Conspiracy nuts caught - er, in a conspiracy!

It's not often you catch them 'bang to rights' but America's progressive journalists have just been caught in a carefully planned and rehearsed plot, in which they can be seen, figuratively speaking, standing in a circle and pissing on their enemies, possibly to the tune of the Internationale!  To be fair, you would only need half a brain to know that the American MSM is riddled from top to bottom with radical progressives and that most of them would have difficulty spelling the word 'ethics' let alone applying journalistic ethics to the work they are supposed to do, that is, informing the American public in an even-handed way of the news of the day.

As Andrew Breitbart puts it, succinctly:

Journalists love whistleblowers. Just not when the whistle is blown on them.

Journalists love transparency.  As long as they’re not the ones being exposed.

Alas, for them, they have been caught by a whistleblower who told all to The Daily Caller, a new site for me but one I have instantly bookmarked.  They managed to lay hands on e-mails posted to and fro on a private site called 'Journolist' set up by Ezra Klein, a blogger with, where else,  The WaPo.  All the 'Great and the Good' of progressive journalism  joined in order to, er, co-ordinate the party line.  Here are just some of the member of this private little coterie:

• Ezra Klein
• Dave Wiegel
• Jeffrey Toobin
• Eric Alterman
• Paul Krugman
• Joe Klein
• Matthew Yglesias
• Jonathan Chait

During the presidential election, you will remember that Obama took considerable collateral damage from the antics of his preacher-of-choice, Jeremiah Wright.  They were particularly enraged by the fierce questioning Obama came under in a TV interview:

Others went further. According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”

Michael Tomasky, a writer for the Guardian [my emphasis] also tried to rally his fellow members of Journolist: “Listen folks–in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn’t about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people.”

“Richard Kim got this right above: ‘a horrible glimpse of general election press strategy.’ He’s dead on,” Tomasky continued. “We need to throw chairs now, try as hard as we can to get the call next time. Otherwise the questions in October will be exactly like this. This is just a disease.”

(In an interview Monday, Tomasky defended his position, calling the ABC debate an example of shoddy journalism.)

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/20/documents-show-media-plotting-to-kill-stories-about-rev-jeremiah-wright/#ixzz0uEyossUZ

I know that you know what I know, that is, that the MSM is filled with progressives but I would suggest that when they get together in a semi-secret cabal with the aim of re-setting the news agenda on matters as important as a presidential election they have gone well beyond a threshold.  Or, as Breitbart sums it up in the title to his post:

JournoList: …Yes, But the Reporters at Pravda Weren’t Such Insufferable Assholes

Comments

[Dom]

It was obvious that the Media supported Obama on the whole. But I didn't know until now that it was so well-coordinated. It makes me sick, the sheer arrogance of it.

[David Duff]

Yes, I can imagine how you feel, Dom, and I fear your Great Republic is about to be tested - again - but I remain optimistic.

[Danivon]

Breitbart. Isn't he the paragon of journalistic integrity who put out an edited video in an effort to show racism in a government official that turned out to really be from her giving a parable of how wrong racism is?

Looks like there's yellow journalism all around. Just like 1895...

[David Duff]

Hello, 'Danivon', welcome to D&N.

I'm not sure of the exact details of how that edited tape came into Breitbart's hands but it was news and so he published it. What was extraordinary was that the NAACP had the full tape but failed to release it, instead they helped the White House put the boot into the wretched woman. Not that I have a lot of sympathy for her - or her husband:

http://www.ihatethemedia.com/shirley-sherrod-husband-charles-sherrod-racist

Nor would I hold up Breitbart's scoop on the 'Journolist' organisation as "yellow press", just the opposite, he caught the little 'Goebbellers' bang to rights!