Patterico's Pontifications

4/21/2006

More from Masha

Filed under: Dog Trainer,General — Patterico @ 9:31 pm



Interesting. It turns out that “Masha,” who posted a couple of comments today from an L.A. Times computer, is not a new commenter. She posted some comments in December accusing me and the Power Line guys of being “fascists.” Now that we know she’s associated with the Los Angeles Times, let’s take a little trip down memory lane, and revisit some of Masha’s old comments.

All bold emphasis in this post is mine.

Her previous comments are appended to a post about Michael Hiltzik’s interview with Hugh Hewitt. (Isn’t it weird how her comments defend Hiltzik on multiple occasions? The commenters who suspected a personal relationship may be right.) In that interview, Hiltzik said he didn’t know whether Iraqis are better off without Saddam Hussein. Masha agreed, posting this charming comment:

I think Hiltzik is right on. You and Hewitt and those Powerline guys — you’re fascists. You talk a good game about “freedom” for Iraqis, but you denigrate anyone who values it for Americans. Bushies who smear their political opponents and hide behind the embedded DC press corps? You love ‘em. CIA agents who wiretap the phone calls of U.S. citizens? You love ‘em. Feds who kidnap people they don’t like the looks of, claim they’re “suspected terrorists” and then make them disappear, the way South American dictators used to do with their political opponents? Patriots, in your opinion. Well,sorry, but I’m way more afraid of that sort of paranoid evil than I am of the random kooks that we’d been dealing with, successfully, in this country for generations until the Bush Administration let 9/11 happen. I realize it makes you guys feel more like real men to jump up and down and trash-talk civil libertarians, but I have just one question: How are you gonna feel when some authoritarian decides that your brand of trash talk makes you a “suspected terrorist” and and a smear campaign target? What happens when you succeed, and the dictator comes for you?

Later in the thread, Masha says this:

I think the question of whether the Iraqis are better off should be posed to the people who are responsible for Iraq. Last time I checked, this was America and the question was supposed to be whether you and I were better off. So are we? You feelin’ all warm and secure now? You happy now that this administration is raking in oil money while patsies like you shut up anyone who tries to ask questions? And for free? If I were you, I’d at least demand a cut in return for my collaboration. And as for Paula Jones: Didn’t your mama teach you that two wrongs don’t make a right? Or does that precedent make it okay for somebody out there to someday smear you?

and later this:

Dana — hate to be a pest here, but al Qaeda had nothing to do with Iraq. Here’s what I want to know from you guys, though: Are we all so much better off that this massive, massive cost has been worth it? If your employees in Washington — and they’re your employees, by the way, not vice versa, as much as you fascists love your supposedly benign dictators — if your employees had asked you to okay a war and they hadn’t lied about weapons of mass destruction and ginned up phony links between Hussein and 9/11, and if they’d told you up front it was going to decimate your volunteer army, make the world despise you and throw your bank account so far into the red that even your grandkids would be in hock forever, and if they’d added that, oh, by the way, neither you nor the Iraqis would end up all that much safer, can you honestly say you’d have gone to war? Because that’s what they did and that’s what you fell for, and for what? Unless you own shares in Halliburton, you can’t show me one thing about your personal life that’s improved since this war started. In fact, you’re worse off — the feds can now spy on you, tap your phones, feed lies about you to bloggers if you cross them, ruin you if they want to, and because you gave away your civil liberties like a bunch of sheep, none of it’s against the law. Nope, your employee — the guy you insisted we hire to manage the store — gave that store away to unilaterally settle an old score that had nothing to do with the real threat against us. Is it nice that Iraqis are voting? I don’t know. Supposedly. And it would be nice if the Mexican economy weren’t corrupt and it would be nice if North Korea wasn’t run by whack jobs and it’d be nice if the Saudi royal family wasn’t crooked and it’d be nice if the religious right wasn’t trying to force their superstition down the throats of the rest of us. A lot of things are nice, but democracies are funny — elected leaders who want these nice things are supposed to get permission in from the people they work for because, fyi, we’re all equal. Have you actually met any of the people who have been wounded over there? Have you seen what we’ve done to them in the name of this optional war? What do I care whether a bunch of warlords in Iraq are happier under this mess than they were under the last one? This president is supposed to work for Americans, not Iraqis, and he abused my trust so he could feel like a bigshot. And now, because you’re morons who go slack-lipped at the slightest whiff of approbation from an authority figure, you can’t stop sucking up. The guy you hired to manage the store embezzles your life savings, and you make him employee of the year.

