Some people have asked me if I was in any way involved with the Rod Blagojevich scandal in Illinois. Upon advice of counsel, I probably shouldn’t say anything. But… am I one of the people who suggested that Jesse Jackson, Jr. was the logical choice to succeed Barack Obama? Of course. But was I the mysterious emissary for Candidate #5? Again, I’ll defer to counsel’s advice. But I will point you to to this new video:
The Jonas Brothers, Jesse Jackson, Jr. (and his Blagojevich-enabled wish for the Illinois Senate seat), and I all share the bandwidth in this strange new mash-up of footage from the Harding Institute to the tune of “This is Real” by Demi Lovato and Joe Jonas from the “Camp Rock” soundtrack.
Why, you ask? It seems that one of my most popular blog posts that is especially controversial among European teenage girls was my assertion that the Jonas Brothers showed poor taste in wearing keffiyehs. So since my associate, Danny Sadler’s last edited video hardly got any hits (sorry, Danny), Poppy Cartwright (aided by our interns Rebecca and Talia) decided to sneak onto Danny’s computer one night and try something a little more hip. It occurred to Poppy that my quote, “this is real, this is me” is virtually the same as the eponymous song from the “Camp Rock” soundtrack. So, with apologies to Demi, the JoBros, their fans (and especially the Disney Corporation), Poppy and the girls present their mixed homage to my continued existence and the renewed purpose of the Harding Institute in this new Obama era. The election is over, and it’s time to embrace the now. So all is forgiven, Jonas Brothers: Obama is in. Cuba and the UN are in. Even scarves are in again.
BTW, in reviewing for this post, I stumbled onto a little noticed post I made on August 4 - nearly a full month before Sarah Palin was announced as John McCain’s running mate. For all you doubters and haters, read the full post here - but here’s the critical conclusion I warned about:
So to my colleagues on the McCain campaign, the take home lesson is don’t count on getting any of those Hillary women to cross over to the GOP (even with a Carly Fiorina or Gov. Sarah Palin in the veep spot). At the end of the day, they’ll vote with their hearts not their heads. And they’ll vote for the cute boy. Barack Obama’s not a celebrity for nothing.
And people wondered why I wasn’t crazy about Palin.
I’ve been in the new adjunct office of the Harding Institute in New York for the last week or two, and it’s been a crazy time. My mother, Connie Bean Eisenstadt, has always told me, “All press is good press, Marty…just so long as the words ‘unindicted co-conspirator’ don’t precede your name.” (You can tell this was a Washington woman who knew her Haldeman’s from her Ehrlichman’s.) So being in the New York Times, and all the media that’s come from that, should be a time for celebration, and in a strange way, it may all wind up being for the better. But for now, let me just expose a little bit of my frustration…
Just today, I headed over to the Gray Lady herself in an futile effort to demand some sort of retraction (turns out they’re more mad than me about the Yes Men hoax), but on my way out, I bumped into my old frenemies ThomasFriedman and PaulKrugman, so we grabbed a coffee together. I congratulated Paul on his Nobel this year, and commiserated with Tom that neither of us had won ours yet. (Tom’s not a bad photographer, either.)
They tried cheering me up about the recent rumors of my non-existence. Paul recounted the story of the attractive young woman who came up to him recently and said how much she loved reading him in the Times. He was flattered, but when she added that “The World Is Flat” is her favorite book, he realized she’d mistaken him for the Fried-ster. So much for the legendary “Nobel Booty Bounce.”
Now, I’m hardly ideological bedfellows with the boys, but we all go back years, and in starting to come to grips with the new Obamocracy that we’re in, it’s clearly in my best interest to reach out to the new regime. Tom, in particular, had some good suggestions on ways to reinvigorate myself and the mission of the Harding Institute in these times. As I was leaving, he even gave me the cell number for his book publisher. So who knows?
It’s amazing how the Mainstream Media continue to perpetuate the story from the fake version of the New York Times that claimed that I, Martin Eisenstadt, don’t exist. I saw that this morning, The Huffington Post has a clip of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” show with the Washington Post media reporter, Howie Kurtz. It seems that Kurtz read the New York Times story from Nov. 13, and assumed it was real. But he apparently forgot that that was the same day the Yes Men printed their “hoax” version of the Times declaring that the war in Iraq was over.
Look, I’ve known Howie for years (we worked the ring-toss booth years ago at a District-wide Purim carnival) and he’s usually a careful analyst of the media, but ever since he took a foul ball in the noggin at a Nationals game last year (so much for those primo WashPo first base seats), his long-term memory has been a little shaky. But he still has a 300-watt smile and fills his Men’s Warehouse suits well with his rock-hard abs. As eyecandy, he’s always been a strong lead-in to Blitzer’s show on CNN and I know Wolf likes having him around.
