Tom Burka, at Opinions You Should Have, reported yesterday on a closely-held secret that I’d hoped would never come out: “Steve Benen, the liberal blogger who runs The Carpetbagger Report, has recently been discovered to be the sole author of almost every liberal blog dealing with U.S. politics on the internet.”
Indeed, in a hard-hitting investigative report, Burka blows the lid on a massive operation that has, up until now, been kept entirely under wraps.
At first Benen was writing The Carpetbagger Report and allegedly guest blogging on sites such as TalkingPointsMemo, the Washington Monthly’s blog, Political Animal, and Crooks and Liars. However, a visitor to TalkingPointsMemo, who saw a video of the alleged author and blog founder “Josh Marshall,” immediately recognized him to be actor Marshall Mappschteen, with whom he had performed “Guys and Dolls” in college. A phone call to Mappschteen resulted in revelations that eventually uncovered Benen as the author of more than 260 liberal blogs. Subsequent investigation revealed that popular “bloggers” Atrios and Political Animal’s Kevin Drum are actually fellow league bowlers who Benen recruited to be fictitious front men.
The revelations caused Salon to put an end to their Blog Report, a supposed roundup of items of interest on liberal and conservative political blogs compiled by Benen. “All the liberal blogs were him,” said “Skippy”, one of the few liberal bloggers who appears to really exist. “He was just linking to himself all over the place. It was unsanitary.”
Burka’s scoop rips the mask off a massive masquerade. Take a look.
Post Script: For the humor-impaired, I suppose I should note that Burka’s post is a parody. The “quotes” are satirical, Josh Marshall is a real person, Duncan Black and Kevin Drum are actual bloggers, and I’ve never bowled with either of them (though I’m willing to, so they should feel free to call me). I don’t author 260 blogs. Maybe 230. If I’m busy, 240. But 260 just isn’t realistic.