Just a couple of hours ago, Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs issued an update to his post “James O’Keefe’s Race Problems” of February 3rd, which had spread the lie that James O’Keefe attended a “white nationalist convention” (Johnson diligently sourced this characterization of the “Race and Conservatism” debate to the website, One People’s Project). To his credit, Johnson demands in his update that One People’s Project put up an uncropped picutre of O’Keefe “manning a table of racist literature” or shut up:
More importantly, it’s now incumbent on One People’s Project to put up the goods if they have them. They should release an uncropped version of the picture they said shows O’Keefe manning a table of racist literature, or they should retract that claim because they can’t prove it.
But earlier in the post, Mr. Johnson declares that it was incorrect for Dave Weigel to attribute the phrase “white nationalist conference” to him:
True, Mr. Johnson, but these are also your exact words:
While it is true Mr. Johnson did not use the precise phrase “white nationalist convention” as was noted in Weigel’s article, he said something very similar in the comments of his blog. In this case, Mr. Johnson does not attribute his claim that O’Keefe attended a “meeting of white nationalists” to anyone.
We hope that Mr. Johnson, an influential presence in the blogosphere, will issue a retraction without playing the semantics game with the words “meeting” and “conference,” but just in case, from dictionary.com:
In addition, his claim O’Keefe was “a friend” of Marcus Epstein is false. In an interview with BigJournalism.com, James O’Keefe denied Mr. Johnson’s claim, which, again, is unattributed. As was hashed out here, there is no factual basis for Johnson to imply a close link between O’Keefe and Epstein:
During the brief time O’Keefe and Epstein were working for the Leadership Institute concurrently (by O’Keefe’s estimate, this lasted three months or less), they were two of more than a hundred staffers. Mr. Epstein was one of approximately 60 field representatives and was assigned to South Carolina. O’Keefe and Epstein have had no other connections before or since. Asking readers to hold Mr. O’Keefe accountable for the attitudes and actions of one of his more than one hundred co-workers is irresponsible.
We kindly request retractions to both statements.
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80 Comments
There will be no retraction. Some dissembling and "fake but accurate" (yes, I keep coming back to that, but it's become a real habit with that circle), some insults thrown at Breitbart, O'Keefe, and everyone who comments on this site. Probably the claim that someone has "smeared" Johnson, and a comment or five about Sarah Palin's boobs.
That about covers it.
Charles Johnson still has a blog?
Great, now he'll call me a racist.
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This post was mentioned on Twitter by BigJournalism: Retraction Requests: Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs http://bit.ly/8XY6Zo…
I stopped going to LGF after lil' Chucky went ballistic on Pamela Geller of Atlasshrugs.com and especially when he went after Dr. Robert Spencer of jihadwatch.org. Spencer tried to reason with him, but chucky went moonbat-sh** crazy with slanderous insinuations. If LGF was music, it'd be in the $0.99 cut-out bin in walmart.
Listen! This is too much! I've recently just reached a whole new range of scope on what the meaning "is" is–and that's taken what? 12 years? Now the differences between "meeting" and "conference"…"attributed to" and "according to" have the same depth of "relating to meaning in language or logic"? All this just so I won't misunderstand and think that someone slandered J O'Keefe?
If it's not slander, I wonder what it…mmm…"is"…that they did?
Well…guess I won't get to the laundry today. Sigh.
Chuckles is revealed as an idiot again!
[...] I’m privileged to announce that Andrew Breitbart has added me to his list of everyone in the world who must immediately bow before his might and retract, retract, retract: Retraction Requests: Charles Johnson, Big Journalism. [...]
Charles Johnson is a FAILED blogger. Chucky, your blog is just blah-blah-blah.
I'm in favor of bringing back the literacy test for voters. We have too many people dumb enough to vote the same politicians over and over, especially the Democratic politicians.
FLOUNCE!
That does it, you're BANNED! Iceweasel and Sharmuta, delete all the records!!!
Bob, you hit the nail on the head. Literacy test for voters, and may i also add, Drug tests for welfare recipients.
Six Degrees of Charles Johnson and we're all insane. Shouldn't have gotten so close to him.
eeeeeewwwww… i got some chucky johnson on me… HONEY, get the lysol, bleach and maybe some sulfa!
