Sort of Serious Stuff

Give Andrew Breitbart a plate of spare ribs and a goblet of red wine and he’s yours for as long as you want him. In fact, he’ll stay up until 5 or 6 in the morning telling you what he thinks about a whole host of things on his mind. Hey, if we’re going to do that, can we at least have some ribs and wine too?

For now, it’s 8 p.m. on Wednesday night — CPAC eve — and Breitbart, a publisher who runs six websites, is just getting warmed up. He’s at home at “The Embassy” (the townhouse he and his business partner, Larry, call “home” in Washington) for a book party on digital kids books that focus on family values like hard work and patriotism. Larry is a little freaked out about by my miniature blue notebook and pen but soon enough he gets over it. No one is talking about those kiddie books. Certainly not Breitbart.

He’s chilling in the parlor in a masculine rich brown leather armchair. His exquisite mop of gray curls sets off nicely against his attire, a pale blue button down, faded blue jeans and dark loafers, and his eyes, a crystalline blue.

For starters, Breitbart in person is not Breitbart online. He dominates every room he enters with his emotional and physical presence, but he’s warm and hospitable — and quite the goofball. He knows the perception is off. “All these bastards in media who meet me like me because they know I won’t lie,” he says. But not all like him, not even on the right, and he knows it. Hence the bodyguard he’ll have as he attends CPAC this week. He doesn’t like to think about danger too much. He jokingly mentions weapons he carries that include a “bazooka, a dog feces catapult and horse urine balloons.” He gives a nod to his publicist on the dog feces line and makes sure she thinks it’s funny. At two or three junctures in our conversation, he prefaces what he is about to say by declaring that THIS will be the most shocking thing I hear from him all night. In those moments, I brace myself for news that he once ate a live chicken including the beak and then he inevitably tells me something comparatively benign.

But Breitbart, even at his least shocking, is anything but benign…

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After a two-week investigation, Manhattan prosecutors have concluded that no charges will be filed against Fox’s Greg Kelly, formerly a White House Correspondent for FNC. Various New York outlets first began reporting the news last night. It appears DNAInfo.com, AP, and the NYT all began reporting the news at the same time. A woman recently came forward and made allegations to authorities that Kelly had sexually assaulted her while they were on a date. Kelly is a host on “Good Day New York,” which airs on the Fox affiliate WNYW-TV.

He sent out the following statement in light of the news:

“I am thankful that the investigation established what I’ve known all along, that I am innocent of the allegations that were waged against me. I am so blessed to have a wonderful family and friends whose support for me never wavered. My lawyer Andrew Lankler and advisor Ken Sunshine were invaluable during this process. Thank you to the thousands of ‘Good Day New York’ viewers who expressed positive support through social media. And I am grateful to everyone at FOX 5, especially Rosanna Scotto, my co-host.  I will always remember her kindness, and I look forward to soon resuming my post on ‘Good Day New York’ next to her.”

Our friends at TVSpy confirmed that Kelly will return to the anchor desk on Friday.

A bake sale to raise awareness for childhood tumors. OK.
A car wash to raise awareness for childhood tumors. Also OK.
A nearly naked undie run to raise awareness for childhood tumors? Um, REALLY?

But it’s happening. This Saturday friends and family will strip down to their skivvies to raise awareness and funds for the Children’s Tumor Foundation. This year’s Cupid’s Undies Run will take place on Feb. 11 at 2 p.m. when scantily clad runners will jog down Pennsylvania Ave right in front of the Capitol. Representatives and the Children’s Tumor Foundation and families affected by the disease will all be on hand to join in the festivities.

Wait a second. Representatives? As in members of Congress? No, that would be faux George Washington and Teddy Roosevelt. No, real politicians wouldn’t be caught dead doing this, would they? “They would be scared after the whole Weiner scandal,” said founder Bobby Gill by phone this morning.

Gill insists the underwear-themed event works because “first and foremost it is a charity run for an amazing cause.” What’s more, it raises real money. The first year they raised $8,000, the second, $52,000. This year they’re on track to raise $200,000. “I would be surprised if anyone would be against it,” Gill said. “We had to get permission from all the police jurisdictions. We need to provide a little levity to showcase our cause. Apparently it’s effective, and it’s one chance you can run around Congress in your underwear and not get arrested.”

