Teh crazy surrounding Obama is just as crazy as teh crazy surrounding Clinton was. But BirthCertificateGate and BenghaziGate and BoGate aren’t legitimate problems for Obama the way the various ClintonGates were. And I don’t just mean the ones involving extramarital affairs. The Clinton memo on the ol’ freakshow conveyor belt:
The communication stream worked as follows, according to the memo:
First, a well-funded right-wing think tank would underwrite conservative newsletters and newspapers such as The American Spectator or the Western Journalism Center. Next, the stories would be “reprinted on the internet” where they “bounced all over the world.” The stories would then reach the right-of-center mainstream media, including The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Times, through one of two ways: either directly from the internet or via a “blow-back strategy” through the British tabloids, which would publish the story and thus give American right-of-center media reason to publish as well.
Finally, Congress would pick up the story line and say it should be investigated, which would give the story the legitimacy it needed to be covered by the remainder of the American mainstream press.
This is funny now:
what if it's really hillary's baby
— Atrios (@Atrios) April 18, 2014
$1000 slate, i'll write it up
— Atrios (@Atrios) April 18, 2014
$1000 slate, i'll write it up
— Atrios (@Atrios) April 18, 2014
But back in the day, William Safire might have had several columns on the topic.
Now, with this kind of crazy, I wish a motherfucker would.
Baud
Anticipatory outrage. I like it.
Michael Bersin
Cloning. That’s what it’s all about.
srv
Bigger story if it’s Bill’s baby.
Baud
Mobile site is borked for this post. No comments visible.
MikeJ
@Baud: All the sidebars are gone on the desktop. Wonder if they’re upgrading to 3.9?
MikeJ
@MikeJ: Ahh, bad twitter widget pacement. We even missed DougJ’s final line:
But back in the day, William Safire might have had several columns on the topic.
Now, with this kind of crazy, I wish a motherfucker would.
GregB
Big outrage because Hillary is now a grizzly grammy just like Auntie Sarah, except Hillary’s kid waited until she was married and working and making a mint before she got pregnant.
Proof that Democrats have no morals.
Mike in NC
I well remember the mid-90s when The American
SpectatorSphincter was chasing numerous “scandals” designed to take down Bill Clinton. They’ll be back in 2016.Anne Laurie
Yeah, all of us liebrals are too chickenshite to go with the real Drudge meme: Obviously Chelsea is incubating the hellspawn of That Black Man in the White House, the baby whose
electioncoronation in 2052 will break the Seventh Seal and begin the Rapture!…beltane
@GregB: Waiting until marriage to have a baby is very elitist and decadent. Why can’t Chelsea Clinton do the Christian thing and appear on DWTS?
Hill Dweller
While its harder to push these stupid rumors, Republicans have gotten away with an unprecedented level of procedural extremism in Congress. They’ve basically shut Congress down, but the Village blames Obama for not taking them out for milkshakes.
Anoniminous
Same thing happened to Kerry aka “Swift Boating.”
I don’t see it being very productive for taking down Hillary Clinton. She’s been in the Public Space too long, she already has a well established Public Image.
beltane
Are we sure that Bill Ayers isn’t the real father of Chelsea’s baby? What about Fat Al Gore, huh, how do we know that this baby (which might be his) isn’t going to be the next Hitler of the global-warming-is-a-hoax New World Order?
Schlemizel
Remember the shit HRC took for pointing out that there was a vast rightwing cabal of nut jobs shoveling this BS? Yeah, seems once again we were right,t hey were wrong and the media backed them against reality
Alex S.
Well, of course, it’s Bill’s baby. It’s not incest because Chelsea’s father is actually Vince Foster.
beltane
@Schlemizel: Being that the media is an essential component of this cabal, it is hardly surprising that they did not incriminate themselves. I still have not recovered from those awful few moments back in 1998 when the pearl clutching granny known as Wolf Blitzer told his millions of viewers that since adultery was a felony in the state of Maryland, it was quite likely that Bill Clinton would have to go to jail for his transgressions. The stupid did not merely burn. In that case it pushed me into an existential crisis.
srv
@Alex S.: Oh, man, I had completely forgotten that one!
karen
I worked for AEI in the mid to late 90s and saw what was really going on. There was and still is a right wing conspiracy. The Scaife Foundation was bankrolling it. How did I know this? I handled the thank you letters to the donors. I’m not sure if think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute still functions this way but when I was working there, the think tank would have “scholars” who were basically people who would write articles and books about specific topics like the Middle East or Russia or taxes or politics or anything else they’re considered to be expert in. These books would go to the media pundits and to politicians that were of like minds and friendly to the topic. That way the think tank could operate as a non-profit yet be influential.
