I have no choice but to allow a behind-the-scenes dispute to spill out into the public.
In previous posts, I detailed how Larry Johnson's No Quarter deliberately inflamed the public with a false story about the allegedly "forged" Obama birth certificate. That site published as established fact -- without any caveats or "maybes" -- the claim that a professional image analyst was able to discern the name of Barack Obama's sister in the candidates much-disputed Certificate of Live Birth.
Did No Quarter publish a single image backing up this assertion? No. The site published all sorts of
other images, but not the one that mattered.
No-one has replicated these "findings." No Photoshop professional found the details comprehensible. The source of the claim, "Techdude," has now been exposed as an utter fraud.
Has No Quarter issued an apology? Nope.
Johnson and his confreres (Texas Darlin' and Susan UnPC) maintain an aggressive, belligerent stance, despite having about as many legs to stand on as Monty Python's black knight.
Think about it: If
your blog published a major piece of false information -- one that sparked a firestorm of public interest -- wouldn't you show a little humility when the whole thing was revealed as a crap-fest of deception?
Johnson's approach exactly recapitulates that of Markos Moulitsas. Remember how Kos promoted the "darkened video" smear, and then
refused to apologize after he was proven wrong?
That video smear was, for me, the spine-cracking straw -- the moment when I turned against the Obots. (And don't misunderstand: I still despise them, and always shall.)
So why should we view Johnsonian smear tactics with greater lenience?
Behind the scenes, Johnson's crew has been sending me messages accusing me --
me! -- of ethical breaches.
Dig it: These scoundrels published a fake story. They endorsed the fake wholeheartedly -- on their site and on the radio. They did not double-check it, even though Techdude wrote as though any mere child could follow his loopy instructions and recapitulate his results. Johnson surely knows people -- in the CIA or elsewhere -- who could have performed a competent analysis, but no such analysis occurred. Johnson and company did not show any of the skepticism that any decent journalist would have displayed. They refused to budge when the problems were pointed out to them.
They refused -- and they
still refuse -- to apologize for foisting a fake story on the public.
And yet these creeps question
my ethics...!
Johnson is acting just like a con-man who, when exposed, tries to bluff and bluster his way out of a jam. Remember this bit of dialogue from
Citizen Kane?
Have him tell Mr. Silverstone he's a detective from the Central Office. If Mr. Silverstone asks to see his badge, your man is to get indignant and call Mr. Silverstone an anarchist. Loudly, so that the neighbors can hear.
Johnson, like Kane, specializes in journalism as yellow as a urine-stained fire hydrant.
Just now, I received the following from Susan UnPC, relaying a message from smear merchandizer Texas Darlin (god, how I hate that smarmy nickname):
She writes: Tell "Joseph Cannon" that I will grant him a telephone interview and answer all questions honestly if he sends a phone number, and takes down everything he published about me on his blog immediately. It is all false.
If he declines, I will post something on my blog saying that he declined to interview me by phone, as offered.
Unbelievable! She demands a rewrite as a
condition for an interview. No writer in the world would agree to such a stipulation. Naturally, she will never inform her own readers of this outlandish proposal.
Hypocritically, TD's paranoia about her personal information is considered justified. Meanwhile, I am supposed to have no problem with sending my personal phone number to a lying spook.
And if I do not cooperate with these outrageous demands, the Johnsonites will write that I turned down their sweet offer of cooperation, and that I spread false stories without attempting to learn the truth.
Texas Darlin' does not publish any contact info on her site -- as I do -- yet she chides me for not contacting her.
What a hypocrite!These people are despicable, manipulative liars. They dare to act as though
I must justify myself
, even though
they are the ones who whipped up hysteria with a bogus conspiracy claim.
Alas, I had no choice but to print the message above. I have never before published any piece of private email without prior permission.
A lot of people turned against the Obama movement because they did not care for the vile tactics of the Kossacks. Let me ask you: How does Larry Johnson's behavior differ from the stomach-churning antics of Markos Moulitsas and his barbarian hordes during the Obama/Clinton battle? Let's go down the list...
Spreading false stories: Check.
Trading in paranoia: Check.
Refusing to apologize when proven wrong: Check.
Showing arrogance when humility is required: Check.
Printing a stream of thuggish comments: Check.
Encouraging a mob mentality: Check.
Seeding the left with right-wing/libertarian memes: Check.Everything Moulitsas did, Johnson does. Those two guys are doing the "mirror" routine better than Groucho and Harpo did it in
Duck Soup.
Interestingly, both Moulitsas and Johnson are known to be "Company" men.
No Quarter is no longer an antidote to Daily Kos. No Quarter
is Daily Kos.
Same shit; different candidate.Johnson considers me "a joke." He thinks that nothing I say against him will in any way affect his interactions with others in the PUMA movement. Perhaps. I have no illusions about myself. Perhaps his presumption is true.
We shall see.But I am hardly the only one who has had a snootful of Larry "Whitey" Johnson and his canary-colored "journalism."
Added note: By the way, Susan UnPC also accused me of being an attention-seeker. Yes,
that tired accusation -- again. Let's look at the record...
I've turned down many requests to do radio: Has Larry Johnson done likewise? I've turned down requests to speak in public: Has Larry Johnson done likewise? I've asked Raw Story and other sites not to link to my blog, even though most bloggers would
kill for an RS listing: Has Larry Johnson done likewise? I've turned down all requests to write for larger publications: Has Larry Johnson done likewise? I do nothing to build readership, and would prefer for my stats to go
down: Can Johnson make that claim?
He's the one with a Paris Hiltonian hunger for publicity. I write to write -- art for art's sake.
Added added note: After "Steve Diamond" talked about Texas Darlin's Freeper background, No Quarter claimed that the embarrassing comment actually came from a Diamond
imposter. How con
veeeeeenient. Of course, the front-paged "imposter," elsewhere in the same thread, bragged about Diamond's resume in a fashion that strikes me as very un-imposter-like.
Well, that's
one way to re-bag the cat. Remember when Crispen Glover claimed that it was actually an
imposter who appeared on the Letterman show?
Every time you get anywhere near the Johnson crew, you enter a strange realm of fake handles, impersonations, shared email addresses, and lord-knows-what-else. I have no idea what game this spooked-up crew is playing, but I wasn't very surprised to learn that Larry Sinclair (or someone posing as him) used Texas Darlin's IP address.