History of the event…

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Late last night, CNN Analyst and Washington Watch Host Roland Martin issued a “Final Thoughts” statement on the Super Bowl controversy that has thrown a wet blanket over him for the past 48 hours. In it, he explains that the LGBT community has accused him of supporting violence against gays. “That is furthest from the truth, and I sincerely regret any offense my words have caused,” he writes.

He says, he too, was bullied. A “middle schooler pulled a knife on my father when he boarded our school bus and came to the defense of me and my brother.” Specifically addressing jokes he made about smacking down men who enjoy looking at David Beckham in undies, he wrote, “My joking about smacking someone, whether it was in response to a commercial or food they prepare for a Super Bowl party or wearing an opposing team’s jersey, was stated in jest. It was not meant literally, and in no way would I ever condone someone doing such a thing.”

The tweet that sparked the controversy: “If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him!” Repercussions included GLAAD coming after him and demanding that CNN fire him as well as briefly being knocked off Twitter — or, as he called it, “Twitter jail.”

In his late-night statement, Roland pointedly apologized.

“As I said repeatedly, I often make jokes about soccer in the U.S., and my crack about David Beckham’s commercial was related to that and not to anyone’s sexuality. To those who construed my comment as being anti-gay or homophobic or advancing violence, I’m truly sorry. I can certainly understand how someone could come to a different conclusion than the one I meant.”

On big occasions,  Martin likes to have #Roland’s Rules, a funny, bold compilation of things he doesn’t want in his home. Typically they include anything from bad food to annoying house guests. Examples: “I don’t care if Christine Aguilera screws up up the national anthem, we don’t want to hear your version. Shut it! #rolandsrules.” And this one: “If you bring a football hatin’ woman to the party & she is on the phone complaining to her girlfriend, I’m cussing her out! #rolandsrules”

Read his full thoughts here.

Friends of Bloomberg News‘ Margaret Carlson: Don’t fall for the email many of you may have received this morning at the crack of dawn. No, she’s not in Madrid on an “urgent” trip recovering from being attacked on the way back to her hotel. And for God sake, do not send her money via wire transfer.

From: margaret carlson
Date: Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 6:13 AM
Subject: Big Problem

Hi. Just hoping this email reaches you well, I’m sorry for this emergency and for not informing you about my urgent trip to Madrid, Spain but I just have to let you know my present predicament. Everything was fine until I was attacked on my way back to the hotel, I wasn’t hurt but I lost my money, bank cards, mobile phone and my bag in the course of this attack. I immediately contacted my bank in order to block my cards and also made a report at the nearest police station. I’ve been to the embassy and they are helping me with my documentation so i can fly out but I’m urgently in need of some money to pay for my hotel bills and my flight ticket home, will PAY BACK as soon as i get back home. Kindly let me know if you would be able to help me out so I can forward you the details required for a wire transfer. I will expect your response soon.

Thanks
Margaret

We took a few weeks off counting up dongs on the morning shows. But in our quest to see how female pundits and journos are considered (or not) by the networks, it’s time to check back in with the Sunday morning political talk show circuit.

NBC’s The Chris Matthews Show: 2

Andrew Sullivan, Newsweek
Katty Kay, BBC
Michael Duffy, TIME
Kathleen Parker, The Washington Post

CBS’s “Face the Nation”: 0

The Miami Herald‘s Marc Caputo, RCP‘s Scott Conroy and CBS News’s John Dickerson. It must be noted that two guests of the program will be former GOP Presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.).

NBC’s “Meet the Press”: 1

Joe Scarborough
Host, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
Doris Kearns Goodwin
Presidential Historian
Chuck Todd
Political Director, NBC News
Chief White House Correspondent, NBC News

ABC’s “This Week”: 2

Donna Brazile, ABC News Contributor
Austan Goolsbee, Former Chairman, Obama Council of Economic Advisers
Laura Ingraham
Radio Host, “The Laura Ingraham Show”, Fox News Contributor
George Will, ABC News

Fox’s Good Day New York Host Greg Kelly, a former White House reporter for Fox News between 2005 and 2007, has been accused of raping a woman in Manhattan. He strongly denies the charge.