Masha later had this comment:

Good God, don’t people you have lives? No, the cat doesn’t have my tongue — I just have a life. But since I’ve stopped by again, here’s my answer to whether the Iraqis are better off now than three years ago: No. Three years ago they were oppressed but alive. Now they’re allegedly unoppressed and being killed the hundreds, and facing a future — if, by some fluke, they live through the civil war that’s coming at them like a freight train — of … wait for it…more oppression. Because nothing says democracy like majority rule by religious fanatics. But, hey, you know who IS better off? Halliburton and Dick Cheney. Your country is broke and divided, Iraq is in blood-soaked smithereens and divided and those guys are laughing all the way to the bank. And you love them. You worship them. You want to protect them and give them power over the rest of us and shut down that horrible, terrible mainstream media that keeps harshing your mellow with the fact that they — your employees — have lied to you, cheated you, wasted your money, killed your children, spied on you and smeared anyone who has dared ask questions. Once conservatives had ideas. Now they’re just toadies blindly defending a bunch of stupid, crooked, incompetent politicians who have turned the world into a dangerous mess.

and then this one:

Black Jack,
You used a partial quote to distort my position. Sad, Black Jack, sad, and quite dishonest. You wrote: “You can’t see anything good about a people participating in a democratic election after years of brutal oppression.” That’s not what I said. I said the Iraqis weren’t better off, not that I didn’t “see anything good” about people holding democratic elections. But again, this is your problem: You guys can’t hold an honest debate because you aren’t about debating or about honesty. True conservatives would be, but not you guys. I’m not sure you even count as conservatives, because if you did, you’d be questioning this administration on civil liberties, and you don’t. You’e just about blindly protecting the entrenched power of crooks and incompetents, as if they planned to do one thing for you in return except take away your privacy and tax your children forever. They’re not the “devil you know.” They’re con men. But hey, there’s a sucker born every day.

and, finally, this one:

Black Jack: It isn’t hard to make sense of my response. You asked if I thought the Iraqis were better off and I said no — having your life and children endangered by occupying armies, probable civil wars and the threat of a takeover by oppressive religious fanatics is not “better off” than being oppressed by a murderous dictator. It’s six of one, half a dozen of the other. I also said that whether Iraqis are better off isn’t the question Americans should be asking. We don’t elect our presidents based on whether they’ll improve the lives of people in other countries. We elect them on whether they’ll improve lives in this country. The question should be, are we better off than we were three years ago? And the answer is, again, no. As for your claim that what you really wanted to know is whether I think there’s anything good about Iraqi elections, yes. Of course there are good things — for Iraqis — about elections (if they’re not crooked, which may be a stretch). But all sorts of things have upsides — even Mussolini’s reign had the advantage, as the saying goes, of making the trains run on time. The question isn’t whether there’s “anything good” about these elections. It’s whether the good stuff is good enough to be worth the price we’re paying in lives, in money, in our own civil liberties, in the damage that has been done by this administration to our own governance. The ends don’t justify the means, and the benefits don’t outweigh the cost.

Masha, ladies and gentlemen. Hiltzik defender, and user of Los Angeles Times computers.

44 Responses to “More from Masha”

  1. Good grief. It’s like cracking open a rotten egg, isn’t it?

    These people can’t even pretend to be objective. I don’t think they could FAKE it if they tried.

    How do you live there???

    Thank God for Texas.

    Rightwingsparkle (934a68)

  2. Your country is broke and divided

    Your country”…?

    Kent (005e8f)

  3. Beautiful work nailing that columnist! Keep up the fine work sir.

    Chicagoray (065a6f)

  4. How do people like these get these kinds of jobs? Unbelievable. It’s like NASA hiring a gorilla to redesign their spaceships.

    Someone with that much irrational hatred, writer or not, should not be working for a newspaper, even one as partisan as the LA Times.

    srl (bc5d83)

  5. I think you’ve got Masha on plagiarism, too. Her comments are riddled with verbatim quotes from “Leftist Cliches for Dummies

    John from WuzzaDem (dfd3ae)

  6. There were plenty of factual errors with her posts (surprise!), but can we please put the “Cheney profited from the war” thing to rest? Do these people understand what a blind trust is? Or how it operates?