There will be no retraction forthcoming….it's plainly obvious that CJ has more in kind with Michael Moore using up to 5 degrees of separation to make positive links supporting any assertion he makes. His new found love of all the "bad craziness" on the right has forced him to make ridiculous and over the top assertions to support a world view that is not just irrelevant but also just lame. He's always been somewhat of a broken record incapable of communicating more than a few key themes at a time and his energy put forth on his blog seems to me to be an attempt to convince himself of his beliefs.
Man, is there any liberal media site that actually does a little research before they post stuff?
He's afraid of Andrew and it shows. He flounces more then anyone on any blog ever has. It's a daily thing with CJ. I've lost all respect for the guy.
I care about Chuckie cheese johnson because….oh wait…I don't give a flying fig for lgf or chuck….heh
I stopped going to Johnson's site years ago when he went over to the Dark Side! I too didn't know anyone still read his stuff.
OPP has already claimed that Isis' uncropped photos were taken in an FBI raid so the photo is unlikely to see the light of day anytime soon. I was curious if they were serious or was this a "dog ate my homework" moment. I called the number on the site and got a promise for a reference to the FBI agent in charge of the case which seized the photographs.
I'll be impressed if I get anything.
it looks as though he is up to 3 posts defending himself over this. The last time I saw him this rattled was when Ace from Ace of Spades destroyed him over the Van Jones dealie over Labor Day.
Charles was incorrect, biased, wrong..? NEVER!
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True/Slant is getting wise to my puny reposts as "articles".
Ddid I mention my Amazon kiosk..? Pedestrian calendar?
Yeah? Well, I kindly ask that you go fuck yourselves.
Is that really you?
Nah.
That’s it. You’re all BANNED!
And you’re all RACISTS too! White Nationalist RACISTS! Right-wing reactionaries! Please pay attention to me…
(TEASING! This isn’t really CJ…)
Orion
does anybody really care what this guy thinks about anything….besides himself, that is ? his ego is as big as barack's.
his blog is a bore.
You're wasting your time, Retracto, asking "Mad King Charles" to retract one of his crazed accusations. Might as well ask Howard Hughes to cut his hair and nails.
Clearly you're all white supremacists. Not to mention CREATIONISTS!!!
I never cared for LGF. The people commenting at LGF are same species of drooling groupies you will find at Daily Kos. Not surprised that Johnson went off the cliff or changed sides or whatever, I won’t go there and try to figure it out. Sometimes I do wonder if there is a cynical set, that invests themselves in the winning side like when the hagdelin that ran King George I Bush’s campaign marries Carville But no want am I thinking? People in “public service” or the “blogs” out to make a buck on traffic… noooo, sorry I even mentioned it.
Charles and Andrew Sullivan would make great partners…both are formerly sane bloggers who went off the deep end and are now obsessed with bizarre conspiracies….
CJ is the Keith Olbermann of the blogosphere – all phony outrage and sanctimonious self-promotion, with a healthy dose of preschool temper-tantrum thrown in for good measure. At any moment I expect him to stamp his feet and threaten to hold his breath until everybody stops being mean to him. Or at least until he has his nap.
The real reason he turned so dramatically away from the right is because he finally found someone whose narcissism matches his own – Barack Obama. And their careers are on a similar trajectory…
I have to say it kind of breaks my heart that LGF went so far off the Richter nutty scale… after 9.11 it was one of the first blogs I found that was informative and honest about the enemy we faced and continue to face… IAndrew Sullivan was the other… what happened to these guys… the kleig light of celebrity? Maybe Charles should go play some cool jazz for Andrew in P-Town. I deleted them both from my bookmarks two years ago.
I quit reading CJ 8-9 years ago, before he went off his meds,. While most of his posts @ LGF seemed pretty rational, the fact that almost every one of them had 400+ comments less than an hour later wierded me out.
Little Chucky still hasn’t retracted his “fake but accurate” Limbaugh quotes. He is stupidly proud of posting false stories, then not correcting them, claiming he’s doing it to “cause conservative bloggers’ heads to explode”- no matter how wrong or idiotic he is made to look, he claims he does it to get the goat of his erstwhile colleagues. In fact, his entire blog is a vehicle to troll for attention by baiting conservative blogs. He posts outrageous and false lies he finds on lefty sites, frames them to attack rightblogs in any way possible, then exaggerates and misrepresents the facts in the story. Inevitably, all his posts attack rightblogs for this or that story that is current, castigating them for how wrong, stupid and evil they are. He takes a contrary position on any given subject, as long as he can gainsay as many rightblogs as possible. It’s very easy to divine his stand on any issue: just take the opposite side of the majority of the rightblogs.
