Brad Friedman Byon 2/11/2010, 4:12pm PT

[NOW UPDATED: Patty strikes back! Swings and misses again.]

Oh, noes! Rightwing blogger "Patterico", one of the only ones silly enough to throw in with GOP propagandist Andrew Breitbart to defend his employee, accused federal felon James O'Keefe, sez I'm "Liberal"! And a "stooge"!

Ouch! Thems good bloggery, Patty! U shure skooled me! 'Cept for the part where you hit publish before bothering to check your facts 'n' stuff...

Patty had his panties in a crunchy wad last night because, as he foolishly seems to be charging, the New York Times never said O'Keefe "dressed" as a pimp inside those ACORN offices in his infamous, highly-edited hit videos --- only that he "posed" as one.

"Did you know that you can 'pose' as a pimp without dressing like one?," Patty uses as the opening line for his pre-discredited article. Therefore, no correction is necessary for the "paper of record's" repeated misreporting, or even for their Senior Editor of Standards, Greg Brock, who not only stood behind their reportage that O'Keefe was dressed as a pimp in those offices, but, as detailed in the emails we published in full at the above link, claimed he knew it to be a fact, based not only on the say-so of O'Keefe and Fox "News", but also on the evidence seen in a mysterious, unreleased video as well as interviews with ACORN employees.

Unfortunately, Brock failed to produce the video he claims exists, or even the interviews with ACORN employees he claims exists, even though ACORN themselves has now told The BRAD BLOG they believe no such interviews actually exist and have requested a meeting with the Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt to discuss the entire shameful turn of events as documented by those sorry emails.

But the "posed" versus "dressed" silliness gets still worse for Patterico who tries, in his ill-considered zeal to stand by the accused federal felon O'Keefe and fellow con-artist Breitbart, to attack not just me, but also Marcy Wheeler at emptywheel and Eric Boehlert at Media Matters, both of whom previously covered my reports on this disturbing matter.

Perhaps Patty thought he was dealing with Fox "News" "Democrats" or something? Because both Wheeler and Boehlert --- my "oafish sidekicks" and "pathetic hacks", as he describes them --- eviscerate po' po' Patty in reply today, essentially destroying every silly case Patty was self-righteously and ham-fistedly trying to make.

For example, Wheeler points out how Patterico actually helps make the case that the Times owes readers a correction, and Boehlert points out that not only did the Times clearly "suggest", inaccurately, that O'Keefe dressed as a pimp in those offices (as Patty critiques me for reporting) but they actually reported as much quite directly.

I'll point you over to both Wheeler's and Boehlert's responses to the silly boy, so they can reap the full rewards for shaming him, rather than post the quotes from the Times, etc. here. You'll enjoy both responses, featuring stuff like this from Boehlert:

New York Times claiming O'Keefe was dressed as a pimp visiting ACORN offices? K. Ready for the embarrassing part where I quote theclaiming O'Keefe was Behold: They visited Acorn offices in Baltimore, Washington, Brooklyn and San Bernardino, Calif. ... Mr. O'Keefe, 25, a filmmaker and conservative activist, was dressed so outlandishly that he might have been playing in a risque high school play.

That, of course, in contrast to what we've now reported over and over and over, and as former MA Attorney General Scott Harshbarger wrote in his December 7th report [PDF] --- which was ignored by the New York Times in misreports on their pages at least eight times since it's release:

Although Mr. O'Keefe appeared in all videos dressed as a pimp, in fact, when he appeared at each and every office, he was dressed like a college student - in slacks and a button down shirt.

That is just one point, though a major one, in the knowing deceipt behind the entire O'Keefe/Breitbart ACORN video scam which underscores their utter disdain for the truth, for the basic tenets of real journalism, and for their lack of credibility in their dishonest, phonied-up assault on ACORN. As importantly, it raises serious questions about the credibility of their claims concerning the recent federal felony arrest of Breitbart's employee, James "TeaBugger" O'Keefe, along with three other Republican activists (one of them the son of the acting US Attorney) for allegingly trying to "maliciously interfere" with the phone system of Louisiana's Democratic U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu.

Credibility lost. Just like Patty's. But at least he isn't facing the possibility of ten years in jail, so the reasons for his foolishness are far less clear.

Also, since Patty is apparently too much of a propagandist, like his heroes Breitbart and O'Keefe, to actual do the right thing, such as issue a correction, retraction and/or or apology, or even link to Wheeler and Boehlert's eviscerating rebuttals, you'll have to let his exceptionally angry readers know about them yourselves, I guess.

Silly Patterico. Not only is he seemingly incapable of merely challenging someone's reporting by saying he believes it to be incorrect and publishing his arguments in support, he must also hurl all sorts of names and whiffed attempts at insults to backfire along with it. Presumably doing so makes his ill-conceived, ill-researched arguments stronger or something? It's all the more embarrassing, of course, because, setting aside his silly (and inaccurate) name calling, the arguments used to challenge my reporting are not just obtuse and probably disingenuous, they also happen to be flat out wrong.

Hopefully he'll clear all that up for his readers shortly, by issuing the appropriate apologies, retractions and/or corrections. Right after hell freezes over.

