Will Folks: I Shan't Ever Speak Of This Unfortunate Circumstance Again, But, FYI, I'd Like a Book Deal

Good God All Mighty.

When I started this blog I had it in mind that a schtick I could do would be a little shameless self-promotion, a winking kind, a knowing kind, like "I'm not so stupid as to fail to realize that this is shameless; I hope you will take it as comical."

I did not realize what "shameless" actually was.

A Book Deal?

By fitsnews • on June 2, 2010Comment Email Print ShareThis

By FITSNews || Even before last week’s startling admission of an “inappropriate physical relationship” with S.C. Rep. Nikki Haley, our founding editor’s nine years in the Palmetto political scene has been nothing if not uneventful.

A former rock-n-roll bass player, Will Folks was hired in 2001 by then-former Congressman Mark Sanford to handle his messaging during the 2002 gubernatorial campaign. After helping guide Sanford to an unlikely victory, Folks spent a tumultuous two-and-a-half years in the Governor’s Office as Sanford’s “pit bull,” an antagonistic spokesman whose antics routinely enraged lawmakers while providing fodder for the State House press corps.

Anyway, after leaving Sanford’s office under a cloud of controversy in 2005, Folks has built FITSNews into a new media institution – a news and opinion website that was receiving nearly 50,000 hits a day at the time he dropped his Haley bombshell.

Needless to say, Folks has always had a “hyper-inflated” sense of his own self worth, as well as a remarkable ability to survive scandals and ignore what he calls “the haters.”

Now, with the Haley saga adding another chapter to what was already a juicy personal and political narrative, there has been conisderable speculation as to whether Folks will publish a book – something he wanted to do in 2006 prior to launching FITS.

Even one of Haley’s top donors has recommended that Folks reserve some of the more salacious details of his tryst with the front-running gubernatorial candidate for future publication, suggesting the move would be a “golden, golden, golden opportunity.”

Hmmmm …

The penultimate paragraph there suggests that he's only floating this possibility because, supposedly, a Haley supporter told him to not reveal everything so he could cash in later, but earlier paragraphs indicate he was thinking about this already. (And I doubt his claim about the "supporter" to boot.)

He's really annoying me with this third-person crap -- "our founding editor" -- and partly because I used to do that schtick.

I originally had a different schtick for the blog. I never said "I think" in the beginning; it was "We think." Because I was claiming that this wasn't a one-man operation, but rather a lavishly funded 644-man operation consisting chiefly of Gulf War special forces veterans and ex-CIA operatives, being run out of the luxurious Ace of Spades HQ corporate offices on the secret 103rd floor of the Empire State Building, all under the control of a secretive and mysterious rightwing benefactor we only knew as "Mr. Tranh."

I dropped that sometime after I moved to Mu.Nu. Trouble is, I only occasionally did anything with the schtick, and it turns out that 80% of readers didn't even know it was the schtick. They just hadn't heard of it, and they just thought I was being a pompous dick for always saying "We."

And, by the way, I credited the guy I stole the basic premise from.

If you read the inside-joke explanation thread, you might have seen the mention that the old schtick used to be that this site was a lavishly-funded group effort, with a huge staff and gorgeous corporate offices on the secret 103rd floor of the Empire State Building. That's why there's the reference to the "staff" and stuff.

(And that, by the way, is a direct swipe from Mark Leyner's Et Tu, Babe, which I've always acknowleged. His basic premise. But no one seems to have read that book, so it didn't seem right to let a good premise die a lonely death just because his publisher didn't market his book very well. So I "reintroduced" the schtick for what seems to be, sadly, a larger audience.)

Anyway, maybe Sic Willy thought of the schtick on his own. I sort of doubt it, though. He seems stupid. Plus, he doesn't really get silly with it, making it obviously a spoof; he seems kind of determined to push this idea of having a "staff" and merely being "our founding editor" as real.

Over at Hot Air, a claim -- premature, I think -- of of Haley vindicated due to the shoe that didn't drop.

As Mr. Wolf would say, if he were appearing in a cameo on Sesame Street, "Gentlemen, let's not start soaping each other's backs just yet." Folks is waging a campaign, true or false, to hit Haley with the maximum possible damage; I'd say that point occurs either before the primary or before the general election.

Via Jim Geraghty.

posted by Ace at 02:12 PM

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