Even in defeat, the hacks and non-entities at Media Matters — led by the embarrassingly humorless head hack, Eric Boehlert– just can’t write a story about James O’Keefe without letting their bias and contempt for him get in the way of the truth. But what else is new?
Just as in their original post on the affair in New Orleans: O’Keefe reportedly arrested by FBI in alleged “plot to wiretap” senator’s office, Media Matters and the rest of the left-wing media had been salivating over the prospect of seeing O’Keefe behind bars for a “wire-tapping” crime. Of course, the facts of the case, publicly available from the moment Media Matters and their blood brothers at MSNBC began “reporting” the story, have never supported the fantasy that O’Keefe’s prank was some sort of Watergate style break-in or wiretapping, or bugging or anything resembling a serious felony.
But a perusal of the headlines at Media Matters gives us some great insight to how they’ve been desperate to make O’Keefe our generation’s Bernard Barker, and Breitbart his Richard Nixon.
Alleged wiretap plotter O’Keefe tweets “I am a journalist. The truth shall set me free”
TPM: Alleged phone bug crew came from conservative campus journalism world
FDL blogger: O’Keefe’s statement is riddled with falsehoods
Media Matters‘ Frisch: “What did Breitbart and Fox News know and when did they know it?”
In the three days following O’Keefe’s arrest, Media Matters posted no fewer than fifty-three separate articles about the arrest. FIFTY-THREE!
It takes a lot of Senior Fellows and Soros greenbacks to handle all of that spin. You think with an investment of time and resources like that, the “non-profit media watch-dog group” — which in actuality is a shill for various hard-left causes — had a vested interest in O’Keefe’s serving some jail time on a major felony? You think they might be a little disappointed that the facts of the case turned out to produce nothing more than a plea-bargain misdemeanor with no time served?
So after a flurry of tweets on his oh-so witty Twitter account, “Senior Fellow” Eric Boehlert devoted precious space at David Brock’s web site (conservative-turned-liberal David Brock is Eric Boehlert’s boss, by the way) to one last attempt to spin this into a victory for his pathetic organization.
David Brock
True to form, his post is full of inconsistencies and half-truths.. wait, not even half-truths… I’ll give him a quarter of a truth. Here’s his big “Get” in his post (Yes, unlike MMFA, we pull quotes in their entirety):
One of the more comical claims that Breitbart made during his desperate attempts at spin control last winter was to attack New Orleans law enforcement. as well as the Dept. of Justice and even Attorney General Eric Holder, and claim there were all in a wide-ranging conspiracy to frame O’Keefe. (Because he’s just that important!)
Of course, the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District in Louisiana denied the absurd charge.
But now that O’Keefe has admitted his guilt, isn’t it time for to apologize? After all, if O’Keefe really had been framed, why would he plead guilty? His guilty plea basically demolishes Breitbart’s crazy cover-up talk from last winter.
Boehlert knows that his lazy lefty readers are either too trusting of him, or too brain-washed to follow his links. I, however, do not fall into that category — that’s right loyal Big Journalism readers, I read Media Matters so you don’t have to. When you click his first link purporting to show Breitbart’s “wide-ranging conspiracy,” you get directed to another semi-coherent MMFA post that does the conspiracy-theory concocting on Breitbart’s behalf! The only link in the post points to an actual quote of Breitbart’s, in which he assets that James O’Keefe was held in jail without access to an attorney.
Boehlert then tries to make it appear that the U.S. Attorney’s office denied the charge. When you click on the link Boehlert provides as proof of the U.S. Attorney’s denial, you get another MMFA post that pulls liberally from TPM Muckracker. It details Breitbart’s appearance on Megyn Kelly’s show, on which he made the charge about O’Keefe’s sitting in jail without access to an attorney and the government’s leaking information about the case to the press. Kelly asks about the U.S. Attorney’s motivations to do that:
“Well, it’s tied to the Justice Department. And we’ve been very aggressive in asking Eric Holder to investigate what’s seen on the ACORN tapes, and he’s ignored it.”
Which brings us to the big “get” from Boehlert’s piece today. The whole point of his post is to say that Breitbart owes the U.S. Attorney’s office an apology for claiming that O’Keefe was held in jail without an attorney and that they leaked information to the press about the case. And Boehlert’s entire point hinges on two facts, 1) O’Keefe pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and 2) the U.S. Attorney denied Breitbart’s claims.
Here is the “denial” from the US Attorney:
Jan Mann, first assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, said: “The suggestion that he makes about the motivations of our office are untrue. We’re not going to try this case in the press. But we deny the accusations about our office.”
The motivations? The U..S Attorney’s office is denying Breitbart’s accusation about its motivations? That’s Boehlert’s big “get”?
Maybe he should take a look at this and think again.
Nowhere, anywhere, has anyone at any time denied that O’Keefe sat in jail for hours without access to an attorney. Nowhere. And Boehlert knows it. But it doesn’t keep him from misleading his readers (who at this point are pretty much down to the producers and hosts of the MSNBC prime-time line-up).
Going back on those headlines from MMFA’s coverage of this affair, I did stumble upon one that actually came close to the truth. Of course, at the time they meant it ironcially:
Breitbart: “I predict there will be tape to vindicate these four pranksters.”
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