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You are here: Home / I Should Have Known

I Should Have Known

by John Cole|  October 25, 20089:14 am| 42 Comments

This post is in: Assholes, Clown Shoes

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Looking back, I should have known that the Ashley Todd story was a hoax- I was given the biggest clue, and I just didn’t take it. I even wrote about it:

Anyone with video editing abilities, Hugh Hewitt was just on CNN around 5:15 EST on Wolf Blitzer’s show and spewed a steady stream of concentrated bullshit. It was breathtaking.

And what exactly was old Hugh rambling on about on CNN? This:

HEWITT: Well, the most important thing is to ignore the media, ignore likes your friends here at CNN and other networks that are trying to say that it’s over before it’s over. In fact, it’s not over. It’s very, very close. And I’d also urge him to focus some of the stories on what upsets a lot of people.

The big story of the afternoon, Wolf, is that a McCain campaign volunteer was assaulted in Pittsburgh — had the letter B carved in her cheek. Yesterday, Norm Coleman’s house in Minnesota was attacked. He was threatened. The FBI is investigating.

There’s a lot of extraordinarily disturbed people out there. They’re on both sides, but the big issue of the last two days has come from that side.

I think that John McCain has to speak to the judgment issue — who do you want in the Oval Office when a crisis breaks out — and to the 3,000 appointments that the president gets to make. Do you trust Barack Obama? Is he going to bring in people like Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko and Jeremiah Wright —

Right there in front of me- and I didn’t pick up on it. You would think that by now I would know that when Hewitt latches on to something, I would automatically realize it was a lie. But there he was, the right’s best and brightest, churning out out more choad for the masses, trying to bring it all together into a sort of wingnut nirvana: the crucial juncture between Ashley Todd, Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and Obama’s judgment.

Of course, Hugh then issued a lengthy apology yesterday for this attempt to smear Obama for the actions of some fictional bad guy. Or maybe not:

Hugh Hewitt- the modern embodiment of corrupt, venal, disgusting, and morally vacant Republicanism, a soulless vessel for the distribution of talking points. May he drown in a pool of his own shit on November 4th.

Figuratively, of course, because I don’t want to be accused of being a hater.

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42Comments

  1. 1.

    demimondian

    October 25, 2008 at 9:24 am

    I’m not sure that everything Hewitt says is a lie — but I’m very sure that he’s one of the Republican spokesfolk who are deployed by their masters to say certain things which the campaign itself can’t say.

    I suspect that in this case, Hewitt didn’t lie, but rather was told that certain things were true by someone he trusted, and he repeated them in the way he was told to. In fact, he was a victim of a cruel hoax, perpetrated by the candidate he worships and the organization around him.

    Of course, what that says about the candidate and his campaign…

  2. 2.

    greynoldsct00

    October 25, 2008 at 9:28 am

    Morning all…

  3. 3.

    Rick Taylor

    October 25, 2008 at 9:31 am

    It sounded like a hoax from the beginning. The story just didn’t make sense. But it’s not surprising conservatives picked up on it. It fit into the story-line they needed, that liberal complaints about what was happening at McCain rallies were unfounded, because both sides do it (and liberals are worse). Of course after being exposed, they ought to feel chastened at being duped, rather than surly and self righteous as the ones I’ve read has. I mean for God’s sake, Michelle Malkin saw through it. Michelle Malkin! How gullible do you have to be to buy a story even she thought was fishy?

  4. 4.

    Warren Terra

    October 25, 2008 at 9:32 am

    Also note that when Hewitt says "Norm Coleman’s house was attacked", he refers to a string of incidents in which some nutter graffiti’d (and not to condone graffiti, but it’s a lot less scary than most forms of "attack" on a residence) several politicians’ homes in the area in one night, including Keith Ellison. That’s Ellison, as in Democrat, Black, anti-Iraq-war, Muslim, hated-by-winger-talkshows Ellison. Darn those violent Obamafascists!

