Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World! (28 page)

Every one of these acts by ABC News came in reaction to the
left’s push to get me kicked off the air. Every one of these acts was unilateral, without anybody from ABC News contacting me. They were throwing their invitee under the bus and they were doing so in a most cruel fashion. What was worse, they were calling me out as a liar. They were giving the anti–free speech forces of the left everything they wanted.

So I called Andrew Morse, whose entire attitude was narcissistic in the extreme. He simply couldn’t believe that
he
was under such an assault by the organized left. I sympathized with him—for a while. Then I said, “Don’t you understand how you’re being used right now by the organized left? Don’t you understand how they want me to lash back at ABC News so that it will confirm for them that I was a wrong and hostile choice in the first place?” I told him that I am very methodical in how I interrelate with the mainstream media, that I utilize a carrots-and-sticks approach: when you lie and you destroy, I fight back hard, but when you make the right moves, I reciprocate in kind.

I told Morse that I wanted to give ABC every opportunity to walk back their provably false allegation that I exaggerated my role. In fact, I held off responding publicly for well over a day in order to give them time to do so.

Meanwhile, ABC reiterated they wanted me in Phoenix.

“Oh, I’ll be in Phoenix all right,” I said, “because the ball is now in your court. All I have done is accepted your invitation and told my readers to watch ABC News on election night. Since then you’ve done everything wrong including lying, which confirms everything that my readers perceive about network news and the mainstream media.

“But,” I continued, “I
am
going to put up the e-mail that you sent me, which confirms the invitation and clearly states that I am telling the truth and ABC News is lying.” ABC News’s answer by way of Morse: “Do what you have to do.”

On Sunday night, I posted that e-mail. Here it is:

After releasing the e-mail, on Monday, Jeffrey Schneider reiterated to my business partner that ABC wanted me to come to Phoenix. I spoke again with the producers at ABC News, who also told me they wanted to meet Monday night for dinner in Phoenix. Accordingly, I flew to Phoenix on Monday night to be part of ABC’s election night coverage—in whatever capacity they should so choose. I knew they wanted me to drop out, but I was not going to give them the easy way out.

At about the time the producers were supposed to meet me for dinner on Monday night, I received a text from Morse saying that he was too busy preparing for the election coverage to attend dinner, and that they would be in touch early the next day.

The next morning, I called and texted almost continuously, asking where I should be, how I should dress, what topics would be discussed. No response… for four and a half hours. At around 12:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m. on the East Coast), just as I was supposed to leave for the event—at this point all news coverage around the country, including my own website, was all election results all the time—Morse sent me an e-mail disinviting me.

To add insult to injury yet again after picking at a scab that had been dashed with salt, ABC simultaneously sent the disinvitation to the left-wing media sites that had demanded I not participate on election night. They would revel in their victory as I packed to go back to LA, where at least now I could vote. To make matters worse, I was away from my office desk where I would be of best use on election night. ABC broke the news when those who would care were least interested in blowing up a minor media scandal and when the left needed a victory—any victory it could get, on what they knew was going to be a disaster of an election night for them. I was the left’s Pyrrhic victory on Election Night 2010. I had been played.

But it was worth it! It was fun. Being the media is fun. Telling the truth is fun. Having an effect on the election cycle is fun. Getting into world-class battles with brand-name media players is fun. When you have the truth on your side and the American people behind you, it’s fun! In hindsight, I wouldn’t change a thing. In two short years we were not just building successful, impactful websites, but changing the way Americans read, consume, and create media. Fun, fun, fun!

I’ve already written that Election 2010 was less about November 2 than it was about November 3 and beyond.

For me, 2011 is going to be a recommitment toward a righteous attempt to level the playing field in the media; 2011 is going to be less about holding Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid accountable than it’s going to be about holding George Stephanopoulos, Andrew Morse, ABC News, and the rest of the mainstream media accountable. It’s going to be about holding accountable the president of NPR, who capitulated to the exact same forces who attacked me when she canned Juan Williams and attacked his character in the process. It’s going to be about holding George Soros and his Hungarian nut squat squad at Media Matters accountable. It’s going to be about holding Arianna Huffington and Christiane Amanpour and Contessa Brewer and Katie Couric and Pinch Sulzberger accountable.

I am optimistic that the Tea Party movement is reflective of a greater American sentiment that needs to try at least to save what is good and decent about the American experience. Again, it is a cultural battle. And while they cling to their media guns and their politically correct religion, truth will be our weapon.

It’s a long war. I know. I’ve lost friends. I have the scars. My wife married an almost inappropriately always-lighthearted guy fourteen years ago. Now she wakes up next to a firebrand who is one of the most polarizing figures in the country.

But I have also met the America that was rendered silent by the media and is now shaking itself to life again. These are the years that we will look back on and question whether we did enough for our country and for our children. That’s why I’m so determined, so pissed, so righteously indignant.

Excuse me while I save the world.

