Readers, we all know that liberals are a bunch of hypocrites and elitists. They always pretend to care about working people, but really don’t care about anything but stuffing their fat faces full of expensive delicacies like lobster, caviar and champagne while luxuriating in swanky suites at ritzy joints such as Manhattan’s fabled Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
Just imagine the joy you’d have felt if you were a wingnut blogger and somebody pointed your attention to a NY Post Page Six item claiming that Michelle Obama had spent $447.39 on room service at the Waldorf-Astoria. It would have been a confirmation of everything you’ve ever thought about hypocritical liberal elitists, wouldn’t it?
While [Sen. Barack Obama] was at a meeting at the Waldorf-Astoria at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Michelle Obama called room service and ordered lobster hors d’oeuvres, two whole steamed lobsters, Iranian caviar and champagne, a tipster told Page Six.
The right-wing Internet fell for it, readers, hook, line, and sinker. Crazy Pammy immediately got stuck on stupid:
Can you imagine if Cindy McCain did this? The New York Times would have team [sic] of asshats crawling all over the Waldorf kitchen. Chris Matthews would digging [sic] through the wet garbage chasing Cindi’s [sic] empty oysters in the event she didn’t eat every oyster. What waste! What disdain for the oyster-less poor.
It’s good to be the queen!
She approvingly links to other self-righteous wingnuts waxing hysterical about The Lying Rich Obamas and their Dastardly Secret Plan to Screw the Taxpayers, invoking the already-very-stale cliché of “Joe the Plumber”:
On October, 15,2008, Michelle Obama spent $447.39 on room service (for 2) at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel for an afternoon snack of Lobster Hors D’Oeuvres ($50.00), Whole Steamed Lobsters (100.00), Iranian Osetra Caviar ($150.00), and Bollinger Champagne ($44.00)
Sounds exquisite, doesn’t it, if your culinary tastes run to lobster, caviar and champagne? But this insight into the Obama lifestyle makes us wonder how often Joe “the Plumber” Wurzelbacher of Toledo, Ohio and his family eat lobster with all the trimmings.
How often does the average person eat like this? Or is it only those who make $250,000 or more? Or only the 95% of the population laboring under the illusion that they will get tax breaks under the Obama Wealth Redistribution Plan?
[emphasis mine; original text's font-weight was bold throughout]
Wow, readers. Those Obamas are just typical socialists — they lie to the working class and promise them tax breaks, then they go to luxurious first-class hotel suites and gorge themselves on expensive food and drink. What a bunch of fucking hypocrites, huh? High dudgeon, readers, and lots of righteous anger: these tasty treats were just the thing for a right-wing blogger to indulge in.
Crazy Pammy’s looney-tunes commenters had a field day, too. Michelle Obama is a “skanky nazi”:
Just another plain skanky nazi aiming to use government power to get a quality of life that she could NEVER achieve by merit and talent in the open market.
And the same goes for her big-talk no-accomplishment conman husband.
Just plain old stinking lying thieving nazis.
We’ve seen them all before.
We watched them destroy Germany back when Berlin was considered the flower of Europe.
And now they’re after America.
[joeblough]
One commenter felt bad for Obama supporters, whose hard-earned campaign donations were disappearing into Michelle’s gullet:
My question to Obama supporters would be:
Are you happy to know that those of you who gave $20.00 to support your candidate that it is being spent on a $450. snack? If I was you I would want to know if it was your donation that was used to stay at The Waldorf-Astoria and eating Lobster. I would question someone who is suppose to be an advocate for the middle class and poor, then hypocritically do the opposite. How do you feel, thinking your dollars were spent to make a difference and bring change then spend it on a very expensive meal. Did you compute that it took 22 people contributing $20.00 to pay for that meal? Will you in your lifetime stay at the Waldorf-Astoria?
With a campaign that has raised more money than any other campaign in history, are you sure it is being well managed? Obama, by the way, claims that he knows about how to run something, since he has ran a campaign. Think carefully…..if a candidate would spend campaign money this way, how will he spend your tax dollars?
[jcheney]
But guess what, readers?
The story was a complete fucking fabrication. Page Six issued an embarrassed correction:
October 21, 2008 –
THE source who told us last week about Michelle Obama getting lobster and caviar delivered to her room at the Waldorf-Astoria must have been under the influence of a mind-altering drug. She was not even staying at the Waldorf. We regret the mistake, and our former source is going to regret it, too. Bread and water would be too good for such disinformation.
The NY Post is a newspaper. The editors, being real-life journalists, had the journalistic integrity to admit they’d been made fools of, and to publish a retraction.
Will wingnut bloggers, such as soi-disant “Citizen Journalist” Crazy Pammy, have the honesty and decency to issue retractions of their own? Will they even mention that the story turned out to be an out-and-out fabrication, and apologize to their readers for having been fooled by it? Don’t hold your breath, readers.
UPDATE 2008/10/22, 00:31 EDT — Crazy Pammy has added this text to the top of her post:
UPDATE: The NY Post has taken the story down …… Page Six retracts
That’s it. No explanation, no apology. The rest of her blog post, with all its Sturm und Drang, is left untouched, needless to say. Anyway, she did at least acknowledge reality for one second, so I guess that’s a good thing.