Dingus of the Week: Bari Weiss

You let the Kool-Aid man promise that this time he’s not gonna crash through the wall?

I love reading the news because the headlines will say, “The administration violates every single article in the Constitution! And no one will stop it.”

Then immediately below that:

“Here are five fluffy bathrobes you must buy from Amazon today!”

“Thousands of children are dying in a genocide!”

“How exhaling at the wrong time saps your strength”

“The president deploys American troops against the American people.”

“Are you peeing correctly?”

Am I peeing correctly? It’s the end of the American empire and you want me to worry about incontinence? I don’t have equal rights in this country, I WILL PEE HOW I WANT TO.

Welcome back to the weekly dingus, the newsletter where we make jokes about someone or something in the news, making our lives just a little worse. And it’s a big week for mediocrity.

Screen grab from Bari’s TED Talk, where she talks about voting for Mitt Romney like we are all supposed to be surprised.

Bari Weiss

Because this week, the Elizabeth Holmes of media, Bari Weiss, just became editor-in-chief at CBS. And Bari Weiss makes Ron Burgundy look like Walter Cronkite.

Weiss’ takeover came about after Paramount CEO David Ellison bought her newsletter/reactionary rag/website for every man who declares they aren’t political but quotes Andrew Tate a lot, The Free Press.

Why, you ask? Well, over on Defector, Patrick Redford has a thoughtful analysis that you should read. Because the following sentences fall well short of it. But essentially it has to do with the merger between Paramount and Skydance Media, which was approved by the FCC in July after Skydance swore on a stack of Trump Bibles to eradicate wokeness from CBS.

It’s like the stupidest Succession plotline. Ellison, the son of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison — who is richer than 400 Oprahs — apparently didn’t have enough money. So he needed this merger, and to get it, he had to render up an offering to the angry and petty gods of American authoritarianism. And part of that offering is Bari Weiss.

Not only is this a bad and frankly scary plan, but it’s doomed failure. Ellison thinking that Weiss can appease the Trump administration is like thinking you can fix a broken arm by breaking your neck. Even Megyn Kelly thinks it is a bad idea.

Weiss was the New York Times columnist who couldn’t get a job on The View. The alleged reason was she didn’t test well with audiences, which is embarrassing because Meghan McCain got a job there and so did Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Weiss also couldn’t actually get canceled when the cancel culture grift was good. So she walked off the job, pretending she was being silenced. Then she used that notoriety to found the Free Press, which became a success because it’s been backed by the dollars of a billionaire class that is still utterly livid that five years ago, for three months, America said “Black lives matter.” The billionaires may never recover.

On her first day in the new job, Weiss sent a note to CBS employees that vowed to uphold a journalistic ethos that “holds both American political parties to equal scrutiny”.

Which is the media equivalent of “Read my lips, no new taxes” and “Mexico will pay for the wall” or “I never inhaled.”

Putting your faith in Bari Weiss to uphold journalistic integrity is like hoping Kristi Noem will lose her injectionist’s number, or that the three ghosts of conspiracies past will visit Marjorie Taylor Greene and she will stop believing in Jewish space lasers, or the alien that is using Mitch McConnell’s body as its host will finally go back to the planet from whence it came, or that the Republicans will stop doing a Weekend at Bernies with Chuck Grassley, or that if we ask pretty pretty please Donald Trump will stop using the Constitution as toilet paper, or that RFK Jr. will just leave all that road kill alone. Basically, it’s like hoping that shit will fix the diaper.

But nothing in Weiss’ past would lead us to that kind of equal scrutiny. The Free Press has published articles that fearmongered about trans activism; implied that George Floyd actually died of a drug overdose; salivated over the “virginity” of an AI actress; and claimed that the genocide in Gaza wasn’t so bad because the children dying of starvation had preexisting conditions.

All of this appears under the guise of, “Aw, geez, just asking questions.” They’re not right, they’re not left, the Free Press claims; they’re just asking why all leftists are evil baby murderers. WHY ARE YOU RUNNING AWAY? WHY WON’T YOU DEBATE ME, YOU FILTHY COMMUNIST?!