  5. 5.

    gbear

    October 25, 2008 at 9:36 am

    Um, Hewitt also conveniently forgot to mention that senator Amy Klobuchar’s house got vandilized in the same way and on the same night as Coleman’s, along with Michelle Bachmann’s and three democratic congresscritters’ garages. Dink.

    edit: I am a very slow comment writer this morning. more caffine required. I should have remembered that Ellison was one of the victims.

    And I agree with the comment that John Cole is about to write (I love edit).

  6. 6.

    John Cole

    October 25, 2008 at 9:37 am

    @gbear: He didn’t forget anything.

  7. 7.

    jcricket

    October 25, 2008 at 9:46 am

    John – does watching the "main stream" righties on TV/radio descend (?) into madness give you any idea why liberals were so mad for so long?

    We’re the ones called unhinged, looney, out of touch with America, etc. And all the time people like Savage, Coulter, Hewitt, Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, etc. have been flooding the airwaves with the most hateful right-wing rantings since Father Coughlin. And they have huge audiences.

    There is nothing comparable on the left. The "farthest left" are those in the Green party. Or maybe those ELF types, who have no power and are ostracized from the Democratic party. We don’t hide Eric Rudolph in our house or fail to consider bombings of pharma companies terrorists.

    I’m not saying every Republican is on the looney right like this, but it’s a much bigger, organized, funded and respected part of the Republican party than the similar people are on the left.

    Take even "little" things like Prop 8. Can you imagine zillions coming in from an out-of-state liberal church/group, and threatening letters to businesses, from any liberal group?

    And I think that’s why Republicans are in the position they are right now.

  8. 8.

    low-tech cyclist

    October 25, 2008 at 9:47 am

    I suspect that in this case, Hewitt didn’t lie, but rather was told that certain things were true by someone he trusted, and he repeated them in the way he was told to. In fact, he was a victim of a cruel hoax, perpetrated by the candidate he worships and the organization around him.

    Demimondian, I can’t see Hewitt as a victim. It’s up to each of us to be responsible for what comes out of our mouths. If Hewitt wants to place his mouth at the disposal of others, without exercising any judgment, then he’s been used, but he’s just as responsible for the lie as if he’d said it himself…since that’s what he did. He put his cred (I assume he has cred with some people) behind this story without checking it out. His bad.

    Our excellent host says:

    May he drown in a pool of his own shit on November 4th.

    Figuratively, of course, because I don’t want to be accused of being a hater.

    I’d kinda prefer literally, myself. It would certainly be poetic justice.

  9. 9.

    aimai

    October 25, 2008 at 9:49 am

    John Cole says "he didn’t forget anything." That is exactly correct. The right wing drum corps and majorette baton twirlers were ready, and will always be ready, to accuse Obama and the newly energized dems with being violent, rioting thugs. That this is totally witting and totally deliberate is proved by the fact that although one (might) have legitimately believed the Ashley todd story for five seconds (if one didn’t remember that the word "college republican" should always be tagged with the date and time of their subsequent felony conviction) no one who read the *original stories* of the minn. incidents could fail to know that it was an equal opportunity graffiti fest. That is to say Hewitt had to know that the Norm Coleman incident included democrats and leaving it out for his presentation to the rubes was deliberate deception.

    Over at Steve M’s "no more mr. nice blog" he points out that this thing "college republican" accuses liberal of physical attack has a fairly long history. In fact Its so common to their modus operandi that any young republican who claims to have been attacked by democratic orliberal thugs (gays, blacks, grannies for obama) should instantly be suspected of lying. Its practically a rite of pledging to the republican party at this point.

    http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/

    aimai

  10. 10.

    Walker

    October 25, 2008 at 9:52 am

    Or maybe those ELF types, who have no power and are ostracized from the Democratic party.

    That damn Esper Liberation Front.

  11. 11.

    gbear

    October 25, 2008 at 9:53 am

    I don’t want to be accused of being a hater.

