(Cross-posted at Ben Bang)
Apparently the overwhelmingly negative reaction to Sam Stein's previous hit piece targeting democratic presidential candidate John Edwards hasn't phased the editors of the Huffington Post one bit, as today they've front-paged another shoddy smear written by Stein.
Who is Sam Stein? From his Huffington Post bio:
Sam Stein is a Political Reporter at the Huffington Post, based in Washington, DC. Previously he worked as a Press Secretary and reporter for the investigative journalism group Center for Public Integrity. He has interned for both Newsweek Magazine and the New York Daily News. He has a masters from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is a 2004 graduate of Dartmouth College. Sam can be reached at stein@huffingtonpost.com.
While it isn't hard to believe that Sam is a fresh-out-of-school, wet-behind-the-ears newbie, it is suprising that he is a Dartmouth grad. Guess it's true what you hear about the standards being drastically lowered at Ivy League Schools.
I'm not really sure why Stein has written another piece. There is virtually NO NEW INFORMATION is his dead-horse-raping, innuendo-filled smear. Furthermore, I'm unsure what qualified this hack bullshit for frontpage status (and, furthermore, the "news" label) given the fact that it's written at about a 6th grade reading level and does nothing but suggestively rehash shaky conjecture.
Little was known about Hunter as well. Despite working in the movie business, she had virtually no Internet presence save for an article in Newsweek about her filming of Edwards and an uninformative IMDB entry for her work on the short film Billy Bob and Them (2000).
This anonymity, it turns out, wasn't always the case. The Huffington Post has uncovered a deleted website that formerly belonged to Hunter. Titled "Being Is Free," the site was last updated on April 22, 2007, roughly twenty days after Edwards' One America Committee made its final payment to Hunter's company, Midline Groove Productions.
On the deleted pages, the 44-year-old Hunter (formerly known as Lisa Druck) discusses her former hard partying days, her search for enlightenment, and her issues with drugs and debt. There is a 2005 interview she did with one-time boyfriend Jay McInerney, in which the celebrated novelist reveals that Hunter was the basis for Alison Poole, the main character of his book, Story of My Life.
To put it plainly, Stein wants you to think that John Edwards boned this chick. But he has no evidence to back this up and isn't even in posession of the stones necessary to just come out and make the allegation. Even Drudge is uncomfortable with this level of yellow-journalism.
This rehashed bullshit piece is just an excuse to run the photo they found of Hunter right next to a photo of Edwards, hopefully creating doubt in the minds of Edwards supporters as to whether or not their man will survive the primary.
Don't buy it. If there is any reason to reconsider support for Edwards it's the public financing choice. But that's another blog post altogether.
Fuck Arianna Huffington and her "post". I'm done.