Is This War?

MSNBC “Hardball” host Chris Matthews is never short on feisty. He appeared on a panel at NCTA’s Cable Show Tuesday in Boston alongside CNN’s John King and Univision’s Maria Salenas and moderated by C-SPAN’s Steve Scully. The event is a three-day annual convention that attracts upwards of 20,000 attendees. When Scully brought up Matthews’ infamous “thrill up his leg” line about President Obama, Matthews bristled and referred to Scully as one of the “jackasses” who always asks this question.

“Is the thrill still there today?” Scully asked Matthews.

Matthews’ answer wasn’t brief: “If you had done your reporting over at C-SPAN,” he said, dripping with sarcasm, “you would have checked that I said the exact same thing in 2004 after I heard his address up in Boston. …the thrill was real. …I do have physical reactions when people are talking about my country. …I’m an untraditional person but I have traditional values and I love the country and I said so. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said so because I’ve given a lot of jackasses the chance to talk about it.”

With a smile, Scully replied, “Thank you, Chris.”

But Matthews wasn’t finished. “So I hope you feel satisfied that you raised the most obvious question that is raised by every horses ass right winger that I ever bump into,” he said. He then put the knife in and twisted it: “Thank you Steve for serving up that little soufflé you have been working on since last night sometime when your brain exploded with this idea that you were going to ask me about it.”

Scully replied, “We are just about out of time.”

Before they signed off, Scully said, “Come back to C-SPAN tomorrow morning.” Matthews cracked, “I’d be thrilled to be there.”

Watch the exchange here.

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WaPo media opinion writer Erik Wemple is on the receiving end of threats today after writing about the purported plagiarism of TWT and UPI Columnist Arnaud de Borchgrave (pictured here). He reported today that the columnist has taken a leave of absence. With heated stories comes heated emotions. And nasty threats like these from a prominent Washington Attorney issued in the comment section of Wemple’s De Borchgrave story today. FishbowlDC has confirmed through Timothy Naegele (pictured below) that he wrote the commentary. “The comments speak for themselves,” Naegele told FishbowlDC. “If you bothered to read other comments about Arnaud de Borchgrave, and the attacks on him, you would realize that other people feel exactly as I do.” Oh, we bothered to read the other comments, Naegele. Touchy, touchy.

by Timothy D. Naegele
9:07 AM EDT
It bears repeating, Wemple, that you are a hack writer and nothing more. It is what you will always be.

Arnaud de Borchgrave is brilliant, and he has done more in his lifetime than you would ever do if you had 20 lifetimes on the face of this earth. However, you must be salivating about what has happened to de Borchgrave.

Lots of us will be following your every word from now on, to trip you up. And yes, rest assured, we will call for your swift ouster from the Post when you make any mistakes, which you surely will.

Hopefully we can say “good riddance” to you, very soon.

Another reader doubted the attorney’s comments were really from him, saying, “I think this post must be from a troll masquerading as Naegele. There is no way that an experienced attorney would publicly post something like this.” (Well, there is and he did.) We also reached out to Wemple for comment, asking if threats make him nervous, if he wishes he had half the life of De Borchgrave or, for that matter, his sexy name? Erik de Borchgrave or Arnaud Wemple both have a nice ring, don’t they?

Wempled replied to FishbowlDC: “Whenever I see stuff where people are taking aim at me, yes, it’s a little jarring at first. But what he’s proposing to do here is to become a very loyal reader, which I appreciate. As for the scrutiny, well, that already applies to me, and you, and the rest of us in this line of work. Wemple continued, “I cannot dispute the commenter’s claim that I haven’t done a fraction of the things that de Borchgrave has done on the face of this earth. He’s had a long career. To your question as to whether I wish I had, no: I’ve been very happy. For years and years, I have enjoyed seeing his name. It’s much cooler than mine.”

A third commenter takes Wemple to task for a different reason — his caricature. We’re going to practice Wemple’s pointed eyebrow raise in the mirror later today. Read what that person has to say after the jump… Read more

Coming soon: A Guide to Burning Bridges by Andy Barr.

Barr, a former Politico reporter who is now working as Communications Director for the Richard Carmona Senate campaign, has openly criticized his former employer in a seething, sarcastic tweet.A little background: In 2003 Cristina Beato was named Asst. Sec. of Health, but not without ensuing confirmation controversy. Barr is ragging on a story published today by John Bresnahan and Manu Raju. The story has Beato trashing Carmona. This is Barr’s turf and one he’s obviously protecting.

