{"id":1467639,"date":"2022-05-08T05:14:52","date_gmt":"2022-05-08T09:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1467639"},"modified":"2022-05-08T05:14:56","modified_gmt":"2022-05-08T09:14:56","slug":"slouching-athwart-history-selling-slop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/slouching-athwart-history-selling-slop\/","title":{"rendered":"Slouching Athwart History, Selling Slop"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">10<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fslouching-athwart-history-selling-slop%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1467639&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p><em>BENGUELA, Angola<\/em>\u2014The year was 2012. Fresh off my third divorce, I had just landed a private security gig in Cyprus. I don&#8217;t know how Margaret Continetti found me, but she did. The telegram was brief: &#8220;Are you alive?&#8221; As it so happened, I was.<\/p>\n<p>Hiring an ombudsman of Biff Diddle&#8217;s caliber was the best thing that ever happened to the <em>Washington Free Beacon, <\/em>yet\u00a0I am as shocked as anyone that this run-of-the-mill digital broadsheet has lasted this long. &#8220;We&#8221;\u00a0celebrated our 10th anniversary in February. (I was not invited\u00a0to the <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/satire\/time-to-kill-some-russians\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">party<\/a>, which is probably for the best.)<\/p>\n<p>Margaret left years ago to work for a rental car company, but her replacement Eli A. Johnson seems capable enough. He asked me to review <em>Combat Journalism: Ten Years of the Washington Free Beacon<\/em>, a book whose publication I strenuously opposed on moral grounds. It came out in March, but I&#8217;m only just now getting around to it because I&#8217;ve been busy [redacted for national security concerns] and hunting genetically modified leopards in Zaire with Gary Busey and the Trump boys.<\/p>\n<p>I didn&#8217;t hate the book. As most of you are probably aware, I&#8217;m no fan of the <em>Free Beacon<\/em>.<em>\u00a0<\/em>I am particularly annoyed by its inexplicably timid support for American military dominance at home and abroad. Its ambivalence toward the state of Israel drives me mad. Nevertheless, I rather enjoyed pursuing this collection of work, arranged by category and in chronological order to allow readers to essentially relive the terror of the Obama years and of Hillary Clinton&#8217;s near victory in the 2016 election, traumatic events I&#8217;d worked hard to suppress. It was an emotional journey. Some pages were ripped out in disgust, while others are still soaked in my thick tears.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Men of the Decade<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Well curated, if I&#8217;m being honest. <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/men-of-the-year\/jose-rodriguez\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jose Rodriguez<\/a> (2012), wearer of &#8220;big boy pants,&#8221; and <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/men-of-the-year\/2013-man-of-the-year-biff-diddle\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Biff Diddle<\/a> (2013), exposer of &#8220;jihadi apologist Adam Kredo,&#8221; were particularly inspired selections. The inclusion of <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/men-of-the-year\/2015-man-of-the-year-dylan-byers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dylan Byers<\/a> (2015) was a bit triggering. I certainly commend his role in bringing to light the malfeasance\u2014in the form of unauthorized Trump campaign <a href=\"https:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2015\/10\/15\/media\/trump-free-beacon-donation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">donations<\/a>\u2014of disgraced <em>Free Beacon <\/em>&#8220;writer&#8221;\u00a0Andrew Stiles, as outlined in the infamous <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/blog\/breaking-the-diddle-report\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Diddle Report<\/a> that many people are talking about. But that doesn&#8217;t mean I&#8217;m not physically repulsed by Byers&#8217;s beard and &#8220;West Coast&#8221; lifestyle. (I am.)<\/p>\n<p>On a related note, the <em>Free Beacon<\/em> made an unambiguous promise to its readers in 2015\u2014that it would &#8220;continue to investigate&#8221; whether Islamic State terrorists were responsible for the disturbing prevalence of &#8220;man buns&#8221; in the United States. It&#8217;s been more than seven years, and I have yet to see a follow up. That&#8217;s unacceptable. Almost as unacceptable as blindsiding your humble ombudsman with a moving tribute to <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/men-of-the-year\/2017-man-year-congressman-greg-gianforte\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Greg Gianforte<\/a> (2017), the former GOP congressman best known for body-slamming a British journalist who wouldn&#8217;t shut up about Obamacare. I don&#8217;t often cry, but I wept inconsolably for several hours after reading that. A beautiful moment in the history of this great country. Heroes really do exist.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Not my favorite section. After all I&#8217;ve done to ensure that Lachlan Markay will spend the rest of his life in jail by exposing his ties to the domestic terror group Antifa, I was appalled to see his <em>Free Beacon<\/em> byline again. Continetti was out of her mind letting Markay &#8220;report&#8221; on the <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/politics\/top-donors-help-steer-democracy-alliances-2016-strategy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Democracy<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/politics\/washington-post-reporter-gave-presentation-to-secret-liberal-donor-meeting-without-notifying-superiors\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alliance<\/a>\u2014bunch of perverts if you ask me. It&#8217;s like assigning Hillary Clinton to investigate the &#8220;suicide&#8221; of Jeffrey Epstein, or letting Adam Kredo cover the Iran nuclear negotiations. Wake up!