CNN's Dana Loesch Pushes Old, Debunked National Enquirer Rumors of Obama Affair

After news broke that ABC would be airing an interview with Newt Gingrich's ex-wife, disgraced CNN "political analyst" Dana Loesch decided this would be the perfect time to start pushing completely empty "Obama affair" rumors that originated in the National Enquirer. Here's what Loesch was tweeting:

The link from Loesch's "lets talk this" tweet goes to a conspiracy mongering nonsensical post that claims that "Hilary Clinton knew about" an "Obama affair" during the 2008 campaign but decided not to say anything because she needed a favor from him. The evidence for this claim? Absolutely none: just the author stating, "According to online reports..." with no link.

And the premise that there's an affair is based entirely on a National Enquirer article that didn't even claim there was an affair. Yes, I know, the Enquirer actually got one right with the John Edwards story, but in this case, the Enquirer uses a second-hand account that, even if all the details are true, doesn't show anything. The only claim is that Obama was at a hotel at roughly the same time as Vera Baker, a major funraiser and confidant. The rumors, which actually trace back to 2004, were pretty thoroughly debunked by Media Matters as nothing more than unsubstantiated rumor after the Enquirer story broke:

So, to sum up: the story is rehashed rumors about events that supposedly took place in 2004 but which no one has substantiated with anything remotely resembling credible evidence. They have been flatly denied by the woman supposedly involved. And the only thing new here are the rumors about a video that no one is claiming (even anonymously) to have seen.

Yet here Loesch is pushing the story on Twitter, and on Big Journalism, where she wrote:

Does this mean we’ll also start hearing about Vera Baker from broadcast media?

CNN, the "Cable News Network," continues to be an embarrasment to the word "news."

The Secret Smear Campaigns of Dana Loesch and the St. Louis Tea Party

One of the great things about my recent confrontation with Breitbart and Loesch is that Loesch repeated many of her standard disingenuous attacks and I was able to challenge her directly about them. This revealed just how sad and pathetic her smears really were.

Let's start with one of the more shameful examples. Loesch and the tea party have frequently claimed that I'm "racist" because I "laughed" at a press conference where Kenneth Gladney was called "An Uncle Tom Negro." Here's video of Dana and her husband and fellow tea partier Chris Loesch claiming that I'm "on video" laughing at Gladney being called an "Uncle Tom:"

A few clarifications about the press conference. First, the NAACP was one of the groups at the press conference, but the conference itself was actually composed of several different groups. Zaki Baruti, the guy who made the "Uncle Tom" comments because he believed that Gladney was faking his injuries and attacking the NAACP as a direct result of the fact that tea party and Breitbart's sites were continuously raising money for Gladney, might be a member of the local NAACP, but he's more commonly associated with the United African People's Organization (UAPO).

I distinctly remember being uncomfortable with the term, and in fact the video Breitbart's sites used to claim that the NAACP was "racist" proves that I did not laugh at the claim. In the video, I'm sitting immediately to the left of Zaki (from the viewer's perspective), and it's obvious that I don't laugh when he uses the terms "negro" or "Uncle Tom:"


It's pretty despicable for CNN contributor Dana Loesch to accuse someone of racism based on a completely dishonest claim about a video, but that's exactly what she does.

Second, Loesch also claims multiple times during the discussion that I'm a "paid SEIU blogger." Now I happen to like the people I know in the local SEIU, and have no objection being associated with them, but I've never received a dime from the organization. Yet here's video of Loesch alleging that I'm paid by SEIU and, even more, that I was paid by them to ask Breitbart questions:

So what's the evidence for this claim? Loesch says that SEIU "called me their blogger" at the same press conference referred to above. Actually, there were no employees from SEIU at the conference. Elston McCowan and Perry Molens were both former members of SEIU, and here's the video Loesch was basing her claims on:

So, McCowan, one of the defendants in the Gladney case, referred to me as "our blogger" and the silly tea party claimed this was conclusive evidence that I'm being paid by SEIU. Of course, the NAACP and the Green Party were at the rally, so with similar flimsy logic they could have claimed that "our blogger" means that I'm a "Green Party Blogger" or an "NAACP blogger" or a "UAPO blogger." Of course, I'm none of those things. When McCowan referred to me as "our blogger," he just meant that I was the local blogger who has covered the case thoroughly from a standpoint that didn't immediately assume that McCowan and Molens were guilty (and, of course, the courts found them not guilty after only 40 minutes of deliberation). So, again, a ridiculous claim based on no evidence. I suppose, though, that it's easier for the tea party to try to invalidate me by tying me to one of their grand SEIU conspiracy theories than to admit that I'm just a local graduate student who happens to care about the truth in my free time.

