No, Hynes
Patrick Hynes, of Ankle Biting Pundits, is also a consultant for John McCain’s PAC. Now, in terms of conflict of interest, a blogger working for a political candidate is (as ruled on in the landmark case Rightwing Assholes v. Kos) Not A Big Deal. It was, however, to Patrick Hynes (from Wonkette):
“On Tuesday the former Director of Internet Organizing for Dean for President, Zephyr Teachout, revealed that the selfsame Markos Moulitsas Zúniga (who goes by the handle “Kos”) had been a paid shill for the Dean campaign, accepting fees for promoting the campaign of the angry little ex-Governor of Vermont on his blog. Oh yeah, Zúniga also gave “advice” to the campaign…. This mini-scandal is, probably, the blog equivalent of Rathergate or the Williams scandal.”
Kos, you’ll remember, had a disclaimer up. Hynes, later, did not.
(Parenthetically, this part of the Wonkette post also caught my eye, but I won’t comment further:
Sadly, since ABP’s pre-June 2006 archives were scrubbed in a site relaunch, we can’t find what else John McCain’s blogosphere mole had to say about ethics, disclosure and payola. Too bad.
)
But this was all covered last summer. Remember? Remember the shitstorm it churned up when it was revealed that Hynes was a total hypocrite and corrupt to boot? Neither do I. Especially interesting considering that Hynes seems to regard “conflict of interest” as nothing more than a random combination of three english words.
Radley Balko, a policy analyst at Cato who blogs at The Agitator, questioned Hynes’ integrity in working for AARP soon after leaving Cato, where he said Hynes’ job “was to be the PR point guy for Cato’s Social Security Choice campaign.”
Balko complained that AARP is “probably the one group that did the most to derail President Bush’s plans for private [retirement] accounts.” “Perhaps one of the righty blogs defending Hynes’ integrity can explain his representation of … the group that wants to expand Medicare, kill private accounts and enact all sorts of other monstrous, big-government federal entitlements,” Balko added.
Reached by telephone, Hynes said such criticism is irrelevant because he is “not even doing any policy work for AARP.” He reiterated his previous description of the consulting work: “They have a blog, they want to make it a better blog, and I’m helping them do it.”
But here’s the thing: I’m not even writing this post to point out Hynes’ ethical lapses. No, I’m here to highlight Hynes’ extremist stances on social issues.
Hynes wrote a book called “In Defense of the Religious Right”, which, among other things, compared today’s Christian moralizers to - I’m not kidding - abolitionists. Daniel McCarthy, writing in Reason:
“[T]he GOP is, perhaps, God’s Own Party,” not only because religious voters today prefer Republicans but because the party originally arose from the Second Great Awakening and the abolitionist movement. Abolition itself, he writes, “was the result of Christians imposing their moral values on their fellow Americans.”
You could probably get more facile and incomplete than that statement, but you’d have to be working really, really hard. By that standard - and with an actual understanding of history - slavery was the result of Christians imposing their moral values on their fellow Americans. Moreover, comparing the abolitionist movement to the war against contraception or gay marriage seems grossly offensive.
But even allowing for his ethical lapses, and the occasional offensive statement, McCain especially screwed up in not vetting his blogger’s points of view. Hynes is a fringe character, the wingiest of wingnuts. From Reason:
In support of his contention that “secular leftists are determined to remake American culture and society in their own warped image, to tear down traditional pillars of America’s moral strength,” Hynes cites a litany of court cases, legislative acts, and instances of civil disobedience: Griswold v. Connecticut (which effectively legalized contraception nationwide), the Stonewall riots (which launched the modern gay rights movement), 1960s New York and California laws legalizing abortion (the California law was signed by Gov. Reagan), and more.
If McCain was looking for a blogger to move him out of sync with the American people, he looked in the right place. The majority of Americans support civil unions, if not outright marriage. 62% oppose overturning Roe v. Wade. And given that 96% of Catholics use birth control, treating Griswold v. Connecticut as a Commie pinko plot from hell is not likely to play in Peoria.
McCain would be wise to fire Patrick Hynes now, before America wakes up to the kind of extremist he has working for him. It’s not usually considered good strategy to embrace the minority position on every issue. It’s a sure path to what I like to call “not getting elected.”
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Contact information for the McCain PAC can be found - Okay, listen. Obviously, I’m not seriously arguing that Hynes ought to be fired, unless his ethical violations are a serious problem. But my argument against Hynes’ politics ought to have about as much influence over McCain as Pepsi has over Coke. (Or Coolah Energy - seriously, that shit is awesome.)
Bloggers know their audience, and I’m betting Hynes doesn’t spend a lot of time wooing McCain’s moderate voters by threatening to take their condoms away, just like I know Amanda’s not going to be saying “fuck” in a press release. “Scuttle-the-blogger’s-career” is not a winner for the Republicans.
…can be found here.
Update: Glenn Greenwald has more on Hynes and others and, being Greenwald, does it better.