Relevant, always, but this part is interesting considering the debate last week:
We see some of the old-fashioned memory-hole techniques at work currently with Wikipedia.
For example, the heroine of Hillary Clinton’s debate climax, Venezuelan immigrant Alicia Machado, has labored tirelessly for two decades to make herself famous in the Spanish-speaking world. But most of the former Miss Universe’s renown has come from multiple scandals, such as being accused by witnesses of driving the getaway car when her boyfriend shot his ex-brother-in-law and then threatening the judge in their case with murder. (Here’s her amusing answer on CNN when Anderson Cooper asked her about those allegations.)
In reality, Machado is a cross between two characters on Tina Fey’s sitcom 30 Rock: Jane Krakowski’s Jenna Maroney, a dim but relentless, publicity-seeking, aging actress doing whatever it takes to hang on as a celebrity; and Salma Hayek’s Elisa Pedrera, Alec Baldwin’s Jack Donaghy’s homicidal fiancée who, while unknown in the U.S., is notorious in her native Puerto Rico for murdering her husband in a jealous rage.
Of course, that Machado is an utter stereotype of the telenovela actress means that it’s harder for gringo goodthinkers to understand her, since they’ve been indoctrinated that pattern recognition is wrong.
Machado’s many skeletons in the closet raise questions not only about her credibility but also about Hillary’s judgment, and, most important, about just how much vetting immigrants get. In an era when it’s easy to look people up on the internet, why was Machado, who is notoriously drawn to violent men, recently granted the vote?
Last week, you could still find on Wikipedia two of Ms. Machado’s more recent misadventures:
In 2005, Machado was engaged to baseball star Bobby Abreu. During their engagement she was on the Spanish reality show ‘La Granja’ where she was filmed on camera having sex with another member of the show. Shortly after the video surfaced Abreu ended their engagement.
On June 25, 2008, Machado gave birth to her daughter, Dinorah Valentina. She issued a statement that the father of Dinorah was her best friend Mexican businessman Rafael Hernandez Linares after Mexican news sources, quoting the Attorney General, reported that the father was Gerardo Álvarez Vázquez, a drug lord.
But mentions of these imbroglios have since been memory holed on Wikipedia. Editors have offered bizarre excuses for deleting the most interesting information about Hillary’s heroine, such as that the diva is not a “public figure,” an assertion that would surely wound the actress more deeply than allegations that she’s a gangster’s moll.
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