Reader Tom sent me a link to this post that makes a whole lot out of a little fact about Jane Hamsher’s advertising company, CommonSense Media. That little fact is that Jane’s company apparently does work for both Democrats and Republicans. There’s no indication of which Republicans, or how many. I’m not going to jump to the same conclusions as the writer of that post, but it is worth noting.
Reader Interactions
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Dana Houle
Which conclusions did I jump to that you won’t jump to?
arguingwithsignposts
the woman cosigned with grover norquist on something. i wish more details about this were available, but its not too surprising
Eta: shouldnt that be ‘ever’?
shortstop
She pretty much does nothing but turn around and break/hate it.
mistermix
@Dana Houle: Actually, I re-read the piece and you don’t really jump to any conclusions, so I updated the post.
shortstop
Heavenly whine and neuroses seem to whisper to me when she smiles.
OzoneR
Also, BP.
It’s obvious and anyone can see it…Jane Hamsher’s goal is to spread disaffection and cynicism so that her clients need to take out more ads and she makes more money.
cleek
@shortstop
golf clap
mjd55
There isn’t any jumping to conclusions with Jane Hamsher. She has been dishonestly representing herself as a disillusioned member of President Obama’s base when her record shows that she never was a supporter and is probably a Republican milking the system for self-promotion and the profit. (just like so many other “former” Republicans raking in the $$$ by causing dissent and faux outrage with all things Democrat…especially our President)
Jane Hamsher’s perpetual smirk is a dead giveaway.
stuckinred
But she’s soooo pretty and she’s the ONLY one who tells the truth.
MikeJ
You might say she’ll tell you life’s just dirt.
Dana Houle
@mistermix Thanks. I tried to stick to what I could see and and not make any claims that couldn’t be backed up unless I acknowledged it was speculation.
As for the “little fact,” for a general advertising company it may not be significant that it would place ads for both Democrats and Republicans. But for political consultants–and by placing entries in Campaigns and Elections’ Political Page, they’re definitely presenting themselves as political consultants–it’s extremely rare for a firm to work for both Republicans and Democrats. I can think of a few who’ve worked for an independent–Bloomberg threw money around at a lot of NYC-based consultants from both parties–but I can’t think of any respected consultants who work for D’s and R’s.
But beyond that, it’s hard to accept someone as the paragon of progressivism if they’re helping Republicans defeat Democrats. This isn’t the 1960’s, there just aren’t any Republicans that anyone could describe as liberal or progressive. There may be a few like Gary Johnson or Ron Paul who want to end the drug war, but it’s because they essentially want to end the federal gov’t, including social security, child labor laws, regulation of interstate commerce, reigning in of state’s rights in disenfranchising minorities, etc. If you’re working for a Republican in 2011, you’re helping someone who’s the opposite of a progressive, so the media ought to get their shit together and stop presenting her as a progressive darling without noting that fact.
Alex S.
It’s a long fall from her high horse.
Also,
http://www.slate.com/id/2147117
Ding
Political Blogs (right, left, center) who subscribe to BlogAds have no control over the content of the ad but that does not stop many Liberal/progressive sites from generating $$$ for posting BlogAds.
CSMAds sounds like a competitor to BlogAds –
mjd55
Back when she did that Lieberman “blackface”, I was thinking that she seems to be a double agent working for him instead of Lamont. Now we know that she lives off of playing both sides against each other.
boss bitch
poutrage pays.
JPL
Show me the money!
Own-ry
Obviously the problem we have is Jane Hamsher. Once we get her out of the way — unless there is another insufficiently pure member of ‘our team’ — once we’ve achieved maximum purity then, and only THEN, will we be of one mind to achieve our goals.
What were those goals again?
El Tiburon
What Ding said, but that is speculation as well. There is also a difference between taking the money to place ads and taking their money to consult and brainstorm on creative ideas with republicans.
Say I owned a billboard company with thousands of signs but the democrats only rented half of them and the others were vacant. If the republicans are going to pay to put signs up, might as well pay me.
And do we know where the profits from this go? Do they help fund progressive causes? Does it matter?
Rachel Maddow is paid by GE. Burn her at the stake! Some of you shop at Target. Nazis!
And Cole et al better monitor their blogads a bit better as well.
Otherwise, plz continue the witch hunt ( lunch with Norquist, Egads!!).
Also, Obama played golf with Boehner and Kasich. Splitter!
arguingwithsignposts
@El Tiburon
Get back to me when jane hamsher is elected to any office.
This I will agree with. Cole makes money off those horrid Ann Coulter/Newt Gingrich/Whatever ads. I don’t have a problem with that, since he’s just offering a placeholder. But it would be different if he were helping them design those ads. (partly because they are such shite designs that I’d question his sanity if he did)
El Tiburon
Is it wrong to speculate? Dana, I hope you and mistermix apply your same sleuthing skills to ALL progressives and not just to FDL. Because that would say something, wouldn’t it? Because at this point you don’t know much, but you do know enough to use the right-wing tactic of speculate then smear. “some people say…” and all of that.
Also, Greenwald writes for The American Conservative. Heretic!
El Tiburon
@ signposts
Let’s just hope this isn’t another DougJ/Oliver Willis snafu with half truths and rank speculation.
zzyzx
Title should be “Anyone Who Ever Played a Part”, not “Every,” unless you have a weird version of Sweet Jane…
Dana Houle
@El Tiburon They’re not the owner of a billboard. Rather, they’re more like a consultant who works with the advertiser to figure out who they want to advertise to, figures out who has the billboards in the parts of town where the target audience is most likely to see them, then pays those billboard owners to put up the ads. Targeting is as or more important than the creative, and is done in collaboration with the client and often with the client’s other consultants. It’s not a passive exercise.
mistermix
@El Tiburon: Did my original post not have enough qualifiers in it? Should I have just pretended this fact didn’t exist?
It’s perfectly fair to question Jane Hamsher, a person who makes it her business to question anyone else. And, per your request, let me apply the same sleuthing skills to DailyKos – you know how he makes his real money? A sports site. How about Atrios? Media matters and donations, AFAIK. Digby: donations and ads. Only Jane is selling ads for Republicans, as far as I can tell.
Douglas
Yeah, cause running ads from an company is the same as leading such a company.
Oh wait, it doesn’t.
Nothing wrong with her doing this, of course – but maybe those people who still somehow manage to pretend that she’s the purest progrsssive that ever walketh the earth will reconsider… ah hell, who am I kidding.
Dana Houle
@El Tiburon BTW, did you follow the link? It wasn’t “some people say,” it was “the firm led by Jane Hamsher says this about themselves.” Sorry you apparently don’t like hearing that.
mistermix
@zzyzx: Fixed. Thanks.
lawguy
Well, well, well. Tell me again where she has been wrong on the positions she has take? Except of course where she opposes the president. Then of course she is just wrong by definition.
