I don't care about popularity, I seldom post. He's popular, but he does not respond to critics in a genuine way, calls criticism "attack" and gets his students to go online and defend him.

And yes, it does speak for itself, but it was on the second page of comments of a two day-old post. I wanted everyone who reads this blog to see it. 

You called me intellectually dishonest over and over and over. You called anonymous commenters every name in the book, as long as they disagreed with you.

Now you get caught having your biased students post in your defense, anonymously, and just now basically implied that you've been doing it all along and you try to make this about me?

Rock, you always say anonymous commenters are cowards, liars, etc. But it's okay when it's your students. So anonymity is okay as long as it's in your favor. This is so typical of your hypocrisy. (Or is okay that you knew who they were and everyone else reading just thought they were fans?)

You brought this upon yourself by posting in my columns and then not responding fully to my defense of my work and making very selective or fallacious responses, calling me a liar, and intellectually dishonest. You especially like using ad hominems and red herrings ("let's talk about same-sex marriage instead!"). This occurred both in my columns and yours and I declared myself the Rock Truth Police because of that.

So, my crusade has been to expose your lack of fully defending your work, your lies, your self victimization and your hypocrisy. And you are the gift that keeps on giving, because you do it again and again and again; you are the Old Faithful of bloggers.

By the way Rock, did Obama win California? (Granted he did GREAT last night, and it's a very exciting race). Did he? Will you admit you were wrong (again)? No, of course not. I suppose "Billary" stole California by 10 points last night with racist push polls.

As long as you write Rock I will be the Rock Truth Police. Now more that ever after your MAJOR fuck up in allowing your students to post from your account, which shows how intellectually bankrupt you truly are.

And what will you sue me over? Everything I've written is either protected First Amendment Opinion, or the truth. You can't sue for slander or liable over something true, Rock.

And guess what Rock, your only semi-legitimate criticism of me, that I don't use my own name, is going to end soon. The circumstances that have legitimately prevented me from using my name are about to come to an end and I will stand by everything I've ever written. But considering it's okay for totally anonymous commenters to praise you and it's only anonymous critics who are cowards, your old stand by that I haven't used my own name doesn't hold much water.

What will you do when you can't fall back on that hypocritical claim, that unlike your anonymous students, I am a coward for not using my name?

Thank you Rock for a ernest and well-written post regarding post-Super Tuesday analysis.

It was very refreshing to see you admit the errors in your predictions. I did hear on CNN, however, that although early voting in California was stronger for Hillary, a majority also voted for her in person yesterday.

In any case, Barack will pick up delegates everywhere and had an extremely strong night across the nation. This is a very exciting contest. If Super Tuesday was next week, he might have been the nominee on Wednesday; his momentum is extremely impressive. He is also even more of a media darling than before and Hillary must be pretty frightened right now; she was supposed to be the nominee today, but everyone is talking about Barack.

As I've said before, I just want a Democrat. Hillary, Barack, whichever. I just think John "Stay in Iraq 100 years" McCain will be a disaster. And you're right it's not over for them either, but I think he'll be the last man standing for the GOP.

As to your new predictions, I don't know about five out of seven, but he'll do well, and I'd put serious money on his winning DC.

Rock, you're not spinning, you're lying.

Your post above says that Clinton went as far as placing her name on the Michigan ballot. The truth is that so did Obama. He just went through the steps of taking his name off. 

If you're going to lie, you should at least allow comments so people can call you on it. 

I don't know why you don't feel like you can push for Obama without being so virulent Hillary. That would be much better for you and the Democrats in the long run. 

Rock is a pretty good writer. As am I, although I haven't been posting much. My pieces were picked up a little bit more often by Ben Smith when he wrote the Daily Politics and Politicker. But that's not what this is about.

If Rock wrote well, and then listened to his critics and responded thoughtfully I would have no problem with him. Instead, with the exceptino of today's good piece, his pieces have increasingly become in part rants against those who have the audacity to criticize him. JP did an excellent critique of his piece wherein he said that "Bilary" push polled and otherwise "stole" New Hampshire and his response was to call him a member of the KKK. Go back and read it. I stood up for JP because he often did the same thing to me.

I have the right to declare myself the Rock Truth Police and point when he does the things I think make him a very bad political commentator. Because no matter how good the original commentary is, if a writer does not honestly stand by it, the original content becomes soiled. 

I notice you don't mention his little incident with his "students" yesterday. Does this honestly not bother you. He has put "hundreds" of his students on the blogs and they comment in his defense and tell the editors of this blog that critics should be banned? Do you honestly believe that doesn't degrade whatever reputation he's earned?

I'm sorry you think I should stop, but I won't. But did you notice that I praised his piece today? When he's good, he's good. When he puts in pathetic self-victimizing statements, only selectively responds to critics (or calls them racists because they disagree, or calls them intellectually dishonest not because they are pseudnymous, but because he personally doesn't know who they are (Gatemouth was ok because he, like me, knows who Gatemouth is)) he's bad.

