Today Time named Powerline "
Blog of the Year." (A teaser for the article appears on
this page, but the actual article is available online only to subscribers.) Really?
Powerline is a cesspool. They ignore the truth even when it's right under their noses. Here's proof.
Last summer, Powerline did everything it could to promote the Swiftboat frenzy. On 8/19 and 8/22, Powerline touted the "testimony" of Doug Regelin, calling it a "valuable contribution to the debate." They were referring to an online article by Regelin, a rabidly anti-Kerry veteran (although not formally a member of SBVT, he might as well be).
PL apparently didn't lift a finger to fact-check Regelin. If they had, they would have easily figured out that he's a liar. Within days, Regelin was exposed as such, at the same site that published his original article. It turns out that aside from exaggerating his duration of service, his locations of service, and his rank, Regelin also admitted privately that his published assertion about Kerry and Cambodia ("it was not possible to navigate to Cambodia by water in a Swift Boat") was false.
Powerline was informed. They should have run a correction. They didn't.
The complete Regelin-related thread at augustafreepress.com can be found here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Items #4 and #6 in that series are the clearest summary of the proof that Regelin lied.
There's a mythology that the right-wing blogs are self-correcting, that they can't get away with blatant lies because their readers will check up on them, and this will lead to corrections being run. The episode I cite proves that this is indeed a myth.
Of course the ultimate irony is that PL is famous for supposedly playing a lead role in "Rathergate." According to Time, PL "challenged a network news legend and won." Time ignores the hypocrisy, that while pointing fingers at CBS for ostensibly not being careful with the truth, PL is quite willing to trample on it themselves.