Not that this will come as any great surprise, but the folks at the Hillary Clinton front organization Think Progress are at it again bashing conservatives by employing the disgraceful art of cherry-picking.
For those unfamiliar with the term, this is when you take a sentence or two out of a report or article divining a meaning or intent clearly different than that the author or speaker was quite obviously conveying.
In this case, the target of TP's disaffection was me. More deliciously, research associate Matt Corley chose not only to cite just fifteen words out of a 41-word sentence inside of a 2500-word article of mine, but also totally ignored the relevant subsequent question posed in the piece in order to present to his readers a completely different conclusion than that offered by moi.
Of course, this is what TP and the other Clinton front organization Media Matters for America do all the time. This is just today's example of deceit and chicanery the couple from Arkansas and all associated with them are infamous for:
The right wing blog Newsbusters, which is a project of the Media Research Center, came to [conservative radio host Mike] Savage's defense yesterday, calling [liberal television host Keith] Olbermann's criticism a "hysterical utterance." "He also had the unmitigated audacity to criticize conservative radio host Michael Savage," wrote Newsbusters' Noel Sheppard.
While Newsbusters has every right to disagree with and criticize Olbermann, it is laughable to suggest that someone needs "unmitigated audacity" to criticize Michael Savage.
So, Matt, why didn't you share with your readers the entire sentence in question, as well as the one immediately subsequent? Might that have blown your obviously specious premise out of the water? That would have been inconvenient, wouldn't it?
Well, let me do what you have been taught by your employers - clearly interested in bashing conservatives regardless of veracity or integrity - not to, and that is share with the reader the entire quote and its context:
Wonderfully, referring to himself as a journalist wasn't the only hysterical utterance from Olbermann during this interview, as he also had the unmitigated audacity to criticize conservative radio host Michael Savage for "basically just spattering invective on people he didn't like."
Hey, Keith, have you ever actually watched your program or read a transcript?
The point this shill either intellectually missed or disingenuously hid was the exquisite irony inherent in Olbermann criticizing someone for "basically just spattering invective on people he [doesn't] like" when this is exactly what this liberal commentator does five nights a week.
You missed this, didn't you Matt? Or, did you just try to keep it from your readers so that you could totally misrepresent what was written in this piece?
Maybe even more entertaining was how Corley chose only to address my Savage reference -- which was actually a minor component of the article -- and totally avoided taking issue with the larger points concerning what a joke it is for Keith Olbermann to consider what he does each night as "really journalism," and that he lied about a statement he made to Chris Matthews on May 1, 2003.
I guess Corley was ceding these points, which though adding to my pleasure certainly won't be happily greeted by Olbermann who is so intricately linked to TP and MMA that his scripts often read like their blog posts.
Regardless, we once again have on display the modus operandi of this Clinton front group, and their Machiavellian approach to new media reportage.
On a positive note, from a purely political, non-journalistic standpoint, the reader should be heartened by this revelation. As I wrote back in November about such shills working for the former president and his wife:
Honestly, folks, if this is representative of the financial acumen and the intellectual honesty of the operatives under the employ of the Clinton campaign, Republicans around the country should sleep much better tonight.
Given the shambles that is the state of Hillary's campaign at the moment, these words appear awfully prescient, wouldn't you agree?
Keep up the bad work, TP. With folks like you shilling for the Clintons, as well as charlatans like Keith Olbermann, conservatives have absolutely nothing to fear.