<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Obama Years<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For all her faults, Continetti had Obungler pegged. Her columns on Trump&#8217;s predecessor have gotten better with age. It&#8217;s easy to forget how much our media and cultural elites adored this guy and his insufferable coterie of Pod Bros. Our so-called comedians whined that B. Hussein was impossible to mock\u2014too cool, too noble, too cerebral. Some people are finally starting to realize what an <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/satire\/guest-column-obama-birthday\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">arrogant prick<\/a> he was and is, but Continetti was ahead of the curve.<\/p>\n<p>Columns such as &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/columns\/phonyism\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Phonyism<\/a>,&#8221; &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/columns\/love-in-the-time-of-obama\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Love in the Time of Obama<\/a>,&#8221; &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/columns\/divorce-beltway-style\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Divorce Beltway Style<\/a>,&#8221; and &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/politics\/dialing-it-in\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Dialing It In<\/a>,&#8221; are insightful snapshots of the liberal decadence that accelerated the American public&#8217;s revolt in the form of Donald Trump. Chris Hughes and his Facebook spouse, Sean Eldridge. Alex Wagner and Sam Kass, the trust-fund lovebirds. Tony and Heather Podesta, the lobbyist power couple. Obama and the &#8220;interesting Italians&#8221; he dined with as Russia invaded Ukraine (the first time) and annexed Crimea, among other &#8220;bull sessions&#8221; designed to &#8220;satisfy the president&#8217;s intellectual curiosity as he indulges in nuanced conversations about life, ideas, and art.&#8221; These are the characters one must study to understand &#8220;what the hell is going on.&#8221; Alas, the mainstream media remain as clueless as ever.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Hillary Files<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Speaking of which, remember when the political press corps freaked the f\u2014 out after getting scooped by the <em>Free Beacon<\/em>? Those were the days. Alana Goodman&#8217;s reporting on &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/politics\/the-hillary-papers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Hillary Papers<\/a>&#8221; and &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/politics\/the-hillary-tapes\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Hillary Tapes<\/a>,&#8221; reprinted here in all its glory, caused a collective caterwauling among the so-called serious journalists and &#8220;Notorious RBG&#8221; stans who cheered the late Supreme Court justice&#8217;s refusal to let a black man choose her successor. (How&#8217;s that going, by the way?)<\/p>\n<p>In retrospect, it&#8217;s amazing to think how many people were in denial about the fact that\u00a0Hillary Clinton <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/blog\/hillary-clinton-will-never-be-president\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">will never be president<\/a>.\u00a0How the truth warriors shrugged when Hillary&#8217;s minders were <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/columns\/the-golden-bowl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">escorting them to bathrooms<\/a> and standing outside their stalls.\u00a0How the intellectual elites rallied around ABC News anchor <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/politics\/abc-news-anchor-george-stephanopoulos-donated-50000-to-clinton-foundation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">George Stephanopoulos<\/a> and the $75,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation he&#8217;d forgotten about until the <em>Free Beacon<\/em> reminded him. How the former Clinton aide &#8220;revealed&#8221; it in an exclusive interview with Dylan F\u2014ing Byers. Anyone who thinks a Hillary Clinton administration would have been any less exhausting than the Trump administration is kidding themselves.<\/p>\n<p>Matthew Walther&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/culture\/time-matthew-walther-bad-trip-lena-dunham-told-liked-t-shirt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">account<\/a> of meeting Lena Dunham (who?) and getting the wobblies after smoking some dank kush (a Blueberry Diesel, Black Widow hybrid if I had to guess) gave me flashbacks to the time I accidentally ingested ayahuasca at a Melissa Etheridge concert. I couldn&#8217;t help but feel sorry for the poor chap, who poops his proverbial diaper, says &#8220;I love you&#8221; to his Uber driver, finds absolution, and dozes off to Peter Gabriel&#8217;s &#8220;Solsbury Hill,&#8221; a song I have also hated my entire life.