Well, actually it's from James Warren, the publisher of the independent newsweekly The Chicago Reader, which itself is a granddaddy of the independent free newsweekly. But the piece is on the website of the NY Times, in the Grey Lady's "Chicago Report," featuring "coverage of public affairs, culture, lifestyle and sports in the region" and produced by the "Chicago News Cooperative, a non-profit news organization."
It includes goodies like this:
[Andy Martin] was a nasty critic of Mr. Obama’s presidential campaign, helping to spread the lie of his being Muslim, and was central to a Fox News Channel schlock-umentary, "Obama and Friends: The History of Radicalism," hosted by Sean Hannity. Described as an "author and journalist," Mr. Martin was given a national forum to assert without rebuttal that Mr. Obama trained to overthrow the government. Rarely has the emptiness of the channel’s "fair and balanced" mantra been more vivid.
I don't know when I've seen reporting like that in the past home of Judith Miller...
Join me on the flip for what the article is about.
The current favorite on the Republican side for IL-Sen seat currently held by Roland Burris and formerly occupied by our current chief executive is Mark Steven Kirk, who has represented IL-10 in Congress since 2001. A faithful ally of George W. Bush and Denny Hastert, Kirk nevertheless departs from Republican orthodoxy in significant ways: he has voted against a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and for civil rights for gays, and he supports abortion rights for women. He's also worked with Chicago's mayor Richard Daley to expand O'Hare airport, but that's kind of ancillary to our story here today.
His stance on gay rights and abortion rights has got the teabag wing of the party upset, in particular the nutcase serial liar Andy Martin. Warren, who calls Martin a "bomb-throwing lightweight," gives us the following takedown of the loon:
Mr. Martin is the vessel of the venom. He is a frequent candidate with a history of stridently anti-Jewish comments. As a law school graduate named Anthony Martin-Trigona, he was rejected for entry to the Illinois bar due to a psychiatric finding of a "moderately severe character defect manifested by well-documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character."
That's the kind of thing I'm used to reading on blogs, but certainly not on the pixels of the New York Times!
So what is Martin's latest smear campaign? Nothing less than spreading a rumor that the divorced Kirk is gay and alleging that he has "surrounded himself with homosexuals." This rumor, first aired in radio ads by Martin, was picked up the rightwing blogosphere -- according to the Times -- and also by Chicago's mainstream media.
It remains to be seen how much Kirk will be hurt by Martin's rumors. In the immediate term, the state GOP has distanced itself from the rumor-monger, not the candidate; state GOP chair Patrick Brady has said Martin "will no longer be recognized as a legitimate Republican candidate by the Illinois Republican Party," and the party is standing by its frontrunner Kirk.
The White House wants to keep this seat in Democratic hands -- it used to be Obama's, after all -- and apparently sees Kirk as a legitimate threat to pick it off. Warren reports the WH actively lobbied Lisa Madigan, mentioned in the New York Times as a potential presidential candidate someday, to get into the race, but Madigan turned down the chance.
The question here is whether or not Andy Martin can do in Mark Kirk, in the same way Doug Hoffman trashed Dede Scozzafava and gave NY-23 to a Democrat.
The answer to that question will be determined in November. But how sweet it is to read real reporting in the New York Times!