Right-leaning bloggers uncovered a serious hoax perpetrated by the mainstream liberal media -- so serious, in fact, it might just be an actual felony.

The mainstream liberal media insists it's 1) not liberal and 2) its politics (which, by the way, aren't liberal, but are straight-down-the-middle centrist moderate) had nothing at all to do with being so receptive to, and eager to republish, this libel by fraud. (See, e.g. Jack Shafer's "What Liberal Bias?" apologia in the amateur liberal webzine Slate.)

Well, by gosh and by golly. Since the media's so damn moderate centrist, and since the right-leaning blogosphere exposed the what is probably the biggest journalistic fraud in history (much bigger than the Hitler diaries, by the way-- last time I checked, Adolf Hitler wasn't running for President of the United States, although it seems someone named "Bushitler" is), of course New York Newsday would contact someone involved in exposing this transparent hoax for comment.

Well, not quite. Seems New York Newsday looked far and wide for a right-leaning blogger who actually had something to do with this story, but, goshdarnit, they couldn't find one. What they did find was the left-wing author of a left-wing website:

Danny Schechter is the editor of the Web site, Mediachannel.org. He is the director of "WMD," a new documentary film on the media coverage of the war in Iraq.

But of course! Who else better to comment on the blogosphere doing the Mainstream Liberal Media's job for them but a left-wing website editor!

And let's look at the scary-important observations of this undoubtedly fair-and-balanced independent-minded "I just vote for the man, not the Party" centrist moderate:

The reputation of veteran news anchor Dan Rather is lying on the floor, bloodied by a mistake he has now admitted, flanked on the political right by "we told you so" finger-pointers led by GOP operatives demanding his head.

See, Danny, the problem is that we did tell them so. We told you so, too. No one listened until Charles Johnson and others proved the case with smoking-gun evidence -- only a "preponderance of evidence" was required to support an anti-Bush hit-piece, but smoking-gun, irrefutable visual proof was required to debunk it.

A news outlet once headed by "the most trusted man in America" is accused of being the least trustworthy. With Rather apologizing for airing a story based in part on memos that CBS cannot verify, it looks bad for network news in general and critics of President George W. Bush in particular. And that fits the M.O. of the people behind the hit.

It's our "M.O."? Telling the truth and proving it beyond dispute is "our M.O."?

Praytell, Danny-- what's yours? Obviously you have a different "M.O.," or you wouldn't be whining about it.

...

Over at Fox News, they were breaking out the champagne when the admission of error came down from Black Rock. Fox, of course, has its own (wink, wink) "standards" and never makes mistakes worth acknowledging.

Care to list them, Danny? Do they include perpetrating a transparent fraud on the American public fifty days before a Presidential election?

Their playbook in this regard feeds and follows a well-established White House approach: When confronted by unwelcome truths, avoid them, deny them or tarnish the critic.

Or, you know: Prove beyond any doubt whatsoever that "documents" presented by the Mainstream Liberal Media are in fact forgeries.

Is proving forgeries for what they are now considered "tarnishing the critic"? I suppose it is, in Danny's world. In Danny's world, he and his fellow travellers have the right to lie "in the public interest," but no one has the right to expose their lies.

That, it seems, constitutes an "assault on their free speech."

Fox News branded this dust-up a scandal,...

What does Danny brand it?

This doesn't give me a great deal of confidence in the veracity of Danny's little WMD documentary.

...a "Rathergate," using a familiar "change-the-subject" tactic to deflect attention away from persuasive charges that President Bush has not told the truth about his military "service." Allegations about a media misdemeanor were quickly blown up into a felony demanding Rather's career termination with prejudice.

Danny thinks that presenting forgeries as fact, while deliberately avoiding the sort of verification that would expose them as frauds in order to not "overcheck the story," is a "media misdemeanor."

"Business as usual," it would seem.

"Misdemeanors" are things like speeding -- a lot of us commit misdemeanors from time to time. So Danny would seem to be telling us that he engages in such petty little "misdemeanors."

On the other hand, Bush completing only the minimum number of points necessary in his last two years of TANG service -- more than thirty fucking years ago -- is a serious felony that has to be investigated vigorously for... going on five fucking years now.

And if the investigation doesn't go anywhere-- contact an unhinged rabidly-partisan Texas Democrat and put the forgeries he provides on national television.

The right-wing attack machine works by personalizing issues and demonizing "enemies" with overheated language and cartoon-like characterizations. Osama "the evil doer" bin Laden

I wonder what Danny calls him. It's so judgmental to call a mass-murderer an "evil doer."

... gave way to Saddam "the butcher of Baghdad" Hussein

Danny prefers "Saddam 'The Romance Novelist' Hussein."

... and now John "the phony war hero" Kerry has been displaced with a "lather over Rather."

That last bit doesn't even make sense.

It's a textbook example of how attacks against journalists are used to denigrate news not to the right wing's liking by planting items in the media food chain and cranking up an echo chamber of feigned indignation.

Oh? We planted what, exactly? The forgeries?

It remains an amazement to me that every goddamned liberal reporter can go on TV and claim "we can't speculate about a connection between Burkett and the DNC, there's no evidence of that" -- despite the fact that there was a forgery Triangle Trade between Mapes, Lockhart, and Burkett, and despite the fact that Burkett is a very-active Texas Democrat -- and yet Keith Olbermann can go on the air every night and specualte without any evidence whatsoever that Karl Rove, or now Roger Stone, is behind this all.

...

It's possible that CBS was flim-flammed

It's possible, you understand. In theory. Hypothetically, there's an infintesimially small chance that these are forgeries. More likely, Jerry Killian had a MS Word computer fall through a temporal-distortion wormhole; he then printed up his "true feelings" on Bush and gave them to an unknown, shadowy livestock enthusiast named "Lucy Ramirez."

... but TV's need for visuals did them in.

This is so knee-jerk leftist. I swear, these people watch TV 24/7, but they carry on as if their noses never leave their dogeared copies of Ulysses or the collected poetry of Rilke.

Let me clue the New York Daily News, and the virtually illiterate Danny, on a few facts:

Bill Burkett is a left-wing "partisan political operative," although you all seem to refuse to acknowledge him as such.

Danny and the liberal media like to claim that "Republicans" are behind stories they don't like, with little or no evidence to back that allegation up; however, they seem to require much higher standards of evidence to impugn their precious Democratic Party.

No "Republican spin machine" pushed this story anywhere. No one from the GOP contacted me; indeed, I don't even think I know anyone in the party heirarchy. I'm registered independent and the last two presidents I voted for were, get this, Michael Dukakis and Bill Clinton (in 1992). I hate to admit it, but I haven't voted since. (I thought that would keep me off the jury rolls... but guess what, it doesn't.)

And lastly, Danny--

The proper reaction is this: "You uncovered a shameless and gross lie; congratulations. You are my political opponent, but I'll say good job as far as this matter goes."

Instead, you are whining and screaming and blowing spit-bubbles like an infant. You're angry that a useful liberal media tactic -- simply lying about the facts -- is now coming under attack, and is now much more hazardous to employ.

Well, Danny, no one ever granted you the right you believe that you, Dan Rather, and Mary Mapes all have, the right to "lie in the public interest, lest they be deceived by 'distracting' facts, evidence, and truth." You've never actually had that right, although you've frequently behaved as though you had.

I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, Danny, but the days where you and your buddies can get away with this bullshit unchallenged are quite over.

There's a new sheriff in town, pardner. Get used to it, or else mosey on down the trail and into the sunset, if'n you can't handle that.

Okay, Danny?