Martin Eisenstadt

Last updated

The Martin Eisenstadt hoax is an elaborate scheme of filmmakers Dan Mirvish and Eitan Gorlin that involved the creation of a fictional "talking head", Martin Eisenstadt, who was quoted by numerous major news outlets (such as the Los Angeles Times and MSNBC [1] ), as well as countless blogs, all of which failed to verify his actual existence. "Eisenstadt" claimed to be the source of commentary about Sarah Palin in the wake of John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. [2] Mirvish and Gorlin have since written a satirical novel called I Am Martin Eisenstadt: One Man's (Wildly Inappropriate) Adventures with the Last Republicans for Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN   978-0-86547-914-2. The book was written under Eisenstadt's pseudonym and purports to be a first-person memoir of Eisenstadt's experience with the McCain/Palin campaign, including buying Palin's wardrobe. In the book, the Eisenstadt character denies rumors that he does not exist. [3]

Contents

Background

In 2007, Mirvish and Gorlin created short videos for YouTube, with Gorlin playing a parking valet, Sheldon, who spewed effusive (and offensive) praise of then-presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani. The original short film Sheldon played at the U.S. Comedy Arts Film Festival in Aspen in 2007. [4] After Giuliani's campaign ceased, the character was modified to be a Sr. Fellow at the "Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy", a fictional entity named in jest for one of the least-respected US presidents, Warren G. Harding. The pair created a website for the Harding Institute, created the character of the commentator, dubbed Martin Eisenstadt, played again by Gorlin.

Dan Mirvish is a former speechwriter for Democratic Senator Tom Harkin. [5] He is also a feature film director and co-founder of the Slamdance Film Festival. Gorlin was nominated for the Someone to Watch Award at the 2003 IFP Independent Spirit Awards for his film The Holy Land. [6]

Hoaxes

The first appearance of Martin Eisenstadt was in a video of a phony interview, purportedly on Al Iraqiya, describing his plan to build casinos in the Green Zone. [7] The report was accepted at face value and blogged by Jonathan Stein of Mother Jones, [8] but correctly and tentatively identified as satire by the Monthly Review. [9]

During and after the election campaign, several hoaxes perpetrated by Eisenstadt (Gorlin and Mirvish) were reported by news organizations and blogs as truthful, including reports that Joe the Plumber was a cousin of Charles Keating and that Paris Hilton's family strongly protested the McCain campaign's comparison of Barack Obama to Hilton. [2]

After election day, 2008, it was widely reported that a senior McCain advisor had stated that Palin was unaware that Africa was a continent rather than a country. [10] After the story broke, Mirvish and Gorlin released a video where Eisenstadt, reportedly a McCain policy adviser, made that statement. Mirvish and Gorlin said that they did not invent the story but only took the credit for it after it broke as being the source. Several mainstream news outlets publicised this attribution.

The AP, noting that "Eisenstadt's 'work' had been quoted and debunked before," reported that the hoax "was limited to the identity of the source in the story about Palin - not the Fox News story itself." [11] Mirvish himself, in a BBC interview, admits that they falsely took credit as being the source, but stated that the story itself could be true. [12]

According to Mirvish it would have taken "about 20 seconds of searching to realize Eisenstadt was a hoax." [13] "With the 24-hour news cycle they rush into anything they can find" added Mirvish. [14] The hoax revealed lack of fact-checking by news outlets such as MSNBC. An MSNBC spokesman stated that someone in the newsroom received the item in an e-mail, and that no vetting was ever done on it. [14]

In May 2009, Time reported that Eisenstadt was one of the "elite Twitterati" who attended the White House Correspondents Dinner, along with Meghan McCain, Ashton Kutcher, and Newt Gingrich. [15] Time later retracted its original reporting. [16]

Book

Mirvish and Gorlin wrote the book I Am Martin Eisenstadt: One Man's (wildly inappropriate) Adventures with the Last Republicans which was published in November, 2009, by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The authors went on a book tour that included a Washington, DC, party thrown for them by former President Bill Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart and other Washington notables including Karen Finney, Matthew Cooper (American journalist) and Michael Feldman. [17]