If the person writing this is asking for help in finding out the facts that is one thing, but if you just want to throw mud and hope some of it sticks, well that appears as though that is what you are doing right now.
DougJ in Damascus
There was no speculation, just a statement that money hadn’t gone to candidates. I decided to give the benefit of the doubt in the end.
stuckinred
lawguy
g
r
o
v
e
r
Danny
I’ll just grab this opportunity to air my personal grievance with Lady Jane and take whatever flaming I got coming.
A couple of months ago I decided to try to engage with the guys at the FDL community. I was quite active and usually voiced opinions supportive of Obama and mainstream democrats. I didn’t shy away from pointing out inaccuracies by FDL frontpage bloggers when I spotted them. I did however keep it cordial and I did do my homework.
What eventually happened was that I got banned by Jane, personally. This was pretty much based on the FDL functionality where community members can flag posts they don’t like (for any reason).
In other words no-one had accused me of being inaccurate or inflammatory – the community just didn’t like to read what I wrote. Jane demanded that I come out in public with my private information (“identity hardening” she called it), so the community could “see who you are and that you’re not afraid to stand behind your opinions”. She also accused me of being a paid operative of the Department of Defense or the Democratic National Commitee, based on pretty much nothing whatsoever but my deviant oppinions and the frequency of my posting (during one week).
Here she is in full:
Suffice to say, I was not particularly interested in having my political views publicly connected to my name and address. That’s a key selling point of the internet – I get to have a view without having it public to every friend, relative or co-worker.
FDL is obviously Janes private company so she gets to run her show in whatever way she likes. But throwing around specific accusations of being a paid operative from the DoD without any reason whatsoever and then demanding that I prove her wrong by “outing” myself on the internet is so way off the reservation re: the liberal tradition of doing things that I frankly get scared of the woman, and what she might be capable of.
I realize I’m risking being in breach of Godwin’s Law but what it reminds me of most is what would pass for “management” in authoritarian states.
The woman’s no progressive – nothing in her behavior, values or conception of ethical behavior indicates it.
Ding
@El Tiburon
It sound like CSMAds (a subdivision of Common Sense Media)is more of an Ad placement service rather than a creative Ad designer
shortstop
You think criticizing her for openly teaming up with him on a high-visibility project is a “witch hunt”? Seriously?
El Tiburon
Dana, I followed the link. I have no problem with the link. I have a problem with YOU using rank speculation.
Look, I ain’t saying you blow goats, but if I post a link does it make it okay? At this point you are not sure what this agency does or how they do it. All you know is republicans pay it money for something, so that’s good enough for you to hop on the proverbial high horse and off to the races.
And, again, for the record not that it matters, but F Hamsher. I don’t really read nor pay attention to her. I like FDL for TBogg, Blue Texan and D?Dayen.
But these little smear campaigns directed at Hamsher without taking the time to flesh out the facts is the bizness of Fox news. So, sorry if you don’t like to hear it. If it comes out that Hamsher is huddling with Paul Ryan and Scott walker, well then Fuck her in the face. And me too, huh?
If it turns out to be something like a simple ad subscription service, well, then fuck you in the face and I hope you come back and say so.
alwhite
Between Jane & Sully this blog wastes more bits on uninteresting people than anyone outside of TMZ. Neither is worth the sweat generated here about them.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
None of this should come as a surprise. Hamsher’s looked at doing whatever it took to earn a living out of internet politics after failing to make it in Hollywood. When it was clear during the 2008 primaries that her candidate wasn’t going to win and the Obama people saw thru her angle, that’s when you saw her concerted effort to get into the media spotlight as a Progressive Purity Paragon.
Actually, this isn’t terribly different than back in the day when the odious, untalented Ana Marie Cox, aka Slutette, was seen by the lazy corporate media as *the* spokesperson for the nascent internet political left.
The irony of Calamity Jane’s actions on FDL is that one of her people has a sooper, secret clubhouse group on Facebook designed to game the Daily Kos Wrecks List. And any “identity hardening” there means you get tossed out. It’s amazingly junior high stuff.
El Tiburon
No. But using this Every Single Time gets a little tiresome and shows more about the character of the person using it than it does Hamsher. Does anyone even remember why she teamed up with Norquist?
Also, DougJ, my recollection was Willis assumed a lot about the Hamsher/Greenwald PAC ( or whatever it was) that simply wasn’t true or certainly not backed up by any known facts.
arguingwithsignposts
Does it really matter? Grover Fucking Norquist is a cancer that is killing the U.S. Why she teamed up with him is less important than *that* she teamed up with him. Period. IMHO.
ETA: and if that makes me a purity troll, then so be it.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@alwhite:
Fix’t.
One thing that all three of them have in common is that none of them have a progressive bone in their body. Ok, Jane has one. The only progressive position Jane has is progressively filling her bank account from easily fleeced sheeple in her flock.
No wonder she hates the “Veal Pen”, she can’t fleece them.
stuckinred
Danny
She never did ban me but maybe that’s because I did have my FB account linked to my user name. She did accuse me of being a payed troll when I jumped ugly on her ass for hooking up with Grover.
stuckinred
Jane, Grover and Ramh. I was sitting in a bookstore in Lynchburg Va when this hit. I battled with them for a couple of days but that was the beginning of the end for me.
Jewish Steel
@shortstop: cut tiburon some slack. it’s hard to hear your girlfriend’s been sleeping around.
lol
And it’s probably worth rehashing how the Accountability Now PAC apparently did almost nothing but funnel money into Hamsher’s, Greenwald’s and other bloggers’ pockets.
Dana Houle
@El Tiburon Maybe you need to read it yet again, because your speculation that I don’t know what they do is wrong. It’s pretty clear what they do, they place ads, which is a strategic role. I understand this stuff fairly well; it’s part of what I do for a living. I’m only speculating on WHICH and HOW MANY Republicans they work for, but I’m not speculating on whether they work for Republicans or what they do for those Republicans because CommonSense Media already said they work for Republicans, they advertise what services they provide their clients, and they identify themselves as led by Jane Hamsher.
If I led people to believe I was a staunch opponent of–to use your hypothetical–goat-blowing but I also admitted I blow goats, and you said “hey, he says he blows goats,” it wouldn’t be a smear campaign. But if i had acolytes or people who just didn’t want to deal with the distress caused by their conflicting beliefs that I was an avowed and publicly recognized opponent of goat-blowing while at the same time a self-admitted goat-blower, I’m sure some would say you were perpetrating a smear campaign.
Sorry this is so traumatic for you. You may want to search on the internet for a cure for the vapors…or cognitive dissonance.