The story was first reported in the NYT this morning and has been repeated in a number of New York publications and TV outlets. The D.A.’s office is investigating. As the account goes, Kelly, a former Marine fighter pilot, met the woman, who is reportedly in her late 20s, early 30s, on the street in October and took her for drinks at the South Street Seaport. After drinks they visited the law firm where she worked. She claims the assault occurred there.

New York Newsday‘s Verne Gay wrote a story on the accusation against Kelly this morning and reprinted a profile he wrote on him back in 2003 when Kelly was an embed for Fox News. Forget about being unbiased. He prefaced the piece, saying, “It’s a positive profile for a reason – he was a very good embed.”

Kelly did not appear on Good Day New York this morning. He is the son of New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, who is weighing a mayoral run.

The Daily Caller‘s Michelle Fields needs a wake up call.

Last night she may have gotten one after posting a lighthearted note on Facebook boasting of a criminal who wrote her a 10-page love letter. He watched her on C-SPAN on Christmas Day and wrote her a handwritten letter that he mailed in to The Daily Caller. She wrote, “I just got my first 10 page love letter from an inmate in Pennsylvania serving a 30 year sentence.” One of her 53 Facebook friends who “liked” this wrote, “Congrts.” As if this is some kind of rite of passage for a young female video journalist. Well, it turns out that inmate is not just your garden variety murderer or armed robber — he’s a convicted, violent rapist who terrorized a woman at knife point. Police in Pittsburgh actually believed his intent was to murder her, but somehow he spared her and the authorities nabbed him.

Are we still laughing, Michelle?

Michelle’s cameraman Grae Stafford sent a note to the entire Daily Caller office Tuesday telling newsroom staff what happened. His email was accompanied by a link to a news story detailing what the rapist had done to land himself a 15-30 year sentence. Uncharacteristically for the rambunctious bunch, no one replied, at least not to the entire newsroom.

Meanwhile, Michelle felt the need to again joke — isn’t this all hilarious? — that FishbowlDC would hire the rapist when he gets released. Here’s the thing, Michelle. You won’t be laughing if one of these basement dwellers you are engaging with online regarding your legs or any other part of your anatomy comes after you. This was our original point — your behavior is neither safe nor typical of well-respected female journalists in the TV industry. This was also among our points less than a week ago when we published “Police Blotter” to show the kinds of men you are encouraging and engaging with online. They included @mindfulloffuck and @bigdaddybuckley. But they also include the good folks over at BigGov, your arch defenders, one of whom, Dan Riehl, once suggested you have a wet T-shirt contest. He didn’t suggest it on BigGov, but he did suggest it.

We don’t take issue with the fact that these men exist, or even that they follow Michelle. But when a stranger online comments on your anatomy and retweets a picture of your legs it’s time to delete him. While Michelle collects them as staunch supporters, we get accused of not liking attractive and so-called successful people. Newsflash: We host a beauty contest each year. I personally created The Hill‘s 50 Most Beautiful People of Capitol Hill. We have no problem with beauty. But we do have a problem with a female journalist engaging with, enticing and yes, leading on a potentially dangerous online element.

One of Fields’ followers, Shannon Poe, wrote Tuesday, “@MichelleFields when he gets out, I’m sure Fishbowl DC will have a job for him. ” To which Michelle replied, “@ShannonPoe Hahaha. I think being an obsessive stalker is a job requirement there.”

As funny as that might seem, we know The Daily Caller takes these things seriously. When WMAL’s and Fox News Contributor Mary Katharine Ham, who is still with The Daily Caller but in a looser capacity, used to get stalkerish type gifts, Editor-in-Chief Tucker Carlson didn’t treat the matter lightly. In one instance, Ham considered calling the police, but in the end decided to inform her superiors and take other precautions that include owning a gun.

Ham’s approach is in clear contrast to Fields. Ham does not engage with male fans who comment on her looks. She also rarely discusses the unusual gifts she has received or the comments made about her online.  “I would call my experience with weird fans and haters rare but occasionally concerning,” she wrote by email. “I pay attention when communication is any combination of two of the following: very frequent, threatening, or demonstrates a disconnect with reality. I take general precautions, keep records of those communications, and give event organizers names to watch out for. I don’t respond to communications, especially to anyone who seems to already have concocted some relationship between us. Nothing has ever gone beyond making me wary, thank goodness. Also, I’m armed.”