    John Ekdahl (1fe18c)

  7. FYI for commentator’s on this post (posted also on the previous one) as a public service….

    From the LA Times ethics policy:

    In general, we identify ourselves as staff members when covering news events. There are some instances when offering such identification is impossible, impractical or counterproductive, but in no case should a staff member lie about his or her affiliation with The Times. We should deal honorably with people and institutions we cover, just as we expect them to deal honorably with us.

    Not as cut and dry (since she’s not covering a story here, just defending the LA Times, on the clock, at her office, using LA Times IT resources, duing a controversy affecting the organization), but still VERY weaselly….

    Chris from Victoria, BC (5d90a2)

  8. Is “Masha” really Michael Hiltzik? It would not surprise me. Most of what Masha has to say sounds like sound bites from Air America.

    She forget to call everyone Nazi’s though.How could she have left that out? It is a vital component of any liberal rant.

    NOTR (8321d2)

  9. She forget to call everyone Nazi’s though.How could she have left that out? It is a vital component of any liberal rant.

    Remember the early days of Usenet when there was an unwritten rule that once you resorted to calling your debate opponent a Nazi or comparing him or her to Hitler, you automatically lost the debate? I wish we could bring that back in the age of the blog. The same would go for the all-too-casually used “fascist.”

    JVW (d667c9)

  10. This wouldn’t be an example of an LA Times employee with a left-wing bias, would it?

    Chris from Victoria, BC (5d90a2)

  11. Windy little thing, isn’t she? …erm, he?

    Great work, Patterico!

    Claire (222d9a)

  12. Masha,
    Won’t you come out to play tonight and participate in the great unraveling of the LA Times?

    Masha where are you?

    Perfect Sense (024110)

  13. Masha, here’s a hint… when you come back, if you do, and I personally hope you do because while I believe your arguments and conclusions are off base, you did defend them passionately… I urge you not, given the Hiltzik scandal, to come back using another identity. Please come back as Masha from the LA Times and defend Hiltzik and your paper all you like.

    Chris from Victoria, BC (5d90a2)

  14. Masha where are you?

    Right where she always is, apparently: with Hiltzik’s hand and arm jammed all the way up her backside, making her lips move.

    Kent (005e8f)

  15. ONE THING I WILL STATE WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY. SINCE THE MICHAEL HILTZIK HAS ADMITTED MISUSING LA TIMES IT ASSETS (AGAIN IN A COMPLETELY SEPARATE SCANDAL FROM MOSCOW) TO CREATE MULTIPLE IDENTITIES FROM LA TIMES IP ADDRESSES, I HOPE THAT THE EDITORS, DURING THEIR INVESTIGATION, WILL TAKE THE STEPS NECESSARY TO DETERMINE WHO “MASHA” IS.

    If Masha is a separate person and her actions are judged to be in compliance with the LA Times ethics code… if both are the case… then so be it.

    If only to dispell any conspiracy theories that could negatively impact their reputation, they should definitely determine “her” identity tout de suite.

    Chris from Victoria, BC (5d90a2)

  16. You won’t believe this: More Times Employees Leaving Moronic Anonymous Comments

    LA Times employee follows Michael Hiltzik’s foolish footsteps and fails to erase them as well
    A commenter called “Masha” left this nice message on Patterico’s blog today:
    If it were up to you, I’d know nothing but your idio…

    Independent Sources (dd41d6)

  17. She posted from an LA Times address, it may not mean she’s at a writers desk. Unless I missed something.

    I won’t win any friends with this, but she’s one of the more reasonable (/passionate) liberals I’ve read. I mean, I can see some of what she’s saying. I disagree with most of it. And I can’t understand how people think civil liberties are something the government is just tossing around for a big crazy Bush bash. War or no war, 9/11 or not, there are extremists now, they are running innocuous businesses in our neighborhoods… and they are raising money for the cause. The extreme hatred of American culture and freedom fuels it and liberals have no answer. Pull back, stay out, withdraw, adopt some disadvantaged folks, leave others to their own devices. Mind-boggling.