DougJ in Damascus
He might have read a little into it, but mostly he just noted that they hadn’t given money to candidates. Their response was that they spent money on recruiting candidates, not giving to campaigns. I won’t get into it again, I’ll let you read between the lines.
Dennis G.
Well, this helps to explain her alliance with Grover Norquist.
The money trail behind this gun for hire “progressive” front group will be an interesting one to explore.
Jane offers all comers some cool tools in the service of the same old game. I didn’t think my opinion of Hamsher could sink any lower, but I was wrong.
Cheers
comrade scott's agenda of rage
This also reminds me of a diary at the GOS written by somebody who attended NN. The money quote:
Obviously the issue here isn’t that she’s a barely-controlled ragehead and narcissist, it’s the fact the lazy media see her as a convenient poster child for their favorite “THE LEFT IS IN DISARRAY” meme.
Like the aforementioned Slutette, she’s a talentless hack who will probably go far now that she’s got some cred with the media. Like Ana Marie Cox, every possible employer will be able to stand only so much of her “work” and then she’ll end up at the Daily Beast.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Dana Houle:
I hear a good prescription for the vapors is a big, soft fainting couch. The good thing for ET is that they won’t need to visit a doc for a prescription to get one.
@Dengre:
My opinion of her sunk as low as it could with the blackface crap she pulled. I can’t stand Liebermann a bit but that was absolute racist bullshit on her part and it told me all I need to know about Calamity Jane and her Raging Ass Hamsters of the Apocalypse. All she does now is confirm my opinion of what an opportunistic low-life she is.
I do get a good laugh out of those online who rush out to defend her every chance they get. They really need to get away from their computers and get a real life.
justawriter
Sigh, more Merry Minueting
The whole world is festering with unhappy souls
Balloon Juice hates FDL, FDL hates Balloon Juice
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch
AND I DON’T LIKE ANYBODY VERY MUCH!!
Source: http://lyrics-a-plenty.com/m/merry_minuet.lyrics.php
tomvox1
For someone who is so “Progressively pure” that they wanted to primary Bernie Sanders from the left for making political compromises on healthcare, I’d say making money off of BP and the GOP would pretty much prove that Jane is a GIANT F*@KING HYPOCRITE at best and the Mata Hari of ratf*@kers at worst. And I think the worst. Either way, all you FDLers have been had big time and that includes all the hard working FPers. Better get out now before the leprotic stink of Hamsher’s moral bankruptcy can never be washed from your bodies.
And for those of you who are on that tired old “Sigh, oh BJers, can’t we all get along? Jane does important things!” high horse, just take a moment to ponder the evidence that Jane is not really any kind of Progressive at all but rather a professional malcontent with Republican and corporatist clients, ginning up disaffection to sell ad space. All the while, Queen Jane has been gathering intel on Progressives for use against them politically by their enemies, playing the Netroots gang for suckers and gaining insight into their most important strategic thinking by posing as one of them. Is there another Progressive you would let off the hook for that kind of astounding duplicity?
Sophia
“Identity hardening” is a pretty creepy concept. People shouldn’t be making arguments from personal authority anyway, so who they are shouldn’t matter. Ideas matter. Facts matter. Arguments matter. Although I certainly understand the importance of publishers distinguishing between editorial and paid content, the distinction seems foolish when reading comment sections. Particularly comments made under pseudonyms.
If some random right wing dude on the internet is getting paid to post right wing shit it doesn’t change my analysis of the content. It’s not like we don’t have evidence that there are real live people who believe this shit (27%). And no one should be foolish enough to think that comments on political blogs are representative of the general population. Whenever I see someone freaking out at the thought of paid commenters I just think – what a waste of fucking time and energy. But it also lays waste to one’s critical faculties. I prefer to keep my eye on the ball.
As an aside, fuck you “comrade scott’s agenda of rage” for the “Slutette” comment.
Jackson Hunter
At this point I would point out to the Jane bashers that President Obama has conservative Regressives in charge of both the Economy and the Military, but such irony I guess is lost on you. And before you say he had to to represent the whole Country, the whole Country had rightly rejected that forlorn and fucked-up ideology.
He is naming David Fucking Petraeus to head the fucking CIA. Remember him, he is the guy we all hated for his fellating of Shrub. But ‘Hanoi Jane’ once had lunch with Norquist so “Oh Noes, we must destroy her!” It would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic and sad.
As far as the blackface, she apologized for that, but don’t let that stop you. I will say this, her blackface washes off easier than all of the Iraqi blood that is on certain hands here. But of course, that’s all forgotten.
So you all get back to me when Jane hires the Doughy Pantload to actively blog on her site the way President Obama has actively hired right wing nutjobs to some of the most important posts in the country. I won’t be holding my breath though.
And great job this blog is doing of bashing Choi, after all, he is selfiish enough to want to be treated like a regular human being. Of course, that OFA guy was a “Jane plant,” wasn’t he? BTW, that is the reason Jane is doing her comment policy. At least she allows people to fucking have an opposing opinion, unlike certain other “picture” blogs I won’t name.
Don’t get me wrong, I plan on voting for Obama if needed (I live in a pretty blue state, but if he struggles to win Washington than he’s in trouble, we’ve been blue since ’88.) Otherwise I’ll vote green, but the DKos own polling had only 80 percent strong or semi-strong support for the President, that is pretty low for an all Dem convention. Luckily, the Regressive nominee will likely be a true POS, so hopefully he’ll win easily. But I do wish he’d push harder for things, that is really not that much to ask for.
Jackson
eemom
Crimson and Grover, over and over….
Trurl
Witch burners aren’t noted for subtlety.
stuckinred
Jackson Hunter
Aw, that’s so cute.
eemom
@ stuckinred/raven
srsly, dude? After you were like one of her original commenters for all those years ever since she was Jane Q. Nobody Blogger, she accused you of being a paid troll?
Why am I not surprised.
tomvox1
@Jackson:
Here’s the dif: Obama always said he would govern from the center, compromise and be bipartisan (as annoying as all that stuff is).
Jane, on the other hand, has a purity test that she applies to all Democratic politicians (i.e. No Compromise!) but apparently she herself cannot pass. Capiche?
As for Choi, the guy is a media whore who is making a fool out of himself: “Relative to promises denied and American demand for LGBT equality, Barack Obama is the worst president in US history.” Oh really, Choi?
eemom
@ Jackson Fucking Hunter
fuck off, Jane-sucker/paid troll.
There are people here who know this woman for the snake she is, and your bullshit does not impress.
Go back to Lake Batshit and kiss her ass some more.
OzoneR
yeah, that Leon Panetta is such a conservative
Three-nineteen
This is the funniest thing I have read today, but it’s early – let’s see if anyone can beat it.
otto_
Here’s an actual phone poll that I received personally from FDLPAC in 2009. I’m not making this up. I did the best I could to write exactly what the robocall was asking.
