In a recent written statement of support, Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor said that Hillary Clinton was “not a flibbertijibbet” (or flibbertigibbet, if spelling is important to you), which is a word that was more commonly used in the late Middle Ages.
Some will say that Taylor and John McCain grew up in that era, but they’re not that old.
For those still wondering, modern dictionaries define the word as “a frivolous, flighty, or excessively talkative person.”
Several Digg.com users utilize the “shout” sytem, where a user can send a link to a fellow member’s profile, but several users of the popular Internet news aggregator have increasingly abused the system to send John McCain nasty messages.
Browsing McCain’s profile, links point to stories about adult dating Web sites, an article about the city of Sacramento, Calif. keeping pornography in its libraries and perhaps the strangest shout of all is one about vaginal yeast infections that has been displayed in the Senator’s profile for over three days.
Barack Obama only displays shouts from friends, and Hillary Clinton keeps hers private.
If ever two pictures summed up a candidate’s viability for the White House, these two might be the most damning. Since they say a picture is worth a million words, will the photos cost these presidential hopefuls millions of votes?
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama proudly display their ages on their Digg.com candidate profile pages, but John McCain’s profile on the popular Internet news aggregator seems to be missing something.
While the rest of us are still focused on 2008, Rudy Giuliani is already taking contributions for the 2012 election year at JoinRudy2012.com. Is it a sign Giuliani is worried about John McCain’s chances against Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?
For you cybersquatters out there, JoinRudy2016.com is still available but you better act quick. Word is that Rudy may soon throw his hat in the ring for that one, too.
Sen. John McCain’s daughter, Meghan, has posted the following video on her blog, in which she says that Politico reporters brought her mom, Cindy, a bouquet of flowers when they visited the McCain Sedona ranch and cabin this past weekend for a big Spring Break-style party.
Journalists giving presents to their interview subjects is generally frowned upon.
Newsweek’s Holly Bailey is also shown in the video with a wine glass in hand, swinging playfully on a tire swing on the McCain estate. Megan says, too, that Politico’s Jonathan Martin helped her dad barbecue some of his “famous ribs” during the soiree.
“This is much better than Washington, D.C.,” Cindy McCain is heard saying in the video.
Yeah, we bet. But, jeez, haven’t average non-elite Americans been complaining for ages that the glitzy D.C. press has gotten much too close to the politicos they cover? This Sedona Spring Break romp will do little to ease their fears.
J.P. Freire, managing editor of the conservative American Spectator magazine, is outraged. Simply outraged that the New York Times would have the sheer audacity to run a questionable article about a possible tawdry affair between Sen. John McCain and lobbyist Vicki Iseman. That the so-called Paper of Record would dare hint at a sex scandal.
“If you want to have reliable journalism, or any sort of standards when it comes to reporting the right things, maybe what you should do is…avoid going to the New York Times,” Freire said last Thursday on Neil Cavuto’s FOX News program (YouTube below). “They can’t be relied on to tell a decent story, especially when it comes to John McCain.”
Freire went further. He wants people to boycott the publication. Cancel their subscriptions. Rip the paper to shreds.
“It’s sloppy work,” Freire insisted. “It’s not properly attributed.”
Stop the presses. Doesn’t Freire work for the same American Spectator that unabashedly pursued a story involving someone named Paula Jones (they only referred to her by first name in the beginning) and her allegations of an affair with President Bill Clinton? Didn’t the American Spectator rely on several unnamed sources in that situation? Didn’t employees of the American Spectator long pursue a whispering campaign, fostering rumors that President Clinton fathered a child out of wedlock with a young African American woman? Didn’t they leak that unfounded story to Matt Drudge in 1999?
The magazine, it turns out, is a verifiable glass house.
Still, we have no doubt that Freire’s outrage is real. But, perhaps, it stems from a source other than indignity over journalistic standards. After all, before working for the American Spectator, Freire did work at the New York Times. And he was forced to move on when his boss got demoted.