These are the glory days for Huffington Post. Their star "citizen journalist", Mayhill Fowler, has brought them more fame and notoriety than they could have ever imagined. First, she pretended to be an Obama supporter, got into a private fundraiser and, with MP3 recorder in hand, managed to almost single handedly bring down the Obama candidacy with her "bittergate" spin. Now, on the eve of Obama's apparent victory, she pretends to be a fan of Bill Clinton's in order to make another hidden recording, this time of Bill Clinton getting PO'd about the recent unflattering Vanity Fair article. More press coverage for HuffPo and another 15 minutes for Ms. Fowler.
As most of you reading this are probably aware, there was quite a bit of blowback from Ms. Fowler's "Obama as elitist" creation. Huffington Post defended her mightily under the "citizen journalist" umbrella. She was just a blogger after all, whether she was buying her way into a fundraiser pretending to be an Obama supporter, or going on anti-Obama shows like Lou Dobbs to tout her reporting. When it became known that Ms. Fowler was a contributor to Fred Thompson and the wife of a wealthy McCain supporter, she brushed it off and denied any agenda. She gave to Fred Thompson, because he was from Tennessee, like her. She really was an Obama supporter, undergoing an inner struggle as she wrote negative articles about him. See her New York Times interview here.
The blogosphere wasn't satisfied though, many were still outraged. Just look at a sampling of the comments on one her subsequent posts. Pages of comments about her reporting and her ulterior motives. Now looks at the pages of comments regarding the recent Bill Clinton outburst. Notice that there are almost no comments about Ms. Fowler's tactics, motivations, or past articles. No need to wonder why. I attempted to submit one and it wasn't printed. I assume I wasn't alone. Guess HuffPo didn't want anything to taint their latest leap into mainstream media fame via Mayhill. So the supposed bastion of liberalism is protecting any questioning of their star blogger's methods and motivation via censorship. Guess they don't want to kill the golden snake...I mean goose.
Indulge me in a bit of paranoia here, let's suppose there was someone who really was a Republican or had Republican leanings, let's say perhaps a Fred Thompson contributor and the wealthy wife of a McCain supporter. Further suppose they wanted to cause some "chaos", to borrow Rush Limbaugh's term, with the democrats. If they were in a position to get press coverage, they might want to find some remark that could be twisted in order to bring down the leader in the primary race. Maybe use the tried and true tact of making those democrats seem out-of touch and elitist. If this didn't work, it would still be possible, on the eve of the presumptive nomination, to stand on a rope line for Bill Clinton and ask him a question about that "hatchet job" in Vanity Fair. Hmmm...No telling what he might say. Yeah, that'll stir things up. He's already saying crazy things, so why not let him help fragment the party even more.
Now suppose this person could do all this under the cover of being a "citizen journalist" for a well known liberal blog.
OK, maybe I'm delusional, on the other hand, just because your paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
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