LOS ANGELES – The fear generated by the death of a man Internet spectators thought could have been the coroner for recently deceased right-wing pundit Andrew Breitbart is evocative of when Firedoglake Publisher Jane Hamsher and The Nation Publisher Katrina famously argued about their respective coverages of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the death of Vince Foster.
One day in August of 2010, Nation Fellow Philip Weiss wrote an article accusing Firedoglake of ignoring issues of Palestine, claiming that Firedoglake was too bent to the will of Israeli ultra-nationalists.
Ms. Hamsher would respond, “FDL is 1 of the ONLY left blogs w/someone writing abt Palestine (Siun) & you’d have 2 be a f&^%king r#%ard not to Google that.” Added Ms. Hamsher, “So @KatrinaNation is paying Vince Foster conspiracy peddler @MondoWeiss to attack “professional left” now. @NationInstitute must be proud.”
Ms. Hamsher’s “professional left” comment was an allusion to a comment by then White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs derogating President Obama’s ideological critics in the press.
Philip Weiss is, at least as of April of last year was still writing for The Nation. He described his own frustration with journalistic colleagues who rejected him for failing to accept his conclusions, or lack thereof, regarding the death of Foster.
I wasn’t trusted to write about politics around that time. ‘You’re over-determined,’ one writer said with condescension. I thought I was just a reporter. And Joe Klein had said as much novelistically, in Primary Colors.
So I was grateful to Bill Clinton when he capped his Administration with an act of corruption, absolving Marc Rich, for all to see.
I was hugely grateful to both Clintons when they turned her campaign into an Ahabish pursuit of power, a race-a-thon, an impeachment-grudgematch, a mad grind for Bill’s redemption, and showed that they would do anything. Again: for all to see.
And I am now personally grateful to Hillary for exposing the violence and thuggery that exists at the cold black bottom of her politics, for all to see. Her wish-fulfillment statement about assassination reminds me of the night I got back from my first trip to Little Rock in 1996.
Hamsher would charge that keeping Weiss as a Nation fellow — in effect paying him to write –amounted to “intellectually lazy limousine liberal effete wankery.” She would compare Mr. Weiss to extremist or at least disingenuous commenters at Firedoglake.
“Hey @KatrinaNation,” wrote Ms. Hamsher, “we banned some 9/11 trolls from our comments last week. You can have em 4 Nation Institute Fellows if u want.”
The comments section at the LA Times after the death of a supposed Breitbart coroner evokes that 2010 discourse about The Nation’s coverage of the Foster death and Firedoglake’s Southwest Asian news coverage.
Russell Taylor wrote: “The quickest way to commit suicide? Know some dirt on the government, and even think about putting it out to the public.”
Another party compared the coroner’s death to that of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gadhafi: “I’ve been wondering as an aside what Khaddafi had on the US Government that led to him being double crossed the way he was, and WHY he did not plan for such an event by entrusting information with a secret 3rd party as ‘life insurance’
Mr. Taylor elaborated on his beliefs: “Ever notice that people investigating possible political crimes, either come up with no results from those investigation, or they quit breathing before announcing results.”
But it was by April 20th that the Los Angeles coroner’s office had already issued a report — a report, if not a final report — announcing that the conservative blogger had died of hardened arteries.
Also at the LA times, user “Obama EATS DOGS” wrote:
Obama Death Toll (so far)….. 3 gay choir members at Trinity Church in Chicago, where Obama attended Rev Wright’s sermons for twenty years. Plus one Kam Kuwata (Democrat Strategist and Dianne Feinstein best friend) who went missing and was found 2 weeks later, dead inside his Venice Beach home. Plus Andrew Breitbart who died “of natural causes” in LA. And NOW, the LA Coroner who (possibly) helped investigate Breitbart’s death gets poisoned to death with arsenic, the same week the Breitbart autopsy report is due for release!
Here at the Ulsterman Report is more on the theory that Kam Kuwata was assassinated.
Despite the fact that Vince Foster died in 1993, Eva Harper wrote: “Don’t forget Vince Foster, friend to the Clintons who was killed during the 2008 campaign cycle…”
Mark Flaming, on Facebook, a self-described “Hebrew Slave at Offshore Oil/Natural Gas” found incredible claims that the coroner had died while amidst recreation. “Due to a hobby’?” he wrote. “What was his hobby? Eating poison? I think he knew more than the current administration thought was good for him (or them),” adding, “I wonder who’s going to fall over dead next? Probably whoever investigates his murder! Arsenic anyone?”
A 28th of April Facebook posting suggested Mr. Fleming may have possessed a deeper, abiding instinct regarding those of greater melanin content. Commenting on an Alabama killing alleged to be a race-based retaliation for the killing of Trayvon Martin, Mr. Fleming wrote on Facebook, “Blacks are the biggest and worst racists I know.”
Ray N Felitto III wrote:
The Trinity United choir leader was a man named Donald Young who happened to be and was also known in the Chicago ghettos and dem circles as Obama’s pre presidential gay lover or at least one of many. Even Young’s mother has confirmed all this as truth, but the media is of course AWOL even this time around. Just like they will be here. Also No coincidence. http://bit.ly/ctzVit
With respect to the dead choir members, “Ray N Felitto III” is referencing reporting done by the Globe, on display at rense.com; as well as the Wayne Madsen Report.
The sensational news article, found on