McCaughey first began lying in 1994, because she was bored. While working at a conservative think tank and conferring on the regular with the tobacco industry, McCaughey wrote a lengthy and incredibly misleading story about Bill Clinton's health care reform bill that Andrew Sullivan's New Republic happily printed, despite the fact that it was just full of lies.

Michelle Cottle just wrote a piece for Franklin Foer's newer, less annoying New Republic all about McCaughey, and while it doesn't go into the gritty details of how incredibly irresponsible Sullivan was as an editor back in the '90s, when TNR printed all sorts of bullshit for attention and to be provocative, it is satisfyingly mean to McCaughey.

After her lying article of lies became a series of false talking points repeated endlessly by Republicans (like friendly old Bob Dole), everyone noticed that this cheerfully dishonest ideologue was also a nice-looking blonde lady! A veteran Republican pol selected her as a running mate! You can imagine what happened next.

Celebrated for both her brains and beauty, she was declared a brave new model of feminist pol. (A glam-shot photo spread in Vanity Fair set the GOP abuzz, while the New York Post cheered her for having "Henry Kissinger's brains and Jessica Rabbit's body.") Even some of her academic quirkiness—her love of raw data and obsession with pie charts—conveyed a not-politics-as-usual freshness. Admittedly, there were bumps of the sort former Governor Palin could sympathize with: Anonymous Pataki staffers dropped quotes about the newbie candidate being unusually self-absorbed, and her frequent clashes with the veteran Pataki aide assigned to help her adjust to campaign life were downright operatic. (During one battle, McCaughey had her campaign van pull over on the side of a highway as she shrieked at the aide to get out.)

That's right: TNR just straight-up called Betsy McCaughey Sarah Palin. Damn.

Of course her political "career" ended in disaster because she's impossible to work with or for, and she rightfully faded back into obscurity at another conservative think tank. Until, weirdly, she came back with columns and op-eds and radio appearances and TV interviews in which she shamelessly lied about Barack Obama's health care plans, just this year! It is weird how that happens, right? How no one is ever so wrong that they're not allowed back on TV to be wrong some more, as long as they're useful to people with lots of money at stake?

This also means, of course, that Sarah Palin will never completely go away.

Sorry.

McCaughey's schtick, as described by James Fallows, is to pose as a disinterested, objective researcher who is just shocked and dismayed to find something insane and evil in a piece of legislation supported by a Democratic president.

And then she sits down to write a very serious and nonpartisan and concerned piece of analysis of this evil thing in the legislation that she made up. And then some respectable outlet publishes her serious analysis. And then, within minutes, partisan Republican columnists, talk radio hosts, politicians, and operatives are disseminating talking points taken directly from that serious piece of entirely made-up bullshit analysis.

Her first stab at derailing this year's health care debate came with a Bloomberg column about fictitious health care rationing hidden in the stimulus bill.

In a July 24 column for the New York Post, McCaughey smeared Ezekiel Emanuel (the nice Emanuel brother) as a murderous "deadly doctor."

In a radio interview with Fred Thompson, McCaughey got more explicit, wholly inventing mandatory death panel sessions American seniors would have to face every five years.

And, thus, "death panels." From Betsy to Rush to Sarah Palin to Chuck Grassley to your own old relatives forwarding you crazy shit, probably.

Of course, she's been at this forever. In 1994, McCaughey worked for the Manhattan Institute, a right-wing think tank. And then she wrote a piece for The New Republic about how the Clinton health care plan would not allow people to buy health care coverage outside the government-run plan. This, obviously, was false. George Will picked up on it, adding nonsense about jail terms.

(Andrew Sullivan edited The New Republic from 1991 through 1996. In 1994, Sullivan was on a roll, publishing both the objectively racist pseudoscience of The Bell Curve and Betsy McCaughey's No Exit. This was all before Ruth Shalit and Stephen Glass. Current editor Franklin Foer apologized for the McCaughey piece shortly after assuming his position. Sullivan never really has. McCaughey's story was really more the fault of owner/"editor-in-chief" Marty Peretz, of course, because he had a psychotic hatred of Bill Clinton.)

