Ye Olde Christopher Goodwin Art Shoppe

[welshTerrier2]

source: http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=622

The Drudge Report (a popular website run by right-wing activist Matt Drudge) has posted an image of an offensive t-shirt, along with a headline "Liberals Sell 'DeLay Suicide T-shirt'." It's clearly a vicious, organized effort to demonize Tom DeLay.

Or not.

The "liberals" selling the shirt are actually ... just one random guy named Christopher Goodwin. Christopher runs "Ye Olde Christopher Goodwin Art Shoppe" an online store (hosted for free by CafePress.com) where he sells drink coasters, tote bags, and throw pillows emblazoned mostly with images of his own "abstract and representational art"; only two of his featured items are political in nature, the DeLay shirt and a set of shirts that say "Bush Vile". Christopher's profile explains that he lives in Washington and "enjoys attending Small Claims Court hearings, interrogating his cats, and taking brisk walks on the roof." According to Alexa.com, Christopher Goodwin's website is the 2,071,537th most visited site on the Internet; to put that in perspective (and to make clear Goodwin's profound obscurity) consider that the homepage for Chicken of the Sea tuna is ranked 163,081.

In other words, Drudge made a concerted attempt to find absolutely anything to take the heat off Tom DeLay's various corruption charges, and the very best he could come up with was a stupid t-shirt from "Ye Olde Christopher Goodwin Art Shoppe." Lame.

[Richard Steele]

1. I love the smell of DESPERATION in the morning! n/t