When did Vanity Fair become a poorly-written, fraternity version of itself, aka Wonkette? VF has delved into the serious journalistic endeavor of analyzing Newt Gingrich’s office knickknacks.

I know it’s the publication’s attempt to be cutesy, but instead it comes off as disingenuously bitter. Who cares if Newt Gingrich at one time had a Bedazzled t-rex skull? Dave Chappelle scrambled t-rex eggs. [Language warning.]

A heat-retaining mug that has some sort of cartoon character on it, which may or may not have any connection to Gingrich. This entire office seems less like the working space of a former congressman than the set of a high-school play decorated with a few arbitrary, inconsistent “personal items.”

Where was Vanity Fair when we needed forensic analysis of Anthony Weiner’s reportedly dirty office?

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Juli Weiner of Vanity Fair may have thought she was being “clever” with her Nov. 1 blog post, but instead she looks by turns blindly partisan and foolish, lacking even a tiny bit of knowledge about men’s headwear when she compared Herman Cain to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff as well as the character Daniel Plainview from the movie There Will Be Blood–all because they each wear a hat!

It is the weakest of hooks upon which to hang said hat, but the fact that there are photos of the three folks in question wearing a hat seems to be enough for Weiner to go off half-cocked, somehow imagining they all have something in common.

Here is her prosaic post in its less-than-worthy entirety:

The critically reviled performance artist known as Herman Cain has recently been photographed wearing a funereal, wide-brimmed black hat in the wake of his sexual harassment-scandal. Jack Abramoff, a corrupt lobbyist and federal-criminal pal of former Republican House majority leader Tom DeLay, wore a similar hat for a 2006 court date. Sociopathic There Will Be Blood protagonist Daniel Plainview prefers a slightly more fashionable, Mountie-esque version.

These three men have more than just a hat stolen from a Lego man in common: Abramoff is the founder of several overpriced Washington, D.C., restaurants; Cain is the former C.E.O. of the execrable pizza chain Godfather’s; and Plainview’s well-known milkshake catchphrase remains popular on T-shirts to this day.

You normally have to read something by Paul Krugman to get so much failure jammed into two tiny paragraphs! (more…)

I’m not kidding.

As we reported this morning [yesterday], House Republicans will kick-start the 112th Congress tomorrow with a spirited recitation of the Constitution, a document whose recent relevance is due largely to the ideological and sartorial interests of the Tea Party.

[...]

According to Keating:

The amount I get is nearly $1.1 million. $1,071,872.87, to be exact, though of course this is more back-of-the-envelope than exact.When one chamber of Congress is in session but not working, we the people still have to pay for members’ salaries and expenses, and for their police protection, and for keeping their lights and phones and coffee machines on. Even Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Mike Pence (R-IN) combined don’t blow enough hot air to heat the Capitol in January.

Keating’s point is irrelevant because congress was going to be in session regardless as to what was said. I also think they exaggerated the precise cost to the limits of good taste and perhaps beyond.

How much did it cost congress for Charlie Rangel’s trial and spiel on his innocence? Considering that there exists more than one legal argument to render the health control law unConstitutional, you’d think that congress would want to perhaps learn about the document which they swore to uphold.

Of course, we know that many Democrats could care less about that “old” document:

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The February edition of Vanity Fair contains an article by William D. Cohan entitled, “Huffing And Puffing,” which extensively discusses the lawsuit brought against Arianna Huffington and The Huffington Post by Peter Daou and James Boyce.  Daou and Boyce claim that they played a critical role in helping Huffington create her popular website but have not been credited or compensated; they are demanding monetary damages.

There are multiple factual errors in the article that Vanity Fair ought to correct.

In the article, Vanity Fair claims, “in January 2005, Huffington and Lerer hired Breitbart….” This assertion is incorrect; Breitbart was not hired in January 2005.

Elsewhere in the article, Vanity Fair claims that, “for his part, Breitbart said the fighting among the four protagonists amuses him, especially since Huffington fired him after six months.” The assertion that Breitbart was fired after six months is also incorrect; Breitbart was never fired. (more…)

In the January edition of Vanity Fair magazine Christopher Hitchens becomes the latest in a seemingly endless parade of name callers and reputation-smudgers intent on spreading lies about Tea Partiers, Glenn Beck, and just about anyone else he doesn’t agree with politically.  I will not bother to address these shallow, baseless, and fact-free attacks on Beck and the Tea Parties.  They are quite capable of defending themselves.  My concerns are Hitchens’ inaccurate characterizations of the 9/12 Project.

