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You are here: Home / Wanker of the Day

Wanker of the Day

by John Cole|  June 15, 20115:57 pm| 41 Comments

This post is in: Assholes, Our Failed Media Experiment

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Stealing from Atrios, but this guy deserves it: Glenn Kessler.

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Previous Post: « A Friend In Need
Next Post: Open thread – This sounds like one of my stories… »

Reader Interactions

41Comments

  1. 1.

    JenJen

    June 15, 2011 at 6:01 pm

    The only Kesler that matters tonight is Ryan.

    Can we get a Stanley Cup Game 7 thread up in here this evening?

    #backtoyourregularprogramming

  2. 2.

    David in NY

    June 15, 2011 at 6:02 pm

    I mean, Kessler couldn’t defend himself on the merits, so he didn’t. QED.

  3. 3.

    Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)

    June 15, 2011 at 6:06 pm

    Who watches the watchmen?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxbe4X5vTMc

  4. 4.

    cathyx

    June 15, 2011 at 6:11 pm

    Well he’s a WaPo fact checker. That tells you everything you need to know about his facts.

  5. 5.

    Villago Delenda Est

    June 15, 2011 at 6:12 pm

    Kessler has earned this. He couldn’t argue on the merits, so he attacks the individuals calling him on his poor work product.

  6. 6.

    Mike in NC

    June 15, 2011 at 6:14 pm

    You are an utter and shameless whore — or criminally ignorant — or, given that you work for America’s foremost rag, you could well be both.

    Nailed it.

  7. 7.

    Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)

    June 15, 2011 at 6:14 pm

    Wanker of the Day: Gloria Allred and Porn Star ginger Lee for their TV press conference calling on weiner to resign. Way to go, Anthony.

  8. 8.

    Dee Loralei

    June 15, 2011 at 6:18 pm

    The only analogy I could come up with saying the Ryan plan is Medicare was giving me a voucher for an ADT System and a coupon to buy a Glock and a box of bullets and calling it the MPD.

    I do not get why that wanker Kessler doesn’t get this.

  9. 9.

    Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory

    June 15, 2011 at 6:20 pm

    Honestly, a lot more “invective” was called for.

    When political decisions dictate whether people live or die, polite discussion doesn’t cut the mustard.

  10. 10.

    BGinCHI

    June 15, 2011 at 6:21 pm

    These guys are the soft version of the guards at Auschwitz.

    Just doing their jobs….not purposefully enabling terrible things in the short or long term…unwilling to risk their position, salary, etc.

    And they have less of an excuse: they CHOSE it.

    Fuckers.

  11. 11.

    Chuck Butcher

    June 15, 2011 at 6:21 pm

    It is important to keep alive the myth that the GOP actually gives a damn about governing or the citizenry. It is equally important to keep the Democrats as far right as they’ll go and as far into the plutocrats’ pockets as possible. So, you call “ending Medicare” a lie.

  12. 12.

    cermet

    June 15, 2011 at 6:22 pm

    @Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory: Exactly

  13. 13.

    fasteddie9318

    June 15, 2011 at 6:24 pm

    I’m sorry, but that original email was just so uncouth that it made me really feel mad for a little bit and possibly also like crying. Why couldn’t he have sent a nice, courteous email to the gentleman from the Post?

    Dearest Mr. Kessler,

    I hope that this letter finds you and your family doing well. I have always held you and the fine people at the Post in such high regards that I am simply thrilled to have the opportunity to communicate with you in this fashion. It’s like meeting Sidney Crosby or something! I’ve got stars in my eyes!

    Do you like cats? I love them. Did you know you can find lots of cute pictures of cats on the internets? You can! Crazy, right?

    Anyway, I should get to the point of my letter. After your recent article on the Dhimmicrat Mediscare con, I was wondering if you get your columns directly from the Reverend Moon or if He gives you some leeway to add your own thoughts? Oops, wait, did I get the wrong Washington paper! OH MY GOD I DID! I am so sorry about that! Gosh, it’s just so hard to tell you guys at the Post and those Fine Americans at the Times apart these days!

    Oh, also too, can you tell me whether or not the lying fuck rag you write for makes a better liner against bird-shit or dog-shit? I recently got a bird and a puppy (I know, no cat! Totally crazy, right?) and I’m trying to sort out whether certain of you turd-munching liars in the print media have a stronger tensile strength that would, for example, lend itself toward holding a heavy duty bunch of dog shit as opposed to the lighter wear-and-tear on a bird-shit collector. Please get back to me as soon as possible, my place is a mess! You wouldn’t believe it!

    Yours in deepest admiration,
    fasteddie9318

    I think that would have made the point in a much friendlier manner, don’t you?

  14. 14.

    cermet

    June 15, 2011 at 6:26 pm

    @BGinCHI: Wow – you win the post and it has just barely started! No way anyone will top you – that is really great!

  15. 15.

    Brachiator

    June 15, 2011 at 6:28 pm

    @Mike Kay (Chief of Staff):

    Wanker of the Day: Gloria Allred and Porn Star ginger Lee for their TV press conference calling on weiner to resign. Way to go, Anthony.

