fatal gerstein

(Gerstein says, "I will not be IGNORED, Jane Hamsher!!") 

It's becoming increasingly clear that Dan Gerstein is going all Fatal Attraction on our dear blogmistress, Jane.

I obtained a press release from the Lieberman campaign yesterday and it's truly shocking the extent to which little Danny is being driven by his obsession at this point.  After a brief bit of lip service to the fact that the campaign has moved to a new office and some thoughts on Ralph Nader (which take up less than the first page of the seven page memo) Gerstein seizes on his favorite topic, Jane Hamsher and the "Lamonsters".  His tired tirade runs on for pages and pages as he furiously attempts to spin the facts and float canard after canard.   Then he dedicates a few pages to a deeply comical write up of a 2004 Lieberman fund-raiser by My Future Husband Matt Taibbi.

The show really got started when Marcia Lieberman took the mic to introduce her son. Dame Lieberman, the height of a trash can, looks like Ernest Borgnine in a pearl necklace. I was too far away to see her makeup closely, but from a distance her face looked like a tight mess of grays and dark purples, like it had been drawn with pencil and blood. After Baines introduced her to uproarious applause, she shook her head and then brought a hand to her breast, as though needing to catch her breath.

"I am so overwhelmed by this reception," she said, "almost to the point of tears… Such incredible joy."

She brought a hand up to her eye and made a wiping gesture, as though holding back a tear. There was no tear, though. The crowd, about 200 people, redoubled its applause. The clapping lasted a good 15 seconds. A number of supporters jumped to their feet.

Wow, I thought. That looks fake.

Okay, Dan-o.  Here's a helpful hint about press releases.  When someone has written an absolutely scathing, hilarious write-up of your candidate, reproducing the juiciest sections of that document for even MORE people to read is probably not your best plan of action.

But thanks.  I hadn't read that piece and now I love Mighty Matt Taibbi even more.

Sigh.

The thing is, I've noticed a couple of things since I got here to the FDL safe-house.  There's this daily accretion of weird stuff on the front steps.  Yesterday there was a baby-doll that was rather disturbingly mutilated.  Then yesterday evening, there was a dead bird and a long letter in an envelope marked, "JAYNE HAMSHIRE".  It wasn't addressed to me, so rather than tearing it open and reading it, I had to steam it open over the tea-kettle.

Thirteen pages, both sides, no punctuation or paragraphs, just line after line of cramped, turgid, third-person prose.

The Wolf wakes at midnite angry alone he cries his boundless agony at the moon and knows that somewhere She hears do U hear me my sweet jane i think about U all the time can't U see i can't live without U if i can't have U no one can i know U think about me all the time to (sic) i can hear you're (sic) thinking when U lie in bed each night i can feel U breathing can you feel me hearing U i breathe in and out with U the pulse of little blood cells running thru yr vains (sic) and artirees (sic) i will be with U soon my love U can run from me but i will always find U WHY DON'T U LOVE ME 2... 

This morning there was a cardboard box full of ashes.  I don't know what that's about, but I threw them in the trash as quickly as possible.

I suspected yesterday that it was Dan "Sunrise, Sunset" Gerstein, but I got all the proof I needed when I saw him sitting in an SUV on our street in a black ski-mask and a long trench coat, playing air guitar along with some Nine Inch Nails song on his iPod.  Then an hour later, I saw him again in a red VW bug, and then in a green Ford pickup, still air-guitaring, still wearing the ski mask.  Way to be inconspicuous, Pickle Dick.

So, I went over and tapped on the window of the Ford.

Gerstein jumped and let out a tiny, girlish scream, but then angrily rolled down the window and demanded to know what I wanted in a phony French accent.

"Dan, Jane's not here.  She's on the west coast right now.  You might want to leave your love offerings for her there."

"Dan?  Who ees zees Dan?  I ehm Pierre Foucault, monsieur!"

"Your French accent sounds like Pepe Le Pew, dude, and the ski-mask isn't helping.  I know who you are."

"Ah do not know what you are talkeeng about, monsieur.  Ah am not zees Dan Gayrr-STEEN who you seem to theenk I yam!"

Huge.

Eyeroll.

"Dan, I never said your last name.  You just outed yourself worse than John Travolta, dude.  Why don't you go stalk Jane in San Francisco?  I hear the weather's really nice there right now."

"Fahk yoo!!" barked Gerstein in his phony accent, and drove away.

Okay, Dan, here's another hint about being a press officer, or whatever you are for the Lieberman campaign these days.  You are not supposed to become the story.  Unfortunately for all of us, you don't seem to realize that.  From the Hartford Courant:

"This is just more negativity coming from the Lamont camp," Gerstein fumed. "They're so blind in their hatred of Joe Lieberman that they have to make even the most trivial, silly things an issue."

Breathe, buddy, breathe ...

"I've already gotten three calls about this. It just shows how tone deaf people are. Why aren't they calling about Lamont's flip-flop on earmarks? Why isn't that an issue?"

OK, now he was making me tense.

"This is a camp that mocks Joseph Lieberman's wife and kids and we make one honest mistake that we own up to and they jump all over it. I can send you documents that show how much more negative they are than us, how they continue to resort to these kinds of tactics. ... It's not even a close call."

I thought we were all going to relax and get away from the negativity here. Remember the soothing sounds of the waves, the female announcer's dreamy voice: "Joe Lieberman thought you might enjoy a break from Ned Lamont's negative attacks," she cooed. "So, just sit back and think about - good stuff."

Of course, the depth of your difficulty with this issue didn't become really clear to me until late this afternoon, when you started channelling Sean Young and went on the Joan Rivers Show dressed as Catwoman.

  gerstein's meltdown

And that was when I realized that you are possibly our best weapon in the battle to unseat Joe Lieberman.  So, for all you do, Dan, thank you.  You're doing more to take down Joe's career than any fifty "Lamonsters" and I couldn't thank you more.

Keep up the good work!!