Friday, March 30, 2007
Bad Post, good Post.
Brad Blog's Margie Burns has an excellent riposte to a false Washington Post story slamming Patrick Fitzgerald. The Post (followed by many other newspapers) claimed that Fitz received an "undistinguished" ranking on an internal Justice Department memo.
In other words, it was purely partisan shindig. Yet taxpayers paid for it. There ought to be a law against that sort of thing -- and there is: The Hatch Act.
For six years, we've chanted the same mantra: "What if this had happened under Clinton?" Yes, that refrain has gotten old. But jeez, sometimes ya just can't avoid it: What if this had happened under Clinton?
The major problem with this story? It’s not true. The Department of Justice never 'ranked' U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald negatively or as 'undistinguished.' According to sworn testimony by D. Kyle Sampson, today in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Fitzgerald was rated 'very strong' internally in the DOJ.Today's Post makes up for that blunder -- to some degree -- by exposing a Karl Rove video presentation to 40 officials of the General Services Administration. The presentation "included 2006 election results and listed the names of Democratic candidates considered beatable and Republican lawmakers thought to need help."
In other words, it was purely partisan shindig. Yet taxpayers paid for it. There ought to be a law against that sort of thing -- and there is: The Hatch Act.
For six years, we've chanted the same mantra: "What if this had happened under Clinton?" Yes, that refrain has gotten old. But jeez, sometimes ya just can't avoid it: What if this had happened under Clinton?
No offense, but Margie's story makes no sense. She uses a February 2005 document (which she mislabels as a Februyary 2004 document) to disprove something the WaPo says is a March 2005 document. And she claims to know what's behind whited out space. And presuming Fitz shows up in non-bold non-strike out letters, that would "rank" him a not distinguished. If anything the WaPo is guilty of inprecision of language. While Margie is guilty of some real sloppiness.
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