I was searching Google this morning for the phrase "that asshole, Dave Winer" to see if anyone had beaten me to the punch, as it were. Quoted, the phrase returns zero hits (try it using the title slug, above). Now, zero forms a perfect baseline for my purposes here, which I'll describe in a minute. Describing precisely why Dave Winer is an asshole would be redundant, at least to those who already know him through his writing, or, god help you, personal acquaintance. We will therefore skip over the obvious. So... having established said baseline, I framed this query...

asshole "Dave Winer"

...which returns 1,140 hits as of this date. Of course, not all of these are about Dave being an asshole himself. Some of them are Dave calling other people assholes. However, the most interesting (and recursive) hit, to my mind, was a post to LaughingMeme last April, which I replicate here for your convenience...

Winer �
Posted: Sunday 2003/04/20 16:50 -05:00 #

You know, I think Dave Winer is responsible for a significant majority of the times I've seen asshole in print in the last 18 months. Makes you wonder.

Comments

Kellan

You don't say. I actually found a supposedly first hand account a couple weeks ago illustrating the demeanor of our friend Dave. After doing a google search with the Terms "Dave Winer +Asshole" I found 24 pages of results. And here is the Googlism for Dave. Apparently He's not JUST an asshole

Posted by: Billthemarmet at April 21, 2003 11:26 AM

OK, now here's how the game works. Simply place the exact string "that asshole, Dave Winer" somewhere on your blog. The quotes and comma are optional. Then wait. Google will eventually find all such references, and as they are added to the global index, the new search button I've provided near the top of the right column (see it over there?) will serve as a day-to-day measure of Dave's fast-growing popular appeal. Easy. And fun! Except perhaps for Dave. Poor humorless Dave.

I used to think he was just a schmuck who basically meant well despite his junk-yard-dog attacks. We all have to live with these little personality flaws. (Trust me on this, I should know.) I used to think that, that is, until I experienced first-hand at BloggerCon what he's really capable of. Yeah, I saw his oh-just-my-little-jest post at Scripting. Sure, laugh it off, Monkey Boy. But no, it's not called "triangulation." It's called strangulation -- of anyone who fails to toady up to your ignorant yet imperiously delivered bullshit (Chris Lydon was doing a terrific job of that, btw.)

Don't put it off, this is important. Four little words that might send a message that the blog scene isn't anyone's private fiefdom, even if he did go to Harvard. So open a window, open a vein, and type:

that asshole, Dave Winer

Maybe he'll finally cop the crucial clue that all our base are not belong to him.

Shelley, baby, this pig's for you!