The Fully Fettered Matt Yglesias (Or Not...)

In the course of describing his role in the latest Daily Caller/Journolist story, Matt Yglesias delivers this headscratcher:

As for my email, I think all one has to understand is that during the 2008 campaign season my blog, as a publication, was operating under various restrictions related to our 501(c)4 tax status, to our then-current understanding of the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (since modified by the Citizens United decision), and by CAP/AF internal policies. Consequently, I had some opinions relevant to the campaign that were not fit for publication on the blog and that I voiced in other venues, including emails to people. One such opinion was that the selection of Sarah Palin was an irresponsible and politically motivated act. I thought—and continue to think—that the line Strong quoted is a reasonably pithy formulation of the point.

And the quoted line is this:

“John McCain picked someone to help him politically, Barack Obama picked someone to help him govern,”

Now, my mind is not chock-a-block with memories of Matt Yglesias posts from 2008, but my vast techno-skills have called forth his August 2008 archives, just after the Palin pick was announced.

Apparently, for legal reasons Matt could not say that the Palin pick was politically motivated, but he had many, many Palin posts, including this, from August 29:

It’s striking listening to the commentary about why this is a smart pick for John McCain that the arguments are all about how this will help him politically — attract women voters, get attention, disrupt Barack Obama’s “change” message, etc. What I haven’t seen is any conservatives making arguments about why Sarah Palin will help President McCain govern. He’ll call on her insights about . . . what?

That was all OK, yet "the line" - "John McCain picked someone to help him politically, Barack Obama picked someone to help him govern” - broke some mysterious legal guidance?  Seriously? 

Were Matt's readers apprised of these mysterious yet seemingly ignored limitations on his commentary?  I thought the blog was promoted as being more or less free and unfettered (One time his editor did quash him, but on what topic?  My failing memory...), but now we are being told it wasn't. 

On the other hand, what we are being told today doesn't jibe well with what our lying eyes see in the archives - it certainly appears that Matt voiced "the line" right there on the blog, today's protestations and legal bafflegab notwithstanding.

I am sure there is an explanation.

This Journolist is not bringing out the best in people.

Comments

[Clarice]

It is like shooting a carp in a fish poacher now ,isn't it?
what i want to know is who's stupider..the journolists , the people who hire these moogs, or their faithful readers?

[Rob Crawford]

Whatever did happen to that Ted Stevens fellow?

[narciso the harpoon]

His conviction was reversed I recall, but they
had 'made stuff up'

[matt]

I might respectfully point out that the selection of Joe Biden was an irresponsible and politically motivated act as was the entire Obama campaign.

[Porchlight]

Slow Joe sure is doing a good job helping Barack govern.

[Porchlight]

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot - Jill Biden let it slip to Oprah that Obama offered Joe his choice of VP or SecState. That wasn't political?

[RichatUF]

Rob-

Seems that the Public Integrity Division was more corrupt than even the entire Republican Party in Alaska. It helped that the DoJ put an attorney that had already been sanctioned for abusive prosecution before to lead their "Get Republicans at any cost" efforts.

Hummm curious...CAP/AF...a 501c4 for the Center for American Progress Action Fund?

[Jim]

I believe biden was picked because he was even dumber than o is. o didn't want to take a chance on having his vp over shadow him.

[Teh Sheriff]

Barack Obama picked someone to help him govern

Yessir, gird your loins, because nobody messes with the Sheriff! All you guys picking on these kids just talkin' on their own internet website, just because they didn't give out the number for it, let me tell ya what it's about, it's about a simple, four letter word: n-e-w-s-papers, the newspaper business. See, the newspapers understand there's more to patriotism than just advocating for higher taxes, there's getting out a consistent message to the folks. And that's harder now than ever, with all the people going off-message on the other side. I mean, you look at this cat Jindal in Louisiana, and the other one, what's her name in the Carolinas - some days I turn on CNN and I think they're picking up the feed from the security camera in the 7-11 down the street. (And I mean that with the utmost respect - I think either one of 'em could just manage the hell out of a 7-11. I really do.)