I’m pretty sure this was a fundraising call and not an actual poll.
DId you know the Senate bill will force you to pay up to 8% of your income for health insurance?
Press 1 if you want to kill the bill.
Press 2 if you want to be mandated to buy insurance.
Again,
Press 1 if you want to kill the bill
Press 2 if you want to be fined 2% of your income for not purchasing insurance.
shortstop
I had exactly the same reaction. I’m still chortling.
John S.
It’s always tough to read the mental meanderings of people who have bought into a personality cult. Why El Tiburon feels the need to defend Jane Hamsher is beyond me. Is he/she getting paid to do so? Perhaps it is irresponsible to speculate, but it would be even more irresponsible not to!
Lawnguylander
I wonder how my comment ended up not even in moderation but nowhere. Is “J0ver H@mquist” now an embargoed term here? Is it that I followed up Jackson Hunter’s reference to fell@tio with a discussion of ayn@l r@pe?
stuckinred
eemom
that’s the name of that tune. Her and that pansy ass eureka springs, I’d love to get him f2f.
ira-NY
Danny, I followed you closely at FDL. You were great at debunking their hokum and worse. That is the true reason you were banned.
Most recently, the Queen of Hearts, in a comment announced this McCarthy like approach for chilling open discussion.
Of course, all of her pure progressive acolytes thought it was a splendid idea. Read it and weep.
El Tiburon
@JohnS
Seriously, are you a fucking moron? Did you not see where I wrote, and I mostly quote: “F Hamsher…”
I am not defending Hamsher. I am voicing my sincere displeasure with what I consider smears based on lazy-ass fucking reporting. Once more: F Hamsher. I really could not tell you anything she has written or the last TV show she was on. I am defending truthiness and facts. If it turns out that Hamsher is indeed doing true consulting work with some of these scumbags, then FHITF.
Just because the ACLU defends the KKK or Rush Limbaugh on a certain issue, doesn’t mean they are defending the KKK or Limbaugh. They are defending the issue.
El Tiburon
DougJ
Gotcha. Although no evidence suggests any nefarious activities, that stuff in between those lines is enough. Wink wink nod nod.
Dana Houle
@El Tiburon Are you saying it’s analogous because the ACLU only represents the interests of groups like the KKK because they’re paid by the KKK, or that the Hamsher-led firm, in taking money from Republicans for their assistance in defeating Democrats, is simply protecting the Constitutional rights of their Republican clients?
Either way, great analogy!
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Sophia:
That moniker was commonly used when referring to AMC back in the day. Her “shtick” was to show up at Beltway Kool Kidz parties and play a drunken…slut. Nevermind that she was married and basically just flashed cleavage and got all the Beltway Kool Kidz to pant and drool. Hence, the nickname.
I sure as shit ain’t apologizing for something commonly used to describe one of the more odious people to percolate up out of the ooze.
inigo_montoya
You say that word a lot.
Alex S.
I guess that Jane is being groomed to lead the PUMAs in their 2012 reincarnation.
El Tiburon
Look, you are the one who thinks you blew the lid off of the Hamsher Powder keg. ZOMG – She works with Republicans YALL!!! I guess if she opened up a Kinko’s she’d have to stand at the door and ask for party affiliation.
If Hamsher has a role similar to Mark McKinnon, then yeah, F her in the face. Rudely. But it sounds like she has a business model of placing ads on websites, just like Cole accepts here. They freely admit it right there on the website. If you can find some evidence that she is changing her views and her words to suit a client, then let’s have it.
But you got bubkus. And mistermix was fanning the flames and you both know it.
ruemara
mm, I’ve known this for a bit. I did design work for strictly local candidates and it’s quite rare for agencies to play both sides like this, particularly as you go up the power ladder. But it is not unknown. Money has only 1 side-the winning one. And I’ve always said outrage brings eyeballs. It works for Glenn Beck, it works for Hamsher. I am also not saying she’s as bad as, because she’s not. I’m saying it’s a formula that produces easily manipulated people who are loyal because you’re a source of “truth”, who will then open their wallets. I suppose the big question is, why can’t people enjoy content while still retaining that healthy investigative grain of salt mindset?
stuckinred
El Tiburon
Why do you care so much?
amk
She’s a professional poutrage peddler. Story of her life.
lawguy
Now I’m on a quest. Somehow I keep deleating these things before they get posted, so another try.
A simple question: Has anyone contacted her dirctly, by say email and asked what the deal, who are the clients and what does she do for them? And by the way the people who raised the question seem to find it important, so I’d suggest that they would be the ones who shuold care enough to do it.
Otherwise, all that is going on here is your basic two minutes of hate.
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
This reminds me of the sort of ‘investigations’ conducted by the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 50’s.
Dana Houle begins with a one-sentence attribution in the second-to-last paragraph of story in that bastion of truth, the Washington Post.
Since the sentence is unsupported and is intended to show that the speaker is bi-partisan (ergo, could not possibly ever be lying), it’s not even clear whether it is true.
But then he constructs the following chain.
1. The speaker works for a company founded by Jane Hamsher.
2. Hamsher’s company buys space on web sites and offers ad placement based on the site’s demographics .
3. Anyone can buy its services and gets ads placed on Think Progress, The Raw Story, Pandagon, Crooks & Liars.
4. Based entirely on the Post’s story, some republicans have used the service.
5. Jane Hamsher is a wingnut operative.
This is the sort of ‘evidence’ used in Susan Cantor’s smear campaign against Edmond Safra. Houle also ‘reveals’ that
6. Hamsher’s company placed an ad in Campaigns & Elections.
7. Most firms that advertise there only work for democrats or only work for republicans.
The last one is only partially true– for consultants it is, for service bureaus, it isn’t– so Houle has to invent a rationale to prove that a competitor to Blogads is actually a consulting firm.
Whether you like, hate or have mixed feelings about Hamsher (in my book, she occupies same niche as Dennis Kucinich, Bob Somerby and Brendan Nyhan), this is absurd nonsense. I’m really supposed to use the purchase of advertising or ad services as evidence of someone’s bad faith?
All this does is tell me that anything Houle and mistermix claim needs to be closely checked; that their research can’t be trusted.
Morbo
You all remember when Jane Hamsher actually came out and explained the particulars of the PAC expenditures story, don’t you?
Oh, right…
Just Some Fuckhead
Midnight Marauder
Yes. They do.
What, you think people are just going to forget about the how and why of someone teaming up with Grover.Fucking.Norquist.
Surely, you have a better argument than that.
El Tiburon
@stuckinred
Why do I care so much that some try to continue the Hamsher hate by inflating what appears to be a non-story? I would act the same way for just about anyone else as well.