We like to have fun here in the Fishbowl — sometimes caustically so to prove a point. But egging on strange men online is not our game — and we hope all female journalists out there will take note from Michelle as to how not to behave online.

Carlson elected to comment through the publication’s spokeswoman Nicole Roeberg…You’re not going to want to miss the explanation.

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In yet another example of WaPo left-wing blogger and Democratic adviser Ezra Klein muddying the journalism waters, he has been running graphs from the NYT in their entirety — a move that’s upsetting the applecart in New York.

The tense discussion began on Twitter last night when NYT Graphics Editor Alan McLean questioned Klein. McLean’s former title was interface engineer for Interactive Technology group at The New York Times. He wrote, “What’s with the regular hot linking of NYT content? I’m sure we appreciate the linkbacks, but you’re including the whole graph? Taking competitor content, pasting it in your own site with minimalist attribution.” Klein had excuses: He attributes. Check. He links to the NYT. Check. Everybody’s doing it. WHAT?

The problem here is that Klein is posting the graphs in their entirety, which, ahem, makes it kind of pointless to visit the original source of the graph, even if it is just a click away.

McLean continued, “LOVE your blog, but taking a competitors graphic and including it IN your post hardly seems to do much for us.” Klein, meanwhile, says he tries to be a “good citizen” with his linking. “I also, in Wonkbook, try to do an enormous amount of linking out — much of it to NYT. I try to be a good citizen on this stuff,” he wrote. “And surely there’s some value to getting the graph (and credit) seen more widely? That’s how I view my graphs getting used.”

Klein argued that his attributions could hardly be considered “minimal.” He asked, “How is that minimal attribution?” And then he counseled the NYTer on these ever changing times and web traffic, saying, “More broadly, my graphs get pasted all over the net. NYT‘s do. Everybody’s does. It leads to traffic.”

Most recently, Klein gave a briefing to Senate Democratic Chiefs of Staff on the failing Supercommittee. It took him five days to respond to the matter, at which point he denied that it was a “briefing.” He likes to play with words. He said he “spoke” with a  bunch of Democratic Chiefs of Staff. He called it a “free-ranging discussion.”

In last night’s Twitter discussion, Klein finally gave in. After all, his wife, Annie Lowry, does now work there. “But if NYT doesn’t see it that way and editors want me to stop linking to their graphs, I obviously would,” he wrote. But it was McLean who had the final word: “As I said, we appreciate the linkage. But inserting the entire graphic seems more like a repost, rather than a link back.”

We’ve requested comment from WaPo PR.

 

 

 

We don’t use the word schmuck lightly.

But in the office of Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) there are a couple of them — like the fabulously named Laurel Schmuck, a former legislative aide who took heat for some underage drinking that went down at an office party last summer. The news was reported early this morning by Global Rhetoric‘s Joe Steffen and then by Jeff Quinton on the Inside Charm City blog.

Here’s the lowdown: Harris’ COS Kevin Reigurt allegedly bought booze for a going away party for an office intern. The underage intern got trashed and was thrown out of her internship program when she arrived back to her dorm after curfew. Harris’ aide, the Schmuck, got canned. Meanwhile, the congressman is one of those big social conservative family values types. Which is always a recipe for disaster. When will lawmakers learn not to be proponents of social or family values?

A weird detail worthy of noting: When Harris was first elected to the Maryland Senate, he defeated F. Vernon Boozer in the 1998 primary. He’s no Schmuck, but yes, he really is a Boozer.

But it gets even weirder. Turns out Peter Schmuck (father of Laurel) is a columnist for the Baltimore Sun and gave Reigurt a piece of his mind.

An excerpt from Steffen’s piece:

“To begin with, what the Hell was Kevin Reigurt thinking? Buying alcohol for a party to be held in Andy Harris’ office, a party celebrating the impending departure of an 18 year old? The very party which led to said underager getting smashed and thus making her impending departure immediate? And, Mr. Reigurt, isn’t a part of the job of the Chief of Staff to take – as opposed to deflect onto someone else – the hits (which, in this case, seems to be YOUR fault anyway?)”

We’ve emailed the congressman’s spokesman Ryan Nawrocki for comment. So far, no one from the office is talking. See the email I sent him after the jump.

Developing…

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