Filed under: Ana Marie Cox, Jessica Cutler, Wonkette, Alex Pareene, Nick Denton, Meghan McCain, David Phillips, Peter Huestis, John Clarke Jr.
In yet another aesthetically unpleasing redesign (this year alone), Nick Denton, publisher of Wonkette, has decided to change the site. With its numbers dropping dramatically since Ana Marie Cox left to work for Time almost two years ago, Denton doesn’t seem to understand that it’s not the background fonts, colors and graphics that are the problem. It’s the writers he’s chosen to replace Cox. Starting with Alex Pareene and continuing through to the latest new batch of editors, they don’t really seem to know or care what they’re writing about. They’re just trying to get page views, since that’s the way they get bonuses, and the site is hurting because of it.
Case in point: We’ve had more sex scandals in Washington since Cox left than the whole length of her tenure. And yet, she made more out of so much less. She helped the desperate Jessica Cutler to become a household name in a way that her replacements never could. The biggest story reported on Wonkette this year was, of course, the dirty David Phillips relationship with Sen. Larry Craig — but even that was contributed by a freelancer — a freelancer who told Big Head DC he received only $12 for the post.
Why has Wonkette fallen so sharply, so fast? Some will say it’s because the majority of the Cox replacements have been men, and they seemed to think that readers would just be bowled over by their use of words like “Cocktober” as literary devices. But we think not. The right cock could have definitely built a platform on top of Cox’ shaft.
Megan Carpentier, one of the latest new Wonkette writers, may be able to do something there, as she’s shown the most promise. But too often her voice is lost because the other writers are trying to promote their work, and her items gets pushed down the page, hard to find. It’s a problem that Cox never had to deal with. Her work always stood at attention.
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permalinkFiled under: Bass ackwards, Mike Rogers, Larry Craig, David Phillips, Peter Huestis
Remember back when the David Phillips story broke about his prior relationship with Larry Craig, and we asked you to help us figure out the name of the anonymous blogger who broke that story? Until then, said blogger had always gone by the pen name “Princess Sparkle Pony.” Well. After our commenters started speculating, the blogger wrote in and confirmed what we were already piecing together. Princess Sparkle Pony is a gay man named Peter Huestis who works at the National Gallery of Art in its photo labs.
“I’m not a journalist…,” he told us defensively. “I don’t know my way around a Washington scandal.”
Right, we totally got that. But we thought all was said and done until today when a Princess Sparkle Pony (just a coincidence?) started commenting about us on Mike Rogers‘ newly controversial item involving Mike Jones and Sen. Larry Craig: Read more…
Filed under: Sex, Scandals, Shocking, Ted Haggard, Mike Rogers, Larry Craig, David Phillips, Greg Ruth, Tom Russell
David Phillips, an Internet technician based in Washington, has recently become quite well-known for describing some dirty sexual deeds Sen. Larry Craig performed on him in 1987. And now, in several shocking audio clips with The Idaho Statesman, four more men have described their close encounters with the senator — who will not resign from office, despite having repeatedly voting against gay issues during his long career in Congress.
Among them:
- Mike Jones, a former prostitute who had already revealed last year that he had sex with the Rev. Ted Haggard. Jones now reveals Craig paid him for sex approximately three years ago. jones1sourceprod_affiliate36.mp3, jones2sourceprod_affiliate36.mp3, jones3sourceprod_affiliate36.mp3, jones4sourceprod_affiliate36.mp3
- Greg Ruth, who says he was hit on by Craig at a GOP meeting in Coeur d’Alene in 1981 — when Ruth was a college Republican. ruth1sourceprod_affiliate36.mp3
- Tom Russell, who says he had a gay encounter with Craig at Bogus Basin in the early 1980s. russell1sourceprod_affiliate36.mp3, russell2sourceprod_affiliate36.mp3, russell3sourceprod_affiliate36.mp3
- A fifth gay man, who is from Boise but who declined to be named for fear of retaliation. He says he was in a men’s restroom at Denver International Airport in September 2006 when the man in the next stall moved his hand slowly, palm up, under the divider. “Alarmed, the man said he waited outside the restroom and then identified the man in the adjoining stall as Craig, whom he had met in Idaho,” the newspaper reports.
- Also, Phillips now describes his encounter in detail: phillips1sourceprod_affiliate36.mp3, phillips2sourceprod_affiliate36.mp3, phillips3sourceprod_affiliate36.mp3
Craig declined to comment for the Statesman report, but he made the following statement to NBC’s Matt Lauer in a prime-time interview that aired Oct. 16.: “I know what people feel like when they’re profiled, when innocent people get caught up in what I was caught in as an innocent person.”
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reddit | facebook | del.icio.us | stumble | permalinkFiled under: Scandals, Gay, Larry Craig, David Phillips
The Virginia DMV has telephoned David Phillips, aka the bear-y hairy guy who had sex with Sen Larry Craig in the 1980s, to let him know that he can keep his license plates, which read “Poofter.”
“I had sent their generic plates back last week directly to the head of the DMV with a very strong letter regarding First Amendment rights,” Phillips tells a friend. “The new manager for Special Plates called to acknowledge receipt of the substitute plates and to orally declare the issue closed.”
After DMV officials learned of the Phillips entanglement with Craig, they were quick to ask him to return his plates, as they said they received a complaint that they were somehow offensive.
Now that the squabble is over, Phillips has had time to reflect: “As I told my office mate, don’t fuck with a queen over 40 — you will not win.” Larry Craig, take note!
David Phillips, the guy who claims he had dirty sex with Sen. Larry Craig in 1987, was seen this week eating a hamburger. “I just saw the bear himself…enjoying half priced burger night at Whitlow’s on Wilson,” a Wonkette commenter breathlessly reports. “That guy is big!! He was with another man, they each had a hamburger. I recognized him by his interesting hair/mustache combo and did my best not to stare. He was rocking a leather jacket.”
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