On Monday the New York Times ran what can only be described as a hit piece against Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA). Written by Eric Lichtblau, the ostensive goal of the column was to demonstrate how Issa has supposedly used his position in congress to enrich himself, but my guess is that the real goal of the piece was to malign Issa’s character, thereby undercutting the momentum his investigation of “Fast and Furious” has gained.

Why would I think this? A better question is why wouldn’t I? The piece is so full of distortions, exaggerations, and outright lies that there’s really nothing other than character assassination that justifies it.

For example, the piece opens by describing Issa’s home office on “the third floor of a gleaming office building overlooking a golf course in the rugged foothills north of San Diego.” The problem with this is that Issa’s office isn’t in that location. Rather, the office is located at 1800 Thibodo Road, in a building that does not overlook a golf course.

The piece also states that the Issa Family Foundation made “$357,000 on an initial investment of less than $19,000” when the truth is the foundation “took a loss of $125,000” on what was actually an initial investment of $500,000.

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UPDATE: To his credit, Mr. Roeper printed a gracious correction today. — 4/19/11

Famous film critic Richard Roeper tee’d off on Andrew Breitbart in his Sun-Times column today. Here’s the passage:

Here’s ultraconservative activist Andrew Breitbart at a Tea Party rally in Wisconsin last Saturday, with a message for pro-union forces that had shown up:

“The Tea Party has been the most peaceful, law-abiding . . . group in the history of American protest. . . . You have no right to lecture us on civility. You have no right to lecture us on language. . . . Go to hell! No, serious. Go to hell! Go to hell! You’ve been so rude, you’re trying to divide America. . . .”

Right. And telling people to go to hell because you disagree with their politics isn’t divisive at all. That’s an instant classic of hypocrisy and a breathtaking lack of self-awareness right there.

Then again, this is the same Andrew Breitbart who went on Twitter in the hours after Ted Kennedy’s death to call Kennedy a “villain,” a “duplicitous bastard” and a “prick,” so he’s well-qualified to tell others they can’t lecture him about civility.

Roeper walked into two Breitbart traps in less than 200 words. Can you identify what they are?

The first one is that Breitbart didn’t tell the union protesters to “go to hell” because he disagreed with their politics, but because he considered their tactics reprehensible. Breitbart explained this in the column he posted following the rally. Simply take a look at the full context of the speech.

Here are some examples of the incivility Breitbart may have had in mind:

Note the attempt to drown out the rally with vuvuzelas and the WalkerHitler sign. (more…)

The press is making a big deal out of incidents that occurred when Delaware GOP senatorial candidate Christine O’Donnell was in high school. The latest of which was a 1999 statement made on Politically Incorrect, where she said she ”dabbled into witchcraft” but “never joined a coven.” After the tape was released, O’Donnell cleared up the quote asking whether it was fair to hold candidates responsible for the “questionable folks.”

“I hung around people who were doing these things. I’m not making this stuff up. I know what they told me they do,” O’Donnell told Maher in 1999. ”One of my first dates with a witch was on a satanic altar, and I didn’t know it. I mean, there’s little blood there and stuff like that,” she said. “We went to a movie and then had a little midnight picnic on a satanic altar.”

I know how O’Donnell feels; one of my first dates was a woman who voted for Teddy Kennedy. It was a long-distance relationship, only my feet were planted on the planet earth.

The media obsession with O’Donnell’s unfortunate choice of high school dates is just a politically driven effort to discredit the tea party in general and Ms O’Donnell specifically.  If they were truly concerned about politicians involved in paranormal activities, they would have had their “X-Files” bureau going after former N.Y. Senator and present Secretary of State Hilary Clinton. (more…)

Distantly related to Dr. Samuel Mudd, as in “your name is –,” he is the man who should have succeeded Walter Cronkite as the most trusted man in America at CBS instead of “Kenneth, what is the frequency?” Born in 1928, Roger Mudd finished a long and distinguished career at NBC.

Not incidentally, he did the nation an immeasurable favor by torpedoing the presidential campaign of the late Ted Kennedy by asking one simple question:

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You know you’ve just had a bad day when the apostle of Washington Conventional Wisdom, David “Teddy Kennedy’s seat” Gergen puts on his serious mien (does he have any other?) and pronounces upon the weighty matters of the day.

Yes, when Gergen speaks, people not only listen — they’ve already heard it all before!  In fact, it’s what everybody else is already thinking!  By the time it gets to Gergen’s lips, God long ago changed the channel to re-runs of Happy Days.

So what do you think?  How did POTUS do, sans TOTUS — commanding college professor (okay, “senior lecturer”) or tongue-tied, smirking, classless community organizer?  Mr. Smile and a Shoeshine, or an anxious, cantankerous former wonder boy/palooka who can’t figure out why this particular fight wasn’t properly fixed by David “Jake Lingle” Axelrod, like all his others? A strike, or a gutter ball?

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Revisionist historians usually wait a few years before recounting events to fit their bias. But Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift is already transcribing the autopsy report on Obama’s health-care reform with the analytical skills of a revisionist historian.