So. After that one lying story full of lies made her famous, Al D'Amato told George Pataki to make her Lietenant Governor of New York. She did not get along with Pataki, and she famously, weirdly, stood up for the entirety of Pataki's 1996 State of the State address. In 1997, Pataki dropped her from the ticket with a nasty public letter and she decided to become a Democrat in order to run against him. She ended up on the Liberal Party ticket, and lost, obviously, and then she moved to DC to work for the Hudson Institute, another right-wing think tank.

So she is a known liar and an elected Republican politician (her brief and bizarre stint as a vengeful Liberal party candidate aside), and here she is still forcing people to argue with chimerical fantasies instead of legitimate criticisms of progressive legislation.

We are hard pressed to come up any equivalent figure on "the left," who openly and intentionally lies in the service of her partisan arguments, and who continues to do so with relative impunity, in major publications, long after the lies are exposed.

A month ago, Romney gave a big speech about foreign policy to the Heritage Foundation, laying the groundwork for his 2012 presidential run. According to Romney, there are "four nations, representing four different ways of ways of life, that are vying to lead the world before the end of this century"—America, China, Russia, and "the jihadists"—plus a dark entropic force called "North Korea." Only one has freedom: Guess which it is?

The New Republic's Barron YoungSmith was curious what Romney's view of the world might look like if he were presenting it to one of Bain's corporate clients or to his church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, so he asked a friend to draw up this handy graphic.

Between Romney's "four nations," Glenn Beck's "nine principles and twelve values," the church's "First Presidency and Two Counselers," "the 70," and those twelve apostles, the Mormons sure do have a thing for numbers. What's that all about?

Sez the former writer:

"One of my frustrations about the place," Cloud continued, "I'm used to covering those things straight, by straight I didn't mean they were pressuring me to inject some point of view into a story. It's all done through the lens, ‘what does this mean for Obama?' It's an important lens to view things through, but it's not the only lens I wanted to view those events through."

It was also a problem that they wanted—needed!—him to file constantly, because he was their only person covering, you know, "foreign policy, defense, Obama's position in the world," and lots of other things that aren't easy to find a quick and convenient Matt Drudge-baiting "hook" for.

And this is what Mr. Wolff said about the Politico last fall:

"It's the highest form of naiveté to think there's a sea change in our interest in politics. There's a hardcore interest among a relatively small group who are interested in politics. Those people will always be there, but they are not a business. Just because this has been an exciting election with some novel figures in it, it's absurd to assume that represents a sea change in our interest in politics… By that logic, you could have made a media business out of a news event like hurricane Katrina. That's exactly what this is: people are not interested in politics."

Hah. We would be interested in "Hurricane Katrina Monthly," though!

See, this Canadian newspaper company called CanWest bought out Peretz in 2007, but now they're going bankrupt. Peretz had owned the magazine since the '70s, and he was responsible more than anyone for its center-left super-pro-Israel bent, the bent that led the magazine to become a hearty cheerleader for the war in Iraq.

The magazine is still home to crusty, wordy old cranks like Lee Siegel and Leon Wieseltier, and Peretz is still its "editor-in-chief," though presumably Mr. Foer will remain its actual hands-on editor.

Now maybe Marty can finally make good on his promise to make the fortnightly mag twice as thick as it used to be, when it was a weekly. He could fill up 20 more pages worth of purple prose on how much he hates the Arabs all on his lonesome, right?

When speaking to a crowd at the New Republic's Inauguration party (everyone in the new White House will be reading that mag, he said), the Chief of Staff mentioned that his kindly old Jewish mother had other hopes for his life:

As a former ballet dancer, let me tell you: For all I’ve done, she still says, ‘You coulda been a dancer.’ No matter what I’ve done: ‘You coulda been a dancer.’ Which is what a Jewish mother instills in a child. A sense of failing at all times.