Speaking of trying to tie me to larger institutions in order to promote their unhinged conspiracy theories, Loesch also accuses me of "using Washington Unversity's resources to smear a private citizen:"

No need to post video or links to respond to this one, since it's so ridiculous. Obviously, a student choosing to ask Andrew Breitbart questions on a Saturday afternoon in early August while using my phone to record the conversation is not the same thing as "using Washington University resources to smear a private citizen." This is nothing more than a lame "we know where you work" threat.

Finally, and probably most despicably of all. Loesch accuses me of "stalking her children:"

When I ask her what evidence she has for this obnoxious claims, she responsds, "you've clicked on the site where my children are at." Based on conversations with other tea partiers, I know that this obnoxious claim from Loesch comes from the fact that one time, after Loesch tweeted a link to her Mommy blog from her political twitter account, I linked to that post in one of my blog posts. You can read my post here.

Now, I have to admit, the post is somewhat petty by my usual standards (though it would be typical fare from Breitbart bloggers or the tea party). I took her post demanding that people pay her if they want her to mention their products and used it as an opportunity to remind people of the legitimate political story that Loesch shut out and attacked Ed Martin's GOP primary opponent after Martin gave thousands of dollars to Chris Loesch's business.

Though it is a serious ethical problem that Loesch refused to disclose this conflict of interest while cheering Martin's campaign, I admit the connection between that and her post claiming she requires money for product endorsements is a little bit of a stretch. However, that post I linked too was not at all about her children and was entirely about her patriotic desire to make money via endorsements, so to use this to claim that I'm "stalking her children" is absolutely despicable. The claim that someone involved other people's children is a serious allegation and not something to be tossed out as a cheap attempt to silence critics or demonize opponents.

It's pretty amazing that CNN allows their name to be dragged into the mud and slime by paying Loesch as a "political analyst."

Loesch Say Liberals Are "Right-Wing" Just Like the Nazis, But Accidently Smears Herself

I'm not very interested in making broad sweeping generalizations about political ideologies based on the actions of fringe extremists, but a recent post by Dana Loesch is so mind-numbingly dumb, even by her standards, that I feel compelled to respond. Loesch appears to be arguing that the media is making a huge mistake in using the term "right-wing" to apply to both modern U.S. conservatives and to the conservative, immigrant-hating, Islamaphobic, Christian fundamentalist apparently responsible for the recent terrorist attack in Oslo. Loesch claims, amazingly, that the "true meaning" of the term "right-wing" actually corresponds to modern day liberals. For dramatic effect, she posts a photo of a Nazi driving a knife through the Bible.

Loesch's argument rests upon a small passage from Wikipedia. One might think that someone trying to explain the definition of a word might consult dictionaries that, you know, provide definitions for words, but we're not dealing with people who are in any way tethered to reality here. We should just be happy she didn't cite Gateway Pundit. Anyway, the Wikipedia passage states the following:

The terms Right and Left were coined during the French Revolution, referring to seating arrangements in parliament; those who sat on the right supported preserving the institutions of the Ancien Régime (the monarchy, the aristocracy and the established church). Use of the term “Right” became more prominent after the second restoration of the French monarchy in 1815 with the Ultra-royalists.

From this, she somehow infers the following:

Using Norway’s government as an example: Norway is ruled by the Labour Party, a socialist party, and is affiliated with the Party of European Socialists. The Labour Party embraces the Keynesian economic theory and more centralized state control. This, according to the proper definition of the term “right wing,” would classify not only Norway’s socialist Labour Party as “right wing,” but would also classify America’s Democratic Socialists as “right wing.” Nazis, officially the National Socialist Party, would be correctly classified as “right wing.” Ideologies which oppose such heavy-handed government control would be accurately considered “left-wing.”

