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"Who Is Mary Matalin?"
Mary Matalin, I've always admired your feistiness and fine mind -- and over the last year I appreciate as well how difficult it is for women in media, for there is indeed an undercurrent of sexism, and that means you, Jake Tapper, yukking it up on This Week with George Stephanopoulos about Brit and Paris being stupid (Paris Hilton may be a party girl, but that does not mean she is stupid -- in fact, I suspect she is very smart) -- but Mary, you have let me down. How could you? Jerome Corsi? Having chosen Corsi's Obama Nation, at least you could have done a decent job with the editing. You're old enough to know that choices have inexorable consequences. You're old enough to know that truth always finds its way, in the end. Don't you remember your Shakespeare? The little candle that throws its beams in a naughty world? You should be carrying one of those candles. And to think I'd always thought of you as a Portia.
Ah well, from childhood I've seen that politics is a nasty business. So it's probably useless to try to set the record straight about a few things Corsi says about my husband and me in the mercifully brief section of Obama Nation called "Who Is Mayhill Fowler?" But for the record:
1. I am not a "self-appointed freelance journalist." If only, Jerome and Mary, you could know how amusing and false is "self-appointed!" But I digress. The fact is that in the first week of June 2007 Amanda Michel, the director of Off the Bus, telephoned to ask me to join the new citizen journalism project at Huffington Post. Also, freelance implies paid. I am not paid for my work. As of June 2008, I am reimbursed for some but not all my expenses; I do not receive a salary.
2. My husband is not a McCain supporter. He has been a Democrat his entire life. He always votes the Democratic ticket. While I'm on the subject of my husband, he does not own yachts -- not in Turkey, not in America, not anywhere. Don't journalists know how to do research anymore? I think not. As all attorneys have to take Continuing Education of the Bar classes to keep their licenses, so journalists should go back to school for refresher courses. That means you, Bart Sullivan, with the Washington Bureau of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal. Don't you know better than to believe what you google-garner from internet gossip?
3. I was never "turned away" from an Obama fundraiser with Bill Bradley. If you had done a modicum of research, you would have found that I wrote about that fundraiser, to which I was invited and which I attended, in an OffTheBus post dated January 30, 2008. Bill Bradley: McCain/Huckabee Toughest GOP Ticket. This might be the time to state also that my editors, not I, put the titles on my pieces. On February 3, 2008 I posted on OffTheBus another Obama fundraiser piece: Teddy Kennedy Campaigns for Obama in Two Californias. San Francisco TV personalities Phil Matier and Andrew Ross are the source of the "turned away" misinformation -- and again, guys, don't believe everything you read on the internet. You, too, are old enough to know better.
What Jerome Corsi writes about me is of little importance -- although it is fun to kvetch. And what's a scurrilous book about Barack Obama, in the end? The outcome of Election 2008 is going to hinge on the three debates (and possibly the fourth vice-presidential one) and the intensity of the Obama Campaign's get-out-the-vote effort. I'd say more -- but prognostication is an invitation to a jinx.
But Mary, Mary -- your intelligence! You've betrayed it. When you tell the New York Times that Corsi's book, which you are publishing, is "a piece of scholarship, and a good one at that," you know that's not true. You're smart and educated and well aware that book scholarship requires the use of primary sources, interviews and fact-checking. You know the exact worth of internet gossip as a resource. The real reason you are publishing Corsi's book is that you want to defeat Barack Obama. In Corsi's world view, Obama and I both are venal; but whoever we may be and neither of us is perfect, to paraphrase Senator Obama's frequent comment about himself, nevertheless the venality would seem to be all yours.
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bullseye, fowler
The look on James Carville's face for the last few years tells you exactly what Mary Matalin is. He seems to have become so angry, defensive and on the other hand flat in affect most times, seems empty. He used to be a jovial hellraiser before he got married. He used to be so raucous and funny. Now he is raucous and nasty.
I don't think this has anything to do with Hillary's campaign either. He was angry long before then.
How could she have sent this thing to print? With all these lies that have been debunked, Obama should be suing them! These people are so partisan, they will do anything to win.
