Mugger Slaps Down Scumbag

Russ Smith smacks down Matt Taibbi for this disgusting article published in the newsweekly created by Smith himself:

Yes, the headline above is somewhat playful, but after the ruckus created last week by Matt Taibbi's juvenile list of 52 reasons why the Pope's death will be funny, some common sense is in order. It's my suspicion that Taibbi, searching for a quick and easy column that would annoy the greatest number of people, and probably not wanting to miss a re-run of Seinfeld, dashed off his spectacular exercise in bad taste in less than a half hour, congratulated himself for being a clever dude and went on with his business—whatever that is.
I don't happen to agree with much of the Pope's public agenda—the willful cover-up of pedophile priests in the U.S. and objection to the invasion of Iraq come to mind—but if a writer's going to attack a universally beloved figure the satire ought to be at least up to the standards of Christopher Hitchens. Eagerly anticipating the death of a celebrated figure is simply bad business: One can hope, for example, that Teddy Kennedy retires from the Senate so his influence on impressionable Democrats will be diminished, but only the most demented (Mary Jo Kopechne's relatives and friends get a pass on this question) among us are rooting for his imminent demise.
And even those souls, you'd hope, would come up with a better "reason" to think such an event would be "funny," such as Taibbi's "Beetles eating Pope's dead brains."

Read Taibbi's drivel and note the slam on the Nation and Katrina vanden Heuvel.