Let’s face it, though, Howie’s far from the only one who’s fallen for the Times piece. It’s been picked up in newspapers, TV and magazines from the largest magazine and newspaper in Brazil to the vaunted Guardian in the UK; L’Express in France to die Zeit in Germany; as well as the largest newspapers from the Netherlands to Norway, Spain, Argentina, Portugal and Taiwan. So much for “reliable sources.”
And in case you haven’t noticed, in honor of Cyber Monday, I encourage everyone to buy their loved one a gift that says out loud what I’ve been saying for years:
“I’M MARTIN EISENSTADT” A simple declaration of existence. When the blogs says you don’t exist, when a hoax version of the New York Times says you don’t exist, and when CNN says you don’t exist, then you have one choice: Stand up and declare that YOU are Martin Eisenstadt. So far, it’s been working for me.
Available in a myriad of sizes, styles and colors. Mugs, hats, posters and even intimate apparel available, too! Poppy in the office has been busy putting our new merchandise initiative together and arranged for their sales on both PrintFection.com and CafePress.com. For all the details, go to Our Store. And don’t forget our popular Warren Harding design:
Doing your holiday shopping, trying to decide what to wear to the Inaugural Ball, or just need to find decorations for your inauguration party? Then why not give the gift of love and buy your entire family products from The Eisenstadt Group and The Harding Institute for Freedom & Democracy. We’ve just set up two combined online stores:
We’re just starting this process, so at first there won’t be too many different designs. But for now…
Before Obama. Before Clinton. There was Harding. That’s right, Warren G. Harding has long been rumored to have been America’s FIRST black president (or at least, a little bit black). Yes we can… honor Warren G. Harding!
On the CafePress site, available items include shirts, outerwear, kids clothing, hats, bags, buttons, posters, banners, cards, calendars, stickers and more.
And at the PrintFection site, you can find T-shirts, sweatshirts, BBQ aprons, mousepads, tote-bags, cutting boards, coasters and more.
Both stores sell a variety of different items, and both sell comparable T-shirts. The CafePress site definitely has more variety in what they sell for us, but we’re told the PrintFection shirts might be of slightly higher quality. But browse and decide for yourself. Either way, you’ll be supporting the proud work we do here at the Eisenstadt Group and the Harding Institute.
Because nothing says romance like candles, soft music, and the image of Warren G. Harding on your lingerie. Perfect for your Sarah Palin/Joe the Plumber role play!
Stay tuned for some big news coming next week, and until then, Happy Thanksgiving from all of us here at The Eisenstadt Group and The Harding Institute!
Since the election, Poppy Cartwright at the Institute office has been noodling on her computer and has come up with a fitting tribute to our namesake, Warren G. Harding. What do people think? Would anyone buy a t-shirt or mug with him on it? Please add your comments below. - if there’s enough demand, we’ll figure out a way to sell them (and if anyone has suggestions for the best way to do that, please let us know - thanks).
Through the looking glass…. The hoax version of the New York Times put out by the infamous Yes Men actually put me on the cover, and then wrote a long piece describing how two losers are claiming to be me in order to pitch a TV show. Ridiculous!
As anyone who’s been reading my blog knows, I deny any and all accusations that I somehow don’t exist. I’ve posted it before, but it’s worth doing one more time, here’s the section of the BBC documentary, “The Last Republican” wherein I refute my naysayers (and of course, also see my responses to this series, too):
For all you fellowtravelersspewing such venom in my direction, bite on this for a moment. Before I announced that I was the source for the Palin/Africa story, everyone, without exception, believed it to be true. The only question was who leaked it. Now, as a result of me outing myself, there is doubt about even the original allegations. A smell of fishiness has crept into the whole story. And MSNBC is finally being called out for its rampant biases and sloppy journalism. I believe that’s what they call “taking one for the team”.
UPDATE (scroll down for original post)…. MSNBC did a nice “Breaking News” piece on me with David Schuster interviewing my fellow pundits, “Republican strategist” Todd Boulanger and “Democratic strategist” David Goodfriend about my difficult decision to come clean as the source of the Africa story. MSNBC tried to reach me today for an on-camera interview as well, but I was traveling between DC and New York when the story aired. I certainly have my issues with NBC, and even Keith Olbermann’s used me as a source on several occasions, so at least it was nice that this time they gave me full attribution.
Of course, as soon as their story ran, all hell apparently broke loose on the blogosphere, as you can probably tell by the vitriolic comments posted on the blog. My associate, Danny, has been trying to moderate the comments all day, but as you can see, many of the most vile ones snuck through anyway.