He no longer really has a particular political stand, or issue, or any role at all other than to attack, lamely attempt to ridicule (very difficult, since he’s about the most humorless guy on the ‘net) or accuse every right blog. He only attacks religious people and the GOP incidentally because his real target are conservative blogs.
He is psychotically obsessed with the reaction to his trolling. Even the NYT noticed he derails every comment thread with rambling comments about himself and reactions to things he’s said, retweets (wtf-ever they are) about him and other “Chucky News”.
Eventually, whatever news value there is left from the constantly repeated “another conservative ‘grows’ and realizes conservatives are all Nazies” will dissipate and people will stop paying attention to him, at which point the head that will explode will be his. I give him a few more months before he flounces off the net completely, the ultimate flounce, after flouncing out of the community of the rightblogs.
Then oblivion, then madness, then the sweet release of death by his own hand. It’s inevitable.
Charles accuses anyone that ever entered a building found to have once had an Encyclopedia with an article about Hitler of being a racist.
Seems he got tired of Kofi Annan and Jimmy Carter winning his own 'idiotarian of the year award' and wanted a piece of that action.
Gets my vote!
johnson will not retract. he can never be wrong you see.
influential in the blogosphere? not so much anymore. check his blog states. dropping like a rock.
OK – so what the heck happened to LGF? I used to read it regularly, years ago, and the guy made sense. I quit reading for a few years and, whoa! How does a transformation like that occur? What did I miss?
I blame Charles's sock puppet Stinky Beaumont
Using "According to" as cover for the rest of the sentence is somewhat lame since it is not clear whether only some or all of content of the remaining sentence comes from the People's Project. For instance:
According to Big Journalism, Charles Johnson has not changed the information on his website about James O'Keefe's participation in a white nationalist conference.
So is Big Journalism saying it's a white nationalist conference, or Johnson, or someone else?
I'm very disappointed to see the direction Johnson has taken in recent years. Like many others on this site, I used to read him daily. Last time I went there, I had to find my bottle of Visine and log into Big Hollywood to recover…
Does anyone even go to LGF any longer? Johnson has proven time and time again to be nothing more than a little "johnson".
I can happily say that I was banned from LGF because I told him to give it a rest on bashing intelligent design people. It's all religion and what someone believes is their business. I didn't use real kind words so he banned me. It's my first banning and it feels good.
Actually, I DO care about LGF – I’ve been a ‘Lizard’ for quite a few years, but missed reading him while I was deployed. When I got back…it’s like someone totally different is writing the entries.
I don’t think Charles is running the joint any more. I don’t think he’s involved at all. Whoever it is seems to be using his name, but it sure doesn’t sound like the Charles Johnson I’ve read for years. IF it really IS Charles, then he’s had some sort of break-down that has pretty severely affected his personality, and that’s a tragedy. The man did a lot of VERY good things and appeared to be someone who really looked for the true facts, exposing racism, and exposing Islam for what it really is these days.
Orion
Its too bad because LGF was fun for awhile, but if you stand up for your Christian Faith…..you will be banned. Charles lets his stooges do all the attacks and hovers over the banned button waiting for you to trip up.
Jerk!
In all matters concerning Mr. Johnson, it is always good to remember that a) he is motivated by feelings of anger and hatred, b) he suffers from deficiencies in reasoning (i.e., guilt by association) and c) the old adage that says if you are looking for something specific you will find it.
mr. johnson is, quite frankly, not too bright. I would hardly consider him influential. his site has dwindled and his credibility has shriveled. he paints will the wide brush strokes, and will use any and all fakery to smear his opponents. he is paranoid, full of arrogance, believes his own BS.
LGF was so interesting for awhile, and actually did real journalism. CJ just didn't understand that "big tent" conservativism is just that – a big tent. When he discovered religious conservatives were allowed in, he decided to bolt. Which is a shame, especially considering how crazy he became.
Chuckles eating crow. Love it!
