The Politico Shanks Fred Thompson for the Third Time in a Month

What in the world did Fred Thompson do to tick off the folks at The Politico?

First, they published an bogus report about Fred’s visit to an Iowa fire house and his interview with a local newspaper (a report which, by the way, they still have not corrected). Then, they tossed out this little unfounded rumor wearing its best News Story suit about how Fred was going to drop out of the race.

Now, Brian Adler has stuck a shiv into Thompson. His report today is headlined “Resignation greets Thompson’s third place”. Like with the Simon fabrication, though, there’s a video of the event. It’s six minutes long. Watch it, then tell me if there’s even the faintest hint of resignation there. I’m not seeing the downtrodden masses of supporters that Adler wrote about. What I saw was a pretty lively group of people who, even after a very long day, were ready to cheer pretty enthusiastically several times during Thompson’s speech.

It’s bad enough that he got that wrong. Worse, he misquoted Thompson Here’s what the article says he said:

Thompson implied he might soon drop out of the race, saying, “We’ll have to look at our finance numbers.”

That quote happens at the 2:24 mark in the video. What he really said was this:

“We’ll have to look at the final numbers and we’ll have to look at everybody’s situation and all of that…but it looks like somebody’s gonna need to carry a strong consistent conservative message and it looks like it oughta be me”.

Final. Not Finance. That word was clear as a bell (though it’s tough to hear if he said “everybody’s” or “our money”, though if you listen hard, it’s definitely the former). It’s possible that Adler misheard the line, but I’m not quite sure how he did. The guy with the video camera sure seemed to catch it clearly, even with the crowd noise and his not exactly being on the front row.

What’s that old saying, “Fool me once; shame on you. Fool me twice; shame on me. Fool me three times; now you’re trying to play me for an idiot”? This is the third strike for The Politico. Again, a Politico reporter has gotten a story that happened right in front of him completely wrong. That’s either gross incompetence or willing deception.

But don’t take my word for it. Read the article, then compare it to the video.

Who are you going to believe? The Politico or your lying eyes?

No related posts.

Category: Oh, THAT liberal media., The 2008 Horse Race