Danny tells me that one ongoing thread he’s seen on many of the blogs today is that I somehow don’t exist or am a fraud of some kind. As any loyal reader of the blog or of our new YouTube channel knows full well, every single one of these fallacious internet rumors can be attributed to a single source - a Mr. “Wolfrum,” whom we established is a very bitter tranny-loving golf blogger living in Brazil when we wrote about him back in June. When the BBC recently ran their YouTube series on me entitled “The Last Republican,” I even addressed the issue there. As you may have seen from my responses to this documentary, I’m quite upset at the way I was portrayed in the series, but in this one particular episode, at least I am asked, and I think I answer, the question directly. (please, though, I urge you to skip ahead to minute 1:50 where I address the issue head on - the rest of this episode takes much of what I say out of context)
For all of you naysayers out there, I ask you now not to believe everything you read on the internet. My reputation is at risk, and every single blog that has cast doubt on my existence has been traced back to this one, unrepentant golf blogger who has some sort of pathological grudge against me. And for those wondering why he would go after me, and try to discredit my views on Sarah Palin, you should take note that he himself comes from Alaska. Coincidence? Or just plain chance?
And I’ve posted it before, but I think it’s relevant here again, this is yet another specific case wherein I address my detractors in one of my video responses to the “The Last Republican”:
Finally, for anyone using inexact technology like Google, perhaps one reason you keep seeing the word “hoax” next to my name is because I have used this very blog to uncover several hoaxes, including the case of the photo-shopped Iranian missile picture, in which I was the first American to notice that the picture was a hoax. I urge people not to be gullible with the internet, and realize that you can’t trust the first couple lines of a Google search for all the answers.
HERE’S THE ORIGINAL POST:
By now you’ve all heard the Fox News report last week that “unnamed” former McCain advisers leaked that Sarah Palin was confused about whether Africa was a continent, and which countries were in NAFTA. I was perfectly happy staying under the radar as an anonymous source for Fox News‘ Carl Cameron, but now that Palin has accused her accusers of being “unprofessional…jerks…cowards… taking things out of context, and then tried to spread something on national news” and begun to cast doubt on the Fox News report, maybe she’s right to a certain extent. For those of us on the McCain campaign who thought that she acted like a rogue diva and lost John the election, maybe we DO have a responsibility to come out in public. But Sarah… careful what you ask for: some of us may have more to reveal.
So yes, to be clear, last week I was the one who leaked those things to a producer at Fox News who works with Cameron. Carl and his producers are good guys, and I don’t want them to have to worry about protecting their sources (and going through the wringer ala Judith Miller or Matt Cooper) on something like this.
As you know, I was one of the foreign policy advisers on the McCain campaign who worked with Randy Scheunemann to help prep Sarah on her debate with Joe Biden. Did we outright give her a geography quiz when we started the prep? No, of course not. But yes, in the context of the prep, it slowly became apparent that her grasp of basic geo-political knowledge had major gaps. Could she have passed a multiple choice test about South Africa or NAFTA. Probably. But it was clear that she simply didn’t have the ease of knowledge that we come to expect from a major party political candidate. Other slights came up, too: Not knowing the difference between Hezbollah and Hamas. Or the difference between the Shiites and Suni. Or when it came to international terrorist organizations, knowing that the IRA was in Northern Ireland, and ETA in Spain.
The real thing we had to constantly remind her was to never, ever compare herself in any way to Hillary Clinton, as she had at her announcement speech. We had it on good authority that Biden was prepping to unleash the inevitable line, “I know Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton is a friend of mine. And Sarah, you’re no Hillary Clinton.” Alas, Biden would have been right.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist the headline. Unfortunately, late word out of Nebraska’s 2nd District that Obama will likely carry the Omaha area, making it truly Oma-bama territory. Since Nebraska and Maine are the two states that split their Electoral College votes, this will be one more vote for Obama. Further proof that states like California and New York should adopt the same system. Somewhere, Gerald Ford - who was born in Omaha - is rolling over in his grave. On the other hand, this might help Omaha-native Chuck Hagel’s chances of getting a cabinet post.
As you know, my old friendJohn Podesta is heading up the Obama transition team, and he’s reportedly announced that among other qualifications, he’ll be looking for diversity to fill the Obama administration. But just how diverse is he looking for? Turns out, the former Clinton Chief of Staff, John Podesta, has a history of being a real-life X-Files UFO hunter in his demands for Defense Department documents (I hope he won’t hold it against me that I’m doing a little project for the current DoD!). So, should we expect the Flukeman as Secretary of the Interior? Maybe Fox Mulder as head of the FBI? Dr. Dana Scully as the Surgeon General? Only time will tell.
