Learning Day: Jake Tapper🌭

I’ve lost all respect for Jake Tapper, and for the media ecosystem he thrives in. This cursed blog post is the first reason why.

Computer: enhance that blog’s title and author. Mostly so I don’t have to see that warped baffling thumbnail art anymore.

When Jake Tapper wrote that, he was a 33-year-old adult who’d worked full-time in media for half a decade. In 2003, he was five years into a full-time job at Salon dot com. He also thought what you see above is both funny and important. It had to be both, to be posted on Salon dot com. I don’t know if you remember media in 2003, but Salon dot com was Serious Internet Journalism. Salon was more of a “Sáh-lón”, in that French-y pronunciation. Admittedly Salon was also edgy, in the sense that it was less edgy than Vice dot com, because none of Salon’s writers had the physical courage to take drugs or try skateboarding. This made Salon a hybrid of boring and snarky (“borky”?). That borky respectability made Salon a sterling credit on an Important Person’s resume. Less than half a year after this racist blog post wasted our national pixels, Jake Tapper promoted himself to a better job at ABC News.

What did Jake Tapper do in the run-up to getting ABC’s money, getting CNN’s money, and getting his hair to turn that brushed silver color your mom trusts? Jake Tapper blogged the most cursed journalism-adjacent blog I’ve ever read. He begins by noticing two things. Two things which – get this – have one parallel?

You know a blog is about to nail its comparison when it cites two entire paragraphs of background information. Here comes the sweatiest “what if X was Y” ever fudged!

Also, this parallel is not a parallel. It’s a borderline perpendicular. Here is Jake Tapper’s premise: “two hip-hop magazines competing for money = two news publications disagreeing about the rationale for war.” False! Wrong! Nope! Trying to sell more copies of a music magazine is different from questioning Colin Powell’s propwork.

Jake Tapper’s premise becomes even more hideous when you realize he feels this “parallel” is funny. So funny, it deserves more attention than the choice to invade Iraq several weeks later. Maybe a column thinking that choice through would be more valuable. Especially because illuminating that decision was Jake Tapper’s job. Instead, [OMINOUS KEYBOARD SOUNDS]:

“Dizaam” is right. At least, I think it’s right? “Dizaam” is probably a Black version of “damn”, in Jake Tapper’s comedy version of Black. We’ll be forced to hazard these kinds of guesses the whole rest of the blog. I don’t speak either of the two languages this blog is written in. Those two languages are “fraudulent AAVE” and “a chummy Ivy League rolodex of everybody in the nice offices in mainstream media.” This blog is impenetrable if you’re not inside Jake Tapper’s skull.

Every “name” in this blog sent me on a fetch quest. Those red names are hyperlinks. The hyperlinks are designed to help you understand Jake’s jokes, because no element of his writing does that. I assume the links worked in 2003. Today those first two links lead to a 404 page (understandable) and the URL “foxnews.com”. Thanks for the clarifying tip of “Fox News exists”, mister scoopster journalist Jake Tapper. Due to these dead and useless links, I had to surf the rest of the World Wide Web for my own answers. I googled “The New Republic Orr”, to try to identify “Snoop-Kitty”. The top results are Christopher Orr and Ben Orr. God dammit, Jake.

Also no matter which guy you mean, “Ludachristopher” and “The Notorious B.E.N.” are both right there. I’m decades further from Luda and Biggie’s peaks than you were when you wrote this. Be clear or funny or clever or tolerable, I’m begging you. Dealer’s choice. Speaking of dealer’s choice, “Snorr-Dogg” is also a little bit more workable than “Snoop-Kitty”. God dammit, Jake. Let’s move on. Moving on to a warning for you, My Dear Hotdogger: this blog is short and I’m going to show you every line.

This next character’s hyperlink is another 404 page. I found his name by googling “the new republic literary editor 2003”. According to one of the first results – a magazine unironically named Highbrow Magazine – Jake Tapper’s “L.W. Cool-L” is Leon Wieseltier. An elderly magazine editor who mastered the art of typing “this novel is good/bad/meh.” That means Jake Tapper shoehorned an elderly book critic into his hip-hop pastiche of Iraq War jingoism. Jake probably did this because everybody who knows about media insider crud knows about Leon Wieseltier. You can’t just mention The New Republic without mentioning Leon Wieseltier! That elderly book critic is an icon! An icon who harassed and assaulted female colleagues throughout the 2000s! Oh no! Apparently that was well-known to media insiders! Oh no! I wish one of the few people with media insider knowledge would’ve spoken up about it. Why didn’t Jake Tapper speak up about it? Maybe he was too busy coining Rap Nicknames.

Jake Tapper is already out of “jokes.” He re-used “bee-hatch” within two sentences of getting nothing out of it the first time.

“Purple Raines” is New York Times executive editor Howell Raines. “Purple Rain” is a seminal album by the musician Prince. I admit Prince rapped a little. This still feels like Jake Tapper thinks every Black person raps and also knows each other. Please reference an actual rapper, Jake Tapper. You had ten entire years to think of “Howell Insane-In-The-B’Raines”. Tragically, “Purple Raines” is the strongest nickname in this section. “Collinsio” is Gail Collins. “Gerald Boyeeeeeed” is the real name Gerald Boyd plus one non-idea. Hey Hotdoggers: did you know Raines and Boyd resigned shortly after Jake Tapper wrote this? Because they both failed to notice their star reporter was printing fraud? Somehow Jake Tapper wrote a media insider comedy skit about media insider horsehockey, without noticing the media insider scoop of the decade. Wow. Another anti-scoop for Jake. Jake couldn’t investigate a fart if his own ass published it.

