Betsy McCaughey, Liar
Betsy McCaughey is a professional liar. She lies. The things she writes are untrue. They are not even "distortions." They are made-up. Everyone has known this for years and yet she was still allowed to derail the nation this month. McCaughey's schtick, as described by James Fallows, is to pose as a disinterested, objective researcher who is just shocked and dismayed to find something insane and evil in a piece of legislation supported by a Democratic president. And then she sits down to write a very serious and nonpartisan and concerned piece of analysis of this evil thing in the legislation that she made up. And then some respectable outlet publishes her serious analysis. And then, within minutes, partisan Republican columnists, talk radio hosts, politicians, and operatives are disseminating talking points taken directly from that serious piece of entirely made-up bullshit analysis. Her first stab at derailing this year's health care debate came with a Bloomberg column about fictitious health care rationing hidden in the stimulus bill. In a July 24 column for the New York Post, McCaughey smeared Ezekiel Emanuel (the nice Emanuel brother) as a murderous "deadly doctor." In a radio interview with Fred Thompson, McCaughey got more explicit, wholly inventing mandatory death panel sessions American seniors would have to face every five years. And, thus, "death panels." From Betsy to Rush to Sarah Palin to Chuck Grassley to your own old relatives forwarding you crazy shit, probably. Of course, she's been at this forever. In 1994, McCaughey worked for the Manhattan Institute, a right-wing think tank. And then she wrote a piece for The New Republic about how the Clinton health care plan would not allow people to buy health care coverage outside the government-run plan. This, obviously, was false. George Will picked up on it, adding nonsense about jail terms. (Andrew Sullivan edited The New Republic from 1991 through 1996. In 1994, Sullivan was on a roll, publishing both the objectively racist pseudoscience of The Bell Curve and Betsy McCaughey's No Exit. This was all before Ruth Shalit and Stephen Glass. Current editor Franklin Foer apologized for the McCaughey piece shortly after assuming his position. Sullivan never really has. McCaughey's story was really more the fault of owner/"editor-in-chief" Marty Peretz, of course, because he had a psychotic hatred of Bill Clinton.) So. After that one lying story full of lies made her famous, Al D'Amato told George Pataki to make her Lietenant Governor of New York. She did not get along with Pataki, and she famously, weirdly, stood up for the entirety of Pataki's 1996 State of the State address. In 1997, Pataki dropped her from the ticket with a nasty public letter and she decided to become a Democrat in order to run against him. She ended up on the Liberal Party ticket, and lost, obviously, and then she moved to DC to work for the Hudson Institute, another right-wing think tank. So she is a known liar and an... MORE >>
Everything You Need to Know About Obama's Spam-Gate
Yesterday, David Axelrod sent out a long and boring "viral" email about health care to the White House's email list. Or did he? We're getting a lot of tipsters saying they got it but never signed up for Obama emails. Fox News' Major Garrett asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs at yesterday's briefing about claims that Axelrod was spamming people who never asked for White House emails, and was shocked and astounded when Gibbs said the only way to find out if they were on the White House's list was to find out if they were on the White House's list. Which would require turning over their names to the federal government, which would then kill them. Today, Fox News reported that Garrett has indeed turned over the names of his emailers—with permission—to the White House so they could check them against the list. The story darkly implies that the White House is monitoring your computer right now: "Some wondered if visiting the White House Web site automatically places them on an email distribution list." That is obviously, transparently, and plainly impossible, and the "some" who "wondered" about it are frightened, confused 85-year-olds or paranoid schizophrenics. We asked you if you had received Axelrod's email, and we got dozens of responses from people who claimed that they had gotten the email but hadn't signed up for it. Some people said they've been getting emails for months from Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, etc. So what's the deal? The first thing to figure out is if the email actually came from the White House, as opposed to a friend who forwarded it or a GOP black ops crew trying to get the Obama=Big Brother meme going, because everyone knows that spam is the forerunner of tyranny. Already, conservatives are trying to turn Axelrod's email into SpamGate. So we asked everyone who said they got the Axelrod email to send us the header info. Here's an example from one reader, with the recipient's email address redacted: This email came from servers owned by GovDelivery, a St. Paul, Minn., firm that describes itself as "the world's leading provider of government-to-citizen communication solutions," and appears to have been contracted by the White House to manage its email blasts. The "account code" is "USEOPWH"—U.S. Executive Office of the President, White House. We called GovDelivery and spoke to CEO Scott Burns, who declined to confirm or deny that his company works with the White House, but said "you've obviously got the header information for that email, so draw whatever inference from that you will." We'll take that as a yes. And many of the readers who claim to be spam victims provided identical header info. So we're confident that people who at least believe they never signed up for White House emails got Axelrod's. How does the White House gather its email list? Burns said GovDelivery provides a platform for sending out mass emails, but that "the list acquisition strategy in not in our control." "We give... MORE >>
Levi Johnston: Gay Icon