UPDATE 2/12/10: Crash and burn. Rather than simply do the right thing by retracting and apologizing, Patty has instead decided to double down, twice, in hopes of burying his monumental failure. If there was any evidence that he had any shame, I'd call it shameful, but instead, it's just shameless. So, in his response to having made a complete jackass of himself, he has now posted two articles trying to extricate himself in hopes of justifying his massive fail.

In his first attempt, rather than admit his errors, he's essentially chose to suggest that Wheeler, Boehlert and I support child prostitution. No, really, that's about all he's got left.

In his second, even more convoluted attempt at trying to un-embarrass himself, he sorta kinda almost reveals the glimmer of manhood to admit he got his story completely wrong, but it doesn't really matter because Wheeler, Boehlert and Friedman love child prostitution --- or whatever ridiculous claim this Deputy D.A. (no, seriously, that's actually what he is!) is on about. However, he is seemingly unable to even post that story on his front page. To find it, you have to notice a link to it over in his "Recents Comments" thing in the sidebar. So if you'd like to read it, and enjoy a chuckle, you'd have to know where it is. Which is right here.

All of that in lieu of simply posting an update, retraction, correction and apology on the original story. But that would take a grown up and/or a responsible blogger.

If he was a serious person, with serious critiques of our reporting, I'd be happy to respond to each and every one of then, of course (though, really, he wouldn't come out looking any better if I did, so he should thank me at this point). As I told him via Twitter, I'm also happy (unlike him, apparently) to transparently correct any errors in my reporting. Unfortunately, he hasn't demonstrated any, even though he (did I mention he's a Deputy D.A.?!) likes to use the word "lie" and "proof" a lot. It seems this Deputy D.A. --- who seemed like a decent person when I had him, in studio, as my guest on a radio show in '08 --- is unfamiliar with the actual definition of either of those words, disturbingly enough.

In the meantime, while Patty enjoys pretending that he's a crusader against prostitution and/or government waste, and while he's posted almost a hundred stories on the menace to America that is ACORN (who has never been accused of running a prostitution ring, much less a child prostitution ring, but has received millions of dollars from the federal government over the last several decades to help poor people buy a house and vote), for some reason, Patty hasn't seen fit to run a single story on the actual allegations --- two different ones, from two different sets of employees, filed in two different federal courts --- of actual prostitution and child prostitution rings run by and/or operated by Blackwater with tax-payer money, even though the company continues to receive billions of dollars from the federal government since 2001 alone.

Kinda makes Patty's protestations and savior complex ring a li'l thin, doncha think?

And it's made all the more absurd when he tries to suggest my priorities are somehow out of whack, because (I guess) I've actually called out the NYTimes, with hard evidence, for flagrant and repeated misreporting on the O'Keefe/ACORN story; deferring to Fox "News'" Steve Doocy and an accused Felon's claims about himself as evidence for why they stand by it; and then appearing to lie about it all when called on all of the above.

Can you imagine the stroke that wingnuts like Patterico, Breitbart and O'Keefe would have if a Sr. Editor for Standards at the NYTimes backed up their obvious and repeated misreporting by claiming "MSNBC and Nancy Pelosi said so on live TV. We believe her", as the NYTimes' Greg Brock did in those emails we posted exclusively earlier this week?!

But this repeated error by the "Liberal" NYTimes works in their favor, so Patterico is foolish enough to defend their coverage (which even Breitbart isn't dumb enough to do), getting his facts completely wrong in the bargain, defending an accused felon who lied to sell his story, and then hiding behind a phony quest to save the world from a non-existent child prostitution ring and government waste when a great deal of evidence exists that both are actually going on under his nose, and neither he nor Breitbart have said a word about it.

All of which makes Patty's quote from his not-hidden reply to me, Boehlert and Wheeler, all the more amusing:

[T]hese three are HACKS. They don’t care about truth, and they don’t care about the law. They care about advancing their liberal agenda, and they are willing to distort any fact and destroy any reputation they think they need to in order to achieve their goals.

Keep swinging, Patty. You'll hit the ball one of these days.

UPDATE 2/17/10: "Breitbart Lied About ACORN 'Pimp' Videos When Selling Story in His Own Washington Times Column". Full details...

UPDATE 2/19/10: Giles Admits O'Keefe, Breitbart ACORN 'Pimp' Story was a Lie: 'It Was B-Roll, Purely B-Roll'. Woman who posed as prostitute confirms repeated misreporting by NYTimes, many others. Full details...

UPDATE 2/21/10: "In CPAC Meltdown, Breitbart Forced to 'Apologize' for 'Apparently' Lying About ACORN 'Pimp' Story". Full details...

UPDATE 2/23/10: "Exclusive: NYTimes Public Editor Declines to Recommend Retraction for Multiple Erroneous Reports on False ACORN 'Pimp' Story" Full story, Hoyt's emails...

UPDATE 2/24/10: Hoyt responds to our on his emails and accuses The BRAD BLOG of having a "political agenda" on par with O'Keefe and Breitbart. Also, blogosphere issues blistering response, petition, call for Hoyt to step down. Full details, Hoyt's email response, right here...

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