Daily Mail Hack Humps National Enquirer’s Leg, Zombies Swarm to Jeer and Cheer

There is still no August Surprise. Because it’s no surprise that it’s August, bears relieve themselves in the wood, the Pope still hasn’t converted to Islam, and that Daily Mail hack Tamara Abraham—more usually seen covering the Karl Lagerfeld—Victoria Beckham spectrum of political discourse—has discovered yet another mole inside the White House ready to spill the beans on Michelle “Marie Antoinette” Obama. Again. Here’s Abraham’s breathless report from yesterday:

Expensive massages, top shelf vodka and five-star hotels: First Lady accused of spending $10m in public money on her vacations

The Obamas’ summer break on Martha’s Vineyard has already been branded a PR disaster after the couple arrived four hours apart on separate government jets.

But according to new reports, this is the least of their extravagances.

White House sources today claimed that the First Lady has spent $10million of U.S. taxpayers’ money on vacations alone in the past year.

Branding her “disgusting” and “a vacation junkie”, they say the 47-year-old mother-of-two has been indulging in five-star hotels, where she splashes out on expensive massages and alcohol.

Egad. The White House sources for this stunning revelation?

The “top source” told the National Enquirer: “It’s disgusting. Michelle is taking advantage of her privileged position while the most hardworking Americans can barely afford a week or two off work.”

Ah. In the course of translation, those “sources” seem to have become singular, grown some “scare quotes,” and stem from a publication that may be the go-to place for information on the comings and goings of aliens on Earth, but can sometimes be a little, shall we say, inventive in its coverage of other issues. Nothing to see here, then?

Of course, Memeorandum duly plonks this pile of poo in its listings, numerous ludicrous righty American blogs echo it, and next thing you know, their commenters flood the Mail‘s comments stream, partying down like it’s 2009. Or 2010. Or earlier in 2011. Or whenever was the last time one of the British media played this neat trick of turning crap into gold by feeding right-wing America exactly what it wants to hear and counting the clicks.

Last I checked, this comment over there had 1966 upratings:

Disgusting, indeed. And where did the author of this piece get the idea that the most hard-working of Americans can barely afford a week or two off? That’s your European vacation-entitlement talking. We, the hardest working Americans, cannot afford to take even a single week off! Haven’t you heard of our new American word, “day-cation,” where you take a day off here and there. That’s the extent of the time a hardworking American can afford to take while we are suffering through the Obama Depression and the insufferable Obamas, themselves.

- monte4amy, NY, NY, 24/8/2011 22:08

If you wade into the comment stream, you’ll note that 99% of the commenters claim US locations. In the end, it’s just a lot of noise tucked away on the intertubes, but the memes it feeds and the attitudes it justifies are pernicious (some of the more revolting comments I saw there last night appear to have been scrubbed, but if you’ve ever wandered into a righty blog when Michelle Obama’s the subject of “discussion,” you’d have recognized the style).

I’ve ranted many times on this blog about the mirror-echo effect between the yellower end of the British media cesspool and US media (and others with more talent and more measured tones have covered much the same ground)—where stories (often from highly dubious sources, if any sources are cited at all) that the US’s more mainstream outlets might shy away from running are pumped out into the Web by the British press, thus making them “legitimate” stories that the US media can cover, etc. &c. It’s like money laundering, only with information as the currency.

Their major online presence makes the Telegraph and the Mail prime proponents of this. Of the two, I’d say the Mail is the more pernicious, as its petty truth-challenged “little Englander” curtain-twitching tut-tutting obviously strikes an amygdalic chord with some across the Atlantic.

Is it too much to hope that the bugging scandal currently sweeping our media spreads to engulf it too?

Posted by YAFB on 08/25/11 at 06:03 AM • Permalink

That Daily Mail story is shit. Everyone knows that the BIG scandal is Obama’s boozing and his $5 million rehab at Martha’s Vineyard.

Says here(reprint of a Christian Science Monitor article) that presidents pay for their own food except at state dinners and other government functions.  So if the Obamas are eating and drinking well, it’s coming out of their own pockets.  And, thanks to book royalties, they are millionaires, after all.  So why not?

It does bring back fond memories though, of the John Kerry affair that never was [full story by the supposed “mistress” herself here - a somewhat rare example of an (apparent) member of the privileged class doing something worthwhile for the wider public].

That was a case of a fake story that got spiked before it went too far beyond Drudge and into the media mainstream.  But it wasn’t for lack of effort on the part of some playas.  Back in Feb. 2004, Tony Blankley - former editor at that Moonie rag The Washington Times, and before that spokesman for Newt Gingrich during the latter’s time as Speaker of the House - tried to slip that topic in during the weekly Friday journalist roundtable discussion on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show. For a few seconds after he brought the topic up, there was dead air silence, as though maybe ol’ Tony had committed a transgression that left the topic “out there”, and the gears were spinning in the studio as to what to do next.  Good times…

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