"Courtney Messerschmidt" is a composite personality, made up of several men as well as an actual woman named Courtney. Not to mince words: it was gross to see national-security practitioners and commenters in their 30s and older pop semis over "her" barely-legal-security persona. But that's a comment on "her" audience, not "her" "herself." I don't have any opinions on "her."
But I most certainly stand with the serious women national security commenters and practitioners whose struggle to get taken seriously was set back by "her." Like my pal Diana Wueger, who ends her monster of a post with this:
I imagine there will be no consequences for her. I expect that she/they will still write for Wings Over Iraq and Line of Departure – free content posted constantly is hard to pass up. I also expect she/they will continue attaching photos of sexy ladies to titillate a male audience, who are clearly the only people who anybody would want to write for anyway [/sarcasm], because they don’t understand how harmful that is to the real women out there. So, y’know, thanks, Courtney. Thanks, anybody who publishes those photos. Thanks for continuing to legitimate the objectification of women. If you’re the future of foreign policy and national security, I want nothing to do with it.
Anyone remember this gem from a couple years ago, issued from the White House podium by Dana Perino? "The type of missiles that are out there: patriots and scuds and cruise missiles and tomahawk missiles. And I think that men just by osmosis understand all of these things, and they’re things that I really have to work at — to know the difference between a carrier and a destroyer, and what it means when one of those is being launched to a certain area." If anyone -- men especially -- think that, their ignorance has been enhanced by Great Satan's Girlfriend.
If you don't have any opinions about "her" then you should at least be factually correct, Spencer. There actually are more women in the group as there are men (or so they told me), although the producer (or ringleader, take your pick) is a man.
At any time there were up to seven people working at producing those daily blogs.
Posted by: Carl | 09/10/2011 at 05:02 AM
A group of bloggers posing as a specific individual with a specific personality is fraud, full stop.
Posted by: kth | 09/10/2011 at 07:19 AM
Since the linked-to confession says that 2 of the 4 in the group were men, and "the brains behind the thing is a guy actually" [her own words] who's "a little older", I'd just keep my mouth shut, were I Carl, and refrain from getting into "M203 range" *snort* of the whole squirming pile of woo.
Oooops. Too late. Well, charley mike with the charley foxtrot.
Posted by: Ben | 09/10/2011 at 06:02 PM
I wouldn't be surprised if one of the men behind "Courtney" is a Nazi fetishist. The last name they invented is hard to explain otherwise.
Posted by: Skye Winspur | 09/15/2011 at 08:14 AM