far down the politically correct trail that we can no longer begin a sentence without first expressing sexual orientation?”
Technically, the entire first two sentences are free of Yosses’ sexual orientation, but whatever. “Yeah, that’s right, that’s my role here, to bring us closer to being politically correct,” remarked Patrick Howley, who wrote the story that got the Drudge hit.
The story’s headline was as follows:
White House pastry chef resigns: ‘I don’t want to demonize cream, butter, sugar and eggs’
Both TheBlaze and the Christian Science Monitor took time out of their frenzied schedules to write puff pieces on the first lady’s cream-filled relationship with her pastry chef.
The above headline outraged the weekend editor over at TheBlaze,‘ Oliver Darcy, who felt the need to write an entire piece on it during one of his supposed days off. The smoke is still steaming from his ears. Despite the fact that The Daily Caller story never asserted that Yosses was angry, the headline slapped on his story: “Rumor Check: Was the White House Pastry Chef So Angry With Michelle Obama’s Healthy Eating Push He Resigned?” All of this is so beneath Darcy that he can’t bear to mention The Daily Caller by name. Instead he writes (with a link) that “information circulated” suggesting Yosses quit because he was displeased with the first lady’s quest for healthy eating.
The Daily Caller story also hilariously drew the ire of Peter Grier, the presumably serious Washington editor for the Christian Science Monitor. His headline: “No, White House pastry chef didn’t quit because Michelle Obama is anti-cream.” He goes on to quote Darcy, clearly a seasoned journalism expert, on why the story is so outrageous. Not even explaining himself, he absurdly blames the story on “today’s Twitter-fueled media.” Grier goes to the trouble of citing a lot of horse shit evidence on why Yosses didn’t leave the White House because of Michelle’s push for healthy eating, even mentioning Obama’s nickname for Yosses, which was “Crust Master.” He quotes Yosses telling the NYT that Michelle switched to healthier ingredients in a way that was filled with “humor and good will.” Now that is some pretty hardcore evidence.
In his humor-free diatribe, Grier writes, “Does that sound like somebody leaving in a huff because doughnuts are forbidden? TheBlaze, Glenn Beck’s media venture, does not think so. Blaze writer Oliver Darcy did a quick rumor check and decided that Yosses’s admitted fondness for cream was not why he’s leaving.”
Howley, when told about these stories, remarked, “Sorry I don’t have time to read the Christian Science Monitor, I’m too busy taking aspirin for my headache.” As for TheBlaze‘ reaction, he said, “Oliver Darcy is just mad because I stole his petticoat at the Candlemas Day fair. It remains unclear whether he looks like Caractacus Potts from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. My researchers are looking into it. This criticism of me is clearly transphobia toward me in its most vicious forms. When will media move forward?”
Now, back to those insightful, colorful commenters. John (Magnum) took things in another direction entirely.
“ROTFLMAO, Took the man long enough to get his fill of Queen Lard a$$ MOOCHELE !! The sane part of America had their fill on day ONE !!” he opined.
Elizabethrc also took issue with Michelle: “She plows into her food like she thinks it’s going to be taken away from her. Same way she and Obama use the perks of Obama’s Presidency. Grab as much as they can, live off the taxpayers as extravagantly as they can, while they can. Talk about ugly Americans!”
GhostofThomasPaine reached for an historical reference from President’s Obama life, writing, “I bet the real reason why he quit was that didn’t like cooking dog.”
Another commenter, 1389AD, expresses sincere outrage that the President has a pastry chef at all. “It bothers me that the White House even HAS a pastry chef. Let alone chefs at all. Let the Obamas and their offspring cook their own damn food. Let the WH staffers bring bag lunches. Hire private caterers for state dinners – or better yet, STOP HAVING taxpayer funded state dinners.”
Phunnypharm seems to think something more sinister is going on at the White House. He says, “I hope he writes a tell-all book about the Obamas. Something tells me he left for other reasons as well. Like being scolded/yelled at by the First Witch. She is one nasty individual.”
And jimboli1961 took things into X-rated territory, writing, “The chef simply misunderstood. She wasn’t asking him for a puree of fruit. She was telling him that her husband was a pure fruit. He should have stayed, maybe he and Obama and Reggie Love could have had a threesome.”
Phunnypharm later adds, “Speaking of fat a**es, have you ever seen MichelleAntoinette from the rear. What a terrifying site!!”
Red pill has generalized outrage related to Michelle’s “Let’s Move” campaign: “I’m sick of fat people telling me what to eat and racists telling America it’s racist. Just SHUT UP!”
And wolfinshdo suspects there’s something else going on here: “Maybe the chef was making ‘goo-goo-eyes’ at Pres. Obama? Or maybe Pres. Obama was making ‘goo-goo-eyes’ at the chef?”
PoohBearPatriot was particularly incensed by what he deems a lack of journalism. “What does that have to do with anything? he asked of the line indicating that Yosses is openly gay. “I could care less what adults do in the privacy of their own bedroom. That totally took everything away from the story. These journalists need to get their act together.”
Desert Rat wholeheartedly agrees: “Why was it important to state his sexual orientation? I get so sick and tired of reading articles that think pointing out something that is and should be inherently private.”
Also taking issue with the inclusion of “openly gay” is Strawberry Garcia, who writes, “Is he an ‘openly gay chef’ or just a chef, I’m an openly heterosexual publisher but they usually call me a publisher.”