But with Hamsher, most of the attacks come at her sideways. ABL finds some obscure post by some obscure whoever on FDL and the hate is on. Like I said: hate her all you want, but give her praise when she deserves it. I just think this sad attempt at attacking her is without merit.
I like to think we are better than those on the right. But some of us not so much.
El Tiburon
@dana
I really have no idea what your point is, so I will try again.
First off, why do you continue to use the phrase “…taking money to defeat democrats…”? You know that is incendiary and you have no idea if it is true. Again, is Cole helping to defeat democrats by having Republican ads here? Is Hamsher consulting and coming up with pity phrases like “death panels” or is she just aggregating some ads?
My point with the ACLU is they have represented some odious clients. This doesn’t mean they are defending these people, they are defending the Constitution.
So again, if I have a print shop here in Texas and Rick Perry walks in and says “Hey Mofo, make me a million copies of these hateful postcards” I’d probably do it. Fuck, my competitor will. If Perry walks in and says, “Hey, El Tibby, the folks over at Balloon Juice say you are the Tits, help me design a campaign with slogans and racist visuals, will you do that for me?” I’d tell him to go fuck himself in the face.
Do you get the difference? Now, I do understand that Hamsher holds herself out as a progressive leader and I am just a shmo so perhaps she should be held to a higher standard than me. I get that. But as of right now you have not produced anything, other than what is on her website, to make me believe she is doing heavy consulting work with Republicans. Or with what Republicans.
Joel
Tempest in a teapot. But yeah, I don’t trust hamsters.
El Tiburon
d
Mnemosyne
She teamed up with Norquist to try and kill the ACA. Did you really think that people forgot?
El Tiburon
@Marauder
So will you kindly tell us why she joined with Norquist? Tell us the terrible terrible thing she did. Did she agree with on no more taxes or to more wars or to killing abortion doctors? Do refresh us.
Yutsano
You do realize Cole has little to no input into the contents of the ads here, amirite? The three armed Pamela Anderson ad went away because he dropped them as an ad provider. And JC don’t do this shit for free.
You’re right, her affixing her good name and therefore reputation to a website that specifically works with Republicans means she’s just the innocent victim here. Good Lord what are you arguing? She’s playing both sides of the fence and you’re treating her like a little innocent lamb.
El Tiburon
Why did she want to kill ACA? Because it didn’t give enough to Big Pharma?
Sophia
@ rage guy,
While I won’t claim to be familiar with all internet traditions, I certainly remember early days Wonkette and no, it really wasn’t common practice to refer to AMC as “Slutette.” I do remember frustration at the attention AMC received and her being held out as representative of lefty blogging. That some of this frustration would manifest in idiotic nicknames like “Slutette” doesn’t surprise me but it doesn’t make it ok. That others have used it before you doesn’t make it ok. And if she’s such a noxious creature, she really deserves a more apt nickname than “slutette” given that the “hack” criticism doesn’t seem to be based on her sexual behavior.
I haven’t followed her recent career enough to say if she’s a hack or not. During her time at Wonkette and soon after, she was pretty obviously careerist, she worked for Nick Denton after all. She wasn’t exactly Digby typing in the wilderness. I guess I don’t understand how you manage to sustain rage for her after all this time.
Regardless of how you sustain that rage, expressing it with terms like “Slutette” just makes you sound like someone uncomfortable with female sexuality and with measuring a professional woman the same way you would a man — with more reference to their work (that you can judge for yourself) and less to their behavior at cocktail parties (that you never witness). I’m not asking for your apology, I’m telling you to fuck off.
Mnemosyne
I don’t know what her motive was to kill ACA — maybe you should tell me since you seem to know.
I do know that she decided that her best ally to get a putatively more progressive version of healthcare reform was Grover Fucking Norquist, Mr. “Taxation Is Just Like the Holocaust.” Yeah, that would be my first choice if what I want is to get a more progressive version of healthcare reform.
Dana Houle
@El Tiburon
Yeah, I knew that. But thanks for admitting it.
Oh, and thanks for opening up the possibility that Republicans spend money for reasons other than helping Republicans, which means defeating Democrats. I suppose maybe they were paying CommonSense Media for their work on eradicating malaria.
It’s been fun playing, enjoy the rest of your cognitive disson…I mean, the rest of your afternoon.
Yutsano
Ouch. Can we keep you? :)
El Tiburon
@yutsano
No shit sherlock. But ad revenues he does take from Republicans. Amirite? I mean, how pure are going here?
We don’t know what Hamsher does for these Republicans. You don’t know and I don’t know. Until we do know, it’s all speculation. Again, let’s toss Rachel Maddow under the bus. Let’s have that conversation.
At least admit the level of Hamsher hatred here is irrational and childish.
Trurl
I dunno…
Start down that road and they might end up having to admit Gore lost 2000 all by himself.
stuckinred
Hamsher Grover. . . again
Midnight Marauder
I see you put your clown shoes on early today, El Tiburon.
For starters, she teamed up with Grover.Fucking.Norquist. Where I come from, we call that the kiss of death to your credibility and legitimacy. As Mnemosyne just pointed out:
And apparently, you of all people didn’t forget since you came back with this:
And you expect people to believe that you aren’t defending Calamity Jane because you offered up one lame “F Hamsher” post? Which you then followed up with the above statement? I’m supposed to think you’re not an enabler of Hamsher’s continued ratfucking?
If you’re a so-called progressive in the 21st century, under no circumstances do you affiliate and align yourself with Grover.Fucking.Norquist.
You just don’t.
El Tiburon
Look Dana, you can be all cute if you want to. You know when you use language like “…helping to defeat democrats…” you know what you are doing.
And you conveniently avoid the thrust of my argument, so I’ll try again. If my job is to buy ad time on the local channels here, I see no conflict in taking Republican money vs. Democratic money. If my job is to sit in a room with people and help them develop a strategy to defeat the other side, then okay, I would have a problem with it. Right now, and I could be wrong, it appears that Hamsher’s company is buying the media, not the developing the strategy. To me, that’s a big difference.
Now, I haven’t checked out your blog, but I hope to see a post about Rachel Maddow and her relationship to GE – those people who make bombs and don’t pay taxes and shit.
Otherwise I will write you off as simply someone who hates Hamsher for whatever reason.
John S.
Clearly, El Tiburon doesn’t care as evidenced by half the posts in this thread coming from him/her. Clearly.
El Tiburon
@marauder
So you are not going to tell us why she wanted to kill ACA?
WHAAA!!!! I don’t wanna play in the sandbox ’cause of Grover cooties!!
Politics makes strange bed-fellows. I’d say if you are a progressive and an adult and want to make real change, then you put your childish, petty grievances to the side and do what you gotta do for what you believe in.