It's honestly hard to even know where to begin with such a ridiculous argument. First of all, she's not even capable of reading and understanding the full Wikipedia article, and instead relies on cherry-picking quotes. For example, the same article she cites says that "right-wing" is defined in opposition to "socialism or social democracy" and includes the philosophies of, "conservatism, Christian democracy, liberalism, libertarianism, and nationalism." These considerations, of course, point to the exact opposite of the conclusion she draws. But Loesch can't even settle for cherry-picking her quotes: she also selectively ignores parts of the passages that she does quote. Out of all the various characteristics of the original "right," she chooses just one property, "heavy-handed government control," as the only relevant defining feature. The fact that pretty much no one else took that to be the only defining feature seems irrelevant to her. One gets the impression that if she had seen a painting of someone on the "right" from France with long hair, she would have declared that the correct definition of "right-wing" means 'long hairs," and would have been happy to label anyone who disagrees with her as "historically ignorant."

Even if her description of the original term had been correct (it's clearly not), you have to wonder what cave she's been living in to think that the "true meaning" of a term is determined solely by it's original usage. Language and the meaning of words change over time, and claiming that you're using the 1815 definition of a term is a pretty good way to ensure that no one will want to speak with you.

Furthermore, what exactly is the point of Loesch's desperate attempt to rewrite history? The media wasn't calling the apparent shooter "right-wing" because his email address was RightWing178383@aol.com. They called him right wing because his political views lined up with the political views of the far right in the U.S. (and Europe): he's anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, a Christian fundamentalist, etc. So if the term "right wing" was mistakenly applied to him, then it's also mistakenly applied to a lot of conservatives in the U.S., but this doesn't change the fact that the Oslo shooter's views align more with them than with U.S. liberals. So even if Loesch's revisionary history was correct, it would have zero relevance for the discussion of the guy's politics.

But finally, the most hilarious thing in my opinion is that Loesch, in doing her traditional pose-as-an-intellectual-by-carelessly-throwing-together-some-quotes-from-Wikipedia routine, has managed to smear herself. She started her essay with the following;

I loathe when American conservatives define themselves as “right wing” anything, even in jest — just as I loathe when the liberal press uses it as identification for American conservatives — because it is an inaccurate use of the term.

She later says "the media" is "ignorant" and "callous" for using the term. So isn't it just kind of hilarious to find that Loesch describes herself as "right-wing" on her radio show profile:


Yep, a proud "member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy." Which, by her brilliant reasoning standards, means she is One With the Nazis, and the hippies for that matter. Just another day of thoughtful analysis from this CNN employee.

H/t to @BillStreeter who had an interesting Twitter exchange with Loesch on this subject yesterday.

Dana Loesch Reverses Position on "Birfers"

Dana Loesch used to claim that it was hypocritical for conservatives to expect to get a pass for being a "birfer" and compared the position to being a 9/11 truther. In a blog post a little over a year ago, she quoted Erick Erickson as saying the following:

We should be willing to show each other good grace and a measure of understanding in dealing with the troublesome fringe. We should also remember it was the Clintonistas who started the birfer rumor and the most vocal truthers live in Hollywood and voted for Obama. That is not, however, an excuse for us to associate with the nuts....We must be vigilant. We must be willing to draw a line in the sand and stand against fatuous nonsense that opens up the right to attacks by a left-leaning media intent on embarrassing the good people who have developed through the tea party movement a renewed sense of civic involvement.

Loesch added:

It’s a waste of time to focus on anything other more convicting of character than say, the abuse of the Commerce Clause in fauxcare, the unconstitutionality of nationalizing huge chunks of the private sector, the appointment of extremists to positions of power, the list is endless.

I’m fully aware and accept that there are extremes on both sides of the political spectrum. What I don’t accept is the complete and total hypocrisy that comes from demanding Van Jones’ resignation for the exact same thing while expecting other conservatives or activists to give them a pass because they are conservative.

So I'm sure it will come as a huge surprise to find out that Loesch is now happy to "associate with the nuts" and to "give a pass" to the birther conspiracy theorists. On her show yesterday, she let Donald Trump rant unchallenged about Obama's birth certificate:

CNN sure has high standards!