Sinner Number Seven: Pamela Geller - The Amateur

In all honesty, I had to debate long and hard with myself about including Pamela Geller (aka Pammycakes) of Atlas Shrugs in my list. This reluctance was born of several factors. First of all, she does seem to have a sense of humor about herself. Or at least she does when it comes to me. She hasn't abused me or threatened me or claimed I'm stalking her or slapped me with a cease and desist order. Given the state of the political blogosphere these days, that counts for something. Ashamed as I am of myself, I've got to admit that I've developed a bit of a soft spot for ol' Pammycakes.

And no jokes about my soft spot in the comments section, please (that means you, Richard and Peter). You know very well what I mean.

Secondly, in terms of site traffic, Atlas Shrugs isn't in the upper echelon of political blogs. So the argument can be made that she isn't a big enough internet player to act as the representative of sinning of the magnitude I am talking about. A New York Post reporter once emailed me, stating that Pamela Geller was the Anna Nicole Smith of New York City journalism: She was indeed famous, but nobody was quite sure why. To be harsh about it, that criticism kind of carries over to Atlas Shrugs... because it does have a ring of truth.

Irrespective of where Pamela Geller stands in the blogosphere pecking order, I include her because she does, with almost uncanny precision, act in a manner that is the personification of how amateurs approach just about any endeavor. As a CPA, one phenomenon I see often is that of people getting that "bright idea" that is going to bring them fame or fortune or whatever. And, blinded by the pure white light of willful stupidity, they hitch up their pants, take a deep breath, and march resolutely into the cauldron of complete disaster. These are the people that got into rental real estate back in the '80s, stock market day trading in the '90s, and are now "flipping houses" - or trying to blog for a living - here in the New Millennium.

There are exactly two elements that separate The Amateur from The Professional in any endeavor. First, The Amateur lacks both the expertise and experience to succeed at the given task. Secondly, The Amateur lacks the grounding and sophistication to avoid working at cross-purposes. For example, the vast majority of people jumping on the "house flipping" band wagon are doing so without any specific knowledge of either home construction or real estate markets.

In such cases, because they lack expertise, they will overlook problems they should have anticipated and detected, and because they lack experience they will fail to set realistic - and therefore achievable - goals. On top of that, because they are (almost always) working without proper amounts of capital and time, they end up having to hurry up to complete at the precise moments when they should be slowing down to reassess, which constitutes working at cross-purposes in the worst possible way.

On the other hand, the professional has the expertise and experience to accurately assess what needs to be done, how it needs to be done, and how much time and money it will take. The professional will be adequately capitalized, and will be sophisticated enough to build in reserves of time (and money) to cover contingencies. Which is why the professional can survive the occasional mistake and live to profit another day. The professional's efforts work in harmony towards the goal. Which now brings me to why Pamela Geller represents The Amateur in the political blogosphere…

Fundamentally, Pamela is The Amateur because she lacks expertise and experience in her chosen area of endeavor - political blogging - and because she insists in undermining what credibility she might accrue via her efforts by presenting herself as some sort of sex object. Not that I have any meaningful objection to wimmen reducing themselves to sex objects for my pleasure. Far from it. It's just that once they've done so, it's going to take more than reciting the Gettysburg Address to get me to view them as anything other than a conglomeration of T & A.

Pamela obviously views her sexing up her image as a function of marketing, and in a sense it is, but as is the case with The Amateur, that effort is working at cross-purposes with her attempts to present a blogging product good enough to be taken seriously. You cannot start with a statement like this, which happens to grace the header of her blog…

Western civilization hangs in the balance. This blog is part of the solution, the cure. Get your heads out of the sand and Fight the Great Fight. The Jew may be the canary in the coal mine, but you my friends will be the next. If you are not part of the solution, you are the problem. …..Changing the World, One Word at a Time….. Citizen Journalist, Citizen Soldier

…And expect to be taken seriously when vlogging in a bathing suit or trying to sell cheesecake cleavage shots in a calendar. Pamela's above statement of intent is so portentous as to verge on parody in and of itself, but combine it with her marketing and before you know it you find yourself spontaneously singing the lyrics to Frank Zappa's "Jewish Princess".

Much of this might be forgivable if the content of Atlas Shrugs occasionally rose above the banal, but in fact it doesn't. What we get, rather than original citizen journalism, is largely a compendium of mainstream media links establishing that (a) Islam is evil, (b) Muslims are evil, and (c) Hamas and Hezbollah are evil. The problem with this is (a) it provides no particular insight or analysis to the political problems identified, (b) it suggests solutions to said political problems that aren't grounded in any sort of political reality, and are therefore useless, and (c) a shitload of bloggers are doing the exact same shtick, and many of them are doing it a whole lot better.

What is called for here is not cleavage, but a seriousness of purpose. And thought. And research. And judicious consideration. If the purpose of Atlas Shrugs is serious punditry, that is. If it is to be viewed as political entertainment, then more entertainment in the writing itself is required. Humor helps. So does original, quality content. And as far as being the next bitch-goddess to set the Wingers-a-wanking, well, Ann Coulter's been there and done that. Trying to sell a combination of politics and sex is neither new nor original. Which is just one element in separating The Professional from The Amateur: The Professional does it first and reaps the rewards, The Amateur does it last and chases the scraps…

Comments

[Jackie]

Dennis,
I am quite ashamed of the time I waste bashing this woman. It really isn't worth my time or effort, however I do ask myself: Why? The only way to explain the unhealthy amount of attention that I give to this woman is best represented by an experience perpetrated by my (at the time) college-age son. He had a DVD of Jackass: The Movie and insisted that I have a look at it. I put on my best so-you-think-you-can-shock-and-disgust-me face and watched most of the film. I was alternately repulsed and amused.
It's the same thing with Pam. You want to look away, but the idiocy and astonishing stupidity keep sucking you back in.
One point I would add about Pam. She has convictions but lacks courage. The Cindy Sheehan moment really seals this trait. When given the opportunity to confront the woman Pam believes to be a traitor, and a person she clearly hates, what does she do? She resorts to childish pranks and passive/aggressive behavior for which she will not be challenged in the moment. The moment of truth with one of her considered enemies came and went and she said nothing. This pattern is also seen on her website. When people disagree with her, she simply exposes private information about them rather than debate the point. I think amateur is spot on but I would add immature and insecure as well. We see her morph into the sex symbol as a way to avoid revealing her true lack of intellect and insight into the very issues to which Pam believes she possesses a broad base of knowledge. It's a distraction and it always works.
I feel sorry for her children. There are clearly some enormous family problems with the recent revelations about her ex-husband. I just hope the woman can focus on what's best for them rather than her own misguided ambitions.

[pch1013]

The odd thing about Pammy the Amateur is that she used to be the associate publisher of the New York Observer and thus, one assumes, at least passingly familiar with journalistic standards of some kind.

[laneman]

And, blinded by the pure white light of willful stupidity, they hitch up their pants, take a deep breath, and march resolutely into the cauldron of complete disaster.

A brilliant quote - I wasted 2 years of my life working with a brilliant person who pulled failure from the jaws of success because of that blinding. And I drank that coolaid for the first year, not realizing that he was, batshit crazy and was going to not listen and fail.

But, you have to give pammycakes her due when she can promt the atlas juggs series on YouTube

[Bene D]

I guess this is old news.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07152007/news/regionalnews/car_scam_link_eyed_regionalnews_susan_edelman____and_brad_hamilton.htm

Came up at Sadly No! today