Stinky Fish

S.E. Cupp, a conservative commentator who works for GBTV, is in a bit of a pickle. She appears in Hustler, but not in the way you might think. The Blaze, a sister company to GBTV that is owned by Mercury Inc. which is owned by Glenn Beck, is reporting this morning that Cupp is part of a new Hustler graphic on celebrities. In the feature, they place a penis in the woman’s mouth. They’re calling it “Celebrity Fantasy.”

There is a “disclaimer” saying that “no such picture actually exists.” Still, Cupp is hopping mad and told Beck as much this morning when he interviewed her. They discussed how it would stick with her and affect her future (kids, etc…) and how it will make its way around the internet.

No word on whether she’ll take legal action, but Beck encouraged her to do so. He told his listening audience that if anyone wanted represent her, to contact his show.

Developing…

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Yesterday afternoon WaPo Opinion Media writer Erik Wemple reported on TWT and UPI Columnist Arnaud de Borchgrave‘s questionable attribution habits. In other words, he doesn’t attribute necessarily, he gathers bits and pieces from the vast number of news sources he reads daily.

The best part of the story are the excuses de Borchgrave offers Wemple. Our favorite: “As I recall, it came from my Pakistani associate Ammar Turabi and from the Pakistani English-language papers I read daily. I assume the AP, which I seldom read online, picked it up originally from Pakistani news sources.” The AP disputes this, saying the interview was given directly to the AP, not other sources of which de Borchgrave speaks.

This whole thing could wind up being a fun parlor game to play with friends. For example, read this TWT story from April and Google the last graph. “It would take a military jet flying at the speed of sound, reeling out a roll of dollar bills behind it, 14 years before it reeled out one trillion dollar bills.” Results of the exact same sentence show up on a variety of sites two years earlier. That must have been an easy cut and paste for de Borchgrave.

So far, TWT Editor Ed Kelley isn’t talking. Speaking of Kelley, another great line from de Borchgrave: “I don’t have an editor.”

Something smells fishy. On his Facebook page last night The Daily Caller‘s typically ballsy Nicholas Ballasy posted a photo of himself posing sweetly with former White House reporter Helen Thomas. The caption said he happened to run into the 92-year-old woman and she offered to buy him drinks.

We know love is blind and sometimes involves strange fetishes. But we thought, isn’t he a little young for her? We put that thought (and others) out of our minds.

FBDC asked Ballasy if he’d tell us more about the encounter (where he saw her, what they canoodled about, whether Thomas smelled like BENGAY, etc.). “She was just being nice by offering because we were talking to her at a hotel bar” Ballasy said.

We asked him to elaborate. “I’ll pass but thanks for the offer,” he said. Then mysteriously, the photograph vanished from his wall.

This is a modern day Helen Thomas mystery.

First we have Thomas offering to buy Ballasy a drink (at a hotel bar). Then he won’t tell us what they discussed. And then the photo disappears. Without making any salacious allegations, we just want to say the coverup is always worse than the affair crime.

We’ve reached out to Ballasy for comment.

Last week, we brought you a very important news story that Howiella (a.k.a. The Hill’s ITK Columnist Judy Kurtz) broke via Twitter. She attended a book party for MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan where she was tipped off by The Examiner’s Yeas and Nays lead writer Nikki Schwab that Ratigan was – GASP – not wearing socks. The fashion faux-pas occurred at a party celebrating “Greedy Bastards“, the new book from Ratigan. While this story was already a stretch to put on Twitter, Schwab decided that it needed “legs” and wrote a full piece on it. THANK GOD. After seeing the picture on Twitter, I thrust my head forward into my hands in a moment of panic and despair wondering why no one had written a lengthy examination of why Ratigan wasn’t wearing socks! Schwab informs us that Ratigan’s sockless look was “unintentional.” He explains that he simply lost them “in a hotel room somewhere.” Stay tuned for Nikki’s next big scoop, “The secret to Dylan Ratigan’s Cuticle Conditioning.”

Last night Howiella (a.k.a. The Hill‘s ITK Columnist Judy Kurtz) attended a book party for MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan and discovered that some men there have feet. And blessedly we get to kill a few birds with one stone — this was actually an observation by The Examiner‘s Yeas & Nays lead writer Nikki Schwab. Howiella knows something this stellar deserves a citation. Yes, dear readers, this is what passes for gossip in Washington. Horrifying.

As @NikkiSchwab noticed, Dylan Ratigan is sockless at his book party. Sen Sanders in loafers, Rep Schweikert in boots. twitter.com/JudyKurtz/stat…

— Judy Kurtz (@JudyKurtz) February 3, 2012

Actress Drew Barrymore came through Washington this week to promote her movie, “Big Miracle” where she plays a devout environmentalist, as she supposedly is in real life.  The big problem? She flew into Washington Dulles’ private airfield, Signature, from New York on a not so environmentally friendly private jet with three friends and her fiancé, Will Kopelman.

“I thought as an environmentalist your not suppose to be polluting the world with unnecessary bad fuel,” said Q & A Celebrity’s Colin Drummond on the scene when her plane landed. “That’s why Leo DiCaprio, Warren Buffett and Sean Penn all fly commercial.”

While in Washington Barrymore stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel, which offers extensive greening programs that “make planning a green meeting or event easier than ever.” They include reusing guest room linens, on-site recycling and composting, and oxygenating meeting spaces with green plants.

