The Washington Monthly

October 21, 2009

MAYBE SPAM IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER.... Sometimes, stupid stories boomerang in interesting ways.

Republican critics pilloried the White House for making it too easy to request e-mail updates about health reform, but it turns out the GOP could have spam problems of its own.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) sent a tweet this morning from her @michelebachmann account saying: "If you're interested in receiving mobile updates from me, text MN6 to 467468 or visit Bachmann.house.gov and subscribe. Thanks so much!"

The homepage of her congressional site allows users to sign up for the "Bachmann Bulletin" by entering only a first name, last name and e-mail address. Then you get a confirmation message that says, "Thank you for registering."

That system rang a bell for some Democrats, who recalled that opponents of health reform claimed that groups could enter names of other people -- and even lists -- to receive White House updates without the addressees' permission.

A Democratic official said: "Bachmann is using official government resources in a way that allows groups to simply add individual e-mails ... into her government-run database. Fox spent a lot of time on this story when it involved the White House. I wonder if they or anyone else will pay the same attention now that it is a Republican Member of Congress."

Salon's Mike Madden had a fun report on this today, noting that he visited Bachmann's site, and found "there's no requirement that you confirm the subscription before receiving messages." He signed up some of his colleagues, without their permission, who'll now receive Bachmann emails without having asked for them.

"When the White House was doing the same thing, of course, that was a big deal for Fox, which reported on 'hundreds' of people who complained to the network that they were getting unsolicited messages from David Axelrod about healthcare reform," Madden noted.

In August, this "controversy" was so important that Fox News' White House correspondent pressed Robert Gibbs on it during a White House briefing. Soon after, in the hopes of making Republicans and their network move on, the White House changed its email policy.

A Democratic official told Madden, "Given how obsessed they were to make a federal case out of this when it came to the White House, you would think that Fox 'News' would be asking all sorts of questions of Republicans about the same practice. But apparently not. Maybe there's a breaking story about how ACORN is planning a swine flu vaccine that will indoctrinate children so they will support a world currency that will undermine the dollar that they are covering. But more likely, the disparate treatment here is just further evidence that Fox 'News' is an arm of the Republican Party."

If I didn't know better, I might think Democrats are enjoying going after FNC.

—Steve Benen 4:55 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (17)

Comments

The snark is strong in that Democratic official. Did they hire Atrios or something?

Posted by: Stranger on October 21, 2009 at 5:16 PM | PERMALINK

Let the farce be with you, young Democratic official.

Posted by: Ron Byers on October 21, 2009 at 5:26 PM | PERMALINK

"If I didn't know better, I might think Democrats are enjoying going after FNC."

Good. It *should* be fun to laugh at idiotic people, and it is everyone's *obligation* to laugh at idiotic people that are purposefully being so.

Posted by: OhNoNotAgain on October 21, 2009 at 5:32 PM | PERMALINK

Of course they love going after FOX News. Keeps something in the news cycle besides their upcoming failure to pass meaningful health care reform.

Posted by: doubtful on October 21, 2009 at 5:38 PM | PERMALINK

Clearly what should be done now is to make sure Michele Bachmann is sending mail to LOTS of spammers. Particularly the ones offering various forms of male enlargement. Get republicans to spam sleazy businesses and see which goes for the throat of the other first. Should be brilliant!

Posted by: marduk on October 21, 2009 at 6:14 PM | PERMALINK

i just LOL'd in my pants.

Posted by: Monty on October 21, 2009 at 6:29 PM | PERMALINK

Humor works.

Posted by: Cazart on October 21, 2009 at 7:12 PM | PERMALINK

Right Winger's First Rule: Rules Are For Other People.

While Republican Fox Propagandists are whining about what the left is doing they sure wouldn't ever hold the right up to those same standards.

Watch whoremongering Republican David Vitter get reelected.

The right wing has NO standards unless you count the right wing's "double standards".

Posted by: Same Standards For Everyone on October 21, 2009 at 7:17 PM | PERMALINK

Come, now. Fox's OPINION segments will of course hold Bachmann to a double standard and ignore her transgressions. But I'm sure that Fox's completely separate NEWS organization is already working on some in-depth coverage of this.

