marc ambinder

Marc Ambinder

Hack blogger for The Atlantic magazine who pretends to be a real reporter but who's actually simply a worthless hack. Occasionally sent press releases and tidbits from politicians. Was present when John McCain was asked a question about Juan Hernandez and not only did not ask McCain a follow-up, in his discussion of the question he didn't reveal that Hernandez had previously been a cabinet-level member of the Mexican government, pretending only that the issue was that his "positions on illegal immigration seem to be more liberal than McCain's".

Last modified Dec 22, 2008
Discussed in (click each link for the full post):

Obama devastates GOP "arguments" live on TV (House Republican retreat) - 01/30/10

Barack Obama appeared at a nationally-televised House Republican retreat in Baltimore yesterday at which several leading Republicans asked him questions which he then handled with ease. He "p0wned" them so badly that Fox News cut away from the coverage twenty minutes before it ended. What the House members asked were weak, open-ended question or simply requests. They weren't adversarial questions designed to reveal flaws in his policies or statements. Because of that, they allowed him to say things like this: And the notion that I would somehow resist doing something that cost half as much...

Politifact "Lie of the Year" misleads (Angie Drobnic Holan; Sarah Palin's "death panels") - 12/19/09

Politifact has named Sarah Palin's claim about there being "death panels" in Obama healthcare as their lie of the year; it was the top "lie" selected by both their editors and their readers.

McCain campaign - not Palin - came up with "palling around"; Schmidt regrets largely true ad - 07/10/09

Marc Ambinder has an advance copy (link) of a book about the 2008 elections from Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson, and it might contain a good number of behind-the-scenes tidbits. For instance, one of the mistakes that Sarah Palin made was to claim that Barack Obama was "palling around" with Bill Ayers. Except, it was Nicolle Wallace of the McCain campaign - and not Palin - that came up with the "palling around" bit. That allowed the mainstream media to mislead about the relationship between the two, dismissing that relationship by pointing out that they weren't close friends and using that...

Republicans that Obama administration listens to include McCain, Schwarzenegger, and Mel Martinez (on immigration) - 06/10/09

From our "For What It's Worth" department, Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic offers "The Six Top Republicans Obama Listens To" [1]. He doesn't provide a source for his information, but it could happen. Especially since all those listed are RINOs.

Michael Steele: Obama wasn't vetted because of his race (Ali Frick /ThinkProgress, Ben Smith, Marc Ambinder) - 05/22/09

Guest hosting for Bill Bennett earlier today, Michael Steele said the following: The problem that we have with this president is that we don’t know [Obama]. He was not vetted, folks. … He was not vetted, because the press fell in love with the black man running for the office. “Oh gee, wouldn’t it be neat to do that? Gee, wouldn’t it make all of our liberal guilt just go away? We can continue to ride around in our limousines and feel so lucky to live in an America with a black president.” Okay that’s wonderful, great scenario, nice backdrop. But what does he stand for? What does he believe...

Marc Ambinder pretends Obama's citizenship isn't a "legit" topic - 12/03/08

Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic - a blogger who tries to pretend that he's a real reporter - offers "Discourse Watch: Obama's Citizenship A Legit Topic?" (link) in which he falsely states that questions over where exactly Barack Obama was born are "specious" and have "been convincingly refuted". At his post, the last bit links to Snopes, which is not a reliable source. In fact, where exactly Barack Obama was born has not been definitively proven. Ambinder might want it to be in the U.S., but that's simply wishful thinking. Statements from Obama himself are not proof, since he might not even...

John McCain still skates on Juan Hernandez issue, again (Matt Lewis) - 06/04/08

On a conference call today (link via this), Matt Lewis of Townhall asked John McCain about his Hispanic outreach director Juan Hernandez, a former cabinet level official with the Mexican government who worked directly with Vicente Fox.

John McCain's Juan Hernandez almost gets MSM attention (Eunice Moscoso, WashTimes, Marc Ambinder) - 02/15/08

John McCain's director of Hispanic outreach is a dual U.S.-Mexican citizen who until 2002 worked directly with Vicente Fox as part of his cabinet.

Allez Obama! (the blogs are alive with sock puppets) - 01/21/08

There seem to be a large number of sock puppets (per Wikipedia an "online identity used for purposes of deception within an Internet community") running loose on various blog sites and leaving comments supporting various candidates such as Barack Obama, Mike Huckabee, and occasionally others.

Matt Yglesias, Ross Douthat, and Marc Ambinder at... The Table - 12/19/07

This video of the premiere edition of The Atlantic's entry into vlogging is just too funny for words. I was laughing so hard at the intro music plus the hosts turning to the camera that I was unable to listen to the rest (probably for the best).