Drudge smear source here...

Rolling Stone had a young reporter sent to make anti-youth vibes for underdog and then up-and-coming candidate for POTUS and VP, General Wes Clark. He hounded people in house as a "volunteer" and made copy so bad it did not get published.

The Nation saw fit to do so, however.

Atrios had a person in comments bring this source's name up. Since he was prominent in the NH postcoverage as a slimy reverse-spin meister it is time to address his tactics and persona.

(#273) (No rating)
by Clark Twain on 08/18/2004 10:19:01 PM EST
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Long time no see all! Here are a few comments to place about the entire Drudge report smear campaign. I believe I have successfully pieced together the alleged "Clark staffer" source Drudge mentions. He is a Rolling Stone reporter whose article covering Clark was so bad it couldn't make copy, so he sent it to The Nation and found a happy format to place his filthy story upon.
(Comments from atrios' blog, haloscan comments section,wtfwjd? was the person to post...thread topic is entitled "Deployment" and it is on Clark's latest interpretation of the Bush re-deployment and its patchwork placement of troops and their families abroad to bases not ready to logistically support our soldiers and certainly unfit for families who will often be separated from base deployed armed forces for those technically not in hostile deployments).

Drudge 'staffer' source for Kerry smear- cont.

"Seeing Clark's and Taibbi's name mentioned in the same day gets my blood boiling all over again at what that fuckwad hack Taibbi wrote about Clark in the Nation:

You can see something in the eyes of most all the Democratic candidates... Not Wesley Clark. His eyes are blank. Like a turtle resting on a rock in the middle of a pond, he simply seems never to move, no matter how long you stare. But then, just as you're about to pack up your picnic basket and go home, you catch him: His head pops out, and he slides off into the water...
...
For the two weeks or so that I had been a volunteer, I had tried, unsuccessfully, to get a rise out of my fellow Clark supporters. Just to see how they would react, I had introduced myself at the first meet-up as an adult-film director named Rondell Abrams. Massachusetts campaign staff member Dave Rubin, a skittish young Brandeis grad, gritted his teeth when I told him I'd just finished making Asian Ass Vixens 6.

"I also did the East St. Louis Street Hookers series," I said.

He nodded. "Well, uh, we're glad to have you."

For this second meet-up, I'd upped the ante, showing up with a friend: She and I were both wearing cervical collars and walking with the stiff posture of personal-injury plaintiffs. I explained to Rubin that I'd been kicked by a donkey, while "Anne" had been thrown off by one. "Wow, that's tough," he said. "But thanks for coming, in that condition."
...
The meeting wore on. It was an amazing experience. Here, ostensibly, were two porn-industry professionals, dressed in identically preposterous cervical collars, attending an organizational meeting for a straitlaced four-star general--and no one so much as blinked.

This is not so surprising, however, because paying close attention is not really what the Clark campaign is about. In fact, it's very much about the opposite: squinting your eyes, blurring out the margins and focusing on the one main goal on the horizon--beating George Bush. In my time around the campaign I got the sense that this "blurring out" is central to the thinking of the Clark supporter--a desire to dispense with the moral nitpicking of the post-1960s era and get behind the man for the Big Win.

Fuck you, Taibbi. If we lose in November it will because of divisive a-holes like you and Saint Ralph."

(from wtfwjd?'s haloscan comments via atrios)


(#282) (No rating)
by Clark Twain on 08/18/2004 10:23:46 PM EST
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wtfwjd?,

I remember that hit piece. I was waiting for Taibbi to shout "Baba Booey!" at one of Clark's events. That would've actually improved Taibbi's drivel.
grr | (reply in same thread...)

(#285) (No rating)
by Clark Twain on 08/18/2004 10:25:36 PM EST
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fwiw, i'm with wtfwjd on Taibbi. The man's a puerile and divisive ass. Just because his anti-Bush rants occasionally coincide with my own doesn't mean I think he's not a heap of steaming, sulfurous, self-satisfied dung.
WendellGee | (replies cont.)

(#289) (No rating)
by Clark Twain on 08/18/2004 10:29:39 PM EST
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["Not to hijack this thread, but this Taibbi guy really burns me up.

Here's what Clark's Communications Director Matt Bennet had to say about Matt "Horse Sperm" Taibbi...I think it's spot-on:

From: Matt Bennett [mailto:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 2:13 PM
To: XXXXXXXXXXXX@washpost.com
Subject: Your Piece on Matt Taibbi

Howard: As you may recall, I was Communications Director for the Clark Campaign.

Yesterday you ran an item noting that Matt Taibbi is now "covering" the campaign, in his way, for Rolling Stone. If you write about him again, I think it's worth noting that Taibbi wrote an excrecable story on Clark that appeared, much to the magazine's disgrace, in The Nation.