I'd like to think that Rock's piece wasnt self-victimizing today at least in part because he knows I'm here to call him on it. And that gives me quite a bit of satisfaction.  

He had his students defending him anonymously, while he called anyone anonymous criticizing him cowards. This blatant hypocrisy doesn't bother anyone?

I have never denied he's a good writer with good sources, it's other things i take issue with. And I will point out, again, that both of the Stoned Crackwhore "Comment on Rock's Work Here" pieces (there were actually 3 but Ben or Gur deleted it, it was the funniest thing I ever read on Room 8, as Stoney went on to heap praise on himself while still logged on) got more click throughs than Rock's original pieces, so I think there's definitive proof that people are actually more interested in the critique of Rock, than Rock himself.

If Rock's work continues to be like the last piece, which, again, I praised (no one seems to care about that) you and he will hear much less of me in terms of talking about Rock, and more about what he's actually writing about, which has been my intention all along.

I love the post about racism that then says I'm destroying the site (that I helped build, incidentally). What does that have to do with me?

I have never called Rock a racist, nor do I think he is one, and have never used hate speech on this site against Rock or anyone else.  

I have condemned actual attacks on Rock, although I often point out that Rock cannot tell the difference between an attack and rational criticism. 

The "Hot Topics" list on the top right are the posts with the most click throughs. I was told this by Gur, the main editor of this site.

This post and the two Stoned Crackwhore pieces were ranked higher than Rock's original posts. As Rock would say, that's A FACT.

In any case, if Rock can't stand the heat, he should stay out of the kitchen. I've said that all along. Rock has said he was going to ignore me many times, we'll see if it's like how he was going to post only once a week. 

As to the explanation regarding anonymous student comments I will simply say this: Rock always called anonymous commenters who disagreed with him "anonymous cowards" yet thanked anonymous commenters who agreed with him. This is 100% hypocrisy, and now that we know he lent his computer to students to be a party to this, his hypocrisy is increased significantly. It is simply indefensible to say, as he did from the beginning of this site, that everyone on this site should have to post by name (although he seemed to have an exception for Gatemouth), but thanked anonymous people (his students?) praising him. His explanation does not in anyway decrease his hypocrisy.

Wonk is not basing his assertions on the number of comments. He's basing it on where it has ranked in the "Hot Topic's list at the top right of the page. On that basis, he is correct. Wehn Rock fails to allow readers to coment, his hots drop precipitously.

On the other hand, when Rock allows people to comment, he beats everyone else hands down. I don't think Wonk's ever disputed that.

The question is, has Rock assimilated this information?   

I am not Stoned Crackwhore. I did not post thost comments sections. They were not my idea, but it was a good one.

I did not ever say no one read Rock's columns, I said there were a lot more people who clicked through to read the comments than did to read the rest of Rock's posts that did not appear on the first page.

And my question to everyone now putting words in my mouth that I did not say ("no one reads Rock's pieces" "Wonk called Rock a racist"), I will say, you're clearly not reading carefully, and I gather, as you're ignoring it, you condone Rock's double standard hypocrisy regarding anonymous commenters.

WTF?  Are you still at this?   The bottom line is that the only reason Stoned Crackhead's blog received any attention at all is because it was the place where people commented because Rock closed down his comment section.  In fact, Stoned requested that people place their comments about Rock's article there.    The same with this blog entry.  Do you think I would have wasted my time posting here if Rock's comment section was open?  NOT!!!  I would not place any weight at all in the popularity of either your or Stoned's blogs based upon the number of hits or comments you may have received.  This is especially true when the real interest in these blogs is due to Rock!!!

   It's truly sad when I have to defend Rock.  I am someone who does think that he has some "issues."  Still and all, I can admit that he often has great insight and his is one blog that I am always eager to read.

   Can we please get back to talking about politics?     This is just...well....dumb.

I agree.

I'd like to talk about politics

but Rock won't let me 

4:25...you have a point.  Rock...PLEASE open up your comment section again so that we do not have to suffer through this crap!!!

I've just twice tried to post two links where Rock dedicated peices here to ridiculing other bloggers (Gatey and Wonk), but they are being held because they contain links. The first piece is notalbe because it is very early in R-8's history, and occurred before Gatey even mnetioned Rock in one of his column.

He is no better than they are.

And they ignore the egregious piece of self-indulgent garbage Rock wrote entitle "Of Spitzer, Faso, Hevesi, Pirro, Gay Marriage, Gatemouth, Wonk and Cheap Shots."

Talk about a cheap shot!  

...this whole thing is a publicity stunt concocted by Ben and Gur, with the participation of Rock and Wonk, and probably Gatemouth, to revive the dead shark that is Room 8.

Guys: it ain't workin!  

Great stuuf; for example:

Rock: "For Gatemouth (and probably to a lesser extent “EnWhySeeWonk”), blogging is simply an intellectual exercise. To them it’s mental masturbation aiming to achieve some kind of cerebral orgasm."

Gatey must of been so proud he gushed. Hopefully some it it hit Rock.