If you believe in an issue strongly enough and your enemy on the other side believes in it too, then I have no problem joining with them. If George W. Bush came out and said he was now against the wars in Iraq, etc. wars and he would team up with the entire liberal blogosphere to stop them, I’d say let’s have at it.
But I want the wars to end. Not strut around making school yard taunts.
Karen
So, Hamsher’s only in it for the money?
Thank you world for finally making sense.
ABL
El Tiburon is going to have his work cut out for him today.
Midnight Marauder
This is one of the dumbest comments I have ever read on this site.
Tell me, what progressive ideals does Grover.Fucking.Norquist represent? Hmm. What ideas does Grover.Fucking.Norquist advocate that a legitimate progressive would agree with? For fucks sake, he wants to drown government in a bathtub and you call it “childish, petty grievances?!” Are you fucking serious?!
Why don’t we just build a new progressive coalition with Ron Paul while we’re at it? I mean, hey, he wants to end the war on drugs, so he’s got that going for him! All that stuff about racist newsletters and being anti-choice and basically being a full-fledged isolationist are just “childish, petty grievances!”
You’re a fucking farce.
Midnight Marauder
I don’t entertain hypotheticals that have no basis in reality.
Lawnguylander
From FDL’s “Advertise at Firedoglake” page:
Too bad they didn’t include the percentage of their readers that are customers of for profit health insurance companies that are blood sucking middlemen who add no value to health care delivery, but unless they’re lying about their readership, it’s probably just about all of them. Killing that bill wouldn’t have affected them much. Not in the short term anyway, so why not? They got theirs. If their kill the bill campaign had been accompanied by a push for all FDL’s readers and allies to cancel their for profit health insurance I wouldn’t be so disdainful of them. I wouldn’t have seen their effort to deny millions of people a route to buying that same kind of insurance (actually an improved, more tightly regulated version of what the firebaggers already buy without a mandate) as such an outrage, but I saw no such thing coming from there. They’re nothing but a bunch of corporatists.
BTW, nothing I’ve written above should be interpreted to mean that I think that the firebaggers are a bunch of phony assholes.
Lisa
#48: LMFAO!!
You win the entire information superhighway forEVAH!!
RandyH
Of course I can’t prove it but it seems more like Commonsense Media is a front for political shakedowns. Hamsher has been one of the biggest critics of the administration and of Harry Reid, yet both of them, for reasons unknown, used her services. Maybe paying her off to shut her pie-hole over at FDL-Action?
I know if I were in the White House (think Rahm, her favorite punching bag,) I would not allow one dime of Dem money to go to her company unless it was a payoff for her to call off her attack dogs (readers.) Same goes for Harry Reid. She was absolutely vicious toward him leading up to his re-election campaign.
Danny
@stuckinred
Ah, so it wasn’t just me then. Well it should say something about her integrity (at least to readers who are not pro-FDL concern trolls / true blue 4 JH) when the gal consistently is willing to fling about frivolous accusations at commenters – even at ones who have been long terms members of her own community.
@Sophia
Agreed. I actually think there’s a case for some form of housekeeping/quality control on comments sections though, and I think there are many acceptable ways to accomplish that e.g. allowing commenters to “like” eachothers comments. How Jane deals with the concept of a diverse community reeks of something not conformant with a democratic mindset and really something quite ugly.
IOW, it’s not enough that she expects me to out my private identity in order to be allowed to even have an opinion in her community (something e.g. El Tib obv does not have to do on BJ, and something he probably wouldn’t like if he had to), she still reserves the unilateral right to determine whether that is enough.
The community may not like what I write; she may not like it – and then me having outed myself by Facebook may still not be enough. Toe the line or else. There’s no explicit set of rules that one should comply with, it’s all subjective and up to the hivemind or Jane herself.
I shouldnt have to mention that such a system is ripe for being abused as editorial control of allowed opinions and that seems to in fact be the exact way that she’s using it. The only comparable policy I can think of is on RedState where they also gladly ban commenters with non-conservative opinions. Nuff said.
ETA: also Freerepublic. Nuff said #2. RedState, Freep and FDL – birds of a feather.
Alan in SF
Kill that messenger! Also too, Al Gore.
Danny
@ira-NY
Stop it, you’re making me blush. It’s interesting to hear that Jane’s policy of “identity hardening” (and dare I say opinion control through public ostracization) is evolving and expanding. I’ll be sure to check back if my username ever ends up on her Wall of Shame.
@El Tiburon
It’s rather cute how you’re keeping us all to our high standards, asking us to assume Jane innocent of anything she’s accused of until proven guilty. Let me make some brief points:
1) You’re aware of the fact that mistermix actual blog post is extremely transparent about what’s know and what’s unknown?
2) You’re aware of the fact that transparancy, quality and truthfulness in numerous FDL frontpage posts are worse than Glenn Beck standard and in fact far worse than anything from a commenter in this thread? I’ll assume you follow the maxim of keeping your friends to a superior standard.
3) You’re aware of the fact that a typical FDL comment will often go something like this: “Great Post! This once again shows that the only thing that will get Obummer hot is seeing the bloody remains of a child he bombed laying smashed on the ground. Everyone stay vigilant and watch out for Cass Sunstein plants!”.
4) You’re aware of the fact (as illustrated by multiple posters in this thread) that Jane herself will accuse her users of being paid stooges based on nothing more than them holding opinions she doesnt approve of?
Given all those facts – do you feel like you are spending your time and energy wisely? Why?
Danny
ETA: doublepost; removed content…
Extreme Liberal
@Danny Thanks for sharing, I hope you don’t mind if I use a bit of it for a post on my little blog, I won’t ask you to submit to any “identity hardening”…which just sounds wrong, military or something. Great comment.
Lisa
Extreme Liberal, I hopped over to your blog. LOVE IT! On my daily reading list now.
Danny
@ExtremeLib
Feel free, in fact here’s a link to the thread that ended my FDL days, and Jane’s comments. Be warned it’s re Brad Manning. We have the rest of this year to save Bradley Manning. (I went by the name sherwood @ FDL)
ira-NY
The first political blog I participated in was FDL. I enjoyed it; in particular, I enjoyed the Reddhead. I never cared much for the Queen of Hearts.
Once the Reddhead left and the Queen of Hearts set up shop in DC and came down with Potomac Fever, the site took on a twisted and mean-spirited tone.
Like the literary Queen of Hearts, Jane now rules over a Wonderland that is concerned with nonsense and perversions of logic. Given this, it is not surprising that she has adopted an “off with their heads” policy.
Like the literary Queen of Hearts, in the end, I do not hate her or even dislike her. I feel sorry for her.