Schlemizel
@beltane:
Just thinking of Wolfie makes my skin burn.
Bartcop used to have a gif of Tim Russel saying “Clinton’s cock” over and over. It captured the essence of the moment better than anything written about the time so far.
JPL
Remember when Fox news quoted Murdoch papers in England to justify the war in Iraq. That led to death of hundreds of thousands. May Rupert die a bloody death.
also, too, I meant metaphorically
John O
Dr. Black has a terrific way of cutting to the chase.
BGinCHI
If Chelsea has a boy and names it Barack that would be sweet.
JustRuss
The Clinton memo can’t be true, as it doesn’t point how Both Sides did it. /msm
Tommy
Those of us old enough to recall Clinton know this stuff with Obama is nothing new. As many have reported it is an entire industry. As I say over an over it is such an industry and there is so much money to be made I am not even sure if most on the far, far right believe half of what they say.
I don’t often head to those sites but they sell everything. Shirts. Coffee mugs. Bumper stickers. Doormats. Subscription newsletters. Streams of videos. Book tours. Speaking engagements.
And IMHO the more crazy the better to move product.
I honestly believe I could find a few smart liberals here. Set-up a site. Publish stories on the most freaking bizarre Obama rants possible and start to make a lot of money. Cause the more crazy the better. It is like a drug for them and the next story has to be more crazy than the last to keep them fired up.
JPL
@BGinCHI: If it’s a girl maybe Michelle.
Villago Delenda Est
@beltane: One of numerous reasons why Leslie should be boiled in oil, preferably high-cholesterol with lots of transfats.
Villago Delenda Est
@Alex S.: Who of course, as we all know, was Hillary Clinton’s lesbian lover.
JPL
@Tommy:
It’s different.
Tommy
@JPL: Well the Internet is different. Social media. Easier to spread. Also the race factor, but IMHO pretty much the same formula.
BGinCHI
@JPL: No, if it’s a girl, also Barack.
Higgs Boson's Mate
As I’ve mentioned before, I get nutmail from an old Navy buddy turned wingnut. I lost count of the times that something began in the nutmail, went ’round and ’round and round until one media outlet or the other picked up on it and it suddenly, no matter how far-fetched it was, became what passes for an issue these days.
It works quite well because it’s reliant on the wingnuts themselves for origination. Who better to create an item that will gain traction with wingnuts other than wingnuts? Once the item is picked up by some compliant media outlet the reaction is “See? Told ya’.”
Works ‘most every time.
Tommy
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: That is very true but I think something else is at work. I’ll see something bouncing around. Then it hits WND. Then Rush or Hannity on radio. Then on Fox Noise. Next you know it is on Meet The Press cause it is news, well because other stations are covering it.
There is a lot I don’t like about our media. Next to we have to present both sides, even if one side is not telling the truth this is at the top of the list. That a lot of far right people/media outlets are talking about something, therefore it is news.
I am a branding/messaging/ad agency guy. I am stunned how terrible our side is at messaging (although Obama showed it can be done correctly). With that said say what you will about the Republicans, they know this is how our media works and they use it every second of every day. I feel in strategy meetings top officials at the GOP must laugh at us for letting them get away with it.
Tommy
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Oh one other thing, Steven Johnson write about learning, the mind, how we connect separate concepts. Before he started to sell a ton of books, like 12+ years ago he used to write a lot more on his blog. He talked a lot about an app he used (don’t recall the name) that allowed him to enter data and then see the data in a visual format. Not as much as something like SPSS, less data required to get the visual results. Easy to move around.
I said in my last comment:
You could add Drudge and a few more sites, but I bet if somebody had the time to track how a far right email meme ends up on Meet the Press or in the Washington Post, the process is pretty set in stone. Heck I bet somebody has already done it. It would just be interesting, from a messaging POV, to know how it works so we can be ready with a rapid response to it.
