On the Stay Classy watch, Rolling Stone political writer Matt Taibbi did an online chat at washingtonpost.com on Monday to plug his new book The Great Derangement, which purports to investigate apocalyptic right-wing evangelicals and left-wing 9/11 truthers. Taibbi was asked about hanging out at John Hagee’s church and how he was freaked out by the “weird lust for violence” in the Bible study he was attending. (Imagining Matt Taibbi at a Bible study is a little like imagining Pope Benedict in a Marilyn Manson mosh pit. In this session, the young journalist easily compared Christians to 9/11 truthers in their fraudulent zeal.) Matt was not exactly repenting for his uncivil offenses:
Bristow, Va.: Matt, you’re being a little shy about your connections between religion and wishing people’s deaths. After all, you wrote“52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope,” including your vision of John Paul II sitting up and bursting into flames. Are you really qualified to judge others as mmm, “offbeat”?
Matt Taibbi: Sorry about that, got a phone call from Erica Jong. You’re expecting me to have shame? I work in the media.
And right after that:
Leesburg, Va.: Your focus on the left-wing tilt of Sept. 11 truthers (and they do go both ways) is just your phony way of trying to look “fair and balanced” which is quite ridiculous considering your general tone of Rage Against the Machine juvenilia. As if Rolling Stone were the International Herald Tribune and not a magazine for old stoners. What do you think about that?
Matt Taibbi: You’re absolutely right. I was saying just that to your mother last night when I was shaving her back.