And it gets confusing for the folks, ok? Because they know the Democratic Party has always been home to the people of color, and we're proud of that, and then they say to themselves, wait a minute, this Jindal guy's kinda colored. Right? And then this black lady gets fired from the Department of Agriculture by Fox News, and she starts talking about maybe Barack doesn't understand what it's like to be black! I mean we used to say in the Senate, me and Harry, that it almost seemed like he wasn't black, because he's just so well-groomed. But let me put it to you this way: He's black. You know what I'm saying? He's black.

And so that's part of why the journalist list is so important, that all these kids, Matt and Keith and the Jewish one, Izzy I think, they're really tuned into the black culture, and they get out the message that recovery summer is here, and Sheriff Joe is on the job.

Gird your loins!

[Clarice]

HEH, Sheriff..

[Rick Ballard]

OT,

This one is for Ripley's - the SEC is suspending the rule requiring credit rating agency evaluation of new issues. I have no respect whatsoever for the Three Monkeys of credit rating but I'm rather suspicious of the suspension - especially on the day when Govmo's acquisition of a sub-prime lender is announced.

What other zombies will clog the markets with trash during this suspension? Surely Citi and Fannie and Freddie have tons of garbage to dump on the dull witted.

[Pagar]

So Creditworthy people have declined to 9 per cent of those seeking credit and sales could be increased if you sold to non creditworthy buyers, is that what I'm reading? How is that different than the housing bubble?

[Jane]

I just love love love watching the completely unethical and unprofessional maggots of journolist squirm. I hope Tucker stretches it out to the election.

[RichatUF]

Pager-

Think of it as the SAT. They'll just keep recentering the score until the score is worthless.

[vbmoneyspender]

Yglesias had political opinions which he believed federal law prevented him from expressing in public and yet he never wrote about that fact on his blog? Exactly what kind of political commentator is Yglesias?

[Barry Dauphin]

How's that Joe Biden help with governing working out?

[2yellowdogs]

Inconsistencies from Yglesias? Perish the thought!

Has there ever been a VP pick that wasn't based on how it helped the presidential candidate politically?

[Doc Merlin]

@2yellowdogs:
Cheney.

[shocked]

A few more for the pile

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList#List_of_members

Laura Rozen, Politico

http://thecommonills.blogspot.com/2010/07/congress-hears-about-mythical.html

Ari Berman, The Nation
Ari Melber, The Nation
Brad DeLong, Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal and UC Berkeley
Brian Beutler, The Media Consortium
Cenk Uygur, The Young Turks
Dean Baker, The American Prospect Online
Don Hazen, Alternet
Eric Alterman, City University of New York
Ilan Goldenberg, The National Security Network
James Galbraith, University of Texas at Austin
Joel Bleifuss, In These Times
Julie Bergman Sender, Balcony Films
Kai Wright, The Root
Lakshmi Chaudry, In These Times
Mark Kleiman, UCLA/The Reality Based Community
Mark Thoma, The Economist's View
Merrill Goozner (formerly Chicago Tribune)
Michael Bérubé, Crooked Timber, The Pennsylvania State University
Michael Kazin, Georgetown University
Richard Kim, The Nation
Rick Perlstein, Campaign for America's Future
Robert Greenwald, Brave New Films
Sam Boyd, The American Prospect
Scott McLemee, Inside Higher Ed
Spencer Ackerman, The Washington Independent
Steven Benen, The Carpetbagger Report
Tracy Van Slyke, The Media Consortium

[memomachine]

Hmmmm

Legally speaking: I wonder if the J-List archives opens up any of these twits, and their employers, for slander or libel lawsuits? Proving malicious intent seems to be a whole lot easier lately ...

[memomachine]

Hmmmm.

I was wondering why this reminded me of something:

Double Secret Probation!