On Wednesday Senate flacks — both Democrats and Republicans — will host a party for NYT‘s newest Washington reporter Jonathan Weisman. Weisman recently made the move to The Grey Lady from WSJ.

While a party of this nature is definitely uncommon, one of our sources put it like this: “Well, he’s been around awhile. It is the Times.” Another reacted this way to the idea of flacks throwing a welcome party for a reporter: “Yuck.”

The “informal/formal” party, as it was described, will be held at Johnny’s Halfshell at 6 p.m.

Like most people, Weisman’s reputation is muddled. From those we spoke with, this is what we heard: He’s smart. He’s sweet. He’s can be a know-it-all. Rubs some the wrong way. But…not a bad guy after awhile.

 

We’ve gotten a few nameless readers riled by our “picking on” Politico‘s Playbook Rambo Mike Allen. Here’s what they have to say about our coverage.

1. “Why do you keep picking on Mike Allen, a real journalist, while you think Emily Miller and Britebarf [sic] and Jim O’Keefe are nothing more than unpricipled [sic] right wing hacks?”

2. “You people are dicks. While Mike Allen is doing real journalism and bringing in more than $1 million/year you assholes are trashing people on your blog which used to host valuable information. It’s sad that you trash a man who’s busy covering the Iowa caucus for not responding to your petty email. Get a real job…like the one Mike has.”

Memo to AnonymASSES: Our deepest apologies. It won’t will happen again.

Like some reporters, WaPo‘s Elizabeth Flock was off last week — conceivably for the holidays.

But FishbowlDC sources are insisting that Flock was suspended last week for writing that post on GOP Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney‘s using a KKK slogan in his speeches. Editors who oversaw the post insisted that she call Romney’s campaign for comment. She did so via email and the comment went to her spam folder, as reported by WaPo Ombudsman Patrick Pexton on Dec. 16. In his piece, Pexton gave Flock a public flocking on many levels — her journalism, her ethics and her common sense. He suggests that she pick up the phone once in a blue moon and use it. He also suggests she think before associating someone who has never been accused of racism with the KKK. Then this morning, weirdly, she writes about an 8-year-old American girl being targeted by Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel. Coincidence perhaps?

Sources in WaPo‘s newsroom say word spread last week that WaPo had suspended Flock. She didn’t post anything last week, nor tweeted about anything work-related. But today she’s back on BlogPost. Was she on a regularly scheduled holiday or what some are calling a “forced vacation”? At WaPo Managing Editor Raju Narisetti‘s newsroom Q&A last week, he said experienced editors read the post before it went up and didn’t flag it.

Flock did not deny the news. But she responded to FBDC, saying, “Thanks for your email. I can’t comment on the matter. You will have to go through Marcus Brauchli.” Narisetti, who oversees the entire website operation,  also wouldn’t comment. “Happy holidays,” he said in response. “As you might imagine, I can’t comment on personnel issues.” To that end, we sought comment from WaPo Director of Communications Kris Coratti. We also threw in an email to Executive Editor Steamed Marcus Brauchli for kicks and will check our spam filters pronto. We’re hoping four’s a charm.

UPDATE: Coratti wrote, “We don’t comment on personnel issues. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.”

From JournoList to activist, it appears that WaPo‘s liberal blogger Ezra Klein is once again blurring the lines between being a journalist and trying to sway politics. In what appears to be at a minimum a breach of journalism ethics, Klein spoke to a group of Senate Democratic Chiefs of Staff last Friday about the Supercommittee, just days before the Committee announced its failing. “It was kind of weird,” said a longtime Senate Democratic aide, explaining that while people “enjoyed it” and gave it “positive reviews” this sort of thing is far from typical.

A longtime Washington editor who deals with Capitol Hill regularly also said this is not the norm: “”I have never heard of a reporter briefing staffers. It’s supposed to be the other way around. This arrangement seems highly unusual.”

Klein’s speech to high-level Democratic aides was in the Capitol, closed door and off the record. It lasted 30 minutes. “I think they thought it was very helpful,” said the aide. “I think it’s unusual. What’s more common is to get someone like Paul Begala or a White House staffer. To get a journalist to talk is a little unusual.”

But then again, Klein is unusual. In the summer of 2010, his exclusive partisan JournoList, a secretive listserv of some 400 members, collapsed as contents of the exchanges began leaking out. Journalists took hits for their participation, such as then WaPo‘s Dave Weigel, who quickly apologized on the newspaper’s blog for some of what he wrote. He was fired over the matter and is now at Slate. The Daily Caller reported extensively on the offending material. The end result: Klein shut the list down.

Briefings for journalists covering Capitol Hill are usually the reverse of what transpired here. Lawmakers brief reporters. Aides brief reporters. Think tanks brief reporters. Think tanks brief aides. But reporters briefing aides? This is unheard of.

Important questions to have answered: Was Klein strategizing with Democrats on messaging of the Supercommittee’s failure? What exactly was the purpose of the reporter’s speech?

We wrote Klein for comment. While he may refuse to read FishbowlDC, preferring instead to stick to the confines of CJR, his readers need to demand answers from him if they are going to trust the integrity and validity of his journalism. We also wrote WaPo Publicist Kris Coratti to find out what the rules are on these sort of talks and if WaPo was even aware that Klein was giving the speech. She said she’d look into it. That was three hours ago. If we get a statement we’ll bring it to you.

See the email FBDC sent to Ezra after the jump…

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