Last night Levi Johnston appeared on masturbatory Bravo exec and host Andy Cohen's Watch What Happens Live. Yeah, he's down with the gays. He better be, because in 10 years, he'll be a washed-up former pretty boy on VH1. His Skype chat with Cohen, who repeatedly refers to Johnston as his boyfriend, featured a question from popular gay blogger Andy Towle about if Johnston's down with the fact that he's a new gay icon. Johnston said he likes all his fans (cause there aren't many) no matter what, adding that there are gays in Wasilla, and it's not as backward as we think. Then he went to go shoot sheep. Watch it all below. Our other favorite bit is when he says he'd pose naked "if the money's right." This visit comes only a few days after Johnston appeared at the Teen Choice Awards with gay pantheon inductee Kathy Griffin and then was grilled by her on CNN. Why not just dress up like Liza for Pride, Levi. Johnston is a man of marginal talent and intelligence who happens to be hot, which is why the gays like him. He also appeals to that soft spot in most gay men that longs for something authentically masculine. Yeah, he's trade. This is great marketing for him, because, once the Graydon Carters of the world are finished using him to make jokes about Republicans, only the gays will care. Much like Antonio Sabato Jr. Do you not remember him? Well, then you're straight. Sabato had some modest pop cultural popularity in the late '90s thanks to a Calvin Klein underwear campaign, a Janet Jackson video, and a guest stint on Melrose Place. Ever since then, the gays have kept him around because he's hot. He has always been cool with his Mary minions, and even played gay in the straight-to-Here! TV movies Deadly Skies and Testosterone. Now the velvet mafia have installed him in his own VH1 dating show My Antonio. He is the pink Flava Flav. Yes, we'll be watching (it starts Sunday!). So, take heed, Levi. You're not going to make it far, but keep working on those abs, being nice to the Marys, and don't do anything too stupid (unlikely) and one day you'll be a piece of trade with his own reality TV show! Or married to Andy Cohen. MORE >>
Sorry, Reasonable Republicans, But These Are Literally 'Brownshirt Tactics'
Michael Gerson says we should never, ever, ever accuse anyone of behaving like a Nazi, because the Nazis were super, super evil. There is an internet law about it and everything: as soon as you call someone a Nazi you have lost the argument. We won't quibble with that law's infallibility when it comes to, you know, overheated message board (or chat show) arguments. (Though to call it "the Vidal tactic" while skipping past the bit where Buckley responded by calling Vidal a queer and threatening to "sock [him] in the goddamn face" does give the reader the incorrect impression that Vidal was wrong to accuse Buckley of fascistic leanings.) And Gerson does point out that the "Nazi" comparisons are being made by Republican senators, Rush Limbaugh, and protesters carrying signs calling Obama a Nazi, and he is certainly not happy with them. He is embarrassed by them, in fact! But because this is a Washington Post editorial by a "reasonable" Republican no criticism of the conservative movement may be proffered without a "pox on both houses" attack on Democrats for doing the exact same thing, all the time, but worse. Because Nancy Pelosi (D-Boogeyman) accused town hall disrupters of "carrying swastikas" (they were). And because unnamed "liberal antiwar protests" were chock-full of Hitler mustaches. Because Michael Moore said something dumb about the Patriot Act. And because Representative Brian Baird decried "Brownshirt tactics." Here's the thing about that last one: the people intentionally disrupting town hall events and trying to turn them into anarchic carnivals of rage and possible violence are literally, actually guilty of "Brownshirt tactics." Both the Nazis and Mussolini had Brownshirts and Blackshirts, their violent followers (many of whom were angry, disenfranchised-feeling war vets resentful of elites), attack socialists and union leaders, often on behalf of capitalists unhappy with leftist governments. Brownshirts marched through socialist strongholds in order to provoke attacks, and then they ginned up more support by holding up those who were attacked as martyrs. Does that sound familiar? The well-publicized image of the SA-man with a bandaged head, a stirring reminder of his combat against the "Marxists" (along with other portrayals of muscular, oversized storm troopers), became standard in party propaganda. In the first eight months of 1932, the Nazis claimed that seventy "martyrs" had fallen in battle against the enemy. Such heroic depictions — set against the grim realities of chronic unemployment and underemployment for young people during the Weimar period — no doubt helped increase membership in the SA units, which expanded in Berlin from 450 men in 1926 to some 32,000 by January 1933. Obviously that could never, ever happen here. No responsible American business-owners would ever goad the violent right-wing fringe to provoke their political enemies into street fights. To point out "Brownshirt tactics" is not to accuse... MORE >>
Bernie Madoff's Affair Proves Ruth's Innocence!
A lady named Sheryl Weinstein—who helped a charity sink $40 million into Bernie Madoff's funds—is writing a book about her (sordid?) affair with Bernie. The big winner here: Ruth Madoff. It's simple: Ruth's greatest PR and legal need right now is to prove that she was ignorant of her husband's activities. Here, proof! The NYT drew a quote from Ruth's reluctant and doubtless heartbroken attorney: Ruth Madoff, who has been married to Mr. Madoff for almost 50 years, knew nothing about the "alleged affair," said Peter Chavkin, her lawyer. While that, unfortunately, will not ease the pain of the people destroyed by the Madoff fraud, he continued, the allegation "stands as a powerful reminder, to those who say Ruth must have known of her husband's criminal scheme, that there are some things that some spouses - however close they are - do not share with each other." In the best of all possible worlds for Ruth, Bernie would also turn out to be gay. [Pic: AP] MORE >>
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