Videos

Mirvish and Gorlin's first collaboration was a promo for a video game for Mirvish's film Open House. The character they created turned into Sheldon, the bitter valet, for the eponymously titled short film that screened at the 2007 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen. The duo shot seven more similar shorts and posted them anonymously on YouTube as faux Rudolph Giuliani ads during early primary season for the 2008 U.S. Presidential campaign. [18] The Giuliani campaign denied any involvement with the ads. [19] The ads created their own controversy when the consulting company who had produced the Swift Boat ads of 2004 was erroneously blamed for them under the assumption they were some sort of dirty tricks campaign by one of Giuliani's rivals. [20]

The filmmakers had planned to develop The Bitter Valet into a TV series, but due to the 2008 Writers Guild Strike, they shelved that plan and came up with the Martin Eisenstadt character. The first thing they filmed with Eisenstadt was the alleged interview on Iraqi TV, which was actually filmed in Mirvish's garage in California. [18]

During the fall of 2008, Gorlin and Mirvish filmed a fake 40-minute BBC documentary entitled "The Last Republican," which they then posted on YouTube in 10 parts. They also filmed four rebuttals allegedly from Martin Eisenstadt in Washington, DC, in which Eisenstadt threatened to sue the documentarian and the BBC for taking him out of context. In fact, the filmmakers later admitted that "The Last Republican" was actually a pilot for a television show they were developing. [18]

Harding Prize for Best Crafted Apologies

In April, 2010, Mirvish and Gorlin created an award called "The Harding Prize for Best Crafted Apology" named after President Warren G. Harding, who once apologized for his presidency by saying "I am not fit for this office and should never have been here." [21] [22] Awarded in a ceremony at American University, Gorlin (as Martin Eisenstadt) presented the Harding Prizes in several categories: Rahm Emanuel won for Politics, Tiger Woods for Sports, Usher for Entertainment, and Adam Carolla won in the best Twitter apology category. [23]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John McCain</span> American politician and military officer (1936–2018)

John Sidney McCain III was an American politician and United States Navy officer who served as a United States senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two terms in the United States House of Representatives and was the Republican nominee for president of the United States in the 2008 election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2008 United States presidential election</span> 56th quadrennial U.S. presidential election

The 2008 United States presidential election was the 56th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 4, 2008. The Democratic ticket of Barack Obama, the junior senator from Illinois, and Joe Biden, the senior senator from Delaware, defeated the Republican ticket of John McCain, the senior senator from Arizona, and Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska. Obama became the first African American to be elected to the presidency, as well as being only the third sitting United States senator elected president, joining Warren G. Harding and John F. Kennedy. Meanwhile, this was only the second successful all-senator ticket since the 1960 election and is the only election where both major party nominees were sitting senators. This was the first election since 1952 in which neither the incumbent president nor vice president was on the ballot, as well as the first election since 1928 in which neither ran for the nomination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Palin</span> American politician (born 1964)

Sarah Louise Palin is an American politician, commentator, author, and reality television personality who served as the ninth governor of Alaska from 2006 until her resignation in 2009. She was the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee under U.S. Senator John McCain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2008 Republican Party presidential candidates</span>

This article contains lists of official candidates associated with the 2008 Republican Party presidential primaries for the 2008 United States presidential election.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicolle Wallace</span> American TV political commentator and novelist

Nicolle Wallace is an American television political commentator and author. She is the anchor of the MSNBC news and politics program Deadline: White House and a former co-host of the ABC daytime talk show The View. Wallace is a political analyst for MSNBC and NBC News. She was previously a frequent on-air contributor to the programs Today, The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle, and Morning Joe, before hosting her own program on MSNBC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Shuster</span> American television journalist

David Martin Shuster is an American television journalist. Shuster previously served as principal anchor and managing editor for i24 News, previously working as an anchor for MSNBC and worked for Fox News, CNN, Current TV, The Young Turks, and Al Jazeera America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hillary Clinton 2008 presidential campaign</span> Political campaign for United States presidency

The 2008 presidential campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton, then junior United States senator from New York, was announced on her website on January 20, 2007. Hillary Clinton was previously the First Lady of the United States and First Lady of Arkansas prior to her election as U.S. Senator from New York. She is also the wife of former President Bill Clinton. Clinton was the source of much media speculation since having expressed interest in being a candidate in the 2008 presidential election since at least October 2002.