    No politician today can dissuade the jihad dream. In turn, it’s making our civil liberties more complicated and well, damn on anyone who would protect a jihad planner over dismantling an act of terrorism. Times have changed…. incorporate that into the Democratic strategy because there’s nothing but crying and victimization. Buckley said, maybe they haven’t attacked again because they know we’ll respond. Masha, can’t you credit Bush for that much?

    Vermont Neighbor (a9ae2c)

  18. I’m okay with Masha commenting here or anywhere. I’m just curious who LA Times “Masha” is.

    I don’t believe the Times needs to disclose that (unless it is Michael Hiltzik, which is unlikely). I do feel, though, that they should find out for themselves.

    Chris from Victoria, BC (5d90a2)

  19. Just slightly off topic, but I had to share this, which I found on Hiltzik’s blog posted just April 7th, and after I read Hiltzik’s response (and the hilarious comments to it) to Patterico’s expose.

    First Paragraph of “Patterico Punts Another”

    “How can you tell when a conservative blogger is unwilling to address an issue honestly? When he tortures your words into something you haven’t written, and then critiques the imaginary result. The propagandist Patrick Frey, or “Patterico,” a serial builder of straw men in this vein…”

    Two words: Karl Rove

    obviously not hiltzik (fd2aad)

  20. Folks, it gets even weirder than what I have disclosed in this post. Stay tuned.

    I’m getting to the point where I don’t know what to make of this anymore. It’s going to be purely: “I report. You decide.”

    Patterico (156eed)

  21. Gee, Patterico, you’re rapidly becoming my favourite prosecutor I haven’t slept with.

    Chris from Victoria, BC (5d90a2)

  22. It’s a joke, social conservatives, don’t take it seriously… a heterosexual joke, no less.

    🙂

    Chris from Victoria, BC (5d90a2)

  23. The only way this could be weirder is if it isn’t Hiltzik.

    The Jam Crier (f69e1b)

  24. Geeze! What is with you Patterico? The men love you!

    You gotta know that there is some big meeting going on over at the LA times. TOPIC: Everything you wanted to know about IP addresses but where afraid (or too stupid) to ask.

    Too funny.

    Rightwingsparkle (934a68)

  25. Patterico, surely you jest. There can not be more to this circus. I have not been so good that god would supply me with such an endless stream of humor. I’m staying up for this one.

    srl (bc5d83)

  26. People have asked why Masha didn’t disclose who she worked for. Tell me, if you worked for the LA Times, would you?

    Alan Kellogg (0f28ba)

  27. Okay, Chris from BC… Should Julia Roberts play him in a movie? You know there’s no justice in Hollywood!

    Vermont Neighbor (a9ae2c)

  28. Nice work, Patterico.

    Brian O'Connell (ef47b0)

  29. Could Masha be…Cindy Sheehan? They certainly sound alike. I know she couldn’t be Rachel Corrie–she got run over by an Israeli bulldozer long before Masha’s latest posts.

    James Chen (e2a617)

  30. Patterico, you are doing amazing work. Whoever “Masha” may be, this certainly raises questions about judgment behind the walls of the Times office building.

    I haven’t graduated to figuring out trackbacks yet — I’ve linked to your posts and written some further thoughts at my blog; hope it’s OK to post the link here: http://laurasmiscmusings.blogspot.com/2006/04/strange-but-true-hiltzik-saga.html

    Looking forward to the next installment! I’m still a Times subscriber (mostly for the Sports section ) and appreciate the way you are calling them to account. Best wishes, Laura

    Laura (a90377)

  31. […] In a later post I noted that, in December, Masha had used a single non-L.A. Times IP address to post six comments on this blog, all of which were appended to a post of mine about a December interview that Hugh Hewitt had done with Michael Hiltzik. Masha called me and the Power Line guys “fascists” and otherwise frothed at the mouth against conservatives. The IP address that Masha used to make these comments was a Comcast address, and remained constant across all six comments, which were posted over the course of about 48 hours. […]

    Patterico’s Pontifications » Masha Is Also “workingjournalist”? — Plus, Adventures in MySpace (421107)

  32. This can’t be happening.

    OK, I can picture a typical lib type at the Times being upset by the criticism Patterico dishes up. Why are they so afraid or whatever that they have to sneak to a multi-user PC and post from the offices of the LATimes?