Posted by: CN on October 21, 2009 at 7:48 PM | PERMALINK

"Of course they love going after FOX News. Keeps something in the news cycle besides their upcoming failure to pass meaningful health care reform."

Notice the wordplay - "meaningful", which basically means whatever the hell the poster gets to define it as, thus rendering the entire comment an exercise in public masturbation.

Posted by: OhNoNotAgain on October 21, 2009 at 10:43 PM | PERMALINK

OhNoNotAgain,

Most of the regular readers are well aware of what I consider meaningful health care reform.

Rather than be a taint about it, perhaps you could just ask.

My line in the sand is a universally available public option. Without that, the bill is a meaningless giveaway to a private industry.

Posted by: doubtful on October 21, 2009 at 11:10 PM | PERMALINK

I'm all for ridiculing Fox, but not for treating this as a (fairly) serious issue. Leaving this opening to spammers is a pretty dumb thing to do (given that there are best practices for how to let users subscribe to updates), so it's right to expect the White House to remedy the situation quickly. Apparently they did.

Of course, now that it's their ox getting gored, no one expects the Republican propaganda channel to take the story seriously. Maybe they'll surprise us.

Posted by: Equal Opportunity Cynic on October 22, 2009 at 5:38 AM | PERMALINK

I'm torn. On the one hand, I agree with doubtful about what meaningful healthcare reform means. On the other hand, as a regular reader I can honestly say I had no idea what his idea of meaningful healthcare reform was until he spelled it out there.

I guess I will just say, why don't you give the umbrage a rest until the Obama Administration fails to deliver, instead of assuming bad intentions from the start. It's not like he can pass this by fiat.

Posted by: Singularity on October 22, 2009 at 7:07 AM | PERMALINK

I guess I will just say, why don't you give the umbrage a rest until the Obama Administration fails to deliver, instead of assuming bad intentions from the start. -Singularity

Perhaps I should have said regular commenters. My apologies. Regardless, my point was that accusing me of some sort of nefarious wordplay in an effort to malign the administration was bad form.

I make no assumptions about the administration's intentions regarding reform, despite my misgivings about their methodology. I'm sure they'd like nothing more than to deliver a solid reform bill to the public.

But the senate will fail to do that, and the administration has backed themselves into a corner by being squishy on the details, so ultimately, Obama will have to sign whatever bill hits his desk because of politics, whether it is good policy or not.

I don't see the leadership in the senate pushing for reconciliation, so we need 60 votes for cloture, which might as well mean 60 votes for the bill. Since those votes aren't there, we're subjected to headlines about the unorganized Democrats unable to agree.

Hence my assertion that whatever distracts people from that story is happy news for the administration, be a balloon boy of a squabble with FOX News.

Posted by: doubtful on October 22, 2009 at 9:58 AM | PERMALINK

I imagine that Fox doesn't have a problem with Bachmann Tweeting to as many people as possible.

Posted by: ComradeAnon on October 22, 2009 at 10:11 AM | PERMALINK

Of course they love going after FOX News. Keeps something in the news cycle besides their upcoming failure to pass meaningful health care reform.

You're of course assuming that these things are unrelated.

Fox's propaganda is one of the reasons why there's such resistance to meaningful healthcare reform. I'm sure the White House considers neutering / defusing / de-legitimizing the loudest organ in the right-wing noise machine to only be helpful in their efforts.

Posted by: DH Walker on October 22, 2009 at 10:20 AM | PERMALINK

Fox's propaganda is one of the reasons why there's such resistance to meaningful healthcare reform. -DH Walker

I disagree. Despite the months of propaganda, the electorate at large still overwhelmingly supports meaningful reform with a public option. Widespread resistance is a myth.

The only resistance is from Baucus, Lieberman, Landreiu, Bayh, etc.,: a handful of senators with an economic interest in the status quo. I doubt FOX News has as much influence on them as their donations or spouse's board memberships and stock portfolios.

Posted by: doubtful on October 22, 2009 at 12:30 PM | PERMALINK