Before we begin, let us pause for a moment to thank our Almighty for the small pleasures of life, such as almost a full week passing without having to suffer through yet another high cry and desperate whine from JournoList founder and Washington Post blogger Ezra Klein, as he dishonestly complains about his online cabal of left-wing “journalists” being taken out of context by the Daily Caller’s damning and ongoing drip-drip-drip of an expose’.

JournoList founder Ezra Klein

Yes, thank you Ezra, for finally realizing that you were embarrassing yourself with these complaints as those of us watching this story wondered why you didn’t just go ahead and prove the Daily Caller a liar with a fully contextual response of your own, using that unique WaPo perch combined with the magic of the Internet and your very own personal copy of the full JournoList archives.

While I never took seriously my challenge to Mr. Klein to go right on ahead and clear up all his contextual concerns, he might want to consider doing so now. On June 29th, weeks before the Daily Caller announced the glorious fact that they were in possession of all or part of the JournoList archives, Klein wrote the following:

What if I told you I ran a secret e-mail list that connected progressive writers with staffers for Democratic politicians so that those staffers could tell the progressives what, exactly, their bosses wanted them writing about that day?

Sadly, I don’t run such a list.

You have to love that last sentence. The use of the word ”sadly” is soooo sly. Especially when it appears, that at times, that’s exactly the type of list Klein was running. (more…)

My friend and thriller-writing colleague, the great Andrew Klavan, writes in City Journal:

Take the e-mails that the Daily Caller obtained from the now-defunct lefty Web service Journolist. Never mind the personal or psychological implications of a radio producer who lovingly imagines Rush Limbaugh’s death or a law professor who doesn’t know that the FCC has no power to deprive Fox News of a license or a reporter who wants to smear Fred Barnes and other right-wing commentators as racist in order to distract the public from the hateful radicalism of Jeremiah Wright, then Obama’s pastor. The point is not these people’s animus or ignorance or wickedness. The point is that what they desired was not victory in open debate but silence—the silence of censorship, intimidation, or the grave.

When has Rush Limbaugh ever wished a liberal’s mouth closed forever? Really, who can deny that Rush would happily argue a point with absolutely anyone anywhere? When has Fox News ever done anything to its rival cable stations but trounce them in a free competition for ratings? When has Fred Barnes ever tried to bully or intimidate someone into shutting up?

(more…)

JournoList is back.  As Jonathan Strong makes clear in the latest Daily Caller revelations from the Journolist archives, the (publicly) unspoken strategy of the MSM mandarins is to support and protect their liberal/left favorite politicians and policies.  Understanding the tactics they use to achieve their goals – tactics I deal with frequently in litigation – is the first step in the counterattack.

The template for responding to breaking news that undermines their political favorites is almost always the same, a three step process designed to undercut the validity of the story, destroy the credibility of the storyteller, and then ensure that no one outside the new conservative media ever hears about it – or at least about the most important elements.  And the Daily Caller’s story illustrates them all.

The first step is to minimize the story.  So, the arm of the Democrat Party named ACORN feels it’s just fine to give advice to would be child sex traffickers?  It’s nothing – it’s just a side show that happened in once…okay, twice…I mean three times…I mean… anyway, it’s not important.  How about New Black Panthers intimidating voters?  Well, it’s just one precinct in Philadelphia and all the voters there were probably voting for Obama anyway so it’s really not that important.  Maybe a government bureaucrat admitting – publicly and proudly – that she treats white farmers in need of assistance worse than black ones?  Well, that’s one woman and she’s off in the boonies of Georgia!  It’s not important. (more…)