Hadn't thought about the relationship between Carville becoming arrogant-mean and his marriage until reading your comment. Insightful. Matalin's performance in this will go down as a prime example of how low we've let things sink. Thanks, S
Ah, Mayhill..now you've soiled Mary Matalins "..beautiful mind.." with distressing things like TRUTH (and possibly shame..nahhh) - but CONservatives dismiss such 'irrelevancies' with ease, it seems..! ;)
I think it's perfectly obvious who Mary Matalin is. She's a person who long ago put aside any sense of right and wrong or personal conscience. It was clear on the night of the 2000 election, when Florida was announced for Gore, and the look on Matalin's face betrayed her pre-knowledge that it wasn't going to "work out" quite like that. She knew the "fix was in" in Florida. It was even clearer when she went to work for Dick Cheney and lied on every television channel she could get a shot on, about everything. The lies don't improve, they just continue. In a person who will lie about things as important to this nation as going to war and betraying a covert agent, lying about a journalist is kindergarten stuff. A better question might be "When will you ever stop lying, Mary Matalin?"
Annnd Mayhill,,,it's a hit! So far you have produced the best rebuttal to Corsi that I have read.
You give Matalin too much credit.
Yes, she's very smart, but she was always a right wing infighter and that means drinking the Kool Aid when it comes to Swiftboating the opposition.
Matalin was Chief of Staff to Lee Atwater.
Matalin was an adviser to Dick Cheney.
Matalin was a member of the the White House Iraq Group, an internal White House task force charged with the task of selling the Iraq invasion to the American public.
Matalin was Treasurer for Virginia Senator George Allen.
Considering Mary Matalin's bio, how can anything that she does come as a surprise? As for being educated, Matalin is a college dropout. And as far as betraying her intelligence, Mary Matalin proves that it doesn't require intelligence to lie to the public, only a lack of character.
Wow. That was good.
And right on as rain.
Perfect analysis....ALL bases covered!
When Bob Woodward was hawking his book Plan of Attack about the lead-up to our Attack on Iraq, he was asked if Bush 43 had consulted with his father, Bush 41 about the attack. Woodward reported that Bush 43 (Dubya) replied "no" but Bush 43 said he did consult with Mary Matalin and Karen Hughes about the U.S. attacking Iraq. Matalin and Hughes. both PR types, said "yes" to our invasion of Iraq.
Great wisdom there, eh???????????????
Good for you. I hope the O ppl know the lies are more than merely about O.
I should add that this MM knows as much about "scholarship" as that other MM, Malkin. Citing your own gossipy nonsense as a source is even below the standard of Wikipedia. Neither MM has a PhD nor understands even remotely what scholarship means.
Correction to correction.
Please insert "then that they.." in the appropriate place.
Gracias.
Correction:
>
Ms Fowler:
As a 40 year BaY Area resident I can state with all honesty that Matier and Ross are NOT tv personalities, they are indeed gossip hacks at the SF Chronicle, who do weekly stints on desperate radio stations.
Not surprised than that would be the source of misinformation.
Why they haven't taken a buyout yet is beyond me... they do nothing to retain readership.
She may have been misquoted. She might have actually said, " ...a piece of scholarschlepp..."
Isn't it obvious to everyone that if you have to right a book to make sure someone is NOT elected, then they must be afraid that Obama IS the next President of the United States, unless something dramatic happens. We have continuously heard that "something" was going to happen to cause him to not get the nomination......but he did. We have heard that he can not win.....but he can.
My hope is that some of the prominent people who have been so careless and blatant in their smear campaign be held liable and accountable.
As soon as Obama moves from presumptious nominee to nominee, then maybe he can actually feel free to battle. It is unfortunate that there are still distractions.....and this is but one.
I think you give Matalin too much credit, she's like Coulter...fake smart, fact is she's just good at spin. While that takes a form of intelligence to be able to twist the truth and fabricate lies to fit your objective it's hardly an intellectual pursuit.
Well said.
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Posted August 14, 2008 | 02:20 PM (EST)