Taking Out The Trash

Callista stands by her man as he outlines his plans for a moon colony. See the infamous video courtesy of the C-SPAN library.

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.

Tommy Christopher is White House Correspondent for Mediaite, but who is the real Tommy Christopher? That’s a question no one asked before yesterday, and probably one no one will ask again after today. But it was asked yesterday, and the asking of it started a pissing match between the aforementioned and alleged Mr. Christopher and The Daily Caller’s Jeff Poor.

Poor wrote a story yesterday pointing out that Mediaite’s White House Correspondent’s name is not Tommy Christopher. Fine, it’s true, his name is not Tommy Christopher. But Poor incited Christopher’s wrath by opening his piece with a simple question: “What if the first two words in every story you have written for a particular outlet were a blatant effort to mislead your readers?”

While a pen name is hardly a Stephen Glass or Jayson Blair moment (hell, I use one), the alleged Mr. Christopher never misses an opportunity to promote himself…no matter how small the audience may be, no matter the state of his rusty, smokey, vocal chords.

The apparent Tommy took to the only outlet insignificant enough to care about a non-controversy involving a self-promoting writer – The Ed Morrissey Show on U-Stream. (The interview starts at the 1 hour mark, the fun starts…I’m kidding, the fun never starts.)

The (as of this writing) 82 people who watched Morrissey’s interview with the supposed Christopher were treated to the equivalent of watching paint dry while the painter bragged about how flat the paint is. In other words, it was seriously boring.

The hypothetical White House correspondent admitted that he thinks very highly of himself (though not highly enough to have the dignity to simply pass on a chance to have his Little Rascals “Froggy” voice sent out to an uninterested Internet. He also widely considers himself to be a “public figure,” which he has voiced several times in the past 48 hours. Whatever the imaginary Christopher’s real name is, someone “more famous” than him already has it. This limits the possibilities to everyone on the planet, which just so happens to be the polar opposite of the number of people who really care.

But we do love watching a good fight, and this one has been entertaining, at least in the comment section…

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That headline might seem misleading, but it’s 100 percent accurate. It’s just not a candidate anyone has heard of. No, it’s not Gary Johnson, or even Buddy Roemer. As fringe as they are (Johnson is set to leave the GOP and run on the Libertarian ticket), they’re both downright electable compared to the weirdo who took to Facebook to attack the Mormon religion (pictured below are Mormon undergarments).

Meet Fred Karger, long-time campaign consultant, gay rights activist and hater of Mormons. He’s also polling just behind, “What? Who?” in Iowa.

Karger, who bills himself as “the first openly gay presidential candidate from a major political party in American history,” decided to take to Facebook to announce his newest website www.top10craziestmormonbeliefs.com.

A letter on the site’s homepage says, “This web site is by no means meant to harm anyone or any faith.” Yeah, and the sun didn’t mean to be hot either.

Karger’s hatred of Mormons seems to stem from his “organization Californians Against Hate (now Rights Equal Rights) to investigate the LDS Church and the National Organization for Marriage in their campaigns against marriage equality in California and Maine.” So it’s not political, it’s personal.

Unfortunately for Fred, his Facebook announcement of his new website seems to have cost him quite a few potential voters, and it didn’t have any to spare.

All comments, with one exception, were negative with the most common word used being “shame.” One poster wrote, “Run on your platform and stop slamming the Mormons.” But then again, when you create a website like Fred did, slamming Mormons seems to be his platform.

File this under “stupid” and try to forget you ever heard the name Fred Karger. It shouldn’t be too hard to do.

MSNBC contributor Meghan McCain is also, like, totally a blogger! When not dispensing overpriced dime-store insight into the space between her ear she calls the young Republican mindset, she muses about stuff ‘n’ stuff on her website, McCainblogette.

Tuesday, Meghan took to her blog to offer some advice on “How to avoid 140-character regret,” four pearls of wisdom on how she tries to avoid exposing herself as an idiot by making embarrassing mistakes on Twitter.

She describes it this way: “Here are some rules I’ve set for myself to avoid any Tweet-centric mishaps or regrets.”

Overlooking the opening graph that would earn a D- in a third grade writing class, her points are as follows.

“1. Never tweet directly after a breakup, trust me no good will come of this. You are too emotionally raw and you don’t want to take it out on your twitter family.”

OK, not the worst advice ever. But it’s a lot like telling a kid “Don’t stare at the sun.” It’s gonna happen. But still, not a horrible start. Though referring to strangers on Twitter as “family” is a bit odd.

“2. Never tweet when you are angry in response to a follower. Take a step back and breathe- it’s just some anonymous person on the internet.”

First, the word “Internet” should be capitalized. Second, didn’t she just say people on Twitter were her family? Now they’re “just some anonymous person”? Where’s the love, Meghan? Third, if Twitter isn’t for fighting and letting the world see pictures of what you’re eating for dinner, what’s it for?

“3. Make sure that whenever you post a picture, you have looked over numerous times to make sure it’s correct. Tori Spelling’s husband recently tweeted a topless picture of his wife accidentally without realizing it- yikes!”