The opening line of the piece contains a smear against the non-Beck affiliated 9/12 Project referring to the group as:

“the most hateful kind of populist claptrap,  (e.g. the fetid weirdness of GlennBeck’s 912 Project.)”

Really?  Fetid?

Mr. Hitchens did you even look into the 9/12 Project?  Have you any idea of what it stands for and what 9/12 members are doing? I seriously doubt that you did, as I am a founding member, part of the Advisory Board and the editor-at-large of the web site. All email inquiries come directly to me. Nothing was received from you, ever.  Checking with the other Board members, I can verify that none of them were contacted by you or by anyone with Vanity Fair.  Therefore, we can only assume that your statements about the 912 Project have not been vetted with any reasonable degree of journalistic standards.

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No problem, glad to be here. Oh God, travel was just atrocious. I smell like brimstone, which confuses people because they think I’m hiding a fire-starting device.

They should’ve just had Iowahawk do it.

*UPDATE – From the comments:

Vanity Fair chats with Satan?

I guess it’s good for a CEO to be accessible to his employees.

- Malclave

Nearly 10 years after she was killed, Chandra Levy finally got justice yesterday when a jury found a 29-year old Salvadoran immigrant guilty of first-degree murder.

This particular verdict means more than justice for the victim, however. It is a vindication for the man who was convicted in the court of public opinion of killing her; U.S. Congressman Gary Condit.

It didn’t take long after Levy’s death for the press to shine a light of suspicion on Condit after the Washington, D.C. Metro police inappropriately leaked to the media that Condit may have had an affair with her.

There wasn’t a single piece of evidence linking Condit to Levy’s death, but that didn’t stop mainstream media from suggesting Condit’s involvement in her disappearance while the supermarket tabloids repeatedly published cover stories that outright accused the Congressman of having her kidnapped and murdered with specific “shocking new scenarios,” that were pure fantasy.

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Nine years after her murder, the Chandra Levy trial started Monday in Washington, D.C., and although there may be justice for the victim, there’s little that can be done to even the scales for Gary Condit, the man who was falsely accused of killing her.

Condit, who was a California valley Congressman at the time, was suspected of having Chandra kidnapped and murdered when no evidence supported that claim.

Condit’s problem was that he had a brief relationship with Chandra while she was interning for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons back in 2001. Naturally, when she disappeared, the media assumed Condit had something to do with it.

Why?

Because thanks to Hollywood and the tabloid press, the American public has believed for decades there is a secret Washington underground network for powerful politicians and corporations that enables them to have “troublemakers” removed and “taken care of.” (more…)

Michael Joseph Gross, the author of the recent Vanity Fair hit piece on Sarah Palin, does not seem to be able to tell the truth. In a new attempt to “shoot the messenger” (me) rather than admit that his story is concocted, he tries to turn the tables and call my credibility into question. The problem–there are witnesses and logistical impossibilities that expose further problems with his story. He says:

I could not have spoken to her in Independence, because I was not allowed backstage on the floor of the arena, where Loudon was; that was a restricted space, and, as far as I am aware, all reporters were barred from the area.

Quoting from the first words of his article:

Backstage in the arena, a little girl in Mary Janes pushes her brother in a baby carriage, stopping a few yards shy of a heavy, 100-foot-long black curtain. The curtain splits the arena in two, shielding the children from an audience of 4,000 people clapping their hands in time to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The music accompanies a video “Salute to Military Heroes” that plays above the stage where, in a few moments, the children’s mother will appear.

When the girl, Piper Palin, turns around, she sees her parents thronged by admirers, and the crowd rolling toward her and the baby, her brother Trig, born with Down syndrome in 2008. Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, bend down and give a moment to the children; a woman, perhaps a nanny, [this is the part he already admitted was an "error" after we exposed it on Big Journalism] whisks the boy away; and Todd hands Sarah her speech and walks her to the stage. He pokes the air with one finger. She mimes the gesture, whips around, strides on four-inch heels to stage center, and turns it on.

