When Elizabeth Edwards died on Tuesday, it made me think about death again. Our 13-year-old dog died recently, and it caused some serious grief. Yet, I felt nothing for Edwards. I didn’t know her. I didn’t even know *of* her, but for the fact that she was married to a guy who ran for president and who was unfaithful to her. I also knew she had cancer, but that’s about it.
So I tweeted:
When I hit ‘send’ I knew it could possibly be misconstrued. I didn’t want anyone to think I was trivializing the death of a human being or comparing the death of a human to the death of an animal. When I originally wrote it, I indeed did write ‘Sarah Palin lives’ – but thought better of that. I also don’t want to be seen as someone who wishes anyone dead. So I figured ‘thrives’ was a better choice.
The tweet got RT’d a little bit, but evidently made it into the stream of some very, very angry people. People who immediately tweeted me that I was a sicko for wishing Palin dead:
Since Tuesday, I’ve continued to receive intermittent tweets from angry Palin supporters. But none angrier than this guy on Wednesday:
I was going to explain to him how to best use language so that he could fit his entire tweet into 140 characters, but instead decided to tell him “I love you.” To which he replied:
I hand’t said anything in response to any of the haters until the ‘I love you’ tweet to this guy. I just assumed that if these people were real conservatives, then they’re real Christians and would get the whole ‘love’ angle. Evidently not. Also, I’m smart enough to know that people like this only want you to engage them directly – and so I figured the ‘love’ tweet would help settle him down. I’ve been attacked by haters on Twitter before, as documented in Shel Israel’s book “Twitterville” – so I didn’t let these Palin people affect me. Besides, most of them had less than 100 followers and I didn’t want to help increase their Klout score by replying.
Anyway, after letting things settle for a day, I have a few things to say to the Palin army. Listen carefully:
1) Please consider taking up smoking pot, or see a doctor about medication to calm down. And then take a course in literature deconstruction. Your knee-jerk reaction makes you look more ignorant than necessary. Especially since I didn’t say I hated or wished Sarah Palin dead. Do I like her? Well, I don’t know. I don’t know her. But I do know that she’s something of a media maven who has done a fantastic job with her fifteen minutes. However, I did have a dream about her once.
2) I’m not a democrat. I’m not a republican, either. I’m unaffiliated. I also served in the US Air Force – under Reagan. I’m a fucking real American, you soft, white underbellies. And if you don’t like that we have a black president who happens to be from a different political party than you – I suggest you spend a year in Chad or Congo for some perspective on what a privilege it is to be an American. Otherwise shut the fuck up and go back to curing squirrel meat in your smokehouse.
3) I still love you.
Whew. I’m glad I got that off my chest. Thank you.
***
Jim Mitchem/@jmitchem
Nichole Brown
Dec 9, 2010
Why can’t these people find something constructive to say? I bet they’re as quick to pull out their hunting rifles as they are to throw out f-bombs.Please don’t start censoring yourself. You tweet things I only think to myself.
Jessica_Smedley
Dec 9, 2010
Bravo!
Nicholas Wirtz
Dec 10, 2010
So that’s the liberal media in the guise of editor_mcj and Wall Street’s KyTrader after you? Not bad. I love you.
Ben Ullman
Dec 10, 2010
where’s the Like button?
Andy Malone
Dec 10, 2010
Could you clarify one small point for me. If I understand correctly you don’t know anything about either the dead Edwards or the live Palin and you’re not registered with any political party but after you juxtaposition the cosmic justice of their current state of viability you escalate to calling people who are enraged by your comments as ignorant racists against the wildly successful Obama administration. What school of logic do you subscribe to? p.s. Sorry about your dog but Edwards not so much (Try reading about people you comment on http://nymag.com/news/politics/63045/index2.html) It is the adult thing to do.
Jim Mitchem
Dec 10, 2010
Hi Andy. I don’t even know why I’m commenting, but I feel like I should say something. Why? I don’t know. It’s foolish, really. But here’s the thing – I’m not a reporter. I don’t have to get any facts straight. I just have to tell a story based on an experience. It’s my blog. I don’t have to look up jack. Oh, and your link is dead. Thanks for visiting.
Kelly Greene
Dec 17, 2010
Like!
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