Monday, August 30, 2021

THE REASON FOR THAT AWFUL DANA LOESCH PUFF PIECE?

On the same day that the Lifestyle section of The Washington Post published an embarrassing puff piece about Dana Loesch, the former talking head for NRATV, this story appeared:
“The View” will fill Meghan McCain’s slot with a rotating cast of guest conservative co-hosts when it returns for it 25th season next month.

First up will be former Utah Congresswoman Mia Love, who will join moderator Whoopi Goldberg and co-hosts Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin and Sara Haines for the first week, which begins Sept. 7....

Additional guest co-hosts include Condoleezza Rice, S.E. Cupp, Gretchen Carlson, Carly Fiorina, Eboni K. Williams, Mary Katharine Ham, Alyssa Farah and Cameran Eubanks.
Loesch's name is not on the list.

The profile is her consolation prize, or maybe her publicist (and the Post) hoped it would coincide with her appearance on The View's list of guest hosts. No such luck.

The story assures us that this woman who made her bones defending gun absolutism really, really has a broad range of interests.
By now she’s gotten used to being called a “gun hottie.” She dismisses the label as an attempt to diminish her and undermine the fact that even though she relishes talking about gun policy, the overwhelming majority of content she produces is about other topics, including election law, foreign policy, gender identity and criticism of pronouns used by transgender people, to name just a few.
See? I could do Meghan's job!

We're told she's " a voracious researcher," although the evidence at the link is just a series of blog posts, only one of which was posted this year. The blog items bear titles such as "Glorified Latte Fetcher Outed As NYT Op/Ed Writer," which ... does not sound research-y. (It's about Miles Taylor, author of an anonymous 2018 op-ed about the Trump White House.)

We're told that other people are more high-powered in the world of talk radio, but Loesch is really the rising star, because, um, well ... because.
She’s taking on newcomers, such as former U.S. Secret Service agent Dan Bongino, a social media juggernaut and entrepreneur who says he’s airing on 300 stations. Buck Sexton and Clay Travis, a duo signed by Limbaugh’s former syndicator, recently launched a program that airs on 400 stations. The others boast more stations and more listeners, but the question is whether they can hold them. Loesch has the built-in asset of a longtime audience and a record of high ratings.
So we should just credit her with having more stations than Bongino or Sexton and Travis, even if she doesn't, is what I believe we're being told here.

And there are biographical details that strain credulity. We're informed that
It begins for Dana Loesch in the Missouri Ozarks — a speck of a place called Hematite with a restaurant she says was actually named “the Rest’urnt.”

Her memories are populated by “liquoriffic aunts” and an “Uncle Junior” who favored brown polyester leisure suits, aviator glasses and a gold pinkie ring and whose real name was a mystery to all. For “a spell,” she writes in her book, “Flyover Nation,” the phone directory didn’t trifle with some people’s full names, simply listing them with nicknames like “Clunker,” “Boots” and “Speedy.”
(NARRATOR: I can assure you that no such phone directory was ever published.)

Several paragraphs after we're told about this backwoods squalor, we're told,
(She also studied classical ballet for years.)
In fact:


So who taught her? Clunker? Boots? Mrs. Boots?

Loesch wants the Post to print the legend, and the Post obliges. But why does Loesch even want attention from the Post? After all, we're told she's a rising star, except among benighted "blue staters" who "hadn't been paying attention" as she was becoming famous. I guess she actually cares what we think -- she knows she's ghettoized and pigeonholed. She'd like to make a crossover move. The producers of The View don't seem eager to help her out. But the Post -- despite her past attacks on the mainstream media -- is happy to help.

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