    You’re just a amateur hater, John. You don’t have your heart in it. The full time, professional haters look like this. I hope they follow through on their threats (or are they promises?) and move to Alaska

  12. 12.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    October 25, 2008 at 9:54 am

    One of the things which is currently giving me a sense of optimism for the future is that Some of the Republicans are Revolting [insert joke here].

    No, not in the old sense of the phrase, but in the sense that some of the usual water carriers for the GOP are just putting down their buckets and going on strike. Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, George Will, Chris Buckley – the country club set of the GOP have had enough. The Palin nomination was a bridge too far for them.

    Which means two things – first of all a war within the ranks is brewing in the GOP, along both ideological and class/education lines. I don’t think these divisions will heal quickly, instead it is starting to get really ugly and bitter and intensely personal.

    But the longer term problem for people like Hugh Hewitt is that up till now they haven’t been exposed as the hacks/shills/nutcases that they really are because they were part of a continuous spectrum of opinion on the right, which was densely populated all the way from David Broder faux bipartisanship to the batshit insanity of the fever swamps of right blogistan.

    This gave the extremists some cover and credibility by association with the more center-right pundits and journalists. You couldn’t really point to any one spot in the spectrum of right wing opinion and say “here is the spot where the insanity begins. Beyond this point, abandon all hope ye who enter” without being rather arbitrary.

    But now that monolith is breaking up. The tectonic plates are drifting in different directions, and it looks like the Pangea of right wing punditry is breaking up. And I think this is going to really hurt the credibility of people like Hewitt.

  13. 13.

    Rick Taylor

    October 25, 2008 at 10:02 am

    No, not in the old sense of the phrase, but in the sense that some of the usual water carriers for the GOP are just putting down their buckets and going on strike. Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, George Will, Chris Buckley – the country club set of the GOP have had enough. The Palin nomination was a bridge too far for them.

    It is a good thing to see, but at the same time to be honest, it’s really far far too late. Two terms of an incompetent President, nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, torture, fiscal irresponsibility, I mean come one. The time to speak up was years ago. Perhaps if they’d spoken up then, the Republican party wouldn’t have slid as far down as it has. Still, better late than never I suppose.

  14. 14.

    gbear

    October 25, 2008 at 10:06 am

    @ThatLeftTurnInABQ:

    the usual water carriers for the GOP are just putting down their buckets and going on strike. Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, George Will, Chris Buckley – the country club set of the GOP have had enough.

    Peggy Noonan hasn’t quite put down her buckets yet.

  15. 15.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    October 25, 2008 at 10:09 am

    Peggy Noonan hasn’t quite put down her buckets yet.

    Well of course, but these things are relative. For someone on the right to refuse to carry any kind of water at all, no matter how foul, is remarkable.

    On the left it is a different story – attempts to get the left to carry water usually result in a water balloon fight for starters, and then on to the mosh pit from there.

  16. 16.

    Notorious P.A.T.

    October 25, 2008 at 10:10 am

    I’m not sure that everything Hewitt says is a lie

    Get to know him. Hewitt is the guy who, a month ago, was shopping around a book called "How Sarah Palin Won the Election and Saved America".

  17. 17.

    Keith

    October 25, 2008 at 10:40 am

    Hewitt is the guy who, a month ago, was shopping around a book called "How Sarah Palin Won the Election and Saved America".

    All that is needed is:
    1. Snowmobile capable of going 88mph. CHECK!
    2. Snowmobile driver capable of driving snowmobile 88mph….while avoiding nuclear-hungry terrorists. CHECK!
    3. Enough energy to generated 1.21 gigawatts. CHECK!
    4. And the energy expertise to do it. CHECK!

  18. 18.

    ThymeZoneThePlumber

    October 25, 2008 at 10:41 am

    The sad truth is that everything bad I have ever done, and that includes every obnoxious post to BJ, includes driving too fast, includes farting in line at McDonalds, includes plotting to round up Republicans and put them on reservations …..