He promised that he'd do some proper jigging at the various balls and galas being held this week for his new boss, Barack Obama. Though he said his dancing would be "nothing worth watching." We beg to differ. Just look at his form in that photo.

Image via NYT

Fox may have lost a step, but it still draws the largest number of viewers; and whenever Lou Dobbs, CNN's sole flamethrower, unleashes another screed against brown people, it's ratings gold.

CNN's ratings are up because they are better than evil Fox and self-righteous MSNBC! Of course their biggest moneymakers are still vile 21st-century Father Coughlin Lou Dobbs and old softballer Larry King, so let's dispose of them without further comment.

But, Dobbs aside [900 pound gorilla aside! -ed], CNN couldn't bring itself to adopt the same strategy. Instead, it doubled down on even-handed, data-heavy political coverage. On a commercial level, the result has been an improbable ratings resurrection. On a watching-from-home level, the result has fluctuated wildly: The coverage can be nicely informative one moment, then bland, pedantic, and painfully hackish the next. And yet, when compared to grumpy Fox and self-righteous MSNBC, CNN's election coverage may well be the least of three evils.

Positively ringing.

On Pennsylvania night, CNN's panel of consultants was on the verge of breaking into a juicy, heated exchange on the differences between Pastor John Hagee and Reverend Jeremiah Wright, when Campbell Brown intervened and said, "Wait, wait, wait; I've got to go Democrat, Republican, Democrat, Republican." It was obviously an insane thing to do—a real-time glimpse into how banal and clipped responses have triumphed over a brand of discourse that might, in some small way, approach honesty. But the decency in her request—there should be some nod toward even-handedness in election coverage—points directly to the biggest challenge facing CNN: How does it make balanced conversation interesting?

"Decency" is so pleasant, isn't it? Let's forget that whole "honesty" thing!

As we've said, MSNBC is over the top and crazy, but you know what you're getting. There's an honesty to their occasionally blatant partisanship. Just like Fox's cheerful propagandizing is it's own form of twisted honesty—as long as you correct for built-in bias, you're getting the story straighter than you do when Bill Bennett lies for two minutes followed by equal time for Paul Begala and then some funnies from Dana Milbank, while your objective moderator, Wolf Blitzer or Campbell Brown, just shrugs the fundamentally incompatible worldviews away as the simple inescapable reality of partisanship.

Key evidence: The Times' Adam Nagourney and Megan Thee wrote a story about how the candidate had failed to bridge the race gap. This precipitated a gentle question to Nagourney from the Obama campaign, which he answered. He then awoke the next morning to find himself attacked in an eight-point press release issued by Obama's team and leaked to Talking Points Memo and Marc Ambinder. "I've never had an experience like this with this campaign or others," Nagourney tells Sherman. "I thought they crossed the line. If you have a problem with a story I write, call me first. I'm a big boy. I can handle it. But they never called. They attacked me like I'm a political opponent."

So I guess Nagourney's less of a fan. True, McCain went out of his way to antagonize Elisabeth Bumiller of the Times for probing his red-meat conservative credentials (didn't Kerry offer him the VP slot?). But again, this wasn't schema-altering. Who didn't already know McCain could go from Mogwai to Gremlin when his status as a Maverick was either questioned or affirmed by the wrong inquiring mind? With his wafer-thin lead in the polls (don't email me, Gibbs!), Obama can scarcely afford to keep a reputation like this:

[A]s Obama ascended from underdog to front-runner to presumptive nominee, the flame seems to have dwindled. Reporters who cover Obama these days grouse that Obama's flacks shroud the campaign in secrecy and provide little to no access. "They're more disciplined than the Bush people," a reporter on the Obama trail gripes. "There was this idea of being transparent, but they're not. They're total tightwads with information."

[TNR]

"Why, just some weeks ago Christopher Hitchens and his camera-ready conscience went and got themselves waterboarded for the pages of Vanity Fair, which are anyway torture enough." Zing!