Oh i hope this really is charles. i do. why? because it gives me an opportunity to say that i think your blog is lame, and boring. not only that, you have done nothing but attack people for no reason, and have treated others like crap. you are not a nice person…at all! how could anyone take you seriously when you have posted peoples' personal information on the internet? what responsible "journalist" would do such a thing?
charles, you are a hack. go kick and scream like a child somewhere else; you have been banned from the adult table.
I think you meant “Charles Johnson, a FORMERLY influential person in the blogosphere”. LGF was good in its day, but I don’t know anyone who has actually bothered to read it for the past several years. Good bye and good riddance to him.
rhetoric 101 would have taught you that, "he who throws the first insult has lost the argument."
you are a very irresponsible person, and down right malicious. you would stab anyone in the back in order to elevate yourself. i feel sorry for you, actually.
wow, that's so…um, clever? i've always felt that if a person was going to insult someone he or she should at least make a valid attempt to be clever about it. at least THAT would be interesting. but like your boring blog, you can't come up with anything better to say. And as for wit? oh you never had an atom. you can't even insult people with aplomb.
now, run along back to your sewer of a blog and stop hectoring the grown ups.
you get banned even if you aren't a christian. the fact is, he drones on and on about intelligent design and evolutioin, when these arguments have been around for eons. he doesn't know thomas aquinas' five ways, nor has he ever read richard payley's the wtachmaker. has he read any dawkins? doesn't appear so, at least his discourse on the whole subject belies a marked lack of knowledge on the subject.
the fact is, charles is trying to insert himself into an age old argument that he knows very little about. there are interesting arguments on both sides; arguments made by far superior minds then his own. what he thinks he can add to the argument when he can't even think straight is beyond me. he doesn't know what he's talking about, and furthermore, if you try to have a rational discussion on the topic you will get banned.
charles isn't interested in intellectual discourse; he is only interested in having a forum where he can run off at the mouth. if you point out that he is wrong, misguided, ill-informed, or just flat out LAME…you will get banned.
I wonder if money induced Chuckles to go off the deep end.
Wait, I retract that. I wonder how much money induced Chuckles to go off the deep end.
The only explanation I can think of as to why CJ went off the deep end was that someone from the Daily Kos caught him with either a dead girl or a live boy in bed with him.
Too bad. He could’a been a contender!
Charles Johnson is one huge LOSER you needn't even waste your bandwidth writing about. He and his blog will be something no one even thinks about by the 2012 elections. He is a WASTE of space and intellectually he falls somewhere between Keith Olbermann & Chris Matthews which as we all know ain't saying much.
Any post about LGF always generates a multitude of comments which, I believe, just plays into Johnson’s hands. Let him blow up and dry away in obscurity. LGF is not newsworthy regardless of the insanities and inanities put out there. Johnson does not rate the attention.
I was actually reading LGF prior to 9/11 because I was into the concept of blogging at the time. Pre-9/11, I was more interested in his web design advice than anything else. Then 9/11 came and he went all pro-Israel. Then Rathergate and he will always be remembered as a the guy who came up with the graphic that brought down CBS. Now he just looks like a lunatic. You can't go from the left to the right to the left again and have credibility with anyone. And he doesn't.
Now you’ve done it, Retracto! Banned! Chuckles will ban you from the whole Blogosphere! And slander your name!
Johnson is a paranoid, drug-addled has-been.
I’m so happy I found White Nationalism. The Truth! Finally!
I’m so passionate about this.
Something told me the “right” and the “left” were phony.
It is amusing to see how Charles Johnson and his crowd, having slung the 'racist' epithet so many times as to render it devoid of any meaning, now has to call someone a white supremacist or a white nationalist to get the same bang for the buck … it's like a junkie needing a new, more powerful drug to get that same high.
Charles – you're a bad-crazy moron to sling this shit about O'Keefe, but in your own little morally-impaired universe, I assume you have some explanation that makes sense to your jazzy little mind.
Why does anybody care what Charles Fister Johnson has to say?
Ignore this internet troll!
That person can't be Charles Johnson. Charles Johnson NEVER leaves the warm, shallow safety of his personal petri dish; where he has complete control of a well-maintained culture of sycophants who keep his ego satisfied. There, Charles can relax in self-importance, self-indulgence and maintain his own high level of self-appointed self-aggrandization.
OH, and there he can find DATES~!
[...] Obama’s influence with just about anybody. Partisan jbes and low blows all over the place. Big Journalism whacks Charles Johnson … slow-moving target … Gawker whacks [...]