The following is a timeline of major events leading up to and immediately following the United States presidential election of 2008. The election was the 56th quadrennial United States presidential election. It was held on November 4, 2008, but its significant events and background date back to about 2002. The Democratic Party nominee, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, defeated the Republican Party's nominee, Senator John McCain of Arizona.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudy Giuliani 2008 presidential campaign</span> Unsuccessful presidential campaign

The 2008 presidential campaign of Rudy Giuliani began following the formation of the Draft Giuliani movement in October 2005. The next year, Giuliani opened an exploratory committee and formally announced in February 2007 that he was actively seeking the presidential nomination of the Republican Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John McCain 2008 presidential campaign</span>

The 2008 presidential campaign of John McCain, the longtime senior U.S. Senator from Arizona, was launched with an informal announcement on February 28, 2007, during a live taping of the Late Show with David Letterman, and formally launched at an event on April 25, 2007. His second candidacy for the Presidency of the United States, he had previously run for his party's nomination in the 2000 primaries and was considered as a potential running mate for his party's nominee, then-Governor George W. Bush of Texas. After winning a majority of delegates in the Republican primaries of 2008, on August 29, leading up to the convention, McCain selected Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate for Vice President. Five days later, at the 2008 Republican National Convention, McCain was formally selected as the Republican Party presidential nominee in the 2008 presidential election.

The first political debate before the 2008 Republican primaries was held on May 3, 2007, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. Other debates have taken place in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida. They were generally broadcast by television networks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Schmidt</span> American political strategist (born 1970)

Stephen Edward Schmidt is an American political and corporate strategist. He is best known for working on Republican political campaigns, including those of President George W. Bush, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Arizona Senator John McCain during his 2008 presidential campaign.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public image of Sarah Palin</span>

Sarah Palin, while serving as Governor of Alaska, was nominated as the first female candidate of the Republican Party for Vice President of the United States. Following the nomination, her public image came under close media scrutiny, particularly regarding her religious perspective on public life, her socially conservative views, and a perceived lack of experience. Palin's experience in foreign and domestic politics came under criticism among conservatives as well as liberals following her nomination. A poll taken by Rasmussen Reports just after the Republican National Convention in the first week of September 2008 found that Palin was more popular than either Barack Obama or John McCain; however, this perception later reversed. At the same time, Palin became more popular among Republicans than McCain. A February 2010 ABC News/Washington Post poll showed 71% of Americans felt Palin lacked the qualifications necessary to be President of the United States.

Eitan Gorlin is a filmmaker, author and actor. He is known for his portrayal of Martin Eisenstadt, a satirical depiction of a McCain campaign adviser. Even though Eisenstadt was said to be part of the "Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy", named for one of the United States' less beloved presidents, he was quoted by several national news sources, who failed to document his existence.

Dan Mirvish is an American filmmaker and author, best known as the co-founder of the Slamdance Film Festival and co-creator of the Martin Eisenstadt hoax during the 2008 Presidential election.

<i>Going Rogue</i> 2009 memoir by Sarah Palin

Going Rogue: An American Life (2009) is a memoir by politician Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and 2008 Republican candidate for U.S. Vice President on the ticket with Senator John McCain. She wrote it with journalist Lynn Vincent.

<i>Game Change</i> 2010 non-fiction book by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime is a book by political journalists John Heilemann and Mark Halperin about the 2008 United States presidential election. Released on January 11, 2010, it was also published in the United Kingdom under the title Race of a Lifetime: How Obama Won the White House. The book is based on interviews with more than 300 people involved in the campaign. It discusses factors including Democratic Party presidential candidate John Edwards' extramarital affair, the relationship between Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and his vice presidential running mate Joe Biden, the failure of Republican Party candidate Rudy Giuliani's presidential campaign and Sarah Palin's vice presidential candidacy.

<i>Game Change</i> (film) 2012 television film directed by Jay Roach

Game Change is a 2012 American political drama television film based on events of the 2008 United States presidential election campaign of John McCain, directed by Jay Roach and written by Danny Strong, based on the 2010 book of the same title documenting the campaign by political journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. The film stars Julianne Moore, Woody Harrelson, and Ed Harris, and focuses on the chapters about the selection and performance of Governor of Alaska Sarah Palin (Moore) as running mate to Senator John McCain (Harris) in the presidential campaign.