"There are many things that might be said about such a stunt—that moral understanding is not arrived at by means of the senses, or by personal acquaintance with evil; that ordinary intelligence and ordinary imagination are quite sufficient to establish the foulness and the folly of such procedures, which is why judges who have not dressed up in Guantánamo drag have been able to rule persuasively against them; that the victims of waterboarding do not commonly towel down and head for the Waverly Inn" Zing!!

"but I have no intention of dignifying this high clowning with serious reflection. I hope only that Hitchens next tries rendition." ZING!!!

Anyway Chris ought to respond in kind, as he usually does, soon enough. Then they'll trade funny quips in various magazines for a month or two until Hich decks Leon at a Lally Weymouth party. (IF ONLY)

Anyone familiar with Times Kremlinology could probably have guessed at that basic narrative by reading the front-page story: respected investigative journo Jim Rutenberg got the tip, four star reporters followed it, and they never quite ended up with solid documentation to satisfy Keller, who was under pressure from the McCain camp and their new (criminal!) lawyer Bob Bennett. Then it hit Drudge and suddenly they had to do something with it, 'cause if they didn't, someone else would.

Also it was a major battle between the Washington bureau (who wanted to run it!) and the New York bureau (stodgy and old and wanted to kill it!), with Keller, in New York, eventually making them reshape the piece into a history of vague ethical malfeasance and not OMG INAPPROPRIATE RELATIONSHIP. This hedging led to the story being even fuzzier and more open to the criticism it's received than it would've been if they'd stuck to the "anonymous former aides insinuate this" angle, probably.

But, after continuing to pretend they didn't know anything about the story or when it would run up until the night the final draft arrived on Keller and managing editor Jill Abramson's desks, they had to do something with it, before everyone else did their pieces on how they didn't do anything with it. And there you have it. The New York Times is just a fancy blog.

We also extend our congrats to TNR for being, as far as we know, the first major publican to headline their story on this scandal with a Top Gun joke.

The Long Run-Up [TNR]

Apparently, spending time in a combat zone doesn't have the greatest affect on your memory—or your mental stability. According to a FOIA request submitted by Radar (flashy journalisty move there, kids), New Republic storyteller Scott Beauchamp went AWOL before writing his columns, now retracted by the magazine. We love how the inherent and obvious vulnerabilities of each of these stories was thoroughly vetted before made public. It's just so fuzzy-making when publishers go the extra mile to avoid turning people with fucked up (but oh-so compelling and moving!)stories into sacrificial lambs. Isn't it?

I'm a huge fan of Siegel, been reading him since he started writing for [The New Republic] almost ten years ago. (Full disclosure: I'm an editor at a magazine in NYC and he's written for me too.) I watch the goings-on and have to scratch my head. The people who hate him the most are all in their twenties and early thirties. There's this awful suck-up named Ezra Klein—his "writing" is sweaty with panting obsequious ambition—who keeps distorting everything Siegel writes—the only way this no-talent can get him. And I ask myself: why is it the young guys who go after Siegel? Must be because he writes the way young guys should be writing: angry, independent, not afraid of offending powerful people. They on the other hand write like aging careerists: timid, ingratiating, careful not to offend people who are powerful. They hate him because they want to write like him but can't. Maybe if they'd let themselves go and write truthfully, they'd get Leon Wieseltier to notice them too.

• The ever-reliable Mediahohoho offered some inside baseball knowledge about business-side goings-on at Conde Nast, with regards to Portfolio's current woes:

  Also, there was the asshatted way that Conde ramped up the publishing side, shifting Carey from the New Yorker, Lou Cona and his team from Vanity Fair to the New Yorker, and throwing Alan Katz and his management team at the New Yorker Cargo into the lion's den that is anything to do with Graydon Carter. Without warning.