[Brian]

Biden. To govern. Seriously? He's the "Drug Czar" term-coiner with a cokehead daughter.

Everybody knows how much Obama hates hiring straight white protestants of any gender.

Racebaiting redistributionists? Check. Lesbian legal activists? Check. Wise Latinas? Check. Green on the outside, red on the inside enviromarxists? Check. Pro bono terrorist attorneys? You know it. Child porn peddling Safe School Czars? Give him an ice cream truck with government plates.

But hiring Americans not found in the supporting cast of P.C.U.? Eh, not so much.

His administration looks less like "America" than A Dictatorship of The Rich Mosaic. But none of that is political. Sure it's not.

[24AheadDotCom]

In order to understand what MattY is trying to say, you have to know Mattglish (sample: twitter.com/24AheadDotCom/status/19094804092 ).

Translating from Mattglish, he's saying that he thought The Line would violate legal restrictions because it was too much like actual full-on sloganeering, rather than the misspelled limited sloganeering he usually engages in.

[24AheadDotCom]

P.S. I've been commenting on MattY's various sites for years, and about the only response I get is smears and lies. I even include the following disclaimer, and if anyone knows the identity of that person please contact me through twitter:

---------------
P.S. Past comments at this site have unleashed a flurry of vile ad homs (including ethnic slurs from pseudonymous in nc), showing the intellectual and emotional level of a small but vocal segment of MattY's readers. Unfortunately, MattY has a habit of throwing out partisan red meat, and that tends to attract a few bad apples of the ThinkProgress level.
---------------

[MayBee]

I believe Matt thought Obama chose Biden to help him govern. Obama had no experience governing. Biden was Obama's superior on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, and Obama had never so much as held a meeting of his subcommittee. Biden said, at the time, that was because he held all the meetings at committee level.

[Walter Sobchak]

Picking Joe Biden to help Obama govern is like picking Stevie Wonder to help him drive.

[2yellowdogs]

Doc
Yes, but it was primarily a political decision. I remember how the analysis at the time was that the Cheney pick gave the ticket "gravitas", thus helping Bush politically.

2YD

[Kazinski]

Nice of Matt to admit that BCRA was restricting free speech. I mean if the law was so chilling a blogger had to think twice about posting something as innocent as that, well I guess the Supreme Court had it right.

[narciso the harpoon]

I think the denizens of the Pit, including Droz would be a better crew than these folks

[jum1801]

It seems you ask, "Why would Matt Yglesias give such a patently false and painfully transparent 'explanation' for his Journolisting? You seem genuinely puzzled. I am not. Yglesias demonstrated his penchant for intellectual dishonesty throughout the Bush years when he fomented the most outrageous and obvious lies. He never suffered for it; he was never even called out. Why, then, would he abandon a tactic which has served him so very well for years?

[Patrick Carroll]

One misses suck.com and its byline: "a fish, a barrel, and a smoking gun"

[Reasoner]

Great post, but get your metaphors right, please:

We do not trust or distrust our own lying eyes. The phrase comes from the idea of "Should I trust your words, or your lying eyes (in other words, your eyes that tell me that YOU are lying).

So to apply this to Yglesias' protestation: shoud we trust him based on his words now (where he is motivated to defend his honor), or should we trust his eyes that are clearly lying to us, because it makes more sense that he was carrying water for Obama as a free-range (s)hit-man whose target was McCain & Palin.

[Barry Dauphin]

The phrase comes from the Marx Brother's in Duck Soup: "Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" (later "improved" to lyin's eyes).

[Clarice]

The expression is who do you tust me or your lying eyes?
It reflects the desire of the scammer (in the usual joke the adulterer whose wife has just caught him in bed with another woman) to make his wife district the truth of what she's seen with her own eyes.

It's a classic "gaslight".
If the game is played long enough it often ends in the wife burning the bastard in his bed while he sleeps and a chick flick about why she did it.