    Why not just go home and post a reply on the thread? Why not just post here with a “ok you bunch of idiots. I work at the Times and you are full of it” type response? You know, tell the truth (but remain anonymous) and engage the debate?

    Heck I bet if someone at the Times approached Patterico and asked for equal time he’d let them have it on his front page.

    Dwilkers (a1687a)

  33. […] More here and here. Posted by Ian S. in […]

    Inoperable Terran » Comedy of errors (dacd80)

  34. […] Is the mainstream media not paying journalists enough to find and report the news? How did their egos, opinions, and insecurities get bigger than the stories that they relate? Sadly, Hiltzik seems to be not the only LA Times employee who was doing it. […]

    Successful Blog - If He’s a Pulitzer Winner, Call Me a Citizen Journalist (c3ceb3)

  35. LAT has an obligation to disclose “Masha’s” identity in light of the Hiltzik scandal.

    If he/she isn’t a writer or editor, he/she could be identified by job title only. For example: “She is a 26 year old clerk in the Office of Terrorist Apologists.”

    I hope you will share this set of IP numbers widely, so we can see just how far the snivelling weasels at LAT have gone to deceive the public.

    In truth, though, it is hardly surprising at all, coming from a Tribune Co. newspaper. Ever since Pinch Sulzberger took the reins of the NYT, they have abandoned any devotion to accuracy or honest, ethical reporting, and become nothing more than far-left advocacy sheets.

    Adjoran (28be46)

  36. Are you still going to go on about how much you’re into anonymity?

    actus (6234ee)

  37. The LAT has became a complete comedy in itself. Reminds me of the aftermath of the Slick Willie administration. Socks Berger stealing and destroying top secret information and one of his ‘hired guns’ leaking top secret National Security information to the Post. Wanna bet they now have the ‘Plame’ game leaker (same name as the secret prison leaker). It was leaked to damage the Bush administration, as was the secret prison story which evidently was an inside the CIA sting operation.

    Scrapiron (9f37aa)

  38. One commenter mentioned that extremists were running businesses, and that these extremists hated America.

    It appears that one of the businesses the extremists run is the LS Times.

    Don Meaker (c466f6)

  39. What kind of name is Masha, sounds like something you would say with your mouth full of mash potatoes.

    So I did a web search to answer my own question.
    Masha: origin – Russian; meaning – bitter
    Now this gets real interesting – there is a Masha Hamilton a free lance reporter and novelist who has working for the LA times

    For 10 years, Masha Hamilton worked as a foreign correspondent—for the Associated Press in the Middle east and for the Los Angeles Times in Russia. Most recently, she reported from Afghanistan

    Couldn’t be the same person??!! Whoa, I’ve trace her to Counterpunch which says that she is probably a lefty with strong opinions.

    docdave (d4dcc2)

  40. They lie about themselves and they lie about others…and they call those they disagree with “fascists”. No wonder they are respected less than used-car salesmen.

    pst314 (20d3ed)

  41. Masha–>Misha–>Mikhail–>Michael

    Don’t forget that Hiltzik was stationed in Moscow back wheh he had his other little problem.

    Juliette (932cdb)

  42. The screen name Masha is in all likelyhood taken from Masha Hamilton but probably not actually penned by her. But her initials are MH – now let me seeeeeee, who else at the paper has those initials?

    Barrett (ae1000)

  43. Very funny. Liberals have so many problems using blogs. They can’t understand free speech, for one. They’re always using slurs like “idiot”, “moron” to describe conservative bloggers, but they literally cannot stay away from their blogs! Then there’s this pseudonym fixation – I’ve never understood that one bit. Be who you are, people! Alright, use a nickname, but this cloak and dagger stuff? You’re already enough of a laughingstock.

    Pauli (d46168)

  44. I just left this comment on the earlier post but thought it was more appropriate, or maybe the word is “fun”, here:

    And isn’t there the slightest possibility that Hiltzik is Masha? He’s been stupid enough to go stealing his co-worker’s emails, then after having another 12 years’ worth of internet experience is too dense enough to not even consider that somebody would catch his sockpuppetry, and then even to deny its implications…

    Didn’t “masha” say you’re worse than PRAVDA?
    Didn’t Hiltzik work for the Times in MOSCOW?

    Fishy.

    Don (b6906b)


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