Goodbye Forever, Dearest Wonketteers

Well, guess what. Today is the final day for editor "Jim Newell" (me) at your Wonkette, and this is my last post. I will be starting at Gawker on Monday! So, should I just rattle off a few Blingees of furries, write "ha ha," and then be done with it? Probably. Instead I will just type for an hour or so until I have to go somewhere. "Ha ha." Oh dear...

When I started typing at the Wonkette blog on October 9, 2007, I was the usual bright-eyed, ambitious, friendly young ginger gentleman with a variety of interests to explore in the prosperous American economy. What a joke! It's thanks to you, Wonkette readers, that I've become something much "more." Specifically, an overweight couch potato with no interest in anything except typing the word "poop" next to politicians' names; a vile elders-insulting misanthrope who does little more than rant to the cat about "incentive structures" and "media narratives" while drunk, so drunk, every night, but mostly morning.

I have typed thousands of made-up posts for this website during these years, many of which I regret, either because they weren't funny or because they were just too mean to people who didn't deserve it. I've tried to stop the latter, but who knows. Probably made fun of some college or high school kids over the last year. And that's one of my main "rules"!

Did you even know that I had a few personalrulesfor my Wonkette typing?

(1) Don't make fun of college-age or high school kids. Little kids, of course, are fair game.

(2) Don't ever make fun of a lady with gender-connotating words like "bitch" or "slut" or whatever the other awful words are. It's so unnecessary, right? Especially when you're talking about, let's see, SARAH PALIN, and you can just call her an "asshole." It sounds so much better! "Idiot asshole Sarah Palin went on the Facebook today..." etc. etc. I'm such a gentleman it's insane.

(3) Don't ruin lives just because you can! Now I understand that Wonkette isn't the most read or most influential Internet newspaper. Okay, perhaps that's being modest: it is, by far. But we do have the ability to destroy lives or screw people out of jobs or, in general, create professional hazards for certain people. If it's, say, Bill Kristol, we obviously want to destroy both his life and that of everyone in his family. But if a Hill staffer or some other mid-minor level Washington "operative" is caught doing something harmlessly silly, why put that person out of a job? Because even if you post that item without mentioning names, it will be traced back. It took me a little while to realize just howseriouslyeveryone in Washington takes public relations. Everyone needs to calm down .

CALM DOWN, WASHINGTON.

There was going to be a (4) that was "DON'T BE CYNICAL," but it doesn't even apply. If I was "cynical," meaning, if I didn't believe that government was important or capable of orneedingto play a critical role in American life, I wouldn't be able to type this blog all day. Who would ever want to read and write about apocalyptic, depressing horror tales hour after hour for years if they thought things didn't matter, or that they didn't *have* to be better? I think it's this accusation of "cynicism" above all else that sent me into such a fit with David Denby's book of lies. Fuck David Denby.

Also, the word "snark" should be bombed from every Internet dictionary. I just try to write funny jokes and occasional informative bits about politics. Mostly poop jokes, though. I really do enjoy me a good line about poop.

***

Thank you to the following humans and/or collectives of IP addresses for all the wacky wacky times here.

To all Wonkette readers, for reading. Most of you probably just skipped to the comments, but who cares? You clicked, and that's all that matters, suckers.

To John McCain, Joe Lieberman, Lanny Davis, Sarah Palin, Rudy Giuliani, Bill Kristol and a few others, for being the most loathsome subjects that come to mind and offering so much material over the years.

To the Wonkette Commentariat, for being the absolute most consistently hilarious group of one-liner writers on the Internet since forever. I'm not just being a fairy here: it's kind of "Internet consensus" that Wonkette commenters are, without a doubt, the best on any blog on the Internet. Ask anyone (who isn't dumb) and they will tell you this. Please keep this up. And I won't mention names but there are CERTAIN commenters, still active, whom I remember from my very first day, and who bothered sticking around through all of the horribly unfunny posts that dominated my first few months here. Thank you, certain anonymous regular commenters!

To Intern Riley and Lady Wonkabout Arielle Fleischer, for providing such great content over the past year, and for being so much fun to hang out with last summer. INTERN RILEY, WHERE ARE "RUMORS" BY THE WAY? IT'S PAST FOUR. I WILL FIRE YOUR ASS YET.

To former co-editor Juli Weiner, who kept me sane during those months in the fall of 2009 when Ken was wandering around California's highways for some mystical "book project" and Sara was poppin' out babies like the dickens. We had so much fun typing from different cities together, and then you left, to gay-marry Graydon Carter. Oh well. You will be all of our bosses within a year, anyway.

To Josh Fruhlinger, one of the funniest writers in America, who has been typing various guest things on this blog, whenever asked, since about 1983, and who couldn't be a nicer person, based on Internet conversations and that one time we ate junk food at Union Station on a weekday.

To my friend and part-time colleague Liz Glover, the nicest, most generous and optimistic person I know. Can we still do road trips to New Hampshire in 2012, like we did in 2008? Hopefully. That was too fun. TOO FUN.

To former co-editor Sara K. Smith, my friend with all the babies. (She has one baby.) Thank you for waking up to do all the early posts for the two-ish years we worked together, even though you live in a time zone further to the West. (Ha ha that was such a sweet deal.) Remember that time we went to Virginia on a junket? Whatwasthat? Anyway, good luck with your spawn.

Anyone else?

To Ken Layne, my boss since January 2008, andwithout a doubtmost important figure in Wonkette history. Ken Layne has been the funniest writer on the Internet for about the past ten years. And for at least two of those, he has given me money. If it weren't for Ken, Wonkette.com would not be the same site it is today, where everything is awesome and important. It would be a gardening site, perhaps, with no jokes. Ken gave me the space to write about the historic 2008 presidential campaign, daily, for a significant audience of funny people and news junkies and regular actual junkies. Good god what an opportunity. Thank you, Ken, and please don't die having to do more of this writing by yourself (sucker).

Okay I have to go to the therapist now.

You can reach me at newell@gawker.com starting Monday. I will check jim@wonkette.com for the next couple of days, stealing Ken's tips until he shuts me down.

big $ale on truck nutz,

Jim

PS: Sorry if there are any typos, I really have to go.