Stalking Matt Labash

Each week I eagerly await the arrival of my issue of The Weekly Standard. They've been rather infrequent lately. Sometimes I get it on Tuesday, sometimes Thursday, it's gotten to the point where I never know when it's going to show up, but I digress. The first column I read each week is the one written by Matt Labash. The guy is pretty funny. Right now you might be saying to yourself, "he obviously leads a rather shallow and meaningless exstence since the highlight of his week is reading The Weekly Standard." You may be right, but there's more...

I can be a little obsessive at times, especially when I get bored and I get bored pretty easily. Just for kicks, I thought I'd see if I could find out a little bit about Mr. Labash. It turns out that this writing thing is a pretty good gig for him. He's roughly 32 and here he is writing for a National publication. In fact, it seems just a little too good to be true.

I began to wonder if this "Matt Labash" really exists. Thanks to the miracle of the fabled "internet superhighway" (I'm really glad people have finally stopped calling it that.) I can check on this Labash character from the privacy and comfort of my own home.

Googling "Matt Labash" turns up an interview with JournalismJobs.com and there's even a picture of him. Yep, that's him. It looks like someone hit him over the head with a mallet, then while stars were still swimming around his head, snapped off a quick picture. In the interview he discusses a lot of issues that readers at Journalism Jobs probably think are profound. He talks about the whole idea of being on TV, "It makes me feel like a dork and that's my rule of thumb public behavior-wise: try not to be a dork. "

Okay, that shoots down my first theory. Theory 1: Matt Labash is really a pseudonym for either William Kristol or Fred Barnes. Heck, maybe they write all the articles in The Weekly Standard. Alas, I have a hard time imagining either one of those guys using the word "dork" in a sentence, at least not without the influence of some powerful mood-altering drug.

Then there's Labash's report from the Schwarzenegger campaign, "It seems like only yesterday that I was jetting around California with Arnold Schwarzenegger, enjoying one-on-one access, eating Arnold's food, laughing at Arnold's jokes, choking on Arnold's cigar smoke." Theory 2: Matt Labash is really a political operative sent by Halliburton. Indeed, maybe it isn't Cheney that is the "dark, insidious force pushing Bush toward war and confrontation", but it's this Matt Labash guy.

I was getting pretty convinced of Theory 2 when I happened on another Matt Labash story. There's this denial at The Village Voice, "I may have jokingly inquired about the propensity of medical marijuana activists to use marijuana at their medical marijuana party, but in absolutely no way did I attempt to procure marijuana, medical or otherwise." His denial sounds just a tad too rehearsed for me. It blows my Republican Operative theory though. Republicans, even Operatives, never joke about The Weed.

There's another picture of Matt Labash here. Hmmm, looks suspiciously like the photo that appears on The Weekly Standard website, only goofier. Memo to Matt Labash: you might want to get rid of this one. Also, get some Minoxidil buddy, you're going to need it in a few years.

Back to his bio at TWS. (I'm getting tired of typing, The Weekly Standard.) It says there that he's a senior writer and lives in Owings, Maryland, with his wife, his son Luke, and his dog, Leviticus. Leviticus? You can't make stuff like that up. I mean, who names their dog Leviticus? By the way, here's another picture. What's with the unbuttoned shirt? He looks a little cocky in this one, but I'm starting to think this guy really exists. Then another piece of information hits me.

It's in his latest article, Popcorn and Passion, he opines about The Passion and an "interfaith dialogue" he held with a Jewish guy at the theater. Along the way, he pretty much admits to being a Christian but he waits until the last paragraph for the real zinger, "On the way out, I play the part of the dutiful evangelical anyway, and ask Norm if, after watching the movie, he has any desire to switch teams." He's a, gasp, Evangelical. That settles it for me. No one in these times publicly admits to being an Evangelical.

I guess there really is a Matt Labash. He writes really good articles for a national neo-con publication and on a boring, cold March evening I'm really envious of him.