    ….I have done because I was attacked by a large black man.

    I call for an end to the madness. Stop attacks by large black men. Just stop them.

  19. 19.

    mellowjohn

    October 25, 2008 at 10:48 am

    wasn’t there a florida republican politician picked up for soliciting sex in a public men’s restroom not too long ago?
    iirc, his excuse was that he was compelled to suck dick because he was scared of "large black men."

  20. 20.

    Jasper

    October 25, 2008 at 10:50 am

    I owe a bit of gratitude to Hewitt and Hannity and Rush and Levin. As a recovering republican, I occasionally feel lingering doubt about voting for Obama and giving democrats the WH and Congress. An instant cure for that is to turn on the radio where I live (all GOP all the time) and listen for 15 minutes. What’s apparent is the GOP has nothing but lies, culture wars, hate and failed economic policies to run on.

    And then my vote for Obama and a straight democratic ticket is again certain, and enthusiastic.

  21. 21.

    SnarkyShark

    October 25, 2008 at 10:50 am

    The full time, professional haters look like this

    Man, just looking at those fuckers is depressing. I mean I predicted all this on these very pages, but to see it in its raw visceral form is just to gaze into mankind’s darkest heart. I was raised in the reddest of states and have heard racial slurs bandied around in causal conversation on a more or less constant basis. But this still shocks me.

    They are reveling in their ignorance. They roll in it like a dog rolls in shit.

    On the other hand, one can smell the fear emanating from them, they reek of the stench of it. Good!

    Their time to celebrate themselves has come to an end. Any moderate who was fooling themselves about what the GOP has become can no longer keep his/her head up their ass any longer. This is raw, and on display. You can’t miss it.

    All the closet racist now have to look in the mirror. This is where hate leads. It is ugly, and I have a feeling a lot of people are having a transcendental moment right about now. A lot of the pundits seem to be, and I can’t help feeling their readership is in the same state.

    Much like a crack addict, it sucks to wake up and realize you given control of your life to something that has no benefit but sucks out all self respect and only hastens your march to the grave. Hate is a powerful drug, but it kills you just as surely as bathtub meth. It sucks the joy out living. It alienates you from those that could give life meaning and allies you with those who only want to drag you into the shit-hole they exist in.

    So go ahead haters, fly your freak flag proudly. I don’t think it will have the effect you think it will. Quit the opposite in fact. Your time is almost over, and the world breathes a sigh of relief.

    P.S. We see you, and there will me no relenting in enforcing your extinction. We can’t afford your non-productive bullshit anymore. You are too small and to irrelevant to exist in what is to come. Crawl back to your holes and exist with rest of your kind until you exist no more. No one will celebrate your existence, but all will celebrate the end of it.
    /Rant

  22. 22.

    MattF

    October 25, 2008 at 10:53 am

    Maybe it’s not so surprising that Hewitt et. al. have finally found that ol’ "crash and burn" McCain isn’t so bad after all. When you’re driving to destruction you need a leader with experience.

  23. 23.

    ThymeZoneThePlumber

    October 25, 2008 at 10:55 am

    Oh man, you all gotta read this great story from FiveThirtyEight. Read the whole thing, because the ending is the reward.

  24. 24.

    Elvis Elvisberg

    October 25, 2008 at 10:59 am

    I disagree, ThatLeftTurnInABQ.

    The people running the party, and the people who control the GOP-affiliated paramedia, are all raving nutters. If the criticism were coming from Rich Lowry and GOP congressmen, then I’d agree. But as it is, I think we’re going to be left with a thoroughly Hewittized Republican Party.

    Who in the House or Senate is going to reform the party? Their rising stars, people like Eric Cantor and Jack Kingston, are unthinking talking point regurgitators.

    They are in for at least five years in the wilderness.

  25. 25.

    Perry Como

    October 25, 2008 at 11:02 am

    @Keith: That’s snowmachine you elitist.

  26. 26.