On Friday, May 27, 2011, I was asked by my business partner, Larry Solov, for a private meeting. The book tour for
Righteous Indignation
began in earnest in late March 2011, and for two straight months it dominated my psyche. While my Big editors—Mike Flynn, Dana Loesch, Larry O’Connor, Peter Schweitzer, and John Nolte, along with Joel Pollak, Alex Marlow, Dan Riehl, and Lee Stranahan—were holding down the editorial fort, I was floating in a cloud of self-promotion. The period from November 2009 through the book launch was intended to be a victory lap, based upon the journalistic successes we had achieved in reporting stories the mainstream media refused to cover. Instead, the book and its surrounding publicity campaign became an exercise in conveying that the reports of our death had been greatly exaggerated. We knew that our successes would inspire counterattacks, but we didn’t consider that even some in our own ranks would run for the hills when our enemies tried to shoot back.

So what should have been pure fun and icing on the cake
became a very necessary mission to reclaim our good name in the public eye. Those two months of book promotion took me away from our editorial huddle. I trust my people, and they did a superb job as I removed myself from the demanding, borderline-psychotic rat-tat-tat of the daily news cycle. But a two-month sabbatical is almost unforgivable, and in late May Larry wanted to convey to me, eye-to-eye, that the editors needed my guidance. Now.

During this discussion, at a bizarre entertainment industry software store-cum-coffee shop, I recall experiencing the negative physical sensation that comes with wanting to disagree vehemently with what I was hearing. I wanted to lash out at Larry and find out which editors were making the rumblings of mutiny. But I knew, deep down, that they were right.

At approximately 6 p.m., we finished our meeting after I ate a slice of humble pie and swigged it down with an iced venti soy latte. I told Larry that I had promised Susie I would go off the grid starting that night and through Monday, which was Memorial Day. I promised that on Tuesday not only would I be on the editors’ conference call, I would also make clear that my head was in the game and that I would be focused on the stories. In truth, I knew I would need that weekend to concentrate my mind and my energies.

After Larry dropped me off at my house, my wife informed me that we would be joining our neighbors in Palm Springs on Sunday and Monday. That was agreeable, given that I could reorient myself editorially while sipping margaritas and staring at lunar rock formations. As the sun began to set at the start of a weekend meant to delineate spring from summer, I asked my wife if she’d like me to open up a bottle of white wine. No sooner had I opened the bottle of Chardonnay and poured two glasses, standing at our kitchen island, then I began multitasking, refreshing my Twitter stream on my iPad. It was at that moment that the best-laid vacation plans of
mice and men ended, and my recommitment to the story began four days ahead of schedule.

Huh,
I thought,
what’s this?

Someone, using the Twitter handle PatriotUSA76, had re-tweeted an alleged tweet of sitting congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY). The message included a link to an image, which I immediately clicked. While sipping wine, I looked at the image at first with mild confusion.
What am I looking at?
I wondered. I picked up the iPad and turned it in different directions to try to make out what the image was. It took about ten seconds for me to get it, at which point I had a mild “Eureka” moment:
Aha! I know exactly what that is!

Being the gentleman that I am, I turned to my wife and said, “Oh my God, you have to see this—you won’t believe this, if it is what it purports to be.”

After giving Susie the short backstory and showing her the Twitter message, she distinctly asked, “How do you know that it’s his?”

I responded, “I don’t. But if it
is
his, this is a big deal.”

Being—once again—the gentleman that I am, I called Big Journalism editor Dana Loesch (who was set to travel to Puerto Rico on vacation the next day with her family). “Check this out,” I told her.

Her reaction was not unlike mine and my wife’s.

I said that we needed to convene an editorial conference call. Tuesday was indeed coming early. And immediately available, on the shortest of notice, were Nolte, Solov, and O’Connor. (Pollak, our resident Orthodox Jew, was to miss the first rollicking twenty-four hours of Weinergate due to religious observances. We would make that up in spades, as you will see later in this chapter.)

The conference call was the first of many dramatic and emotionally excruciating moments that would occur over the next three to four weeks. The first order of business was to determine whether or
not the tweet emanated from Congressman Weiner’s verified Twitter account. The Twitter feed seemed to be genuine—and it contained another clue: a shout-out to Seattle earlier that evening, where the apparent intended recipient of his photograph lived. Our second concern was whether or not the image, which was connected to a yfrog account (a photo hosting service), belonged to Weiner. But while the confirmation process was taking place, at about 8 p.m. Pacific time, we watched, in real time and in great awe, as the yfrog account’s photos—mostly innocuous snapshots of the congressman—were taken down. Simultaneously, the intended Twitter recipient of the image—the bulging member of Congress in grey boxer briefs—deleted not just her Twitter account but also her Facebook account.

“We’re watching the cover-up!” I exclaimed to the crew.

My father-in-law, Orson Bean, now a committed Christian, likes to reinforce his belief system with a smile on his face, stating, “There are no coincidences.” In the Friday night flurry to find out as much as we could about Weiner, the recipient of the tweet, archives of images, and records of other online communications, I had forgotten a most blatant missing puzzle piece. Nine days beforehand, we had received an e-mail tip from a gentleman in Texas who claimed to have compromising photographs and communications between a single mother in Texas and Congressman Weiner. We had followed up via Pollak, who was skeptical but did not dismiss the tip entirely. We were not particularly interested in Weiner’s private life, nor did we have any reason to believe the pictures would be real. In any event, the source spoke to Pollak once but never followed up with him. In truth, we probably would have forgotten about it had PatriotUSA76 not re-tweeted Weiner’s original tweet that Friday night.