Just thinking out loud in a comment …..
Poopyman
You guys are missing the obvious boy’s name.
Ben Ghazi.
Michael Bersin
@Poopyman: Win.
SiubhanDuinne
I get the first two, but whatinthehell is BoGate supposed to be? Something sketchy about the First Dog?
muddy
@SiubhanDuinne: I vaguely remember them being scolded for getting a breed that doesn’t cause allergies, and not a shelter dog like Good Americans. I’m not aware that any other presidents had mutts?
Tommy
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, yes it is. I don’t recall all the details but it was in fact a “thing.” It might have been more then one or two things actually.
raven
This blog sucks.
Baud
@raven:
Except for all the others.
Tommy
@muddy: I recall all of what you listed as well. I also think they had a problem, cause the dog was “black.” Well it had black fur, not really sure a dog can be “black” (whatever that would mean). Something like the Obama got a black dog just to throw race into the face of those that don’t agree with them.
? Martin
@SiubhanDuinne: Bo-gate.
About as accurate as the 2 trillion dollars Obama spent for a trip to India.
Edit: I am aware of all wingnut traditions.
Tommy
@? Martin:
Sorry to hear that :). I used to get a lot of the emails from my family, but that ended years ago when my cousin sent out a terrible email with some clearly racist photos of Obama and his family. She’d sent me tons of stuff before, but never that bad and many other family members on the email list.
I responded back in an epic angry rant (or I like to think so).
I replied to all, and funny thing it was her work email (she is a elementary school teacher) with many of her fellow staff included.
She, our family members, and her friends were NOT happy with me. How dare I do that, it was her work email. I was like then don’t send out racist emails from your work email. Problem solved. They didn’t seem to get my point and we’ve not talked since then.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@? Martin:
Actually, they were close. The initial cost to operate an Osprey was $12,000/hr. That dropped to only $8300 an hour in early 2012.
As an aviation buff, I can state that the Osprey is a terrible and tremendously maintenance-intensive aircraft. It lacks the virtues of either a light transport or a helicopter while being orders of magnitude more complicated than the two combined. The high cost per flight hour reflects this.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Addendum: the Osprey was added to Marine One, the presidential air transport squadron, in 2013 in response to the urgent need for CH-53 helicopters in Afghanistan. Obama had no idea that such an expensive to operate aircraft would be used to transport his dog.
SiubhanDuinne
@muddy:
@Tommy:
@? Martin:
JesusInACave, that stuff makes me crazy. They got criticized because their dog is black? Because they took the family pet on vacation? Because it doesn’t cause allergies even though one of the daughters, IIRC, has allergies to pet fur/dander?
These people are … I dunno, I don’t even, anymore.
Tommy
@SiubhanDuinne: And if my memory is correct Joe Biden gave it to the Obama family as a gift when they first moved into the White House. My brother’s wife and my niece both have allergies. They have a similar dog and it is a god sent for them. Cost them an arm and a leg, but with the lab they had before Sarah (my niece was not born yet) took allergy meds just to be able to have her wonderful dog around (who is no longer with us).
dmsilev
@SiubhanDuinne: Some of the stupider corners of wingnuttia went ballistic when dog the second was acquired. See, the fact that Obama and his family had chosen *two* black dogs in a row was proof positive that he was RACIST!
I continue to be disappointed that Barack and Michelle have yet to make a ‘don’t drink bleach and lick power sockets’ public-service announcement. Would solve a lot of problems.
Tommy
@efgoldman: Whoops my bad. Thanks for correcting the record/me. I knew it was a gift but to lazy to Google it :).
SiubhanDuinne
@Tommy: I thought it was Ted Kennedy, not Joe Biden, but yes, I do remember some conversation about allergies at the time. Had no idea it was still a “thing,” however.
ETA: what EFG said.
Higgs Boson's Mate
We’ve come a long way from Nixon’s Checkers speech.
Abo gato
@dmsilev: no, no, no! Those dogs are not just black dogs….they are black and WHITE!!!! Take that!
Belafon
@BGinCHI:
SiubhanDuinne
@dmsilev:
Well, the second dog (Sunny) is black AND white. Just like Obama!!