OK, there’s just a lot of stupid happening here. A LOT! Take a second and read that again, then realize that she’s a Columbia University graduate and PAID to write for The Daily Beast. The first sentence has a missing “it” and “Tori Spelling’s husband recently tweeted a topless picture of his wife accidentally without realizing it…”? Who would Tori Spelling’s husband’s wife be? And could you “accidentally” tweet something while realizing it? If this is what you get with an Ivy League education, community college for everyone! Tina Brown, that sound you hear is your brand tarnishing.

“4. And finally, try not to tweet anything you wouldn’t be comfortable with your mother, grandmother or sister reading – that’s my rule of thumb.”

Um…Uh…Why did she feel the need to make three points about her “rules,” then, in the final point, say THIS ONE is her “rule of thumb”?  What are the other three? General guidelines she thinks people should just ignore as long as grandma, mom and sis are cool with what you’ve said? “Rules of pinky”?

You have to wonder sometimes if Meghan ever reads what she’s written. More than that, you have to wonder how hard it is for colleagues at MSNBC and The Daily Beast to not laugh at her when she’s around. As for the rest of us, it’s a good thing she’s not around.

 

What we almost missed this week…

• Since they own us, you might as well start reading China Daily.  It lands in DC next week.

• Christine O’Donnell Says Piers Morgan Is ‘Borderline Creepy.’

• Lock up your iPods and turn off the television! Tomorrow is National Radio Day.

• Brian Wilson sings a Beatles parody about Obama’s campaign bus tour: Audio here.

• This is what ‘wealth’ looks like. With $294 Million, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) tops Roll Call’s list of the 50 Richest Members of Congress.  Corresponding article here.

It’s official. I’m breaking one of my New Year’s resolutions and writing about Washington’s biggest waste of flesh, the Salahis.  Just when I thought the fame-whoring White trash House crashers had finally burnt through the last of their celebrity, Michaele goes and makes an even bigger ass of herself on Miami’s NBC affiliate this morning.

Alas, she’s back in the media and this time she’s a singer.  But we must admit, the below video of  her debut performance of “Bump It” is not only ridiculous, it’s kind of hilarious.  Partly because Michaele looks like a low-rent Dina Lohan who slaughtered a helpless, gay zebra to make her dress… But mainly because of the “In Living Color” Fly Girl rejects and elfin rapper who help her break it down. Happy Friday.

View more videos at: http://nbcmiami.com.

WCP‘s Benjamin Freed recently wrote about the would-be studded event at the National Press Club last Friday. Journopalooza, explained its first organizer (Christina Davidson of the Atlantic), “started out as a running joke” to get WaPo cartoonist Tom Toles and his band, Suspicious Package, out of the basement they practiced in and into a club.

And, at least the way Freed sees it, it seems Journopalooza is still largely a joke and part of a makeshift bubble. In other words people go for the bubble and then maybe the music. Freed reports that almost nobody considered to be a “boldface name” showed up. Instead, he wrote, most people in attendance were members of the National Press Club who were just happy to be able to tell people that they live in D.C. and are members of the Press Club. The event “embodies the masturbatory nature of Washington media and politics.”

And the lackluster attendance wasn’t for a lack of invites. Even the White House Office of Communications was sent an invitation, though Politico‘s Mike Allen said that only one person from the office was there.

Yahoo! News editor Chris Lehmann was there playing with his band, Charm Offensive, but couldn’t even convince his wife, Ana Marie Cox of GQ, to attend.

Suspicious Package won the battle of the bands. Suspiciously, Freed wrote, few of alleged import were really there enjoy it

Congrats to AP’s Robert Furlow: a beloved editor in AP’s Washington bureau, Bob was among those staffers who received annual employee recognition honors at AP’s NYC headquarters on Wednesday evening. Furlow was awarded a $3,000 Oliver S. Gramling Spirit Award. See the release here.

Feelin’ Tapper’s Love: Jake Tapper, WH correspondent and interim host for ABC’s “This Week” had nothing but love and praise for Gregory, Schieffer and Wallace during a recent interview with Imus.

Katie Couric Steals Erica America: Washington blogger Erica Anderson aka “Erica America” said goodbye to Washington for a job with CBS and Katie Couric in the Big Apple.

Bristol and Levi Pimp their Engagement: Reliable Source questions whether Us Weekly $$$$ the nation’s third most annoying couple (behind the Salahis and Speidi).

And what better way to end…or start your week than with MSNBC’s Domenico Montanaro, Andy Gross and “The Week Ahead.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

We bring you Mediaite’s recent story of FNC’s Shepard Smith very lightly mocking Bill O’Reilly’s “F–k it, We’ll Do it Live!” clip from “Inside Edition” because it’s worth watching repeatedly.

Watch it here.

In case you were curious about Bill Maher of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” and his comments on MSNBC Wednesday, here they are.

Maher’s remarks fantastically encompass Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.), health care and President Obama’s smoking.

“Thank God you are here,” remarked host Lawrence O’Donnell.

Then O’Donnell asked: “Are you gay?”
“If I was, I would be better looking,” Maher replied.

In the course of the interview, O’Donnell asks Maher about snorkeling in the Navy. Maher wasn’t in the Navy,he explained. “I’ve never heard of snorkeling,” the comedian said. ..”It does sound dirty.”