SF Weekly Tries to Undo Pelosi Retirement Story

Peter Jamison of SF Weekly (in Snuggie, above) has declared that Jeffrey Scott Shapiro’s scoop at Big Government about Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s wish to leave Congress is a “fake.”

Though Jamison admits that comments from Pelosi’s daughter Alexandra “were certainly catalyst enough for a news story,” he concludes that the story is a fraud because Alexandra later amended her comment.

Shapiro had reported that Alexandra had said her mother was “destined for the wilderness.” Alexandra then texted him to say she had said Nancy Pelosi was “destined for greatness.” Shapiro dutifully reported Alexandra’s new text message, but not as a correction–and observed that Alexandra had not challenged “the crux of the story; that Pelosi would prefer to leave Congress and only remains out of a sense of obligation to her donors.”

Shapiro stands by the original version of the quote, as he indicated via email to me this afternoon:

I’m one-hundred percent certain that Alexandra Pelosi said to me that her mother wanted to leave Congress and that her donors thought she was ‘destined for the wilderness.’ Even the tone she used when she said the word ‘wilderness’ implied that she was referring to some middle of the nowhere place. Alexandra said a lot of other things to me about Nancy Pelosi wanting to leave Congress, but that was all I was able to type up because she was talking quickly. I’m disappointed that she’s changing her story now because she struck me as a very sincere person when we were on the telephone.

The rest of Jamison’s attack on what he calls the “Pelosi Fake Retirement” is simply a regurgitation of mainstream media prejudices against Andrew Breitbart–namely, that he “manufactures” media controversies.

Andrew Breitbart, asked for a response to Jamison, conveyed the following:

This is just a typical example of journalists carrying water for Nancy Pelosi–and also an example of how powerful Pelosi can be when she attempts to undo a damaging news story.