Politico’s oh so credible source couldn’t get confirmation because she “fabricated or inflated portions of her résumé” wapo.st/KDnDED

— Andy Barr (@AndyBarr34) May 21, 2012

Update and correction: Barr left his job working for the Arizona Democratic Party four months ago to work for the Carmona campaign. We’ve corrected the above to reflect this.

Nothing says I hate you like a package of poop. A former CNN executive, Bob Furnad, left dog feces in his neighbor’s mailbox in Covington, Ga., calling it a prank. Funny, police aren’t laughing. CBS Atlanta broke the story late this morning. Authorities have video of Furnad putting the shit in the mailbox.

CBS Atlanta reported: “Mr. Furnad stated that he did place a bag containing dog feces in the victim’s mail box,” Covington Police Capt. Ken Malcom told WGCL-TV.

Furnad faces a fine, but really not all that much considering. Read the full story here. And no, this isn’t Washington media news, but we figure it’ll give people ideas if they need a creative way to seek revenge on their enemies.

Mediaite White House Correspondent Tommy Christopher and Breitbart.com editor Dana Loesch started the weekend off right by waging a “You lie! No, you lie!” Twitter war on Friday.

Twitchy.com, a right-leaning site, has the argument played out in full but it’s a complete fustercluck (a word introduced to us recently by the Washington Examiner‘s Kytja Weir) we can barely follow.

The gist: Loesch sent out tweets analyzing the politics of GOP hopeful Mitt Romney‘s repudiation of anti-Obama groups attempting to make Rev. Jeremiah Wright an issue in this election. The blog Little Green Footballs picked up the tweets and suggested Loesch or her Breitbart colleagues were in cahoots with the Romney campaign and attended a “secret meeting.” Loesch  anticipated Christopher would do a writeup on it. He did. Like a ferocious lioness, Loesch attacked, calling Christopher a “hack.” She said Christopher implied Loesch had attended this “secret meeting” in D.C. despite the fact that she was hosting her radio program in Missouri at the time.

The feud turned unnecessarily bitchy. Christopher parsed his words to demonstrate that everything he wrote about Loesch was technically accurate and wrote up a clarification. Loesch thanked him kindly but started a snarky hashtag, #tommylogic, parodying his writing.

Playing off the idea that she could be both at a “secret meeting” and hosting her show simultaneously, Loesch then got her followers to start the hashtag #teleportingdana. Exhausted yet?

The Daily Caller‘s Mary Katherine Ham jumped in, tweeting, “I read the whole piece, Tommy. It clearly & unfairly implies she either was at the mtg…” Enter Loesch’s husband Chris, a producer on Loesch’s radio show, who valiantly defended his wife’s honor. “Love how the left simultaneously cuts down @DLoesch while giving her more powers… She can do everything! #TeleportingDana”

Without taking sides, we note how Loesch riled up her troops followers to gang up on Christopher. For that reason alone, on a scale of 1 to 10 punches, we give this fight 8.5 punches with a headlock for Christopher.

Kim Kardashian, who once again showed up at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, rolled in at #7 on Forbes 100 Celebrity list. And MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinksi was none too pleased about it on this morning’s “Morning Joe.”

“What’s the impact of Kim Kardashian?” asked an incensed Brzezinksi. “What is the impact…what does she do? What is her influence?”

Co-host Joe Scarborough quickly moved things along. But the topic kept resurfacing throughout the morning. At one point guest Jon Meacham of Random House, called Mika the Ambassador to the Topic of the Kardashians.

Mika wondered what her father, former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinksi, might say about America if he knew about Kim Kardashian. “My father wouldn’t even know who Kim Kardashian was,” she said. “And if I pointed out that she made this list he would find that fascinating and troubling about America.”

Love her or hate her, Kardashian came up on ABC’s “The View” last week when, in a trivia test,  co-host Joy Behar asked President Obama which Kardashian had been married for only 72 days. He replied, “That would be Kim.” Publications reported the President was embarrassed about his knowledge of the Kardashian.

 

It’s an open secret these days that some of the big boys at Politico (Alex Burns, Dylan Byers) are butting heads with Roll Call Columnist Stu Rothenberg. Rothenberg recently called Politico‘s journalism “atrocious”, but he may want to watch it on conceptually mimicking a story that the outlet he can’t stand wrote five days earlier.

On May 15 Rothenberg wrote a column with the following headline: “Is Pennsylvania In Play for November? Maybe.” Four days earlier on May 10, Charlie Mahtesian, a blogger and editor, wrote, “Is Pennsylvania a Swing State or not?” Both stories question whether Pennsylvania will seriously be in play for the presidential election.