It’s depressing because it’s a rhetorical trick Americans fall for every time. Give a white person a pair of glasses and have them very calmly state, “I am a deep thinker and I am wondering why you think you have a right to live.” And boom, that person is the EIC of CBS, while billionaires nod their heads sagely and say, “Wow, yes, why did no one think to ask this before?” And pundits herald them as bold truth tellers. If Weiss has a talent for anything, it’s repackaging what people want to hear as a courageous contrarian enterprise.

“I am above politics,” says area media woman who really just means she’s rich enough not to suffer the consequences of how she votes.

But the real problem is not actually what the Free Press and Weiss have said and reported on; some of it, god forgive me, isn’t so bad. It’s what Weiss intentionally leaves out. It’s the stories omitted — the ones about Black women being forced out of the workforce, the violence trans people face, the real cost of the rollback of reproductive rights. It’s the stories of how we got here and why, casually glossed over in favor of the stories that feed the collective click rage. It’s what is left in the silence that is the real damning evidence.

But all of this is not going to work. You let the fox in the henhouse because it promises not to eat the chickens? You let the Kool-Aid man promise that this time he’s not gonna crash through the wall? You are the dingus.

As Redford notes, Weiss will be a kind of Vichy government for CBS, appeasing no one, solving nothing. Because in the end, no milquetoast mediator can reason with the insatiable appetite of authoritarianism.

In other very dingusy news:

Italians, to Trump.

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Anyway, speaking of newsletters by writers who were actually fired (hi!), this week marks the five-year anniversary of Men Yell at Me. Thank you so much for being here and subscribing and for sharing with your friends, ex-husbands, parents, and enemies. Thank you for supporting a political newsletter with a feminist slant and making it a success. I cannot wait to talk to you next week about the next five years of this newsletter and how we are going to grow. Every subscriber to Men Yell at Me makes the governor of Iowa a little madder. Thanks for doing your part.

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And now for something good

On October 23, the Iowa Abortion Access Fund is holding our annual fall fundraiser in Des Moines! Get tickets and come meet our new executive director! You might not be able to fix America, but you can fund abortions. I hope to see you there. Also, share this event with your Iowa friends, because we need to sell some tickets!

The worst person you know just made a really good point.

JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, told Trump to come and get him after the president said he should be in jail.

And Chicago continues to Chicago so hard.

Protesters in Portland are dressing up in silly inflatable costumes, proving that you can fight back and have fun doing it.

A federal judge sided with Planned Parenthood after it sued the Trump administration over the closure of a program that aims to end teen pregnancy.

Nabarun Dasgupta received a MacArthur genius grant for his work studying the opioid crisis in America. And Tommy Orange won a MacArthur for his writing.

Jane Goodall, in her last interview before her death, said she wanted to blast Elon Musk and Donald Trump into space.

This dog helped the police find his owner (sorry, I mean in the good way). A good boy.

Dolly Parton is NOT dying! SHE IS FINE! YOU HEAR THAT! SHE’S OKAY! *sobs realizing that no one, not even Dolly, can live forever.*

The first round of a ceasefire has been agreed to by Israel and Hamas.

Something I am enjoying

I am back in Iowa and the weather is finally cool enough for me to wear sweaters and eat big bowls of soup like some sort of forest witch in a fairy tale. Which is good because I’ve been trapped in my house working like a maniac. Next week is a big announcement. So stay tuned.

But I am having a hard time balancing motherhood and work. It’s not harder than it was when the kids were 6 and 4 and I was trying to write my first book. And while their father’s work is taken as a matter of fact, my work sometimes feels like a betrayal. I think there is no way to work as a woman and not feel like you are letting down someone you love. I should have more parties for my friends. I should do more volunteer work. I should be writing about one thing over another. I don’t think there are easy answers.

But this weekend is my daughter’s first homecoming dance. And I get to take a moment and see my tiny baby all dressed up and off to have fun with her friends. And then my son and I will go bowling and knock back a couple of Shirley Temples, and eat a plate of fried pickles, and that will be a moment of good in the middle of all of this.

Correction: The first version of this newsletter said “Bari Weiss makes Ron Swanson look like Walter Cronkite.” That was a mistake. Wrong Ron! I meant Ron Burgundy. My apologies to Ron Swanson who has done nothing wrong, ever!