Taibbi is, to put it plainly, a nut and a hack. His hatchet-job on Clark stooped to the very lowest levels of journalism, violating a number of ethical standards along the way. Among other things, (as he freely admits in the piece) he posed as a volunteer on our campaign in New Hampshire and reported on what he saw and heard in confidence. He also misquoted and grossly distorted what other campaign volunteers said to him, using their names. These were not campaign spokespeople or officials -- they were sign-carrying, envelope-licking volunteers. To use them the way he did, without telling them he was a reporter and quoting them on the record, is shameful.

Moreover, this is the same "reporter" who, as editor of a loony ex-pat magazine in Russia called "the eXile", once hit NY Times correspondence Michael Wines in the face with a cream pie made of horse sperm. If you don't believe me, check this out:

http://www.exile.ru/113/lead.php.

Further perusal of the eXile makes clear why Taibbi had a vendetta against Wes Clark -- he was virulently opposed to the Kosovo War. For The Nation to hire him to write a cover on Clark with such well known predilections, and then to PRINT the story he wrote (with the aforementioned ethical issues), was inexcusable.

Matt Taibbi has no place in legitimate journalism. Rolling Stone should be ashamed of themselves for hiring or using him. Feel free to use any of this on the record if you write a follow-up.

Best,
Matt Bennett"]
wtfwjd? |



(#320) (No rating)
by Clark Twain on 08/18/2004 11:32:34 PM EST
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Not to hijack this thread, but this Taibbi guy really burns me up.

Here's what Clark's Communications Director Matt Bennet had to say about Matt "Horse Sperm" Taibbi...I think it's spot-on:

From: Matt Bennett [mailto:XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX]
Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 2:13 PM
To: XXXXXXXXXXXX@washpost.com
Subject: Your Piece on Matt Taibbi

Howard: As you may recall, I was Communications Director for the Clark Campaign.

Yesterday you ran an item noting that Matt Taibbi is now "covering" the campaign, in his way, for Rolling Stone. If you write about him again, I think it's worth noting that Taibbi wrote an excrecable story on Clark that appeared, much to the magazine's disgrace, in The Nation.

Taibbi is, to put it plainly, a nut and a hack. His hatchet-job on Clark stooped to the very lowest levels of journalism, violating a number of ethical standards along the way. Among other things, (as he freely admits in the piece) he posed as a volunteer on our campaign in New Hampshire and reported on what he saw and heard in confidence. He also misquoted and grossly distorted what other campaign volunteers said to him, using their names. These were not campaign spokespeople or officials -- they were sign-carrying, envelope-licking volunteers. To use them the way he did, without telling them he was a reporter and quoting them on the record, is shameful.

Moreover, this is the same "reporter" who, as editor of a loony ex-pat magazine in Russia called "the eXile", once hit NY Times correspondence Michael Wines in the face with a cream pie made of horse sperm. If you don't believe me, check this out:

http://www.exile.ru/113/lead.php.

Further perusal of the eXile makes clear why Taibbi had a vendetta against Wes Clark -- he was virulently opposed to the Kosovo War. For The Nation to hire him to write a cover on Clark with such well known predilections, and then to PRINT the story he wrote (with the aforementioned ethical issues), was inexcusable.

Matt Taibbi has no place in legitimate journalism. Rolling Stone should be ashamed of themselves for hiring or using him. Feel free to use any of this on the record if you write a follow-up.

Best,
Matt Bennett

Hey guys- NH was where the Kerry intern rumor froma "Clark staffer" came to be via Matt Drudge. I think you've nailed the source.

Not that it came to be a problem, Clark dropped the race offically and backed Kerry the day before Drudge could run the story up. It appears he heard so and used movement to defeat the cheap tactic.

Thanks you for the post 'wtfwjd?' I have to place this at CCN.
Mr.Murder |

"A close friend of the woman first approached a reporter late last year claiming fantastic stories -- stories that now threaten to turn the race for the presidency on its head.

Later on Friday, Kerry is scheduled to join General Wesley Clark, who, in an off-the-record conversation with a dozen reporters earlier this week, plainly stated: "Kerry will implode over an intern issue."

Reporters who witnessed Clark making the stunning comments marvel at the General's reluctance to later confirm they were spoken -- only to later endorse Kerry for the nomination!" Drudge has changed his sourcing and refuses to name anyone. The "reporter" around the Clark team was probably the same "volunteer" who was supposed to be a story implant, the Rolling Stone salary or commissar/commissioned slander goon of the week at said time...


Drudge and Taibbi, the "journalist" odd couple...until he reveals source and verifies otherwise take it as word. Go ahead Drudge, make my day!

The story itself bears repeating twice. Because his spurrious behavior matches that of Matt Drudge and his attempted distortion of people for "off the record" comments shows itself in his own writings. Technically, since he fronted as a Clark staffer, he could be considered "an anonymous source" perhaps for emplanted smears?


Regardless in his method it would appear he took hearsay from people out of context and claimed official staff representation of such "quotes". Matt Drudge never had the balls to name names. It would perhaps be a matter of civil liability that the lady named could so pursue... another story entirely though. Swine runs in herds. The two biggest pigs on the smear list shared a common venue. Do the math it adds up, fuzzy jacuzzi journalists using improper methods.