Yeah, you beat me to it. If the topic wasn't so dreadfully wrong, it'd make a great FICTION novel (well, not "great" because he's not that good of a writer). The problem is, of course, that people will believe what they want. People like us "know" Ayn Rand and we know better. The general populace? Especially liberals? They don't know...they don't care, and if it furthers their agenda, they'll be all over it like ants on candy. Which, of course, they are.

If you can get to the end without puking (quite a feat, IMO), you will see this:

"Our non-profit journalism (emphasis mine) exists only because of the continuing support of readers like you. No advertising..blahblahblah...."

My thought on that is that there is NO journalism involved in the entire piece. BTW if you really want to get sick, read the comments.

They have to believe the fantasies because they dare not confront what she actually stood for.

Yes I do my homework.
“Based on that I think he recognizes the drivel and falsity of this hit piece and was pointing it out”

This forum isn't a news feed. When you post a link to an article for a new thread there is a section called "Add Comment" where you state the nature of the topic and why you are posting it, otherwise it stands just as the article is published, including the dishonest smear posted here with no comment.

The author of the smear is a "fellow" at the far left "Independent Media Institute", which exists to promote leftist propaganda through smears and misrepresentation as a matter of strategy. The article is false from beginning to end, not just with the Hickman smear.

Ayn Rand was an excellent interviewee on TV, radio, and in print. Her interviews remain popular today and can still be found on youtube as classics. There is an entire book with many of her interviews between 1959 and 1981, with a few going back to the 1930s, Objectively Speaking: Ayn Rand Interviews, by Marlene Podritske and Peter Schwartz https://www.amazon.com/Objectively-Sp...

In particular the transcript of the 1959 Mike Wallace interview misrepresented by the article you posted is reproduced on pp 169-177 and can be watched at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKd0T... and many other youtube pages.

Her interviews did not include endorsement of serial killers, and Ayn Rand made no public comments at all about Hickman. Contrary to the article she did not "base a novel, then her philosophy, then her life’s work" on Hickman or any other serial murderer, a mentality that she obviously and consistently denounced.

The Hickman smear, which has been circulating and promoted by the left for years, is a dishonest distortion of personal notes Ayn Rand made in her journal in 1928, kept for the purpose of ideas for future works of fiction, when she was very young, had just come to this country, and still didn't know English very well.

She had been interested in newspaper stories depicting a popular early reaction to Hickman without regard to actual "serial killing" or proof that he had done it. Her initial, mistaken impression was that Hickman was standing up against a popular bandwagon in the press crucifying him for being an individualist (which the articles themselves apparently betrayed). Her notes had nothing to do with endorsing, let alone "worshiping", serial killers or their mentality in any way.

You can read Ayn Rand's journal entries on this topic in David Harriman's Journal's of Ayn Rand, p. 20, where you also find Ayn Rand's "statement regarding the relationship between her hero and Hickman: [My hero is] very far from him, of course. The outside of Hickman, but not the inside. Much deeper and much more. A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me."

The dishonest author of the smear article knew that -- he refers to the Journals. It is he who equates Ayn Rand's rational egoism, expressed in characters such as Howard Roark and John Galt -- obviously the opposite of a Hickman -- as "a narcissistic psychopath. A man who could sell out his own country to foreign powers, tearing apart his nation’s people, just for his own enjoyment" (with an obvious reference to Trump, which isn't true either).

The left has to misrepresent rational selfishness in the form of a Nietzschean parody that is the opposite of Ayn Rand because they dare not permit discussion of anything but a false alternative. The false alternative is leveraged in the article in the form of "Now, Ayn Rand’s philosophy is a central tenet of today’s Republican Party and the moral code proudly cited and followed by high-profile billionaires and the president of the United States" -- which is equally false in overestimating the Republicans.

The author probably knows that but wants to morally intimidate anyone, including Republican officials, from even thinking about Ayn Rand -- as revealed in his title "The Right-Wing American Love Affair With One of the Most Disturbing Serial Killers: A monster who boasted of how he had hacked up a 12-year-old girl—had Ayn Rand's ear, as well as her heart. What happened next was the modern Republican Party".

You make some good points so plus +1 ,but after reading this posters initial introduction over 6 years ago he wrote this “Hello everyone. I've been an Ayn Rand fan for over 20 years. I have been in the real estate business in Middle TN for about 15 of those. Interestingly my partner named a street in one of the company's developments John Galt Dr. many years ago, and it is there today. I've often wondered how many who live on that street know the basis for the name.”
On his second post he rightly states that folks in the gulch can tell the difference between a moocher and a producer.
Based on that I think he recognizes the drivel and falsity of this hit piece and was pointing it out.
For that i’ll Upvote him.