  So...the New Yorker gets set back a bit. Graydon gets to prove what a syphilitic dick he is by having Katz, a decent guy to anyone who knows him and by implying in house organ WWD that he wasn't smart enough to hang. But really? Vanity Fair? Has anyone read that piece of shit in years? Why?
  Then the truly short bus retards who come in from American Media, of all places, take Cargo, which was on a upward trend, and fly it straight into the ground.
  All for the sake of a new business magazine that resembles nothing so much as Forbes. It's not even fair to compare it to Fortune, because Fortune has been around for 77 years and does everything Portfolio does a hundred times better.
  At the end of the day, it all becomes an after-school special of a life's lesson, which is, don't go to work for Si on a men's title because you'll end up unemployed. Also, when Si's dawdling at the end of the Sushi line acting all humble? You had better invite him to take your place in line.

• Catfish_Jones provided some context for why the New Republic might be hurting in the ad department:

  Magazines of political opinion, supposed to be either of the left or right, traditionally have a hell of a time getting ads unless they're placed by people who agree 100% with the mag's editorial stand. The more predictable the mag's stand, the better chance it has of getting ads, even if they are just a handful. The same owners of obscure businesses in flyover country have advertised in John Birch Society publications for decades; on the opposite end of the spectrum The Nation has the same advertisers year in and year out. The worst thing a magazine can do, when it comes to seeking ads, is have completely wobbly political content but still be branded as being of a particular ideology. This is The New Republic's problem. It's still called a neolib journal but since CanWest got hold of it, its content has veered from things that could almost have run in In These Times to others that could just about fit in The American Conservative (and hey, is that still being published?). Maybe what CanWest should do is replace Frank Foer with Tom Frank. That way they could at least get ads from hat manufacturers, given that Tom is rarely seen outside his house minus one or another lid from his fedora collection.

• Werewolf let us know that if Katie Couric really thinks her man is smart, then she is dumb:

  Went to high school with Brooks Perlin. His nickname was Woody, as in the dumb, blonde Woody on Cheers. So let's be clear that in no way is she dating him for his "intellect".

• Commenter MauraKelly weighed in on our epic Glaring Omission from last week, bolstering our anonymous NYU student's account of her wild, yet ultimately unconsummated, evening with Daddy Day Care star Cuba Gooding Jr.:

  I will validate that girl's story. Cuba is a dog!

  I used to live in LA and a couple of girlfriends and I would hang out at this bar in Westwood every Sunday night. Well, we wound up becoming drinking buddies with these guys who played, and I'm not kidding, non-contact hockey. Anyways, Jerry Bruckheimer and Cuba used to drink with them. In a drunken stooper I went up to Cuba and asked him for his autograph on a napkin (super classy by the way).

  He smiled and asked who he should make it out to. When I said "Day'ja" he looked me up and down again and I said, "Oh no, it's not for me. It's for one of the kindergarners I teach. She loved 'Snowdogs'." He almost fell over. He invites me out to his car to get a headshot of himself. (The guy carries them around in the pocket behind the drivers seat.) I grabbed a friend and we headed out the back to his Cadillac Escalade.

  He keeps trying to get us to get into the car with him. All the while, he keeps bumping up against me as he's close-talking. He starts asking our names and what we like to do for fun. We give him fake names and he starts asking if we do everything together. I ask him how his wife & kids like him boozing on Sunday nights, grab my friend's hand and drag her back inside.

  Saying it loud and proud: I too, did not sleep with Cuba Gooding, Jr. (plus he smells like BO)

• Commenter Katklaw made us scared for Philadelphia writer and flasher Larry Richette's neighbors, and really, the entire city:

  Okay, I probably shouldnt admit this, buuuut. This guy lives about a half block from me and I have seen the interactions with his mom many times, they are always with the craziness like this. Plus, she somehow gets mugged like once a year. Usually by non-family members. Oh, so proud of this fine city and the national representatives like Larry.

• Finally, SlightlyLessDeliciousNoise offered useful advice for those considering pursuing a bulimic lifestyle:

  lunchables come up much faster than traditional processed meats and cheeses. In fact, they even have great bidirectional flavor!

  On that note, let's move along to our most unhelpfullest critter this week, Harry_Greek, who seemed to take great pride in making comments that seemed like they would be more at home at a frat party. This isn't your frat house, Harry_Greek! Go back to Penn State.

  Earlier: Some Commenters Are More Helpful Than Others