    Yeah, I love the LA Times headline for this story: Ex-porn actress says Weiner told her to lie Just something surreal about this.

    Allred said Lee called the news conference because she needed to come out of seclusion, clear up misconceptions about her behavior, “and resume her career as a feature dancer.”
    __
    “What’s a feature dancer?” asked one of scores of journalists packed into an ornate, overheated room at a midtown Manhattan club. “A feature dancer is a dancer who is featured,” Allred replied after a brief pause. “She dances in clubs.”

    That clears that up.

  16. 16.

    fasteddie9318

    June 15, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    @Dee Loralei:

    The only analogy I could come up with saying the Ryan plan is Medicare was giving me a voucher for an ADT System and a coupon to buy a Glock and a box of bullets and calling it the MPD.

    SEE! It’s still CALLED the MPD! God, you liebruls are so thick sometimes!

  17. 17.

    Brian R.

    June 15, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    How can anyone claim with a straight face clai
    that the Ryan plan doesn’t kill Medicare?

    It’s like they proposed a fix for Amtrak that involved scrapping the trains, selling off the rails for scrap, and giving passengers some carrental coupons and a gas voucher and getting outraged that someone dated say they were ending Amtrak.

  18. 18.

    cermet

    June 15, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    @fasteddie9318: Damn, these are all really great posts – maybe I’m calling a winner too soon – I am in awe! I’m not worthy!

  19. 19.

    Barb (formerly Gex)

    June 15, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    @Dee Loralei: His job depends on not getting it.

  20. 20.

    fasteddie9318

    June 15, 2011 at 6:30 pm

    @Brachiator: Thank goodness the porn star cleared up any misconceptions about her behavior.

    ?

  21. 21.

    Villago Delenda Est

    June 15, 2011 at 6:32 pm

    @Brachiator:

    I believe that “feature dancer” is the star who hauls in the audience based on her status as a former (or current, or both) porn star.

    She puts on a 10 minute show once a night, and her presence is a draw outside of the usual clientele…you know, brings in the sailors, the reporters from the NYT, the others who otherwise would never set foot inside one of these gentlemen’s clubs because, well, the dancers aren’t “featured”!

  22. 22.

    ppcli

    June 15, 2011 at 6:34 pm

    @Mike Kay (Chief of Staff): It must be hard for Weiner to be blindsided like that. How could anyone anticipate that a porn star might turn out to be a shameless glutton for publicity.

  23. 23.

    fasteddie9318

    June 15, 2011 at 6:34 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    She puts on a 10 minute show once a night, and her presence is a draw outside of the usual clientele…you know, brings in the sailors, the reporters from the NYT, the others who otherwise would never set foot inside one of these gentlemen’s clubs because, well, the dancers aren’t “featured”!

    Shouldn’t the Times reporters be out hustling johns at that time of night? I mean, after a whole day of whoring yourself out like that, don’t you need to do a little honest work after hours?

  24. 24.

    tomvox1

    June 15, 2011 at 6:35 pm

    Kessler is a first-class Village douche who deserves a recurring case of hardcore shingles.

    Tilts right you say? Oh, I do. Check this previous pile of Kexcrement out:

    President Obama’s phony accounting on the auto industry bailout

    The post just drips with disrespect for the president: “weasel words”, “phony”, “the most misleading collections of assertions we have seen in a short presidential speech.” Ugh. And when some dude from the decidedly non-partisan Center for Automotive research tried to correct his numbers, he bashed him too. And then Dan Pfieffer kicked his sorry ass and I needed a cigarette. But there was no response to that from truthy Kessler. Pussy.

  25. 25.

    Villago Delenda Est

    June 15, 2011 at 6:36 pm

    @ppcli:

    How could anyone anticipate that a porn star might turn out to be a shameless glutton for publicity.

    Pretty much the same way that Condi Rice could not have anticipated a scenario that Tom Clancy wrote about a decade before.

  26. 26.

    bemused

    June 15, 2011 at 6:39 pm

    Calling out bullshit with facts and righteous exasperation is the height of incivility and serious people are seriously offended.

  27. 27.

    Joel

    June 15, 2011 at 6:42 pm

    Since you mention Thompson…

    So much for Objective Journalism. Don’t bother to look for it here–not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.

    Irvine Welsh said something similar during an interview on NPR a few years back, but I cannot find it.

  28. 28.

    Villago Delenda Est

    June 15, 2011 at 6:42 pm

    @bemused:

    Which is why I’ll have no problem with the rounding up of the “serious people” for some serious tumbrel rides.

  29. 29.

    Brachiator

    June 15, 2011 at 6:44 pm

    @ppcli:

    It must be hard for Weiner to be blindsided like that. How could anyone anticipate that a porn star might turn out to be a shameless glutton gluteus for publicity.

    Semi-fixed

  30. 30.

    Martin

    June 15, 2011 at 6:44 pm

    @Brian R.:

    How can anyone claim with a straight face claim that the Ryan plan doesn’t kill Medicare?

