Last week, a post I wrote for Big Journalism which, unbeknownst to me, possibly inspired Bill O’Reilly’s Talking Points Memo later that evening. I’m embarrassed to say I didn’t notice it at the time. I watch Bill and the rest of the Fox guys when I can, but with three kids in the house it’s not every day. In any case, my post and Bill’s memo were strongly worded critiques of this David A. Graham piece for Newsweek in which he downplayed the New Black Panther story. Last Friday, Graham issued a somewhat belated response to Bill and me (okay, I admit, I like saying that). Here’s how his piece opens:

Last week, I found myself in the crosshairs of conservative ire because a news analysis I wrote didn’t take the allegations of voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party story as seriously as conservatives felt it should.

Right off the bat we’ve shifted the goalposts. My critique was based on Graham’s biased handling of the material, in particular his use of the hacks and non-entities at Media Matters as a primary source, as well as his failure to get even Media Matters’ highly spun version of the story straight. Here’s a bit of what I wrote:

That second link–the one about questionable testimony–goes right back to Media Matters. David A. Graham summarizes MM’s lengthy hit piece by saying, “there are doubts about whether he was actually present for the incidents he described.” Well, no, there are not doubts about that at all. In his interview with Megyn Kelly (which Media Matters transcribes), [J. Christian] Adams plainly states that he wasn’t there…

That’s not a critique of Graham’s news judgment; it’s a critique of his facts. Rather than address the problem directly or issue a correction, he simply revises his original claim in the new piece: (more…)

Poet Ogden Nash knew the score:

…if called by a panther, don’t anther.

And that’s exactly what America’s liberal agenda-setting media has done. It has not answered the “New” Black Panther’s call daring it to report on voter intimidation by two paramilitary dressed Panthers, one of whom was brandishing a club, outside a Philadelphia polling place in 2008.

Bartle Bull, a former civil rights lawyer and publisher of the leftist The Village Voice, a paper in which I have been published, said it’s “the most blatant form of voter intimidation I’ve ever seen.” Worse, our media agenda setters cower in silence behind their constitutional protection at the prospect of digging into the corroborated sworn testimony of Department of Justice whistle-blower Christian Adams that the Obama DOJ won’t prosecute those Panthers because it has embraced a politically correct policy of not charging blacks for civil rights violations. (more…)

Max Blumenthal is attempting to stand behind his story.

His article at Salon.com remains unchanged even though the Village Voice and Dave Weigel at The Washington Independent have written detailed corrections contradicting Blumenthal’s post.

At his personal website he recounts a discussion he had with “Isis,” a photographer who, according to Blumenthal “does tend to be a little apprehensive about speaking to folks.”  It seems that at this point, “Isis” is the last remaining eyewitness that Blumenthal says supports his assertions made on Wednesday at Salon.com.

As a reminder, here are the assertions that Salon.com made that “Isis” is supposed to corroborate  (there are many, many more false allegations at Salon.com, and Blumenthal has not made any attempt to retract or explain them, but these are the assertions that are related to the mysterious “Isis”): (more…)