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Defending the Jewish People<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Way too much Adam Kredo in this section. By now it should be abundantly clear that this creep is <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/blog\/adam-kredo-is-up-to-no-good-in-switzerland\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">up to no good<\/a>. As previously noted, the <em>Free Beacon<\/em> is a bit of a lightweight when it comes to supporting Israel, but I did thoroughly enjoy Michael Goldfarb&#8217;s eloquent\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/blog\/not-all-liberty-conservatives-are-jew-baiting-paleocons\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">diatribe<\/a> against the &#8220;Jew-baiting paleocons,&#8221; who insist on inventing new forums for their <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/issues\/koch-groups-launch-clouded-by-anti-semitism\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">anti-Semitic<\/a>\u00a0bullshit. &#8220;We&#8217;re here, we&#8217;re neocons, and you&#8217;re never going to be rid of \u00a0us,&#8221; has a nice ring to it. The Stiles piece on his trip to Iran was too long, didn&#8217;t read. Good riddance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Career-Enders<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m so glad the <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/politics\/i-bought-wendy-davis-pink-sneakers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">pink running shoes<\/a> Wendy Davis wore during her &#8220;inspiring&#8221; abortion filibuster ended up in the hands of the <em>Free Beacon<\/em>. Brent Scher deserves a medal for crushing the dreams of all the hippie feminists lined up outside the failed Democrat&#8217;s estate sale in 2016. From national celebrity to irrelevant loser. Davis actually ran for Congress in 2020 and no one cared. Her\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/politics\/wendy-davis-signed-the-pink-sneakers-i-bought-at-her-estate-sale\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">signature<\/a> is basically worthless now.<\/p>\n<p>Our reporting on then-senator Claire McCaskill&#8217;s (D., Mo.) <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/politics\/claire-mccaskills-private-plane-used-on-campaigns-rv-tour-through-missouri\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">private plane<\/a>\u2014the one she used to travel the state while pretending to ride in an RV like a normal person\u2014is the sort of &#8220;speaking truth to power&#8221; our nation&#8217;s journalists claim to practice. In reality, the political press corps remains infested with elite liberals who find their jobs a &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/media\/bored-white-house-reporters-cry-in-their-cheerios\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bore<\/a>&#8221; and difficult now that a Democrat is president.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Great Awokening<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As is often the case, the <em>Free Beacon<\/em> was ahead of the curve. The disgraced journalist who writes under the pseudonym &#8220;Sonny Bunch&#8221; was trying to warn us about the crisis of wokeness as early as <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/blog\/everythings-a-problem\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">February 2015<\/a>. The <em>Free Beacon<\/em>\u2018s reporting on the subject in recent years has been <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/culture\/the-wages-of-woke-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">thoroughly<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/campus\/a-yale-law-student-sent-a-lighthearted-email-inviting-classmates-to-his-trap-house-the-school-is-now-calling-him-to-account\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">adequate<\/a>, and is a fitting capstone to our previous coverage of the Democratic Party&#8217;s reckless depravity and decadence as our university&#8217;s churned out class upon class of emotionally unstable weirdos. The inmates are running the asylum now.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Books, Arts, and Culture<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I thought &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/culture\/westeros-playbook\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Westeros Playbook<\/a>&#8221; by C.J. Ciaramella was the single most egregious example of nerd journalism in the history of the English language\u2014until I read Continetti&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/columns\/i-dont-love-spock\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">I Don&#8217;t Love Spock<\/a>,&#8221; a Star Trek-themed abomination of indecipherable dork jargon. &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/the-juggalo-cult\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Juggalo Cult<\/a>&#8221; by Bill McMorris was more to my taste. (Shout out to my boy Tim &#8220;Hog Daddy&#8221; York. Stay grounded, Fam.) Tears streamed down my face while reading the final piece, Yuichiro Kakutani&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/culture\/the-power-of-choice\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Reflections on Becoming a U.S. Citizen<\/a>.&#8221; Either that or it made me really sweaty. At my age, it&#8217;s getting harder to tell the difference. Kakutani&#8217;s &#8220;faith&#8221; in his new country is probably misguided. The American people appear neither willing nor able to &#8220;overcome any obstacles through mutual cooperation.&#8221; Nevertheless, he persisted. God bless him.<\/p>\n<p>America might never be great again. Rest assured, however, that the <em>Free Beacon<\/em> will be there every step of the way, terrorizing the libs until the bitter end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BENGUELA, Angola\u2014The year was 2012. Fresh off my third divorce, I had just landed a private security gig in Cyprus. I don&#8217;t know how Margaret Continetti found me, but she<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":382,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1467639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/382"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1467639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1467639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1467639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1467639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}