Fisty jim

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Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:30 am

Judging by the following rush transcript at CNN, fist–obsessed Vanity Fair pudding James Wolcott has picked up some freelance typing work:

Just this weekend, Tim Blair, an Australian blogger, a very good blogger, took a “Washington Post” piece that was completely silly—and the term is fist—destroyed it, deconstructed it, proved that it was all spin …

Of Wolcott’s unusual interpretation of the popular term “fisk�?, Tiger Hawk writes: “It reads like something Maureen Dowd would write if she weren’t working for a family paper.�?

UPDATE. To clarify: the compliment is from Hugh Hewitt, speaking on CNN. The fist line is from Wolcott. Check them links!

Posted by Tim B. on 01/26/2005 at 09:04 AM

Not buttered up so easily, are you Tim? I really like that you display his compliment to you right after calling him a “pudding.”
I wonder if the ocicats put their paws in the pudding? Maybe that’s the source of the obsession. I hope they’re not de-clawed.
Posted by Joe Geoghegan on 01/26 at 11:29 AM • permalink

Oh, dear… someone really should let Mr. Wolcott know that ‘Fisting’ is *something* *completely* *different* than ‘Fisking’.
Posted by rosignol on 01/26 at 12:56 PM • permalink

I figure he is fixated on “fisting.” It would certainly some of his writing style. Maybe pulling out the fist (at least while typing) would improve his prose and his logic, but I doubt it.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 01/26 at 01:38 PM • permalink

Thank you for the link.
Does anybody know who first used the verb “to fisk”? Andrew Sullivan? His was the first blog on which I read the term, but I do not know if he is the accepted first mover of the word.
Posted by TigerHawk on 01/26 at 02:29 PM • permalink

Hmmmm, perhaps a “Fisk” and a “fist” is not that different.
As this is a family blog, this will not be deconstructed, whatever decon…thingy means.
“A very good blogger”. Nice. Know you are an Aussie bloke, Mr Blair, but take a compliment when it’s given.
Posted by Darlene Taylor on 01/26 at 03:03 PM • permalink

Not so fast, Darlene. That compliment rides side-by-side with an exceedingly puerile insult. Wolcott characterizes Tim’s criticism of a Washington Post story as a “fist,” so he almost certainly intended the following (follow the link from “fist,” above) to apply to Tim:
“Slurs on the name of a great and brave reporter, they gained currency among warbloggers not only because they caricaturize an ideological enemy but because ‘f—ing’ sounds so much like ‘fisting,’ a sexual practice that excites certain verboten latent tendencies in many of them. It gives them an illicit tingle, f—ing a post.”
Wolcott is saying that bloggers love using a word that sounds like “fisting” because they secretly want it in the dirtiest way. Which makes Wolcott the balding-est thirteen-year-old I know.
Posted by Joe Geoghegan on 01/26 at 03:23 PM • permalink

I will cease being so fast in the future, Joe.
I could be puerile at this point, but I have to get ready for work.
Posted by Darlene Taylor on 01/26 at 03:33 PM • permalink

Ah. Yes. Well. By “his compliment to you,” naturally I meant his willingness to display Hewitt’s compliment on his blog, which constitutes a compliment all on its own. Everybody knows that.
And if he *didn’t* pay you a compliment, then more the pudding he!
Posted by Joe Geoghegan on 01/26 at 06:50 PM • permalink