Sharmuta…thats the name I was trying to remember. She (it?) has more than 13,000-14,000 LGF posts and she is one of the ugliest, meanest Man-Haters you will ever find on any blog.
- I'm a 4-year Army veteran, but she knows more about the Army than me.
-I'm a parent of (2) kids, but she knows more about parenting than me.
I do believe in Karma Tho and that little Monster will get whats coming to her. Thanks to Retracto for posting this.
Better order a well-deserved truck full of carrots. We've got a hungry alpaca in our hands!
Well done!
Mr. Breitbart, I hope you made sure Retracto's rabies vaccination was up to date before you sent him after Charles Johnson.
There is no point in asking Excitable Chucky for a retraction. He is more narcissistic and "I'm always right" than Obama is.
He has probably already banned the mention of Big Journalism at his wackadoodle site.
Johnson and Sullivan could merge sites if they could only agree on who was the bottom.
Charles Johnson has taken to drinking the Koolaid, and has left the world of the relevant. His religion is global warming, and he will countenance no naysayers. His powerbase lies in his blog where he bans anyone with different ideas in a heartbeat, and will never counter their arguments, even when meticulously referenced. He truly is a "johnson."
It really doesn't matter. Chuckles the dancing clown has been irrelevant on the blog scene for over 18 months now. He has lost any influence he once had by performing the best impersonation of Captain Queeg since Bogey slipped on the officer's uniform.
Dude: you still got my chili pot? %-)
CJ has me a bit down. I really enjoyed his blog for a while because he was one of the first who really understood what drove terrorists and a lot of the Left and wasn't afraid to say so. On the other hand he was a lightning rod for a lot of hatred from the Left and after watching him turn away from the "Right" I can see why. His comment section seems devoted to angry people and when he turns on them angrily and without explanation they lash back at him. I feel like I was taken in and defended someone who really didn't deserve to be defended. Whats worse is that a lot of the comment style at his site has invaded a lot of the Internet and not for the better.
As for why he changed I really think it has to do a least in part with money. I remember him attacking Joe the Plumber and the "outrageous" statements Joe was making at Pajamas media which surprised me because he started Pajamas media. Of course he is no longer with them so he may have had an angry falling out and is looking for greener(?) pastures on the Left side of the blogosphere.
Yeah Red, your Chili pot is right here on my shelf…..when my boy comes home on leave, you and your better-half can come over to our party and pick it up (after we get drunk).
I wonder how Mad King Charles manages to suppress that ever-shrinking voice telling him he's gone off the deep end. There's a limit to how many times one can double down.
I have no idea what could have possibly changed a person that help in the downfall of Dan Rather into the man that throws around the “THAT’s RAAAAIIIICIST” title like ninja stars. I too read his blog in the early days and was very impressed with the man, but after a 2 year deployment overseas went back to the site and found it to be a different place entirely.
He may be mad, but he's no King. Well, maybe King of the seatless bicycle…
Interesting to note that either Chuckie only came here to utter an expletive (funny how those that know his site would actually believe that first post was his) or he has not commented here at all. His whole comment is in the place he can control, his own website. Like all lefties control and propaganda are vital to his self image.
Looks like Charles will have to find a "real" job..Heres how that interview will go down:
Interviewer: So Mr. Johnson, you had built a successful blog and what happened?
Charles: I started posting threads that ridiculed Christians and they're faith in God. Of course that angered alot of good people in LGF and they were ether banned or they left.
Interviewer: Was that smart Mr. Johnson? Spitting in the face of the people who helped make your blog what it was?
Charles: Look, I'm also a jazz muscian and I can play a real good Saxaphone and and…..
Interviewer: No Thanks Mr. Johnson….we'll get back to you. Have a nice day.
"We hope that Mr. Johnson, an influential presence in the blogosphere, will issue a retraction without playing the semantics game"
I hope the winning lottery ticket will blow into my front yard and I'll win millions of dollars… and I think my hope has a better chance of happening.
Being Charles means never having to say you're sorry….even when you're wrong, or rude as hell to others. "Icarus", my ass. "Narcissus" is more like it.
Yeah, I was banned as a RAAACIST when I "flounced" over his banning three bloggers I follow. Three BLACK bloggers. WTF? And even more WTFery: he banned them because they dared visit some other sites he'd banned and he found out about it. Yes, the man is crazy.