I Don't Know Who Should Be More Embarassed-- The New York Times or Josh Marshall (Update-- Or Me!)

Here is the most delicious of all ironies.

In an article that desperately attempts to pretend that left-wing blogs are the ones making news at the moment...

...in an article that all but pretends Rathergate simply didn't happen at all, in order to avoid giving "undue credit" to right-wing blogs...

...the NYT drops this tasty little nugget -- apparently before doing any of the fact-checking they claim that separates them from mere amateurs:

I ran into [Josh Marshall] later on in the press stands, to the right of the stage, where he had set up shop, squatting at a spot designated for an official news organization in the coveted blue section. He was fiddling with his computer and finishing a cellphone call about what he called ''the biggest story of my life,'' one that would quell any fears about his legitimacy as a real journalist, at least for a while.

Josh Marshall made this comment while blogging the Republican convention, several blocks north of Madison Square Garden.

Hmmmm...

And what was that "biggest story" of Josh Marshall's life at about that time?

What story was Josh Marshall pimping long before a genuine news organization was duped into publishing?

What story was Josh Marshall pimping during the convention itself?

What story supposedly all came together when Ben Barnes decided to give an interview to Dan Rather while watching the Republican convention?

Why, the "explosive Bush TANG documents/Ben Barnes allegations" story, of course!

The very story that the right wing blogosphere discredited, the very same bloggers the New York Times refuses to admit even exist!

Maybe if the sissy writing this piece wasn't trying so desperately to pretend that Rathergate didn't happen at all, he'd have been able to figure out what colossal embarassment Marshall was crowing about, and spare both himself and Marshall some further humiliation by omitting the statement.

Allow me to quote Marshall from September 1:

bit more on Ben Barnes, the guy from Texas who got President Bush into the Guard way-back-when. Apparently, the attacks on Kerry's war record just proved too much for him. As we've noted previously, for almost a decade now Barnes has gone to great lengths to avoid causing trouble for the president on the Guard matter. And the Bush folks in Texas have made it clear to him during this election cycle that if he spills the beans about the president that they'll do everything in their power to put him out of business in the state (Barnes is now a lobbyist). And that heat has, I'm told, increased dramatically in recent days.

But apparently those threats haven't done the trick because he has already taped a lengthy interview slated to appear in the not-too-distant future on a major national news show in which he'll describe the strings he pulled to keep Bush out of Vietnam and apparently more.

(Between you and me, according to my three sources on this, Barnes told his story to Dan Rather -- remember, the Texas connection -- for 60 Minutes.)

Josh Marshall is celebrated in this article for almost breaking "the biggest story of his life" -- a story that turned out to be the greatest fraud in at least the last thirty years of journalism.

Meanwhile, the bloggers that actually uncovered this fraud are entirely ignored.

But remember-- they're the New York Times. They have no agenda.

None at all.

And of course that's only my little contribution.

Allah reports there's a couple of more absurdities in the piece. For one thing, the NYT interviewed LGF -- he who proved, beyond doubt, the documents were forgeries -- but decided that, goshdarnit, there just weren't enough column-inches to fit in both a mention of Little Green Footballs and a particularly witty Wonkette quote about radishes and tuna.

Further, he reports this catch by the Commissar:

Earlier this month, a platoon of right-wing bloggers launched a coordinated assault against CBS News and its memos claiming that President Bush got special treatment in the National Guard; within 24 hours, the bloggers' obsessive study of typefaces in the 1970's migrated onto Drudge, then onto Fox News and then onto the networks and the front pages of the country's leading newspapers.

Read that again. Right-wing bloggers conclusively debunked the forgeries that the mainstream media (including the NYT) reported to the public as genuine, without any real verification whatsoever, but we were:

1) a "platoon" -- no need for individual names; that could take away exposure from Josh Marshall

2) launching a "coordinated assualt" -- ah. A "coordinated assault," because we all spoke about similar issues simultaneously. What then, praytell, does that make the CBS-CNN-NYT-Boston Globe-USATOday-DNC/Kerry campaign simultaneous attack on Bush's TANG record? Was that also a "coordinated assault"?

Somehow I think the Times would just call that "journalism" and/or "following a hot story."

3) engaging in "obsessive study" -- by which this cocksucker seems to mean the ordinary fact-checking that the MSM should have done. See? They can't be blamed for not even checking to see if this was really a typewritten document; such "obsessive study" of mere details is something that only a crazy-person would do. The New York Times, thus, proves it's a better operation than blogs by not so "obsessively" fact-checking.

Unbelievable.

And if right-wing bloggers launch a "coordinated assault" when they truthfully and accurately debunk a story, what are we to call it when a left-wing blogger, such as Marshall, is an active participant in the (unwitting, let us say) perpetration of that very fraud?

A "coordinated assualt," I wonder?

Partisan Political Operative Update: A partisan political operative engaging in a "coordinated internet attack" on my reportage says that a Newsweek article has Josh Marshall implying that his "big story" was in fact the Niger-uranium forgery story, and not the Dan Rather forgery story at all.

On the other hand, I have an "expert" I met during an eBay auction for a Dr. Zaius piggy-bank that says I'm right.

Although I still believe my original reportage was accurate if not authentic, I must apologize for rushing to a conclusion.

posted by Ace at 01:58 AM

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