    Because it doesn’t. See, I love my wife dearly, and so when her car was about to die she asked for something to show how much I loved her – she asked for a Bugatti. A tall order for someone of my modest means, but she had her heart set on it so I worked and worked and saved and saved and finally, after putting all I had into the effort, I broke down and bought her a Bugatti.

    She asked, I delivered, and I told her she had no right to be disappointed because it’s precisely what she asked for.

  31. 31.

    Cat Lady

    June 15, 2011 at 6:48 pm

    @Mike Kay (Chief of Staff):

    If he were out there impregnating all these women instead of virtually flashing them there wouldn’t be a need to lose a House district.

  32. 32.

    BGinCHI

    June 15, 2011 at 6:52 pm

    @Joel:

    Two giant fucking lies:

    Free market.

    Objective journalism.

  33. 33.

    PeakVT

    June 15, 2011 at 6:52 pm

    Amazing. I’m not surprised Kessler isn’t backing down, though. Once a “fact-checker” admits that s/he got the facts wrong, their whole act is shot. Nobody is going to read a fact-check column when the have to wonder if the fact-checker is actually right. The whole sales pitch is that the reader can let their guard down and be assured that no matter what the issue at hand is, the fact-checker is going to present the truth. Without that assurance, readers are going to just get their bullshit directly from the source. Or not at all.

  34. 34.

    Mike Kay (Chief of Staff)

    June 15, 2011 at 6:55 pm

    @Cat Lady: nah. the congressman in the very next district, Vito Fossella, lost his job in 2008 when it disclosed that he had two baby-mamas.

    http://gothamist.com/attachments/jen/2008_05_vitobaby.jpg

  35. 35.

    El Cid

    June 15, 2011 at 7:17 pm

    Another wanker of the day.

    Investigation Questions Gingrich Charity
    __
    ATLANTA — An ABC News investigation raised questions about the links between Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich’s charitable organization and his private career.
    __
    An independent watchdog group, the Sunlight Foundation, is looking deeper into is the operation of a charity Gingrich founded called Renewing American Leadership.
    __
    The organization’s website posts Gingrich’s positions on political issues and also contains ads for Gingrich’s books, but the ads were removed after ABC News asked about them.
    __
    “It’s not clear that it is a charity. We have an organization that looks like he’s mixing public purpose and his own private political interest,” said Ellen Miller with the Sunlight Foundation.
    __
    Records obtained by ABC showed the charity bought Gingrich’s books to give to people who send donations, with no discount in price.
    __
    A recent audit discovered that the charity paid one of Gingrich’s for-profit companies more than $200,000. The charity said the money was used to pay Gingrich’s former press secretary, Rick Tyler, who was also the director of the charity until he resigned in March.
    __
    Tyler made the decision to buy the Gingrich books with charity funds, according to a spokesman.

  36. 36.

    Mnemosyne

    June 15, 2011 at 7:38 pm

    @Brachiator:

    I’m pretty sure that publicity hound Allred is in the Wanker Hall of Fame. She’s far beyond being a wanker only a day or two a year.

  37. 37.

    ppcli

    June 15, 2011 at 7:44 pm

    @El Cid: Y’know, I remember back when quarters had pictures of bumblebees on ’em, and Democratic House Speaker Jim Wright got driven out of the speakership for a similar (though not quite as sleazy) bulk book buying arrangement. The investigation was orchestrated and led by a young hotshot from Georgia, if I remember right. Named Salamander, or Gecko, or something. Memory ain’t what it used to be….

  38. 38.

    Brachiator

    June 15, 2011 at 11:34 pm

    @Mnemosyne:

    I’m pretty sure that publicity hound Allred is in the Wanker Hall of Fame. She’s far beyond being a wanker only a day or two a year.

    I have this image of Allred sitting in her study. When she sees some opportunity to get some media attention, she rushes to her Batcave, dons one of her red business suits and rushes to the scene in her Wankermobile. She is quite a piece of work.

  39. 39.

    El Cid

    June 16, 2011 at 1:06 am

    @ppcli: Again, it’s curious to me why Newt simply couldn’t be satisfied with his open and direct money making schemes.

    Instead, he’s got to set up a charity-profit feedback system that, what, he figures no one will notice or be able to find?

    This is the clever scheme hatched by one of the most brilliant policy analyst serious man of thought this side of Paul Ryan and Henry Kissinger?

    This is the consummate re-imaginer of WWII history, such is his command of detail and plotting for war.

    I mean, it’s better than a Congressman sending pictures of his wang over twitter or whatever and thinking no one would ever find out.

    But I’d trust Herman Cain to design a business plan in a heartbeat before I let Frankly Bighead anywhere near it.

  40. 40.

    Hill Dweller

    June 16, 2011 at 1:17 am

    @PeakVT: Politifact had been validating the Republicans’ bullshit claims on Obama and discretionary spending for months, until Krugman revisited the topic recently. Thankfully, Politifact changed their tune after the Krugman column. But don’t they have any competent people to analyze this stuff without Krugman pointing it out?

  41. 41.

    Howlin Wolfe

    June 16, 2011 at 5:35 pm

    El Cid @39: “Frankly Bighead” — I’ll be laughing at that for 100 years.

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