THE hot story of the day — the Daily Caller expose of Journolist’s role in burying the Jeremiah Wright story:
Let’s put this in its proper perspective.
Ackerman wasn’t talking about a strategy to expose real racists, in the media or anywhere else.
The Washington Independent reporter wanted to conduct a campaign against any figure on the Right, including journalists like Fred Barnes, to smear him as a racist for the political purposes of electing a Democrat to the White House.
Notice that Ackerman doesn’t even bother to ask people to look for actual evidence of racism, but just suggests to pick a conservative name out of a hat.
Tellingly, the pushback from members of Journolist had less to do with the outrageous idea of smearing an innocent person of racism to frighten people away from the story than with whether it would work. Mark Schmitt, now at American Prospect, warned that it “wouldn’t further the argument” for Obama, and Kevin Drum objected because playing racial politics would “probably hurt the Obama brand pretty strongly.”
It certainly puts efforts by the Left to paint the Tea Party as racist in an entirely new light.
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PS: dear Veteran Journalist at A Large Canadian Newspaper(tm) — I’m still waiting for you to contact me for comment (as opposed to a bunch of my associates, who’ve all punked you) about that big scary story you’re doing about how horrible I am.
It’s been a few months now. Tick, tick, tick.