[tom swift]

Very odd. Is it possible that Yglesias really doesn't know what the Vice President's job description is? It does not involve being yet another advisor to the President. (This has nothing to do with Slow Joe's ability, or lack thereof, to provide advice.) Seems peculiar, but little from that crowd surprises me these days.

[Clarice]

**his wife DISTRUST **

[narciso the harpoon]

If you had the displeasure of trying to untangle his spurious assertions on his site,
you would know you're being charitable

[EconRon]

The worst part is not that these people have been caught, but those in the MSM that are not part of the list and can pretend they do not do the same thing but using different technology.

[Ron Nord]

Hey Shocked,

Thank you for the JournoList, I'd been looking for that. Is there a place that this is being compiled for reference? There must be some type of program that you could run political columns through to see if there is a chain of complicity, I know there is a computer program for plagiarism. Great national exposure for some lawyers to sue this bunch, anti-trust laws seem to have been broken by this political cabal of propagandists; they deserve great misery and loss of jobs for handing our country to a Marxist with their conspiracy.

[glasater]

You may have stumbled onto the truth Nordie....

How about this action from the the father of the JList:

VIDEO: JOURNOLIST FOUNDER EXPLAINS THE NEED TO BE “SNEAKY” ABOUT HEALTH REFORM

...And, if you’re still not convinced that he and his co-conspirators are dishonest enough to do so, watch this 2008 video (via Verum Serum) of Klein explaining why single-payer advocates should embrace deception. Referring to past attempts to impose government-run health care, Klein says honesty was a losing strategy, then admits the following about Obama and other advocates of “reform”:

Yea, they have a sneaky strategy, the point of which is to put into place something that over time … moves it to single-payer.

[malclave]

Barack Obama picked someone to help him govern

So SNL writers were on JournoList, too? And why were they keeping their A-game material like this private, instead of sharing jokes like this with their viewers?

[Louis Vuitton Outlet]

Legally speaking: I wonder if the J-List archives opens up any of these twits, and their employers, for slander or libel lawsuits? Proving malicious intent seems to be a whole lot easier lately ...

[Jane]

Picking Joe Biden to help Obama govern is like picking Stevie Wonder to help him drive.

LOL

Biden has never governed anything. He's a male Maxine Waters.

[hit and run]

Biden has never governed anything. He's a male Maxine Waters.

Now wait a second,if Obama's claim to executive experience was that he managed a big honkin' campaign - then Biden's claim would be that he too managed a campaign! One that was 2/3rds the size of . . . Wasilla.

In all, Biden, who dropped out of the race after coming in fifth in the Iowa caucuses and was tapped eight months later to be Barack Obama’s running mate, received $857,000 in taxpayer money for his campaign, which raised $8.2 million from individual contributions, according to the report.

Well,that is http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/sep/02/rudy-giuliani/executive-makes-it-right/>if you trust Obama:

"My understanding is that Gov. Palin's town, Wasilla, has I think 50 employees," Obama told CNN on Sept. 1, 2008. "We've got 2,500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12-million dollars a year – we have a budget of about three times that just for the month."

Speaking of Biden running his campaign,apparently he ran it so well that http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39875.html>he was fined $219K last Friday for campaign violations.

The Federal Election Commission has penalized Vice President Joe Biden’s 2008 presidential campaign $219,000 for accepting over-the-limit contributions and a discounted flight on a jet owned by a New York hedge fund. His campaign was also charged with sloppy record-keeping.

Sloppy record-keeping? Well, at least Obama wouldn't put Joe in charge of overseeing stimulus spending or anything.

Wait. What?

[bandit]

MattY = Joe Biden

Think of all the similarities

[Rob Crawford]

Biden has never governed anything. He's a male Maxine Waters.

Except not as masculine.

[Clarice]

Excellent, Hit. I see time and tide haven't dulled your wit one whit.

[Jane]

Except not as masculine.

LOL