    SnarkyShark

    October 25, 2008 at 11:10 am

    They are in for at least five years in the wilderness.

    Longer than that. They really really think the problem is that McCain wasn’t fascist enough. They wont even get a clue until after 2012, and then how many years until someone with even a hint of competence can wade through the pie-fight that will ensue.

    Right now, Rush Limpdick runs the GOP.

  27. 27.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    October 25, 2008 at 11:18 am

    The people running the party, and the people who control the GOP-affiliated paramedia

    The people who run the party, yes. I disagree on the paramedia.

    If the country club GOPers I listed earlier aren’t part of the GOP-affiliated paramedia then what are they? They sure as heck aren’t neutral observers and objective journalists.

    And if you concede that point, it means the paramedia is less of a monolith, because of the varied reactions we are seeing to Palin – and I’m predicting that the post-election debate over why McCain lost is going to polarize that group into pro-Palin and anti-Palin factions, and the fueding between them will grow increasingly bitter and nasty as they fight over the scraps of power left to the GOP. To steal a line that somebody else wrote (IIRC it was on one of the threads at Marc Ambinder’s blog), the Grand Old Party is going to turn into the Donner Party.

  28. 28.

    Elvis Elvisberg

    October 25, 2008 at 11:32 am

    Well, ThatLeftTurnInABQ, I don’t think that Kathleen Parker, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, George Will, or Chris Buckley have the position, the intention, or the ability to change the GOP.

    There’s no K-Lo or Rich Lowry or Rush Limbaugh or Hugh Hewitt– people who actually run stuff– on your list. Just commentators.

    Yes, they have generally been eager to carry water in the past, and are moving hesitantly toward reality for the time being, and that’s a good thing worth commenting on.

    But Parker and Buckley are being fatwahed, and are fringe commentators on the right anyway. Brooks’s folksy, amateurish sociological oversimplifications don’t really provide much of a blueprint for GOP policy. George Will, like Brooks, can cheer or boo in his column, but he’s not in a position to give more than rhetorical support to any hypothetical reality-adhering movement within the GOP.

    When GOP Congressmen start consulting with Ross Douthat, Andy Bacevich, and Daniel Larison, then things will have changed. But as of now, people like Hewitt, K-Lo, Lowry, and Bill Bennett have influence, and the ability to promote people and ideas, within the party and the movement.

    There is no reality-based movement within the GOP, and in its paramedia there are only scattered, scorned dissenters.

  29. 29.

    Comrade The Other Steve

    October 25, 2008 at 11:46 am

    Yesterday, Norm Coleman’s house in Minnesota was attacked. He was threatened. The FBI is investigating.

    So was Ellison and Klobuchar, and Kline and… It was some nutter.

    Why is it only Coleman is trying to gain sympathy from it?

    I didn’t even think Coleman lived here in the state.

  30. 30.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    October 25, 2008 at 11:48 am

    @Elvis Elvisberg

    You dismiss these people as having no influence inside the GOP. Fair enough – but what I’m looking at is a different dynamic, namely that this group of softcore conservatives wield a disproportionate influence over the ability of the GOP to win national elections, because they are the ones who bring in the independents and moderates.

    Rush, Hannity, et. al. bring the base, but the base isn’t enough. That gets you maybe 30-35% of the electorate in most states. The swing voters who were getting the GOP the rest of the way to 50%+1 listen to David Brooks and friends, not to Rush. So my point is that insofar as a split is developing between these two groups of opinion makers, the GOP is losing their gateway drug.

  31. 31.

    Elvis Elvisberg

    October 25, 2008 at 11:55 am

    I see, ThatLeftTurnInABQ. You’re arguing not that the GOP will return forthwith to centrism, but that they will be stigmatized as loonies in all media that caters to grown-ups.

    I’m arguing that the GOP will be run by its base of idiots and people who craft and recite talking points crafted for idiots.

    The two points aren’t necessarily contradictory.