ETA: Sigh, always a bit too late. What Abo gato said.
ulee
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Imagine Romney’s Seamus speech. Not as effective.
ulee
Or imagine Cole’s Shawn speech. “And we’re gonna keep him.”
Tommy
@SiubhanDuinne: My brother has a Labradoodle. I am sure some people get them just cause they are super cute, but they looked long and hard for the breeder, and allergies are clearly a major reason people buy them. It was one of the first things the person mentioned when they called to schedule an appointment. As somebody that doesn’t have any allergies it is hard for me to understand what it is like. But you have then and want a dog, these kinds of dogs must be about the best things since sliced bread.
BillinGlendaleCA
@SiubhanDuinne:
Being it’s Easter weekend, I believe Jesus was in a Cave.
Anoniminous
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Mithras’ principle festival was on, what we now call, Easter. And he was supposedly born on December 25th. And he was the Savior of the World. And he had 12 disciples. And he died and rose again on the third day. And worshipers had a sacred meal of bread and wine. And the wine had super-duper powers. And they practiced baptism.
Got a good case of violation of Intellectual Property, if you ask me.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Leon Russell Roll Away The Stone
Roll away the stone
Don’t leave me here alone
Resurrect me and protect me
Don’t leave me laying here
What will they do in two thousand years
muddy
All this stuff they cry about starting with B makes me think of this kid.
He uses up his few words, and resorts to just using “butt” plus something, apparently getting inspiration from looking at the guy. “Butt teeth” is my new favorite insult.
MomSense
@Tommy:
I started a rumor that the ObamaCare enrollment process required microchipping and damned if that rumor didn’t come back around to me. The crazier the better.
raven
Brewer’s catcher hits the cover off the ball.
? Martin
@raven: That’s unreal. The irony is that if he had gotten full contact on it, the added air resistance would have denied him a home run. Hitting the cover off the ball appears to only useful when hitting to 3rd with no forced out there.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “[Sometime During Eternity]” (1958)
Sometime during eternity
some guy shows up
and one of them
who shows up real late
is a kind of carpenter
from some square-type place
like Galilee
and he starts wailing
and claiming he is hip
to who made heaven
and earth
and that the cat
who really laid it on us
is his Dad
And moreover
he adds
It’s all write down
on some scroll-type parchments
which some henchmen
leave lying around the Dead Sea somewheres
a long time ago
and which you won’t even find
for a coupla thousand years or so
or at least for
nineteen hundred and fortyseven
of them
to be exact
and even then
nobody really believes them
or me
for that matter
You’re hot
they tell him
And they cool him
They stretch him on the Tree to cool
And everybody after that
is always making models
of this Tree
with Him hung up
and always crooning His name
and calling Him to come down
and sit in
on their combo
as if he is the king cat
who’s got to blow
or they can’t quite make it
Only he don’t come down
from His Tree
Him just hang there
on His Tree
looking real Petered out
and real cool
and also
according to a roundup
of late world news
fro the usual unrealiable sources
real dead
pseudonymous in nc
Laundering wingnut stories through the British press — and not just the tabloids, but the “serious” conservative papers like Murdoch’s Times or the Telegraph — is still going on today, because if the holy sainted TimesOfLondon prints it, then the WaPo is going to cover it too.
? Martin
@MomSense: I still want to start a rumor that Putin will run as a GOP candidate in 2016. But he’s not a US citizen you say? That’s where you’re wrong. He was born in Alaska but abducted by KGB agents when he was 3 and given a fake USSR birth certificate. He’s really a US citizen by birth.
scav
@? Martin: Explains what Sarah could see about “Russia” from her front porch. She’s clearly involved in some fashion (choose your shudder: there are many). Similarly, could explain what GW could see when gazing deeply into PuPutin’s eyes and soul. (GWB was outfitted with a DNA scanner in his left retina, little known perk of the office — he was jealous of the sighting scope installed in Cheney’s.)
ulee
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: I like that. I know Ferlenghetti as owner of City Lights and buglight. I guess I knew he was a poet, but that’s pretty good.
Lurking Canadian
@Anoniminous: sure would, if there were any contemporary evidence of any of that.
mclaren
Permit me to demur, Doug.
“White House Denies CIA Teleported Obama to Mars,” 3 January 2012.