His next statement in his defense: (more…)

Michael Joseph Gross has now admitted that he made an “error” in regard to his slimy hit piece in Vanity Fair that he wrote about Sarah Palin.  He falsely reported that Sarah somehow disregarded her child at an event, when he knew the child was mine, and I took him from the Governor who was holding him right up until she was walking on stage.

He did not apologize to Sarah Palin, to me, or to either of our children, for the record.  He also has not retracted the other 99 lies in the piece.  At least not yet.

He accuses Sarah Palin of creating fictitious PACs to “hide” money she is supposedly collecting from all of these groups.   He speaks specifically in his piece about the “Take America Back” rally where the Governor, and I spoke, among others.

Not that Mr. Gross would know a pang of patriotism if he ran into a flagpole, but it appears a tutorial might be in order.  Since the MSM lies, distorts, and twists everything that happens in this country, and has for too long now, patriots rose up to re-claim what belongs to us.  Like 60% of the country, I am a patriot.  That means I (and my 100 million closest friends) love this country and you would have to pry my gun out of my cold, dead hands to take it from me. (more…)

Many have pointed out the ways in which Michael Joseph Grosss’ piece on Palin seems both unfair and under sourced. I won’t rehash all of that. I’ll just comment on the one section that stood out to me:

The term “prayer warrior” describes a person who offers a specific kind of supplication: asking God to direct an unseen battle between forces of light and darkness—literal angels and demons—that some Christians believe is occurring all around us…

Whenever I heard Palin speak on the road, her remarks were scored with code phrases expressing solidarity with fundamentalist Christians. Her talk of leading with “a servant’s heart” is a dog whistle for the born-again. Her dig at health-care reform as an expression of Democratic ambitions to “build a Utopia” in the United States is practically a trumpet call (because the Kingdom of God is not of this earth, and perfection can be achieved only in the life to come). But it is Palin’s persistent encouragement of the prayer warriors that most clearly reveals her worldview: she is good, her opponents are evil, and the war is on.

Having read this dismissive account of Palin’s faith, it surprised me to see Mr. Gross on television claiming he has a lot in common with Palin, including Christianity. It reminds me of that old car commercial “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.” Well, Michael Gross is not your father’s Christian. In fact he’s apparently a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary which is a long way from the faith of most evangelicals. (more…)

***Updated

Remember Vanity Fair (you know–the stale, old magazine that no one buys unless they are on the cover or they are wishing they were, like Joy Behar)?  The recent hit piece on Sarah Palin by Michael Joseph Gross reveals that they must be as desperate as the rest of the MSM for sales/ratings, because they have lost all credibility, if they ever had any.

Reading his tripe was excruciating.  Some 90% of the hard accusations are attributed to anonymous “sources.”   This is billed as a profile piece, not exactly Watergate.  You have to do better than attributing everything to an anonymous “Deep Throat.”

I have read a lot of MSM slime over the years, but never, ever have I felt subjected to a more jealous, petty, sophomoric, disturbed piece of ragslime than I do after reading this latest on Sarah Palin.   Gross left nothing alone.  He attacked her beauty, intelligence, marriage, parents, friends, family, children, ability, sincerity, honesty, faith, state, husband, home, shoes, speeches, pastor, book, job, cooking, hunting skills, supporters, church, weight, undergarments… the list goes on.  I honestly cannot think of anything about her that he did not attack.

Sarah Palin doesn’t need me, or anyone else to defend her.  She is strong, self assured, and she has heard all of this unoriginal slime before now. The only thing new in his story is the new depth of utter disregard for professionalism in journalism. Here is an excerpt:

“When …Piper Palin turns around, she sees her parents thronged by admirers, and the crowd rolling toward her and the baby, her brother Trig, born with Down syndrome in 2008.  Sarah Palin and her husband, Todd, bend down and give a moment to the children; a woman, perhaps a nanny, whisks the boy away; and Todd hands Sarah her speech and walks her to the stage.”

