Curtis, again...

If you read one longish piece this day, check out Brad Friedman's point-by-point skewering of the St. Petersburg Times' allegedly independent examination of Clinton Curtis' claims that he was tasked by Republican Tom Feeney to slap together a prototype piece of vote-theft software. Lucy Morgan, writer of the article in question, seems to be one of those people who prefer to trade in accusations of "partisanship" and "conspiracy theory." Making snide comments of that sort is a lot easier than digging for facts.

The Curtis story is now inextricably tied to the world of blogs and bloggers -- or at least, so it appears in the eyes of those mainstream writers who bother to address the topic at all. This linkage allows "journalists" to ignore the chore of examining the underlying facts.

Morgan calls Brad a Democrat, even though he isn't a member of the party. She is the second newsperson in recent times to make that mistake. Morgan also writes:

Now some Internet Web sites that traffic in conspiracy theories have fashioned something of a political thriller out of a series of apparently unrelated events they say prove the elections really were stolen.

To which Brad responds (in part):

Never mind also that we've never said that anything "proves the elections really were stolen" on this blog.

What's weird here is that Morgan, in attacking Brad Friedman, insists on saying things that apply more readily to, well, the scurvy likes of me. I am a partisan, and I do think the 2004 vote was stolen.

But my only real connection to the Curtis story has been to remind readers on a regular basis of the fine work Brad has done. So it's not as though I have somehow given the tale "cooties."