I need you to know “Marty ‘Master’ P.” is referencing the publisher of The New Republic’s publisher. That guy was also a Harvard professor. He could not secure a promotion at Harvard because when Harvard tried to promote him students organized protests against his personal racism. In 1994, he publicly claimed most Black people have “cultural deficiencies.” I wonder why black culture expert Jake Tapper failed to focus his satire on an interesting claim like that. It’s an unusual belief. Right? It’s an unusual belief, right, Jake?? Unless “cultural deficiencies” did not strike Jake Tapper as an unusual belief????

The Onion created Herbert Kornfeld six years before Jake Tapper blogged this.

I’m pretty sure that hyperlinked name is a joke about the eugenicist Andrew Sullivan. Mr. Sullivan was prominently nicknamed “Sully”. Jake Tapper wrote this blog a few months after 8 Mile made a quarter billion dollars at the box office. I bring that up because, Jake: Jake. Jake! “Slim Sully”, Jake. “Slim Sully”! Are you so ferociously racist you forgot anyone white has ever rapped? Also, whole separate problem, we can punch up Jake’s idea (and correctly spell Jake’s idea) to get “Bone Thugs-N-Harmo-Sully”. Or just “Bone Thugs-N-Sullivan”. Spell it correctly, Jake. You’d think a professional journalist would have heard of (precursor to) Googling something. Ask friggin’ Jeeves, Jake. You’ll hit it off with Jeeves right away, Jake, because he’s as “uncomfortable around minorities”-coded as you are.

I’m more confused about the “Northwest/West Side” reference. My guess is that it’s a joke about The New York Times and The New Republic having offices in two adjacent portions of Washington D.C.. I hope I’m not right. If I’m right, Jake Tapper wrote a joke about the facilities of two media publications, in his column for a third media publication, in a way that’s only legible to people who work for media publications. It’s a Beltway Bullshit ouroboros. It’s turd-les all the way down.

I think “wolfsman” is supposed to be a lowercase Internet username. The hyperlink goes to a dead page at CNN Money. So let me get this straight: Jake’s joke is that fictional Wolf Blitzer is leaving an Internet comment on an in-person conversation. Setting that logical collapse aside: the in-person conversation is between New Republic Magazine staff members, who are also in a gang war, because there were two competing hip-hop magazines during the run-up to invading Iraq, and I guess because Tupac and Biggie got murdered in 1996 and 1997. “Word.” Nothing timelier in 2003 than the 1995 Source Awards. Timeline-wise, Jake Tapper’s comedy reference is like if you made a new “covfefe” joke in the winter of 2023. God dammit, Jake.

Speaking of “god dammit Jake”: god damn YOU, Jake Tapper. I tried to circle back to find something redeeming about you. I figured I had an uplifting last beat here. I could present this blog as evidence that any great person has a minorly scumbaggy past. I wanted to end on a sincere version of that comedy sketch where Tim Robinson douses steaks.

Folks: I cannot say that about Jake Tapper. After blogging this, he did nothing of worth in the ensuing 22 years. Just ask his agent! Jake Tapper’s bio on his webpage for paying him exorbitant speaking fees says his key accomplishments are 1) winning awards 2) being on a screen while democracy ends 3) maintaining a pleasant vanilla.

Has Jake Tapper improved society? Has Jake Tapper made anything better? Or has he earned seven figures a year – and gobbled up oxygen that could sustain real novelists – by hogging one of the only chairs in America where somebody could speak truth to power? Don’t get me wrong: Jake Tapper investigated and helped overturn one wrongful conviction. However, he did that because his dad asked him to. His dad is a physician with a personal stake in that case I linked. Also, Jake’s dad went to college at Dartmouth. It’s probably totally a wacky random coincidence that Jake got into Dartmouth too. What an epic tale. No story thrills me more than Jake Tapper’s rise from Ivy League legacy admission to Ivy League honorary degree. Jake tapper’s two Dartmouth gowns bookend a professional journey with impressive middle steps like “racist blogger” and “paid spokesman for Hooters.”

If you thought Hooters spokesmanship was something I made up, you will be even more suspicious of my next screenshot.

God dammit what the hell how is that real I ask you. At the beginning of his post-Hooters stumble into media, Jake Tapper wrote for the Washington City Paper. He got famous, and got his Salon job, by writing a viral article. The viral article recounts the random-yet-insider luck that led Jake Tapper into a few dates with pre-scandal Monica Lewinsky.

Is the piece good? No. Is the piece shameful? Jake does not think so. However, yes it is. For one thing, it performs a pit stop to call Monica Lewinsky fat, in the form of genteel Yiddish ogling.

The Washington City paper even made “wacky” tabloid art for Jake’s piece. The premise of the joke art is that Jake’s piece is hilariously different from tabloid media. I’ve read that piece. The reason the piece is different from tabloid media is no reasons. Jake Tapper is confident he’s superior to the people who write for tabloids, because he is superior to everybody.

So we still have a joyful ending to this story, my Dear Hotdoggers. And not just because The Onion brought back Jean Teasdale the other day. We live with busted institutions we cannot trust. We know this. We wish they were better. And we can also wish for ourselves to gain clarity about that situation. Jake Tapper’s racist blogging freed me to do that. I don’t want to throw away any institution doing legitimate good. “Burn it all down” is lazy. But I take comfort in knowing which few institutions don’t deserve my eyeballs. I’m excited to stuff our heroes into a trash can after confirming they belong there. The truth is, CNN’s backup version of Anderson Cooper is a bum. I’m over him. You can be too. As the brilliant journalist and comedy writer Jake Tapper might put it, we’re no longer dizaamed to show him respizzle.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: CommonCentz, who’s never been dizaamed by Tapper’s respizzle.