In her February 12, 2010, piece entitled “What Obama Did Wrong: On health-care reform, the president didn’t repeat Clinton’s mistakes. Obama made new ones,” Clift spins her interpretation of events as though they represent fact.

Here’s how she does it:

Obama had to tackle health-care reform in his first year because (1) he made it a key campaign promise and (2) his base of support would have felt betrayed had he not.  Okay, so health-care linked to his oft-used campaign phrase attributed to MLK…“the fierce urgency of now.”  Clift writes that it’s easy to criticize him today for taking on the issue,

…now that we’ve seen what a hash Congress made of the reform effort.

She just couldn’t make her fingers type “now that we’ve see what a hash Democrats in Congress made of the reform effort.”  So we have a clue to what follows right there in her first paragraph. (more…)

ARF!

Bo here, the conservative dog in the White House. I’m in the Oval Office with Barry and the boys while they decide on a strategy for the State of the Union speech. They can’t make up their minds. Big surprise, huh?

It’s been quite a week here since the Massachusetts senate race, all of them whining and moaning like a litter of pitbulls finding out they’ve just been sold to Michael Vick. Barry, of course, has been hardest hit. A retiree in Pompano Beach, Florida, gets bit by a sand flea, and Barry is hardest hit.

Still, the Scott Brown victory was a genuine blow to the faithful. Barry thrives on self-delusion, so the team here firehoses him with flattery non-stop. The One. The Lightbringer. Captain Smooth. Except for Rahm, the only guy who can tell Barry the truth. The only one who actually enjoys telling Barry the truth. Teleprompter Jesus. President Fist Bump. Harry Reid’s Immaculate Negro. Barry doesn’t appreciate it, but Rahm doesn’t care. Anyway, Scott Brown’s election really shook the place up. I was there. I smelt the fear…

“Now what?” Barry kept saying as he flipped through the channels looking for good news. “Now what?”

On CNBC, Norah O’Donnell woodenly read the latest vote tallies, mascara running down her cheeks like Chuckie the killer klown. Keith Olbermann was in the background, loudly vomiting into a waste basket. (more…)

If you live in Chicago and your only source of news is the venerable Chicago Tribune, it would take you a while to figure out that something happened in Massachusetts Tuesday night. One would think that an editor might place a story with the following lead – oh, I don’t know – front page, top of the fold, maybe?

In a stunning blow to Democrats, Republican Scott Brown ended the party’s half-century grip on the Senate seat once held by Edward M. Kennedy, coming from nowhere to give the GOP the crucial 41st vote needed to thwart President Obama and his agenda, possibly starting with healthcare.

It ended up on page fourteen.

Allow me to repeat: page fourteen. An election that stunned both parties, sent a thundering message to the President and his party, threatens the very existence of the signature piece of legislation that this administration – and the Chicago Tribune – believe is vital to the health and welfare of Americans is a story that, in the judgment of what used to be the beacon of Midwestern values, less important than finding Asian carp DNA in Lake Michigan yet again. (more…)

Yesterday’s big upset in Massachusetts, placing Republican Scott Brown in Ted Kennedy’s old seat, was a clear message from the voters to the Democrats, especially the president, that even lifelong Dems are balking at the crazed zealotry on display in Washington.

Obama’s response?  Full speed ahead.  “In substance, the mission can’t change.”

To prove he’s determined to stick to his plans, including nationalizing student loans, “card check,” cap and trade and immigration reform are also slated to be pushed by this administration. All are unpopular. The voters are disturbed by the backroom deals to special interests, the disregard for the public’s outrage, the marginalization of dissenters like the tea party movement.

All of this has lead to an anti-incumbent voter rebellion which resulted in yesterday’s Bay State thumping, just as it did in New Jersey and Virginia last November. The Democrats tried to rationalize away those defeats last year. The question is, will they do that again? Many long-term Democrat legislators are feeling the ground shifting beneath their feet as even safe Dems are no longer secure. The leadership of the party is putting on a brave face, saying they plan to plow ahead with Obamacare.  But many of the rank and file who voted for the earlier bills may bail on it now, seeing their political futures in peril. (more…)

Headlines like the ones below tell the story:

“Democrats point fingers after stunning loss”

“GOP Win in Mass. Puts Dems on Offensive – Scott Brown’s Surprise Senate Victory Has Democrats Scrambling to Regain Footing”

“GOP Senate Victory Stuns Democrats”

“In Stunning Upset, GOP’s Brown Wins Mass. Seat“

Etc.

In one sense, yes, Scott Brown’s victory over Martha Coakley was stunning: In the bluest of blue states in the bluest region of the nation, voters rejected the Democrats’ — and Obama’s — agenda, sending a Republican to the Senate whom they hope will help stem the waves of left-wing socialism upon which our president, accompanied by a majority in Congress, has been bodysurfing since he came to office, despite campaigning as a moderate who would govern from the center. (more…)

The day before election day 2008, when all political commentary was flowing toward the candidates running for office, I used my column space to write a heartfelt thank you to President Bush (“An Election Day Note: Thanks, President Bush“).

