Schadenfreude: Is it wrong?
2010-09-25
Posted by: badanov
If a certain web editor for a semi-prestigious conservative website who encouraged you to write for him for pay, even took two submitted articles for free, then all of a sudden went stoopid on for pay articles; then took on a 20-something hotshot ( so to speak ) only to be hosed by said hotshot's impetuous and outrageous views of sex, having a big cuppa schadenfreude wouldn't be wrong, would it?
I mean it ain't like Swindle didn't know about the hot-shot's personal proclivities, is it?
Reading Swindle's denouncement of this kid, I come away with the impression that he went to Bossman about the kid early on, and Bossman waved him off of dumping this liability in the early going. That, or they were aware of his insipid insanity and decided for whatever reason, they could manage him.
I guess open gayness is a real badge of honor in some circles. Personally, I don't care for the entrance requirements, but that's just me. And like naming pretty women as "Hot Conservative Women", these guys would do almost anything to bring a gay guy on board their staffs.
Researching this post, I discovered this hotshot had gotten on to several conservative websites as an author, posing as a "classically liberal, atheist, gay, republican", reminding me in many ways of Andrew Sullivan: an unhinged gay man trying to be conservative and failing at it.
In many ways, the research answers the question in my own mind: WTH were you thinking?
They weren't thinking. They saw a young kid who could burnish their pro-gay bonifides, or at least temper any perceptions of anti-gayness ( whatever you want to call it ), they bring him on board and as a result he burns them, big time.
Knepper obviously isn't very representative of gay men who are conservatives, but he does a pretty good imitation of an unhinged gay man, politics notwithstanding.
None of this means having me as a writer would have changed the trajectory of events, or would have made things better for either the organization or for myself.. But being on the staff of a conservative organization that makes a personnel error so egregious and so glaringly wrong would make me question my own presence on the staff.
A lot of smart people exist in the world and they are smart because they are good at one thing. Smart people make mistakes, too, and smart people often don't own up to their errors.
Swindle eventually got around to taking ownership of his Knepper problem just about a month after it blew up in his face.
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