Mnemosyne
I think I see the problem here — El Tiburon doesn’t know how the advertising business works and has no idea that media buys are always strategic. You don’t just say, “Okay, I’ll buy 100 hours, put it wherever.” You specifically pick and choose which outlets you purchase from to make sure you reach your target audience. You pull reports from all of the local stations and analyze them to figure out who’s watching at what time and which timeslots are going to have people watching who are the most likely to respond positively to your ad.
Media buying is part of the strategy. You can’t separate it out and decide that this one aspect of strategic planning is a-okay but a different part is Bad.
Danny
@Ira
Interesting! If I may ask: who is “the Reddhead”?
ira-NY
She was the co-founder of FDL: Christy Hardin Smith.
She was the heart and soul of the site.
El Tiburon
@Danny
yeah, I do, because I’ve already stated clearly and unequivocally I don’t give a rat’s ass what Jane Hamsher does or says, at least for this discussion. It is completely irrelevant what she says or what a typical commenter says. It just doesn’t matter.
What does matter, to me, are the smears that seem to be based more upon wishful thinking than actual substance.
So far we got a company that Hamsher runs in some fashion that takes money from Republicans to some extent. That’s about all we know. We don’t know the level of stategery or exactly what.
What we do know is that it is more fodder for the fire and feeds the flame of hatred. And it’s based on a lot of speculation and hyperbole: “Hamsher is working to get democrats defeated!!!” Bullshit. It’s nothing more than hatred for some reason.
El Tiburon
Yeah, my couple of years as an advertising major were spent smoking dope in the boys room.
Do you really not see a difference between sitting in a room with a bunch of Republican jack-offs saying, “Hey, how about we show a picture of Willie Horton then Dukakis in a funny hat jacking off inside a tank…”
And doing some strategic media buys? And are you familiar enough with the media strategy regarding the internet tubes and blogs?
Helping some Republican place some ad-banners on RedState or NRO ain’t exactly working to defeat Democrats. If that is what she is doing.
Danny
@ElTib
You find it completely irrelevant while spending hours defending someone from alleged “smears” on the comments section of a blog, that that very person you’re sticking up for is a confirmed peddler of far worse and far more dishonest smears herself – not in comments, but in frontpage posts?
Malinowski
Did you know that El Tiburon is Spanish for “The Sycophant”?
September
Did you know that El Tiburon is Spanish for “The Sycophant”?
ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®©
Damn. Jane Hamsher is owned by the Republicans, you say?
That’s it. President Obama, Senator Dianne Feinstein, go ahead and cut our Social Security and Medicare.
You will still have my vote, no matter what!!!
-Another Democratic Sheep.
P.S. Republicans fear their base, Democrats despise theirs. I wonder why?
~
El Tiburon
@danny
Yeah, you got it. But, hey, rephrase and ask it again.
I am not defending Jane Hamsher per se; I am defending the act of not smearing someone based on half-ass bullshit. If anything I’m riding on Dana and mistermix.
Look, Hamsher shot her credibility a lot with me when she called Cole a misogynist. That, right there, proves she is a dumbass. But, her overall body of work for progressive causes, that which I keep up with, I don’t really have a problem with. I don’t get all twisted because of her deal with Grover Norquist. I don’t get all bent because of what some jack-ass posts on her blog. I don’t hold anyone to a 100% purity test.
If someone came on here and posted a link to Rush Limbaugh saying he cornholed quadraplegics and if that turned out to be bullshit, then I would act the same way.
What I find so fucking funny about so many of you is that you assume I’m some kind of Hamsher-loving sycophant and must be on her payroll or have some kind of allegiance to her. Again, for the umpteenth time: I could care less about Hamsher. I don’t read her and don’t care much about her.
I have simply learned that most of the vitriol sprayed around this joint about Hamsher is complete and utter bullshit. Some of it is not and some of the shit she gets over here is richly deserved.
I’ve stated my grievances with Dana. He has ignored the meat of my substance and has only answered what he/she wanted to. Fine. So be it.
tomvox1
@El Tiburon etc:
Since its founding in 2007, CSMAds has helped numerous campaigns and brands connect with a growing active, highly-educated and politically-aware audience. Advertisers from BP to the ACLU work with CSMAds in order to engage intelligent and influential readers.
Armed with deep technical experience and with real-world experience and knowledge of the political news, commentary and issues of the day publishing and advertising arena, CSMAds provides its publishers and advertising clients with an ROI that regularly outperforms the market.
Tell me again how this is a passive exercise by the company placing the ads? And really–Jane Hamsher is bragging about working for BP after the piles of shit FDL gave Obama for the Gulf spill. Shit. Let the scales fall from your eyes, people…
Mumblyjoe
I have to admit, my favorite thing about this comments section is seeing the Hamsher acolytes accuse the rest of everyone asking these questions of embarking on a progressive purity-test witch hunt, because they criticized the fact that Jane teamed up with Grover “drown the government in a tub” Norquist in a witch-hunt for the head of Rahm… for being insufficiently pure.
There are just so many layers of irony there, I don’t even.
ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®©
—Jane Hamsher is bragging about working for BP but it was Obama’s Katrina. Shit. Let the scales fall from your eyes, people…
Amen, tomvox1!
I now realize Jane Hamsher was to blame for everything all along…I was blind, but now I see!
~
El Tiburon
@tomvox1
Since its founding in 2007, CSMAds has helped numerous campaigns and brands connect with a growing active, highly-educated and politically-aware audience.
Maybe you can tell me exactly what this means. To me, as I read it, it sounds like a high-falutin’ way of saying they placed ad-banners where a lot of like-minded eyes would see them.
In other words, Client A comes to them and says “we’d like a million eyes to see this political ad. We are left/right and want to reach a left/right audience.”
CSMA would then help facilitate these ads being on either Balloon Juice, NRO, or whatever.
Now, and I could be completely wrong, but if this is pretty much all it is, then so what? Placing blog ads where a lot of people will see them ain’t exactly Willie Horton. But if it’s enough to pile on the hate, then so be it.
Me thinks it is making a mountain out of a molehill. If this were someone like Digby or whoever, not nary a peep would be heard.
Danny
@ElTib
Yeah, that’s why I suggested you go for the “I’m holding my friends to a higher standard” line; but you refused to bite back then.
But problem is, that brings up the observation that I have been hanging around at Balloon Juice for a short while, doing some low intensity posting and my recollection of you is some guy constantly sticking up for Jane Hamsher. Why won’t you extend the same courtesy to Republicans, crony capitalists and the industrial complex?
Could it be… that… you…. got…. the…. hots4Jane?
Oh goodies. Being a confirmed liar, working with the enemy to attack our own, running an ethically challenged shit-quality ship with a McCarthyist conception of ethics: all fine and dandy, and not worthy of mention.
Flinging some poo at John Cole: that’s the straw. You need to straighten out your priorities dude.
