Wolf Blitzer is moderating in New Hampshire, and he asks the entire crop of potential GOP candidates for ‘08 to raise their hand if they believe that gays should be allowed to serve in the military. Not one hand went up. This is called ’stroking the Republican base like it needs to be stroked’. There is no other way to arouse the voters who show up to cast ballots in a Republican primary, but with a dominant grasp of the issues, along with the magic words that’ll bring them to attention. It is a formula that can only be ignored in those rare instances when the voter is faced with star-fucking as an alternative.

If you hope to circumvent the reality of what it actually takes to make it through this gauntlet of intolerance, then you’d better be famous. Because nothing else to an ‘up is down’ right-winger is nearly as potent as the thrilling dynamic of feeling akin to someone on TV. And when it’s the most irrational right-wing subset of them all, this phenomenon is taken to the absolute limits. Hence the natural partnership established between former Marine Corporal Matt Sanchez and the brain trust over at a blog called ‘Right Wing News‘. Anyone unfamiliar with Mr. Sanchez, can bone up on his story with a few lines from something I posted on 4/12/07:

12/4/2006 - On this date the New York Post publishes a column written by marine Corporal Matt Sanchez concerning harassment of the military on the campus of Columbia University (3)
2 - Number of times Sanchez subsequently appeared on Fox News (Hannity and Colmes - VIDEO) (The O’Reiley Factor - VIDEO)
3/2/2007 - On this date the American Conservative Union honored Matt Sanchez with the Jeane Kirkpatrick Academic Freedom Award at the 34th annual CPAC (4)
200 - Dollar amount required for a man to pay Sanchez for sex (5)
3 - Number of gay porno films Sanchez is known to have starred in
12,000 - Amount of money the Marines have accused Sanchez of stealing from various donors to fund a fictional deployment to Iraq (6)

After finding out about his past, it is obvious what happened next. The show-biz folks who turned him into something he wasn’t - pumped him up for their own sake - proceeded to drop him like his name was Foley and pretend he’d never existed. Only problem was, in the process of creating this fictional character, nobody ever bothered to let the poor guy know that he wasn’t real. It is a hallmark of the star-fucking cannibalistic nature at play here, that the most relevant ones (Coulter, BillO), those who can actually create these characters, are sharks in the ocean, forever moving forward, feeding and forgetting.

In the subsequent interactions I’ve had with Sanchez this week, on deadissue and Right Wing News, it has become clear that this is what happened. And although it sounds bad, I can assure you that it is getting worse by the day. As his star was falling so rapidly, he had the misfortune of crossing paths with his mirror image, and the cycle began once more. Only this time the podium and network studio is a laptop in Fallujah, and the audience of millions is a delusional collection of right-wingers on a blog where “the truth” = “civil war in Iraq is a myth created by the liberal media”.

Stephen Colbert on one of his best nights doesn’t even come close to a couple hours at ‘Right Wing News’. And while liberal blogs like Firedoglake are turning into juggernauts, this blog (like most of its right-wing brethren) has moved in the exact opposite direction. An exclamation point to this observation is the periodic post containing nothing but a handful of advertiser links (unlabeled, just posted as ‘Link #1, Link #2, etc.) with a request that readers give each of them a few clicks. With that in mind, you can imagine how excited they became when a crumb from show-biz table named Sanchez fell their way and agreed to post exclusively on ‘Right Wing News’ from within Iraq.

Insomnia plagued my post-Sopranos Sunday night on through to Monday morning. Along the way I came across “Exclusive To Right Wing News: Embed Matt Sanchez Reports From Fallujah“. Naturally, I signed up for an account and started posting comments. Hours later I check in and continue commenting, only to get abruptly banned from the site. Not surprised by it, as experience has taught me that for a right-wing blogger, Monday mornings are sacred. Another battle I had a while back was with the owner of ‘Right Thinking From the Left Coast‘. He’d lined up a scathing hit piece on Cindy Sheehan on a Monday morning, and even though I’d tore this guy up a number of times in the past, it wasn’t until I called him on timing the Sheehan post along with other bloggers for that morning that he was compelled to block my IP address. Swarms of storm troopers descended upon deadissue that same day, furiously flinging feces for what seemed like forever.