At the time even Republicans were using every trick in the book to distance themselves from the 43rd president. Even before the Florida recount of 2000 I told Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund that the Democratic Party — then led by the Clintons, John Podesta and a team of Whitewater-to-Lewinsky era smear artists including Sidney Blumenthal — would use President Bush as an example to Republicans as a thorough payback for Impeachment.

Florida was a sign of things to come as the left recognized that Bush’s friendly “uniter-not-a-divider” persona could easily be turned on its head. Ted Kennedy’s rejection of bipartisan spirit after he and Bush crafted the “No Child Left Behind” legislation foretold how all Democrats, save for Sen. Joe Lieberman, would treat the 43rd president: with graceless contempt. (more…)

The special election in Massachusetts on Tuesday for the open Senate seat once held by Teddy Kennedy is the hottest political story of the day. The race is so close that no one is sure who will win but signs are starting to point to a Republican Scott Brown’s victory. And it doesn’t help when Patrick Kennedy, son of the late Lion, doesn’t even know Coakley’s first name.

Cue the Associated Press with a Saturday puff piece on Democrat Martha Coakley that tries to sell her as an “historic candidate” perhaps in order to help push her over the top just before the polls open on Tuesday.

Written by Steve LeBlanc, the AP headlined its piece, “Coakley Hopes for Historic Win in Kennedy Seat Bid.”  The subtitle explains why her candidacy is “historic.” It reads: “Coakley aims to hold off GOP surge for Kennedy seat, become 1st woman elected senator in Mass.”

What puffery. The days when it was noteworthy that a woman was elected to high office are long past. For decades we’ve had women elected in just about every position in politics from the city and state level all the way to the highest offices. In fact, the only two jobs that have yet to see a female elected to them are president and vice president, though we have had credible candidates for both. For all else, women have long since shattered the glass ceiling. So, how “historic” could it be that we might have yet another elected female Senator? Aren’t there several female senators now serving? Of course there are – 16 of them, in fact. (more…)

Fifth in a series.  Find parts one, two, three and four here.  And don’t miss this important update.

There’s an old saying in New England, something one utters when another person grabs your chair or bar stool and plops himself into it before you were ready to leave:  “You wouldn’t jump into my grave so fast.”

Well, hold the phone.  As everyone in the State of Massachusetts and the country knows, Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in May 2008, and as the months went on into 2009, the prognosis was: terminal.

With the imminent vacancy of Kennedy’s seat a foregone conclusion, Martha Coakley began ramping up her campaign for his seat… as early as January 2009.

The Boston Herald first reported on this story on September 25, 2009:

Attorney General Martha Coakley has run a shadow Senate campaign for months, shelling out $126,000 from her state campaign account for expenses likely tied to her Capitol Hill bid, including $15,000 for Web site upgrades just days before Sen. Edward M. Kennedy died, records show.

The spending spree began in January but ramped up the last two weeks of August as Coakley funneled $31,000 to consultants, fund-raisers and a Web design company in preparation for her foray into the high-stakes Senate race.

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The latest: Michael Meehan, the Coakley staffer involved in last night’s scuffle, no make that a stumble, let’s try it one more time, the shoving incident with a Weekly Standard reporter, has now apologized:

Last evening I was a little too aggressive in the confusion of trying to help the Attorney General get to her car and catch a flight.

I clearly did not intend to cause John McCormack to trip and fall over that low fence.  As the video shows and he confirms in his blog, I stopped to help him up and make sure he was OK.

I talked with Mr. McCormack this afternoon and apologized for my part.

Maybe the AP won’t be quite so ready to go into Democrat-protective mode next time.

Original post:

Last night, while trying to ask a question of the slumping “Massachusette” herself, Martha Coakley, The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack found himself on the ground after an apparent altercation.

With her campaign moving into full panic mode as the polls tighten, this is the last thing the woman who aspires to “Teddy Kennedy’s seat” needs.  Of course, the campaign says that McCormack fell.  You be the judge: (more…)

Michael Kinsley, the former editor of Slate, once defined a gaffe as what happens when a politician inadvertently blurts out the truth.  But what about when a card-carrying member of the MSM does the same thing?

David “advisor to presidents” Gergen is perhaps the most conventional of the conventional-wisdom purveyors in Washington.  To paraphrase Mary McCarthy on Lillian Hellman, every word that comes out of his mouth is a cliche, and that includes “the,” “but,” and “and.”  Almost nothing he says is ever original, insightful or thoughtful, although he delivers his empty phrases in a professorial honk that seems to convey authority.  If you want to know what everybody else within the Beltway is thinking, Dave is your go-to guy.

So that’s why this clip from last night’s debate between Scott Brown and Martha Coakley, competing in a special election next week for the open Massachusetts Senate seat, and moderated by Gergen, is fascinating.  Watch it first, then we’ll discuss:

It’s not the Kennedy’s seat, and it’s not the Democrats’ seat.  It’s the people’s seat.

If, against overwhelming odds, given Massachusetts’ political proclivities (number of Republicans in the state’s congressional delegation: zero), Brown can wrest the open Senate seat from Ted Kennedy’s cold, dead hands, he’s not only going to send a message to the nation that Obamacare is doomed, and probably the Democrats next fall as well.  He’s also sending a message to the Democrat-Media Complex. (more…)