Last year, The New Yorker's Jane Mayer wrote a long story on what a bunch of shits (paraphrasing) the conservative cartoonish evil billionaire Koch Brothers are. This led to much protesting from the Kochs' paid minions, and a months-long campaign to try to smear Mayer in the press.

That didn't work out too well. But the Kochs have not given up! Mayer's story is nominated for a National Magazine Award. So the Kochs had their attorney fire off a lengthy protest letter to ASME, saying "Her article is ideologically slanted and a prime example of a disturbing trend in journalism, where agenda-driven advocacy masquerades as objective reporting." Not that they're trying to influence the judges, or anything!

Pshaw. Mayer tells Keith Kelly that the Kochs refused multiple interview requests for her story, and refused to answer "dozens, maybe even hundreds, of fact-checking questions." So fuck those guys, really.

You'll find the full ASME-Koch correspondence here.

[Photo of David Koch via Getty. Photo of Mayer via Wikipedia]