Mr. Dana Loesch, aka Chris Loesch, a frequent, but pseudonymed, commenter on all posts concerning Dana on this very site, has quite a reputation around town of appearing like Beetlejuice when someone mentions his wife’s name three times. No, it doesn’t matter if they are “attacking” her or just reporting, he still appears.
The most recent sighting was the Riverfront Times where…well, I’ll let RFT reporter Chad Garrison tell you:
Chris is upset with a post I published yesterday drawing attention to a $2,500 check that Republican candidate Ed Martin’s campaign paid to his St. Louis production company, Shock City Studios.
According to Chris, I failed as a journalist for not contacting him before I published the story. (I’ll grant him that one. Unfortunately in my job as a blogger — writing 6-10 posts a day — I do not have the time to make phone calls for every single topic I cover.)
But that’s not the only problem Chris has with my post. Curiously, he’s also angry that I got the story right.
The post they are referring to and linked above is the recent story about a curious amount of money that Republican Ed Martin paid to Shock City Studios, which is owned by the Loesch’s (or more specifically, Beetlejuice…er…um Chris). The story goes that fellow Republican and candidate John Wayne Tucker has been recently at odds with Dana over not being invited on her right facing radio show while opponent Ed Martin has gotten her blessing to be on with no problem. The controversy comes in when it was found that, as we said, Martin’s campaign recently had a video produced by Shock City putting a dubious charge on Martin’s public campaign finance books.
Our thoughts? We believe Chris in that it was honest pay for work he did for the Martin campaign if only because everyone knows those books are open to the public, and though we at Punching Kitty have spared with the Loesch’s before, we don’t think they would do something like forcing political campaigns in to Shock City contracts in exchange for airtime. Plus, Shock City is a really nice place [Editor’s Note: Yes we’ve been there, not not lately as you can imagine. Oh the costs of gossip blogging.] so its not like the Martin campaign is hiring out someone’s 14 year old nephew with a laptop to do his videos for 3 grand.
However, given the recent angst triangle between Martin, Tucker and Dana Loesch does that transaction look bad and warrent investigation and fair reporting? Yes, of course it does.
This is the very reason campaign finance books are open! Asking these questions are absolutely fair game and the response should be to answer them clearly and honestly without trying to duck things at all which, in the right or not, makes the accused look bad.
“It’s a complete non-story,” counters Chris Loesch. “Dana did not make one red cent off the work we did for Ed. Adam completely got it wrong, and I’d think you’d want to get it right as a journalist.”
Okay. But why was it that Ed Martin chose to use Chris Loesch’s studio over all the other production companies in St. Louis?
Still, one wonders: Don’t Chris and Dana — like most married couples — share bank accounts? So when one profits, so does the other, right?
“I’m not going to get into my personal life,” replies Chris.”It’s obvious from what you write that you don’t like Dana. And that’s fine. You keep writing what you do, because whenever you mention her name it’s good for us.”
“Us?” I ask. “I thought you were two separate entities. Why would it be good for you?”
“Because,” says Chris. “She’s my wife.”
Er, okay.
Oh Chris. Not exactly the game plan we would have went with.
Oh and Chad? You may think Chris is gone, but if you and the RFT staff start spontaneously lip syncing to “Banana Boat”, he’s still there.