‘Mr. Mauldin’s website hews far closer to the disinformation spread by Russian trolls in 2016 than typical political messaging…’
(Ben Sellers, Liberty Headlines) Leftist media, who have long ducked behind the cover of anti-conservative political comedy, are far less bemused by a humor site mocking former Vice President Joe Biden, which The New York Times likened to a Russian cyber-attack.
From websites like The Onion to television programs like “The Daily Show,” satire often has played a pivotal role in the Left’s attacks on conservatism.
Ridiculing one’s opponent ranks as No. 5 on Saul Alinsky‘s “Rules for Radicals“—which helped to lay the foundation of political strategies like those used by the Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigns.
A few months prior to the 2016 election, in fact, The Boston Globe (owned until 2013 by The New York Times) ran a fake front page spoofing then-candidate Donald Trump, among a litany of questionable journalistic practices.
More recently, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., was criticized by media leftists after filing a defamation suit over a Twitter profile that claimed to represent his mother and one claiming to be his cow.
Nunes said the sites “repeatedly tweeted and retweeted abusive and hateful content” against him.
Yet, in a scathing, 2,400-word, front-page report in Saturday’s Times, writer Matthew Rosenberg came unhinged over the popularity of JoeBiden.info.
The site lampoons Biden on his many gaffes and his creepy invasion of other people’s personal boundaries, including that of many underage girls.
Rosenberg’s piece sought primarily to expose the owner of the site, Patrick Mauldin.
The reporter deployed all of his investigative skills to root out the unidentified jokester and then to breathlessly attack Mauldin for having the audacity to parody the current Democratic front-runner.
“[I]n anonymously trying to exploit the fissures within the Democratic ranks—fissures that ran through this past week’s debates — Mr. Mauldin’s website hews far closer to the disinformation spread by Russian trolls in 2016 than typical political messaging,”Rosenberg whined.
Rosenberg then linked to a September 2017 article about Russian conspiracies and election meddling that seemed to cast aside the nearly two-year-long Mueller investigation, which debunked many of the underlying claims that the Times and others had relentlessly perpetuated.
“With nothing to indicate its creator’s motives or employer,” the Times griped of the Biden spoof, “the website offers a preview of what election experts and national security officials say Americans can expect to be bombarded with for the next year and a half: anonymous and hard-to-trace digital messaging spread by sophisticated political operatives whose aim is to sow discord through deceit. Trolling, that is, as a political strategy.”