Unfortunately for Mr. Gross, it happens that I shared the stage with Sarah Palin at that event.  I announced my BUYcott of Arizona that day, and I remember it well. (more…)

The mighty Sarah Palin, not in any political office but who somehow nonetheless rules the world from her Facebook page, clearly terrifies this pathetic little man, Michael Joseph Gross, who was all over the media today to promote his largely unsourced hatchet job on Sarah Palin.

Yes, that’s right: Sarah is so terrifying that no one would speak of her on the record, which is why Gross had to, um, quote unidentified sources about her martial relations, her shopping habits, and other such things crucial to our understanding of her as a politician.

Even on the left, the reviews have been terrible. The Washington Post blogged:

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Once upon a time, the New York Times was a credible source of information, and many educators demanded that their students use it for this purpose. I recall my senior year in a parochial high school being instructed how to fold the newspaper along the seams so as to read it without having to spread it out wide. That was a very long time ago. Now that once-esteemed broadsheet is agenda-driven, rather than journalistically driven, and one of the many sources to take with a large grain of salt.

Under the stewardship of Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger, the Old Gray Lady is now known for printing all the news that fits his liberal Baby Boomer agenda, even in the most innocuous sections. The gardening column will somehow toss global warming into the article and let’s forget any objectivity in its science reporting. Needless to say, the Obama administration has this paper solidly in its pocket.

So I’ve learned to decipher Times articles for any legitimate documented facts instead of innuendo and this was particularly essential when the Times, for reasons know only to itself, decided to tarnish the Pope during this Easter season. The paper tried to imply that while the Pope was cardinal prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith in Germany, he did not take steps to defrock a serial predator priest in Wisconsin. (more…)

Sure, it’s a silly question.  Still, it’s nice to see the lapdogs of the Democrat-Media Complex finally ‘fess up to an act of malfeasant journalistic cheerleading on a scale never before seen in this country.  From Newsbusters:

Two prominent journalists appeared on Friday’s Good Morning America and casually admitted that Barack Obama has received glowing coverage from the press. Former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown announced, “No, [Obama] got the best press known to man. Let’s face it.”

Howard Kurtz, host of Reliable Sources on CNN and a Washington Post columnist, corrected, “in the history of civilization.” The liberal Brown quickly agreed, “In the history of civilization, incredible.”

Well?  Did he?

Chuck Johnson is at it again. He must be out on a weekend pass. I feel compelled to answer the Little Green Monster after I saw him go after James O’Keefe with that same tired wet noodle of a charge he has leveled at so many, calling him a white nationalist. Johnson claimed in an LGF post that “ACORN sting filmmaker James O’Keefe was photographed attending a 2006 white nationalist conference titled ‘Race and Conservatism.’”

Sounds terrible, right? Sure, until you get the facts that Johnson doesn’t tell you. When it became clear that it wasn’t a “white nationalist conference,” Johnson tried to slither out of responsibility for his words by saying in a new post: “It’s very clear that I attributed the ‘white nationalist conference’ claim to One People’s Project; that’s what the words ‘according to’ mean.”

Busted! As if it weren’t obvious that in his original post, he was approving of and endorsing what One People’s Project said. But this is typical of Johnson’s weaselly hit-and-run smear tactics.

Meanwhile, Larry O’Connor at Big Journalism uncovered the truth about O’Keefe’s supposed participation in this conference: (more…)

I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation. It felt like a scene from a movie that conveniently ties plot points together when two critical characters in the storyline share a moment of implausible significance – where the intrepid reporter finally runs his target to ground.

So at first I had trouble getting my words out. “I’m Andrew Breitbart,” I exhaled. Instead of hanging up, Bertha Lewis laughed like someone I would probably like in a different setting – but certainly not in this lifetime now that we are permanently and publicly tied to one another as media-based adversaries.

I knew the awkwardness of the moment would turn into trouble when I started asking her pointed questions and, sure enough, we soon we found ourselves in trouble.

“Did you go to the White House last year?” I asked.

Bertha Laughed heartily.  ”No,” she said.

“Really?” I pushed.

“No. One hundred percent not. Not this year. Not last year. Not ever,” she stated firmly, all the while maintaining an awkward and ironic joviality that was likely born of the weirdness of our impromptu exchange. (more…)