Remember Krystal Ball, the Democratic political candidate from the 1st District? In 2009, a couple of local male bloggers had quite the time at her expense. It seems that some rat bastard had released a few pictures of her and her first husband at a private party. The pictures involved what the older generation would probably describe as silliness punctuated with a little naughtiness. It was all in good fun but definitely not something you want to surface during a political campaign.
The male bloggers had all sorts of nasty comments to make, posted everything, knuckled dragged in typical caveman style and were generally speaking, obnoxious male Chauvanist pigs. There was no thought given to the fact that Ms Ball was someone’s wife, mother, daughter, sister. Something mildly naughty was turned into “something dirty” and dealt with about like a 12 year old boy might deal with it. To Krystal’s credit, she addressed the issue, said she wished those pictures were not released, apologised to her ex-husband who she said did not deserve the exposure, and looked the media and audience in the eye, and said, in essence, that she was not going to allow herself to be treated like a whore over something this silly.
Krystal’s handling of the situation must have hit a home run out of the park because she quickly rose to stardom on the cable news stations. She ran a one woman campaign as blow back against the nastiness Rush Limbaugh displayed toward Sandra Fluke as well as other initiatives. She became a regular on MSNBC and now will co-host her own show, “The Cycle.” From Huffington Post:
The new program, which the network was set to announce on Thursday, will feature a permanent cast of four: conservative commentator S.E. Cupp, author and pundit Touré, Salon writer Steve Kornacki and former Congressional candidate Krystal Ball. All were previously contributors to the network. The show launches on Monday at 3 PM.
The outlines of the show were previously reported by Politico and TVNewser.
The four hosts and Steve Friedman, executive producer of “The Cycle,” spoke to The Huffington Post about the show on Thursday afternoon.
Friedman said that plans for the new show began two or three months ago, when Ratigan told MSNBC executives he was thinking of leaving.
The hosts likened the show to a dinner party, with relatively freewheeling conversations about the news. All said they were eager to move past the kind of partisan brawling common in cable news, and to veer away from what Ball called “gaffe-fest” coverage of politics.
“Hopefully we can prevent it from turning into ‘this is a Team Blue talking point’ or ‘this is a Team Red talking point,’” Kornacki said.
Congratulations Krystal and colleagues. We wish you well from Prince William County. You have made Virginia women proud. You handled yourself well and did not let ideologues put you in the corner or the naughty chair. Best wishes on your new show. Perhaps you might want to consider that wine and fruit basket I keep mentioning as a big thank you to Greg and Riley for the attention they gave you. Do you think their pay checks match yours now?
Didn’t think so.
The Cycle begins at 3:00 pm on Monday.
Perhaps it would be beneficial to the knuckle draggers here if you were to re-post the pictures. 👿
It’s good to see Krystal Ball do well. I’ve followed her on twitter and seen her on MSNBC, and she’s pretty sharp on a wide range of domestic and international issues. It will be especially interesting to see her opposite conservative pundit S.E. Cupp who has been a Fox News regular.
Meanwhile, at least one of the bloggers who played a part in elevating Krystal from a relatively obscure Virginia congressional candidate to a co-host of a national television show is still sitting in his boxer shorts at his keyboard, chain-smoking and spewing out hate for his little band of haters, and hoping someone visits his site and tosses a few coins into his tip jar. He sure showed her.
@marinm
What would be beneficial?
I remember reading the comments Moon is writing about, and some of them
were unbelievably crude. Locker room talk at its worst.
@punchak
Uhm. Well. Nothing.
But I like locker room talk!! 👿
marin, you well know that I would never post the pictures or link to them. I don’t think you would go racing over there now you have a daughter. A reminder that she is a wife, mother and daughter. Not yours, but someone’s. I would hope you would set a good example for your little son by being respectful of all women.
What happened to her was very disrespectful. She was with her very own husband with her very own friends at a private party in someone’s home. They were acting silly. Stuff most of us have done in our younger, friskier days. I am just so proud of how she handled herself.
Someone I actually respect linked to the “boys.” I hope he has a guilty conscience over doing that. BT.
Thanks Punchak. Yea, Krystal could be my daughter. What I have noticed is the 2 bloggers are real quick to go to knuckle dragging whether it is political ‘enemies’ or someone they want to be nasty about…always try to be “dirty.” Totally immature, especially since one of them can turn that collar around faster than greased lightning, and do some real preachin’ and halo polishin’.
@Moon-howler
I will quote Carlos Mencia, “I want everyone to know I’m both, conservative and liberal. When it comes to my daughter I am a staunch conservative who believes in hard-core conservative values. When it comes to your daughter, I’m liberal. She can be as promiscuous as she wants to be.” :devil:
Everything said on this blog is not repeated to my wife, right??? 😉
Meh. I saw her on msnbc a couple of weeks ago and didn’t think all tha much of her good or bad….just meh.
Maybe she will blossom. Maybe not. At any rate, I feel she got her start right here in PWC, just because she was treated disresepctfully.