As the battle is brewing, may we suggest a good old-fashioned Twitter fight? Or Politico can run a special live show and invite Stu on as a special guest. Politico‘s Executive Editor Jim VandeHei will moderate. Juana Summers will pipe in from Pennsylvania. It’ll be a great time.

 

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney drew the ire of reporters this week with his methodology for how reporters get called on to ask a question. The tradition is to let reporters sitting in the enviable front row ask their questions before moving around the room. On Tuesday, however, after Carney spent an extensive amount of time on those superstars that sit closest to him, he announced that he would “move around a little bit.” Before the words even come out of his mouth, Norah O’Donnell, Chief White House Correspondent for CBS, interrupted Carney and said, “That’s not fair. That’s SO unfair. Call on the boys and then when it comes to Norah, you go to the back.” This brought on a round of “OOOOHHHHS” from the White House Press Corps. NBC’s Chuck Todd leaped to O’Donnell’s defense by saying, “If you’re going to move around, move around from the beginning.” It’s worth pointing out that Carney had already gone to Laura MacInnis from Reuters very early in the briefing, so Norah’s accusation of sexism doesn’t hold water.

Let’s face it, O’Donnell wasn’t standing up for women everywhere. She was throwing a hissy fit because she didn’t get what she wanted. Not to mention, did she really refer to herself in the third person? Nevertheless, Carney caved to the demands of Queen Norah and let her ask her question. A defeated Carney then waited 44 minutes into the briefing before he left the front row, when he finally took a question from NPR’s Mara Liasson, who sits in the second row. A White House reporter who spoke on condition of anonymity, told FBDC, “”While Jay Carney has sometimes made excellent attempts to circulate [around] the room, Tuesday was one of the worst examples of the President’s spokesman being bullied by TV reporters in the front row to pay attention just to them.”

We have previously reported on Carney’s method, which is to jump around the briefing room before finishing with the front. This has ruffled the feathers of some of the cool kids that sit in the front row.

Is it really that easy to push Carney around? Just accuse him of phony sexism just to get a question in? We’ve requested comment from Carney and will report back if he responds.

Stuart Rothenberg, of the Rothenberg Report, is swinging back against accusations that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Last week, Politico’s Dylan Byers reported on DNC spokesperson Brad Woodhouse taking on Rothenberg over his comments regarding the relationship with Democrats and the state of North Carolina, the site of the Democratic National Convention. Woodhouse reacted to Rothenberg by saying, “With all due respect, I don’t think Stu Rothenberg has any idea what he’s talking about.” At the time Politico wrote the story, Rothenberg declined to comment.

Then, later in the week, Rothenberg angrily fired back. His biggest issue seems to be in an “Update” to the original Politico piece that says,

UPDATE: A colleague, siding with Woodhouse, forwards the following Rothenberg prediction for the 2010 elections:

“But there are no signs of a dramatic rebound for the party, and the chance of Republicans winning control of either chamber in the 2010 midterm elections is zero. Not ‘close to zero.’ Not ‘slight’ or ‘small.’ Zero.”

In Rothenberg’s piece, he says Politico has the dates all wrong. He made that assessment in April of 2009. 18 months before the midterm election and he argues that it was “accurate at the time.” He points at that as the midterm approached, his assessment changed to reflect a Republican blowout and his prediction turned out to be “the most accurate of projections.” As for Politico’s update to their piece, Rothenberg says, “Printing that “update” from an unnamed “colleague” — it’s unclear whether it was a colleague of Woodhouse or of the Politico reporter — was atrocious journalism.”

SHOT FIRED! “Atrocious journalism?” Rothenberg may have a point. It’s not clear WHERE this update is coming from? A colleague of Woodhouse? A colleague of Byers?  Neither Byers nor Rothenberg were willing to comment for this story.

FNC’s Bret Baier is as smooth as ever this week as he handles a viewer, who, well, won’t be watching him anymore. May have something to do with that shiny new contract he signed with the network through 2016. Who cares if Micky watches or not?

Bret Baier (@BretBaier)
5/8/12 11:22 AM
Sorry to lose you-good luck with your viewing RT @MickyBaker1 @BretBaier “You see, that’s the funny thing. I don’t watch any more, and won’t.”

Strangely, when we went to look up Micky’s other thoughts, Twitter tells us his account has been SUSPENDED. Micky come back!