This thing with Sanchez was much easier going than that episode, as I simply created a new username and continued on. Before that happened, I posted to deadissue what I wasn’t allowed to post to ‘Right Wing News’ in response to one of his comments:

~~~

Matt Sanchez is a blogger in Iraq, and he’s posted a rant about how the mainstream media is too chicken-shit to leave the Green Zone (he apparently is notified of the activities of the entire media apparatus in the country on a regular basis)…stop me if you’ve heard this one before from a right-winger…and so he is debunking news articles, one in particular about a suicide bombing that was reported by the Wall Street Journal, without facts or a follow-up to the news division or even a single word from the article itself. You’re just supposed to take his word for it, and that is precisely what 99/100 readers of Right Wing News are prepared to do.

I was able to post comments up until I submitted this (went into moderation and so I posted a comment that showed up on the site - meaning that, I wasn’t banned until they read the following):

Right Wing News - Fair enough, I’ll disregard the particulars regarding such and such, and simply debate Mr. Sanchez on the points he makes. If “street cred” is necessary for everyone here to take what I have to say seriously, then let me say up front that I’m an Army veteran, currently doing all I can to assist fellow veterans and soldiers who are still in the system. This consists of letter writing on their behalf, advice on how to address grievances within the system (trying to prevent people who need help into just going AWOL, as unfortunately a number of soldiers end up doing before they reach me or one of my colleagues).

I LOVE these people! The individual stories are horrendous, and for the most part transcend politics entirely. I could go on, but to blog-whore this one time and point you to ‘deadissueMilitary‘, you’ll find many actual accounts from soldiers and marines who are there today, as well as others who aren’t. Up front let me say that on a philosophical level, I believe the side-plot of media-mania in politics is detrimental in a situation like we have in Iraq. To flatly accuse reporters from the WSJournal of not getting a story right is something that should be confirmed with a request to their news division. A few months back there was an AP story about worshipers being doused with kerosene and set on fire outside of a mosque, to which a blogger decided it was fake, and that post was copied throughout the blogsphere.

It had to do with a source that the blogger felt did not exist, but after AP confirmed that he certainly did exist, as was proven (to the detriment of that source btw, as policy in Iraq for the police is to not provide information to the press, and so, this man could be dead by now over this)…what then? Perhaps in the instance Matt is pointing out here, there was more than one suicide bomber attack, and he is confusing that one with the one he describes here. How can we know if that is the case? Sadly, we have to dig up those stories ourselves, as Mr. Sanchez hasn’t bothered to compare the WSJournal article with his own recollections…nor has he leveraged his fan base here to track down an authority in the WSJ newsroom that can provide more details on the article and how it originated.

My main point here being…that Mr. Sanchez expects us to take his reporting at face value, yet besides a “trust me because I’m in Iraq”…bottom line, disregard MSM reporting because it is false and biased, but don’t apply that skepticism to what I write.

Matt: The reporting is, indeed, atrocious. The Washington Post report about the Green Zone running out of food, or members of the military not being able to blog were flat out lies.

The item regarding soldiers not being able to blog was based on an Army policy, of which, a copy was disseminated to the public through the media. It pertained to all electronic communication (including email), with each having to be approved by the command prior to it being sent, or else it is considered “unauthorized”. This isn’t about a “liberal media bias”, it’s the policy. Here is that document - Army Regulation 530-1.

Matt:I’m currently one of FIVE embeds in all of the Al Anbar Province. A province roughly the size of South Carolina.

And what about regional media? Iraqi media? You point out the fact right here that you are but one individual in a land that is vast in size, yet in your piece, the way you take a large brush to the media’s role in Iraq makes it seem like a small place. If one person (you) can single-handedly prove that a news organization like the WSJournal is making up their stories, then Iraq must be a small place after all.

Matt:I’m surprised that the people who are most opposed to Iraq are the people who want to know the least about Iraq, and just don’t have the guts to come out here.

I take this with a grain of salt. There hasn’t been a day gone by where the right-wing passed up an opportunity to pretend that only their side was invested in Iraq and/or had the “guts” to even be there, and I honestly attribute this posturing to a Napoleon complex. With the amount of journalists killed in this war already, it is insulting to read, in 2007, that they are all cowards, fabricators, etc.

Hence the reason why this piece by Mr. Sanchez is propaganda, and should not be taken seriously by anyone. If this one man is more capable than entire media outlets operating within Iraq…well, how likely is that? Let’s be real. We can admire someone for their bravery, but if they have to gain their relevance by assaulting the bravery of others - ironically (or not) the people he is competing against - it presents ethical questions that cannot be overcome by simply saying “trust me, I’m in Iraq and you’re not”.