There’s nuts, and then there’s craaaaaaaaaaaaazy. The Republicans have run straight off the edge of nuts, like Wile E. Coyote running off the edge of the cliff, and now they’re paddling their feet in the middle of batshit insane.
The crazy is much crazier during the Obama years than it was in the Clinton years. That’s why the Republicans are no longer so much dangerous as annoying. All they can do is stall and delay and try to block things. Republicans are no longer controlling the agenda, because their agenda involves wack-wacka bullshit like Barry Obama getting teleported to Mars by the CIA in 1987, and chemtrails, and global warming denial and evolution denial.
The American people may not be sharpest knives in the drawer, but that kind of nuttiness is too much even for them.
[Also all the major Republican spokesmen have been outed as drug addicts or crystal meth freaks who hired gay hookers, or gay child molesters, or loons who hallucinate about “moon oil” like Newt Gingrich. That might have something to do with Republicans’ relative decline in influence too…]
Villago Delenda Est
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: The Osprey does have the virtue of financing several score hookers and lots of blow for Boeing execs, though, so it’s not to be sniffed at.
mclaren
Tragically gone now, but the classic website supervillainornewt.com asked users to play a game..
Pure win.
Play the game here, courtesy of the internet wayback machine!
Proof positive that teh crazy is much crazier now than during the Clinton years.
giantslor
@Anne Laurie: I’d vote for that baby.
BC
@SiubhanDuinne: Bogate = they got an elitist dog (never mind that it was gift from Senator Ted Kennedy) that was blackety-blackety-black, so you know they know nothing about white people – because no white person would ever have an all-black dog, you know. In truth, that was the criticism – Ted Kennedy and all-black (altho Bo does have white marking).
Suffern ACE
@BC: I thought Bogate stemmed from one of the official White House Christmas cards where Bo was featured under at Christmas tree without the first family, in an affront to sensative Christians everywhere, tired of that war on Christmas.
Patricia Kayden
@Mike in NC: And Secretary Hilary Clinton will be the President. We collectively yawn at the “scandals”. They’re boring now.
Another Holocene Human
@beltane:
Jesus fuck!!
The RWNJ Christianist hosebags want so badly to go back to those days. They talk about gays, gays, gays, but in reality they want to police everybody’s sex life and back before Lawrence v. Texas and a general social moving on about such matters they were out on the front lines denying accommodation to unmarried heterosexual couples or firing unmarried heterosexuals for “living in sin”. Remember “cohabitation” and “unrelated adults”?
Remember that case where that poor woman was kidnapped and raped in Florida but the rapist was charged not with rape but “oral sodomy” as if it would be a crime if consensual–? Oh no, it’s nothing to kidnap, threaten, and violently sexual assault a human being, but let a wiggly bit touch either end of the alimentary canal and we got problems.
Wolf Blitzer is so fucking stupid it defies description and with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Hell, I got confused for a few months during Bush II term I mixing him up with evil scum Paul Wolfowitz. They both love war rah rah so same diff.
Another Holocene Human
@karen: If you’ve ever heard of “The Heartland Institute” it makes the kind of influence peddling Heritage and AEI used to engage in seem like kittens and puppies.
Another Holocene Human
@BC: it was a perfect storm of Kennedys, elitism, and blackity black black
so much angst over man’s best friend
also, the sweetness of that moment when Obama announced that his children would get their promised puppy just fed the ravening vile rage they have towards Barack Obama, and that hate needed a target
Another Holocene Human
@BGinCHI: Barucha.
karen
@Another Holocene Human:
I never heard of them. Are they also in DC?
bughunter
@Patricia Kayden:
Then I suggest we start sockpuppeting these rightwing mailing lists (or whatever the 4chan-like origin communities are) with progressively more insane memes so that when they begin to appear in the MSM we can have a real good laugh… and when one becomes a scandal of Congressional Subcommitte Hearing calibre, we can break out the server logs and prove the BS genesis of this crap. (Not that the believers would be convinced, of course, but that’s not the point.)
But damn, it’s hard to beat Obama teleporting to Mars.
Something like Chelsea’s baby is the product of in vitro fertilization of Hillary’s eggs and Barack’s sperm would hit quite a few buttons.