Well I kept up with her “work” for a couple of months before she accused me of being a paid stooge from the Department of Defence and banned me. I can vouch that half her front page bloggers posts stuff that is riddled with lies, which seems to be fine as long as it attacks the democratic president.
I can vouch that for a couple of weeks – maybe still for all I know – there were constant appeals for money, not for progressive causes but to FDL by becoming a member (45-1000$, you may get to dine with Jane et al if you pony up).
I can vouch that while FDL provides a breakdown of expenses they would not answer my question whether they turn a profit and where that profit would go.
I can vouch that when FDL bloggers are challenged on the accuracy of stuff they blog they go AWOL, in stark contrast to what you’d find here at BJ.
I can vouch that FDL bloggers (and commenters) are not very interested in actual policy discussions on the merits, lest there’s an opportunity for Obama bashing.
I can vouch that FDL commenters these days are quite forgiving of people posting straight out libertarian or even freeper territory views, but if someone were to defend Obama they go ballistic.
Etc, etc. This all goes to the question of whether it’s reasonable to say that she does good work for progressive causes. I’d say she does about the same good for progressive causes as The Weathermen did.
You should.
You should.
Yet you have no problem whatsoever that Jane exercises a regime where dissenting voices are methodically weeded out and purged from the community she oversees. That does not compute. That’s so glaringly inconsistent that my freaking eyes are melting.
But I have so far seen you spend hours and hours on JH and yet never saw you extend the same courtesy to pretty much anyone else, most noteably the president (who receives about the same amount of flack around here these days as Jane does).
I certainly didnt accuse you of that. I couldn’t prove what your opinions or motivations are even if I wanted to. But acknowledging the difference between opinions and proven facts doesnt mean that it’s unreasonable to have opinions or suspicions, even if they are unproveable.
You’re setting a standard for yourself where I’ll from now on expect to see you come down hard on any unproven opinion voiced about whomever (and spend hours arguing the point) – hope you’re up for it.
This is in fact complete and utter bullshit. I actually took the time to hang out on FDL for a couple of months and engage with the community, and most of the vitriol sprayed about Hamsher and her website around this joint is right on the money.
You’re free to call me on anything (at least anything I’ve claimed myself) and I’ll be happy to bring proof.
What’s your pedigree though, for flinging unproven assertions about what is true and not true about JH/FDL – if you don’t care, and don’t follow them?
What is your proof for him ignoring “the meat of [your] substance”? Maybe he thought that your substance wasn’t so meaty? Maybe he forgot to adress some point you made? Maybe he had to tuck his kids in for bed? Doesn’t he deserve the benefit of the doubt until proven guilty?
See: it cuts both ways.
slightly-peeved
My comments last night got eaten for some reason, but her companies’ website, as linked in the original story, states flat-out that they are happy to work with people of either party. It also says that they do more than offer adspace; they offer sponsored articles for example. Endorsing individual stories is a pretty short step away from involvement in content.
I guess El Tib has a point when they accuse the original bllogger of ‘lazy journalism’; after all, it’s pretty easy to be lazy when all you have to do is read their company website. If El Tib had gone to the same effort maybe they could have saved themselves all that time spent not defending Jane Hamsher.
slightly-peeved
My comments last night got eaten for some reason, but her companies’ website, as linked in the original story, states flat-out that they are happy to work with people of either party. It also says that they do more than offer adspace; they offer sponsored articles for example. Endorsing individual stories is a pretty short step away from involvement in content.
I guess El Tib has a point when they accuse the original bllogger of ‘lazy journalism’; after all, it’s pretty easy to be lazy when all you have to do is read their company website. If El Tib had gone to the same effort maybe they could have saved themselves all that time spent not defending Jane Hamsher.
tomvox1
@ El Tiburon:
Look, dude, parse it however you like but here are the facts: This company, Jane Hamsher’s company, is actively soliciting business from both sides of the political aisle as well as corporations to make money from them by counseling them on how and where to place their banner ads and then buying said ad space for them. Full stop.
You can say that Jane has a right to do this and to make a buck on those she regularly condemns in her personal writings and oratory. But you cannot say it is not the height of hypocrisy for her to be demanding absolute purity of everyone else in the Progressive movement while she lines her pockets with the enemy’s money. The reason why nary a peep would be heard if Digby were to pull such a duplicitous maneuver is because Digby WOULD NEVER EVER DO THAT. Ever. Same with Markos, Duncan Black, Benen or Cole. Just what about this active and sought after monetary collaboration with the enemy, which is in stark contrast to the ethics of essentially every other authentic Progressive blogger out there, escapes your ability to perceive it?
And if you are defending her absolute god given right to be a two-faced hypocrite, then here is the sound of one hand clapping for that:
El Tiburon
goddamn dude, seriously, I don’t speak another language other than English. I really don’t give a rat’s ass what or how Hamsher does anything. But knock yourself out.
I do care that people pile on here just because it’s Hamsher. Period. I find it childish and immature. I will grant everything you said about her is true. So fucking what? It doesn’t change the fact that the original link here was half-ass and blown out of proportion. Especially since we don’t really know the full story.
Get a fucking clue. You are not golng to make me hate Hamsher no matter how hard you try. I am ambivalent towards the woman. I have zero emotions when it comes to her. I am not her sycophant nor her acolyte.
Danny
@El Tiburon
So we’ve established that you’re arguing from a position based on your conception of aestethics and manners, rather than one based on substance, character and policy (you don’t care about it, and you don’t want to discuss it). You just don’t like seeing people “piling on” and thats about it. That holds even if it’s been shown to be richly deserved, and even if it’s been shown that the gal on the receiving end is not above doing some piling herself, in fact the opposite.
While I don’t find that mindset terribly useful, I can respect it on some level – but only if it’s applied with consistency. I’ll withhold judgement for now on your ability to do so.
Mike Kay (Team America)
This thread was priceless!
ahhahahahhahahhahahahhahahahhaha
El Tiburon
@Danny
While not agreeing with the totality of your comment, I will agree, for the purpose of this thread, my focus was on the original link. Rebasing all of Hamsher’ sins, while fun for many, was not my debate.
I wanted to debate the merits of the accusations; most others simply wanted me to agree Hamsher is a piece of shit. I have never argued nor will never argue that point. That is not my fight.
My fight was the accusation, and I feel and continue to feel it was weak and overblown. Now, I do feel a bit of satisfaction that Cole removed ABLs post because of it’s ‘thin sourcing’. Which was my fight all along. And I don’t think Cole is a sycophant or acolyte of Hamsher.
El Tiburon
@tomvox
You make some good points. But, again, until I have some further evidence of what is going on I simply refuse to get on the Hate Wagon.
See Coles removal of ABLs post on the related topic.