MSNBC is a news and political commentary organization that has been the focus of several controversies. It has been accused by academics, media figures, political figures, and watchdog groups of having various biases in their news coverage as well as more general views of a liberal bias. Most of these controversies took place during the 2008–2015 era.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vice presidential candidacy of Sarah Palin</span>

Sarah Palin's candidacy for Vice President of the United States was publicly announced by then-presumptive Republican Party presidential candidate John McCain on August 29, 2008. As part of the McCain presidential campaign, Palin, then the incumbent Governor of Alaska, was officially nominated by acclamation at the 2008 Republican National Convention on September 3. The McCain–Palin ticket lost the 2008 presidential election on November 4 to the Barack Obama–Joe Biden ticket.

References

  1. ↑ Pranksters get the last laugh N.Y. Times and MSNBC biggest victims
  2. 1 2 Pérez-Peña, Richard (2008-11-13). "A Senior Fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence". The New York Times . Retrieved 2008-11-12.
  3. ↑ Joshua Green. "True Lies". The Washington Monthly. Archived from the original on 2010-02-01. Retrieved 2009-12-15.
  4. ↑ "Waitress Opens US Comedy Arts Film Fest". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on 2012-07-19. Retrieved 2009-12-15.
  5. ↑ Argetsinger, Amy and Roxanne Roberts (2006-01-27). "On a Roll at Wendy's Window". The Washington Post . Retrieved 2008-11-14.
  6. ↑ "2003 IFP Independent Spirit Awards - Nominees and Winners". About.com. Retrieved 2009-12-15.
  7. ↑ "Iraq Green Zone getting Casinos in Baghdad". YouTube . Retrieved 2008-11-22.
  8. ↑ Stein, Jonathan (2008-07-07). "McCain Adviser Says...Wow, Just Watch for Yourself" (blog).
  9. ↑ "Iraq: We All Work for the Casino in the Green Zone". Monthly Review (27/06/08). 2008. Archived from the original on January 6, 2009. Retrieved 2008-11-22.
  10. ↑ Yardley, William and Michael Cooper (2008-11-08). "Palin Calls Criticism by McCain Aides 'Cruel and Mean-Spirited'". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-11-07.
  11. ↑ 11-12-2008. Bauder, David. MSNBC retracts false Palin story; others duped, The Associated Press
  12. ↑ "How Sarah Palin was Hoaxed" (BBC audio). BBC News. 2008-11-13. Retrieved 2008-11-13.
  13. ↑ ABC News Martin Eisenstadt: Pundit or Fraud?
  14. 1 2 Pérez-Peña, Richard (12 November 2008). "A Senior Fellow at the Institute of Nonexistence (Published 2008)". The New York Times.
  15. ↑ Diane Tucker (2009-10-10). "You Won't Believe What Martin Eisenstadt Said At The White House Correspondents Dinner". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2009-12-15.
  16. ↑ Hchuaeoan and Ssss1222 (2009-05-09). "Tweets From a Washington Dinner (a.k.a. #nerdprom)". Time. Archived from the original on May 15, 2009. Retrieved 2010-05-12.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  17. ↑ Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger. "Will the Real 'Martin Eisenstadt' Please Stand Up". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 16, 2012. Retrieved 2009-12-15.
  18. 1 2 3 Dana Harris. "Behind the Sarah Palin hoax: Interview with Dan Mirvish". Variety. Archived from the original on August 26, 2010. Retrieved 2009-12-30.
  19. ↑ Dan Saltzstein (2007-07-30). "It's Tricky". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-12-30.
  20. ↑ Brian Ross. "Dirty Tricks Dot-Com? Mystery Online Vids Slam GOP Hopefuls". ABC News. Retrieved 2009-12-30.
  21. ↑ Howie Perlman. "Satirical pundit, Martin Eisenstadt, awards 'Harding' prize for apologies". The Eagle. Retrieved 2010-04-14.
  22. ↑ Teneille Gibson (13 April 2010). "The Perfect 'Sorry': an Art and Science: The first annual Best Crafted Apology awards". NBCWashington.com. Retrieved 2010-04-14.
  23. ↑ Nikki Schwab & Tara Palmeri. "Emanuel awarded for Best Political Apology; Arenas nominated". The Washington Examiner. Retrieved 2010-04-14.[ permanent dead link ]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.