Meet John Ziegler
So yesterday we showed you "Why Obama Won", the website about how Obama voters are all imbeciles. There was a poll and stuff. 538's Nate Silver had a friendly interview with that site's mastermind, former radio talk show host John Ziegler. By "friendly" we mean it ends with "go fuck yourself" and a click. Related: back in 2005, the late David Foster Wallace wrote a really great profile of a nutty right-wing talk radio host for The Atlantic. Hey, you can read the whole thing online. Who was this host? Why, John Ziegler! Let's peek into his tortured mind!
One of many intriguing things about Mr. Ziegler, though, is the contrast between his deep cynicism about backstabbing and the naked, seemingly self-destructive candor with which he'll discuss his life and career. This candor becomes almost paradoxical in Q & As with an outside correspondent, a stranger whom Mr. Z. has no particular reason to trust at those times when he winces after saying something and asks that it be struck from the record.
He then goes to explain how everything bad that ever happened to him in his life is because of O.J. Simpson. Ziegler has some, uh, issues with race. Ziegler is, obviously, a nut, though Wallace paints him as a largely sympathetic nut, and a talented one. But he has, of course, been pushing the "everyone in America is a moron" line for some time, so we really can't fault him for lack of consistency.