Bogus quotes and the WaPo

Gary Larson (not the cartoonist) writes about how one WaPo journalist fabricated a quote out of whole cloth on an article about the duo involved in videotaping ACORN employees giving advice on how to how to evade taxes and hide child sex slaves, and how the “correction” issued by the paper doesn’t pass the smell test (via Power Line):

Veteran Washington Post reporter Daryl Fears, part of a two-person writer team, unmistakably wrote that filmmaker John O’Keefe had β€œsaid” he β€œtargeted” ACORN, the advocacy group, for his candid-camera expose, because it registered voters to defeat Republicans.

O’Keefe said no such thing. It was a non-quote made out of whole cloth by reporter Fears, and published as fact on Sept. 17. Making the falsehood exponentially worse, the Post story then was retailed worldwide by the Associated Press.

Post’s goof took dead aim at someone called a β€œconservative activist.” That label then finds its way into left-wing blogs, too. But is it true? O’Keefe claims he’s β€œradical progressive.” But Post’s label sticks, tossed into a pigeon hole, a box, into which enemies of the Left are frequently cast.

The quote that never was — β€œhe said” — caused Post editors to issue a correction, one that turned out to have a few slants of its own. Judge for yourself. Here it is en toto:

**Th[e] article about the community organizing group ACORN incorrectly said that a conservative journalist targeted the organization for hidden-camera videos partly because its voter-registration drives bring Latinos and African Americans to the polls. Although ACORN registers people mostly from those groups, the maker of the videos, James E. O’Keefe, did not specifically [sic] mention them.**

Specifically, did you catch that β€œspecifically?” It is an adverb with a purpose. Call it a β€œDan Ratherism,” an unproven fact that lives only in the eyes of the out-to-prove-something Left. Like CBS-TV’s Rather relying on bogus documents to hang President George W. Bush, it is designed to indict, not to enlighten.

Note the transformation of O’Keefe from β€œconservative activist” to β€œconservative journalist” in the tricky correction. At least the Post did not label O’Keefe β€œan operative,” another handy twist of political skulduggery.

Welll, this is a paper that worships Obama, after all – what did anyone expect? Chalk it up as another cheap attempt by our left-leaning MSM to paint opponents of President Obama in the worst way possible, all in an effort to get people not to take the opinions of people who dare to express disagreement with this administration seriously.

As Mark Steyn put it so succinctly in a recent column, conformity is now the new “dissent.” Next thing you know, supporters of President Obama will suggest that those “racists” who oppose his version of healthcare “reform” want people to die.

Oh wait – that’s already happening.

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