Thanks to John Hinderaker and Michelle Malkin, we have learned that public information can in fact be "leaked", that authorized photos can in fact be illicit, and that if we make irresponsible, inexcusable public "errors", we simply move on with no acknowledgment whatsoever and hope that everyone forgets about it and no one dies! Yes, it's the Bush Doctrine, ingeniously applied to blogging.
But it begs the question, what do you do if someone actually tries to hold you accountable? Again, following the Bush model, if anyone ever dares to bring up logic and facts, run to the media (Howard Kurtz is aces) and bark about the angry treasonous left. As long as that boogeyman exists, the right can do no wrong!
Michelle and John know that Howard Kurtz will fairly present their side, their version of the liberal's side, and dismiss the whole thing with
"Well, who the heck can figure out who's right? It's whacked. Just another gosh darn kerfluffle where the truth lies somewhere in middle. (cough) Or the right. Usually the truth lies with the right. (cough, cough) We'll see you next week on Reliable Whorces! I mean, Sources!"
So you see, it's really a whole new paradigm. When someone says "accountability", John and Michelle say "liberals are divided in the war on terror". Where we thought that we should only publish assertions supported by facts, and that we should admit errors, John and Michelle say, "That won't help us keep the base ignorant of the facts and foaming at the mouth."
Without further delay, let's examine a few instructive quotes from each of them:
John:
So far, the blogosphere has a far better record of honesty and accuracy than mainstream organs like the New York Times and CBS. This isn't entirely a matter of personality; it is also a function of the checks and balances of the blogosphere, which are far stronger and more effective than the alleged "checks and balances" of the mainstream media, which, in the absence of political and intellectual diversity, may not operate at all.
Reading that quote again, I'm not sure that it's entirely consistent with the new paradigm. We don't want to highlight the fact that checks and balances are not working in the blogosphere, because that would mean the New York Times has a stronger and more effective system to maintain honesty and accuracy.
Let's keep looking:
John:
Competitive pressure does not cause a reporter to make affirmative misrepresentations and misleading statements. If it wasn't political bias that drove the show's inaccuracies and misleading content, what was it?
What was it? Smacks of a demand for accountability. That's exactly where we do not want to go. And we don't want to shine a spotlight on the whole "political bias" thing.
I think this is what we are after:
John:
And ever since, reporter Mike Allen and others at the Post have said that they never meant to imply that the memo was created or distributed by Republicans.
This position seems disingenuous. The Post apparently did distribute a version of the story that explicitly attributed the memo to the GOP's leadership. And even in the revised version that appeared in print, the implication that the "talking points memo" was a Republican strategy document is clear. That is how everyone understood it. And, as we have pointed out in our prior posts, the Republican party has taken a giant PR hit as a result of the popular belief, fueled by news reports on the fake memo, that the party pursued the Schiavo case out of political calculation rather than principle.
Both the Post and ABC now claim that they never meant to accuse the Republicans of authoring or distributing the notorious memo. But neither has printed a retraction, clarification or correction. The Post has done nothing to correct or retract the version of its story that apparently went out on the evening of March 19. And to our knowledge, not a single one of the dozens of newspapers and other news outlets that printed the false claim that the memo was circulated by the Republican leadership has retracted or corrected that defamatory claim.
There is a story here, if our media wanted to pursue it. The memo in question is a pathetic piece of work. Any competent person could look at it and see that it is not a product of the Republican leadership. It is on a blank piece of paper; no letterhead, no signature, no identification. Anyone in the world could have typed it. It is incompetently produced: it gets the Senate bill number wrong, misspells Terri Schiavo's name, and is full of typographical errors. The only people reported to have distributed it (by the New York Times) were Democratic staffers. And--most fundamentally--it is absurd to think that the Republican leadership would produce a "talking points" memo discussing what great politics the Schiavo case was for Republicans. Those aren't talking points; not for Republicans, anyway. The memo benefited the only party that it could possibly have benefited: the Democrats.
If there were investigative reporters working for the Washington Post, ABC, the New York Times, or any other major news organization, they might want to try to find out where the memo came from. Circumstantially, it seems extremely likely that it was produced by Democrats as a political dirty trick. But such investigation seems to be beyond the capability--more important, beyond the ambition--of our mainstream press. Only bloggers look critically at documents that cast disrepute on Republicans. Mainstream reporters accept them uncritically, at face value, no matter how inept they may be. Why is this?
Sunday morning, I'll be on Howard Kurtz's CNN television program, "Reliable Sources," to discuss the "talking points memo."
This is the case where Republican Senator Mel Martinez eventually admitted that the memo came, unbeknownst to him, from a staffer or attorney in his office or his employ. That sounds a little strange - what I mean is that it came from someone who is absolutely as remote as possible from the Senator and the party and still be technically working with them. Yes, that's what it was.
Link
Now, my point in including the above quote was not to remind everyone about this, or to draw a parallel between the right-wing blogs that took each other's accusations at face value instead of looking critically at the facts. That's not pertinent. With the accusation that the memo was a Democratic dirty trick (don't I wish) proven wrong, will John retract the accusation? Go back and read the new paradigm again. From Howard Kurtz's(!) column:
John Hinderaker, the conservative Powerline blogger who hammered away at the reporting on the memo [Howard, did he also hammer away at anything other than the reporting - like maybe that Democrats are kind of scummy? shh - don't imply bias], said it was clear "that we were guessing or drawing an inference or expressing an opinion. I questioned whether there was a single Republican staffer dumb enough to have written that memo. Turns out there was. So I was wrong."