~~~

My new persona ‘kent_brockman’ posts this same text to RWN, and rather than respond to these points I make, the brain trust is mostly concerned with protocol, “Trench Raider: Morever (sic) if you look at the comments section of the lastest post on the site deadissue.com, you will see were he admits to acting as a proxy for the banned user of the same name by posting material for him…(moderators take notice)”

The moderators are adamant about booting anyone who brings up Sanchez’s dicey past as a gay prostitute, and in full-on star-fucker mode, they’ve decided suddenly that gay people aren’t so bad after all, and even if they serve in the military, it’s alright as long as they allow themselves to be exploited by the right-wing in some way. They’ve got to insist that the man is legit, or else resort to posting the exact same thing without the famous name attached to it. Sanchez seems to be reveling in his celebrity.

Matt Sanchez (12:53PM) I’m one of five embeds and if I’m not right the MSM could NOT contradict me–they’re just not here. I’ve been out on the streets of Iraq where we’ve been greeted like saviors. The people of Fallujah know the military is protecting them from a group of people who are trying to kill them.

Matt Sanchez (2:13PM) The US is NOT an occupier. We’re the ones helping this government stand up on its own.

Matt Sanchez (2:43PM) I’ve been RPG’ed, shot at and saw the remnants of a suicide bomber after he(?) blew himself up. I’ve had an IED go
off in front of me. Do you really think I’m afraid of the Pink Press, or people like you Kent-Brockman?

It got old and I eventually informed them that kent_brockman was deadissue, then called it a day. The tone of my comments changed greatly from the beginning of the day, as over time I honestly felt bad for the guy. He was telling these people what they wanted to hear…that the war was being misreported by the mainstream press, and the state of things over there is exaggerated. For some reason he went to Iraq as a civilian to prove this first hand. Fast forward past the final banning from RWN - Sanchez ended up on deadissue later on that night and it wasn’t pretty:

Matt Sanchez: As for “being co-opted” Give me a break. The leftist, liberal “progressive” biased monopoly on distorted press is a bane on this country. I know liberals believe feeling sorry for others makes them feel superior but I don’t need your “care”.

deadissue: Sanchez, after being famous, then going all the way to Iraq to make it in punditry, to be posting exclusively on “Right Wing News” is a bad sign. That was my main point in all of this. Tell me that Malkin, Coulter and all the other GOP heavies you rubbed elbows with a few months ago are quoting your reporting from Iraq…no? Not really?

Keep on living the conspiracy theory out Matt…fact is, you decided to land onto the Titanic 3/4 of the way down, and you’re wearing out the bullshit that was already old in 04-05. Guaranteed, the likes of Right Wing News will toss you a bone, but if you ask anyone in the know, I’d imagine they’d consider both you and the site equally fucked at this point, so why not combine forces and sink even faster…

Just be warned, that once you pile up a few more entries like the one today, you will be picked up by the people, only more of them will be on KOS than any of the right-wing sites. And if you’re cool with all of that, you’ll still have to face up at some point with the fact that these people you’re hoping to inspire on the right, are the same ones who deem homosexuality immoral and use the community as a wedge issue whenever they can.

So you’re turning your back on the military and the gay community…all so you can become a product in right-wing world, which is a fantasy that died the second your past came to light. Just like Tillman, they’d gotten what they needed out of you, and now they’re done. I fear that you started believing in the hype, but I did my good deed for the week. Good luck Matt!

Matt Sanchez: Ok, the emotional left is being dismissive of what they don’t want to understand. Good luck in the prozac-bliss.

deadissue: “The emotional left”…Wasn’t it the pro-war GOP house minority leader Boehner who was crying two weeks ago on the floor?

Look, I’m not the one in Iraq sucking down kool-aid. That is where your emotions got you. Now you’ve got a wing-nut fanbase that still isn’t clued in on the fact that a civil war is taking place over there.

They send out the delusional self-hating gay guy, because no one else was so desperate for relevance that they’d actually put their fairy tales to the test over there…until they found you. A suitable mark.

So there you have it. Another gay Republican. Unfortunately, this one in particular appears to be searching for something in the worst possible place on earth a person could be right now. If and when he returns…for there to be no redemption, and in spite of his sacrifice, no hope of ever reattaining that peak which initially led to the creation of his persona…it will be devastating I imagine. Who will be around from the crowd hoisting him up now?

http://deadissue.com