Lots more holes in the Post piece! Stacy McCain has LOTS more. Some GREAT aggregating going on at The Other McCain
Three recent headlines in the URGENT BREAKING SCANDAL:
Source for WaPo’s Romney hit piece:
Actually, I wasn’t present during the prank
– Hot AirSister of Alleged Romney Target Has
‘No Knowledge’ of Any Bullying Incident
– ABC NewsA question emerges in reading
the Washington Post piece …
– Daily CallerOf course, this URGENT BREAKING SCANDAL involves incidents that allegedly happened nearly half a century ago, so those sneaky Republicans have a had a long time to cover it up.
Certainly the latter-day Woodwards and Bernsteins at the Washington Post will have their work cut out for them.
UPDATE: When I say they “have their work cut out for them,” I mean they’re already trying to change their story as it falls apart.
The changes have been noted by so-called “bloggers” like Brian Cates:
Washington Post Caught
Making Sh!t Up AgainOf course, there are no so-called “bloggers” on the Pulitzer Prize committee, which is composed entirely of respected professional journalists like Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, Dan Rather . . .
UPDATE II: Dana Loesch wonders why the Washington Post didn’t alert its readers to the changes in its 5,000-word investigative report.Probably because of budget constraints:
The Washington Post Co. reported its first-quarter earnings on Friday, and the news coming out of the newspaper division was mostly grim. The unit lost $22.6 million in the quarter, with revenue down 8% and revenue from print advertising specifically falling 17%. . . .
[T]he paper has lost top talent lately, including James Grimaldi, who took a buyout and is heading to The Wall Street Journal. With his departure, the Post will have lost all three reporters who won its 2006 Pulitzer for their coverage of the Jack Abramoff scandal. The paper also shut out of the 2012 Pulitzers and weathered a blogger embarrassment that revealed its BlogPost operation to be a mini sweatshop.The Washington Post can afford to assign a reporter to do a 5,000-word investigative report on a Republican’s high-school activities, but they can’t afford to let their readers know that they’re “making sh!t up” again. Because credibility is kinda expensive . . .
UPDATE III: Reading Ben Shapiro’s examination of the Washington Post story, my brain exploded when this part sunk in:
Sometime in the mid-1990s, David Seed noticed a familiar face at the end of a bar at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
“Hey, you’re John Lauber,” Seed recalled saying at the start of a brief conversation. Seed, also among those who witnessed the Romney-led incident, had gone on to a career as a teacher and principal. Now he had something to get off his chest.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t do more to help in the situation,” he said.
Lauber paused, then responded, “It was horrible.” He went on to explain how frightened he was during the incident, and acknowledged to Seed, “It’s something I have thought about a lot since then.”
Lauber died in 2004, according to his three sisters.FIRING OFFENSE, period.
By God, you can’t do that in journalism: You cannot base a key element of a story — in this case, the claim that Romney’s bullying left Lauber emotionally traumatized for life — on a quote from the deceased “victim” attributed to him based on an (alleged) private conversation. Lauber isn’t around to verify or dispute the accuracy of Seed’s account, and therefore it is unethical to include the “quotes” that Seed attributes to Lauber.
LOTS, LOTS, LOTS more on this over at Mr. McCain’s blog. Apparently even Morning Joe is skeptical over the timing of this hatchet job, and Jason Horowitz unemployment is paging you
- Pirate’s Cove: Family Of Romney Prank Target Not Real Happy With Washington Post
- The Rio Norte Line: Confirmation – The Washington Post Has No Shame
- Andrew J. Patrick: Mitt Romney’s Bully Story Comes Apart Like Cheap Taffy
Da Tech Guy senses a purposeful distraction. Bryan Preston at PJMediadoesn’t believe the timing of the WaPo article was entirely coincidental:
Horowitz has some explaining to do, and so do his editors. Did he fabricate any part of the story and implant it with Mitt’s school friends? Did he work on the timing of the story’s release with anyone in the Obama campaign?
You can also read what I wrote yesterday
Now, I have no idea as to the veracity of these “witnesses” nor do I have any what actually happened. What I do know, however, is that you have a media that is in the tank for Obama, running a story of massive size, over a high school prank? And one, it must be noted again, that fits in absolutely perfectly with the bullying/Gay marriage stories currently making headlines.
Not to be brash, but it seems pretty obvious that the Post ran this story when they did to hurt Romney, and help Obama. They were sitting on this, until the “right time”.
Ed had more today on the non-story story