He says the mainstream media have a "liberal tilt" and that "when I criticize a news story or a particular journalist . . . I don't think I tend to personalize it." In fact, says Hinderaker, "you talk about shrill -- you should see what they say about us," including "obscene phone calls."
Link
Howard does not mention that John wrongfully accused Democrats. He's just a perfectionist when it comes to the craft, that's all. That was nice. It was also nice of Howard to let John get in a couple of sweet unchallenged slams of the left in his... what is that, exactly? Not a retraction. Not an apology for the accusation of fraud and conspiracy against the ENTIRE Democratic party. He was wrong about some inconsequential GOP staffer...but not wrong about the rest? The Democrats would have done it, but for the intervening earlier stupidity of this GOP staffer. Go to the head of the class if you said this is a textbook example of the new paradigm.
And for the record, this does not make John look shrill:
While I don't believe that the Times is actually encouraging assassination, there is one thing I just can't explain: why in the world does the article feature, prominently, this photograph of Rumsfeld's driveway, with the gratuitous explanation that "There is a lens in the birdhouse..."? That one baffles me. Link
Regardless of what I say, don't accuse me of insinuating that the Times is encouraging assassination because I just said right there at the beginning that I'm not insinuating that the Times is encouraging assassination.
And this is just funny, from July 2, 2006:
John:
OOPS, I FORGOT......to plug my appearance today on CNN's Reliable Sources
John and Howard...you two!
And what can we learn from Michelle Malkin regarding the new paradigm?
Michelle:
This blog says spokespeople for Rumsfeld and Cheney are denying any security threat from the publication of the article.
Alright. I'll take them at their word.
But none of this answers the question I posed to the Times' editors repeatedly in my original post:??Why?
What news value and journalistic end was served by publishing the Cheney/Rumsfeld vacation home piece and the accompanying photo? "Because Rumsfeld gave permission" may cut it with the moonbats and fairweather privocrats. Not with me.
Conservative readers have asked me to publish the private home addresses of NYTimes reporters, editors, and photographers.
My response: NO.
I refuse to do it. I strongly urge others not to do it. Your home is your castle. It should be, anyway. There are some legitimate, narrow circumstances under which publicizing a private home address makes sense (the Kelo case, for example, or the counterprotest at Justice David Souter's New Hampshire home, or documenting the erosion of the California coastline). But "For The Hell Of It" is not one of those reasons, in my book.
Most telling is the radio silence on the Left about the larger context in which I placed the NYTimes' vacation home piece (which comprised one-quarter of my post).
Do the moonbats believe it is acceptable to target the private homes of public figures for protest, as anti-war and pro-illegal alien activists have done with Karl Rove, John Negroponte, and Don Rumsfeld?
They don't say.
Do they endorse the actions of Huffington Post commenters who splashed the private information of Swift Boat Veterans' families all over the Internet--info that was used to harass and intimidate them? (Unlike Bush administration officials, these families can't afford round-the-clock security guards to protect their families.)
I love it. The grudging "I'll take them at their word." I'll do them a damn favor, because I'm so damn nice, even though they don't deserve it. And it's so clear that you don't need to take them at their word because the facts can be so easily confirmed!
Ok to go to Souter's home, not ok to go to Rove's home - with no effort made to distinguish between the two! Her premise is simply this - the left is not capable of having a bona fide legitimate, narrow circumstance - ever, and the right is. When you cut out all that hard reasoning and writing, it sure does make the blogging go quicker.
And to keep pushing the Why? question. Ignoring the obvious lifestyles of the rich and famous angle. Ignoring the myriad number of times the exact same information has been published in style sections and puff pieces. That, my friends, is called focus. She came to win.
It is especially brilliant considering just two months ago Michelle did this:
On April 11, Students Against War flushed military recruiters out of a campus job fair.
The next day, Malkin copied the cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses of three student activists at the demonstration from a news release intended for journalists and pasted them in her online column titled "Seditious Santa Cruz vs. America."
"I woke up in the morning and my cell had 14 new messages, 25 missed calls and it kept going on," said SAW member David Zlutnick, estimating the group's three media contacts have already sifted through 500 e-mails, more than 100 with death threats.
When students called Malkin to request she remove the student information, Malkin reposted the names and numbers several more times. She defended the decision, blaming SAW for posting a link to the news release on its Web site.
Link
Good thing she didn't personalize it. Good thing she didn't try to stifle the other side by intimidation instead of debating them on the merits of the arguments. Besides, we all know that Constitutionally protecting the fibers of a flag is far more important than protecting the safety of these students - because we don't agree with these students. That, my friend, is the culture of life, under the new paradigm!
Sadly, it backfired when the students turned the tables on her.
I like how Michelle uses this comment in the recent blog entry without ever acknowledging that it completely impeaches her actions in the student incident:
Unlike Bush administration officials, these families can't afford round-the-clock security guards to protect their families.
Well played, Ms. Malkin, well played.
Americans In Name Only -- they say the love America, but actually hate what it stands for along with most of the people who live there.
(emphais and bracketed comments added by JLFinch in the block quotes above)