    Taking your 30-35% figure to be accurate or at least in the ballpark, if the GOP were a rational profit-maximizer, it would stop acting crazy. That’s quite the Catch-22.

  32. 32.

    Stuck in the Funhouse

    October 25, 2008 at 12:13 pm

    Hugh Hewitt- the modern embodiment of corrupt, venal, disgusting, and morally vacant Republicanism, a soulless vessel for the distribution of talking points. May he drown in a pool of his own shit on November 4th.

    I must say Mr Cole, this wingnut piercing snark should be marketed for immediate deployment to the political front of America’s currently raging ideological war.

    We do need our sustenance however, so it’s time for the Saturday Night special at the Funhouse Arcade & Roadhouse Cafe (FARC).

    Tonight’s entree is an excellent Red Herring stew embraced with Felonious B-Hoax Bree. Dessert will offer a tart Half-Baked Alaskan dish topped with a powdered Acorn curry.

    Funhouse Musing #? Truth Bigotry in puffery of wingnuttery is no extreme vice.

  33. 33.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    October 25, 2008 at 12:42 pm

    I see, ThatLeftTurnInABQ. You’re arguing not that the GOP will return forthwith to centrism, but that they will be stigmatized as loonies in all media that caters to grown-ups.

    Bingo, you got it.

    And my further point is that what is helping to bring this situation about is that there are people who are in fact conservative, who speak to grown-ups and don’t sound like lunatics (see Larison for a prime example ), and the contrast between them and the rest is widening because of the battle royale developing on the right over Who Is To Blame for the McCain campaign going down in flames.

    Palin is a polarizing figure. During this election campaign she polarized the general electorate. After the election she is going to do the same thing to the GOP internally. You can already see the battle lines being drawn up.

  34. 34.

    nabalzbbfr

    October 25, 2008 at 12:47 pm

    I think we haven’t yet heard the full story on Ashley Todd – we haven’t heard her full account of the events. It may well be that the political establishment was indeed worried about the racial ramifications of the incident and decided the best solution was to pressure her into recanting.

  35. 35.

    Stuck in the Funhouse

    October 25, 2008 at 1:02 pm

    @nabalzbbfr:

    I think we haven’t yet heard the full story on Ashley Todd – we haven’t heard her full account of the events. It may well be that the political establishment was indeed worried about the racial ramifications of the incident and decided the best solution was to pressure her into recanting.

    You keep shoveling Nebakawanker, that pony is bound to show up.

  36. 36.

    handy

    October 25, 2008 at 1:36 pm

    I bet nabalzbbfr found the WMDs in his underoos, too.

  37. 37.

    Comrade Jake

    October 25, 2008 at 1:44 pm

    @nabalzbbfr:

    Or maybe this is all just a bad dream for you. That seems equally plausible.

  38. 38.

    David Robinson

    October 25, 2008 at 2:15 pm

    Hugh Hewitt was just on CNN around 5:15 EST . . .

    Look at my comment on Wizbang:

    The B is backwards — she did it herself by looking in the mirror.

    24. Posted by Adrian Browne | October 23, 2008 5:15 PM

    http://wizbangblog.com/content/2008/10/23/breaking-obama-supporter-attacks-and-mutilates-mccain-volunteer.php#comments

  39. 39.

    TenguPhule

    October 25, 2008 at 11:53 pm

    I think

    You lie.

  40. 40.

    ilsita

    October 26, 2008 at 1:03 am

    @nabalzbbfr:

    I know I shouldn’t…

    But is this going around? Are they offering this? The idea that a nice normal college kid was talked into completely, forever ruining her life?

  41. 41.

    David Robinson

    October 26, 2008 at 10:21 am

    @TenguPhule: Was your comment directed at me?

Comments are closed.

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  1. McCain Spun the Ashley Todd story; now trying to deny. - The Daily Shocker says:
    October 25, 2008 at 9:50 am

    […] Cole at Balloon Juice shows just how quickly this story and it’s talking points—with the goal of casting shadows […]

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