Posted by AWR Hawkins Aug 16th 2011 at 4:58 am in Featured Story, Mainstream Media, New York Times, media bias On Monday the New York Times ran what can only be described as a hit piece against Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA). Written by Eric Lichtblau, the ostensive goal of the column was to demonstrate how Issa has supposedly used his position in congress to enrich himself, but my guess is that the real goal of the piece was to malign Issa’s character, thereby undercutting the momentum his investigation of “Fast and Furious” has gained.
Why would I think this? A better question is why wouldn’t I? The piece is so full of distortions, exaggerations, and outright lies that there’s really nothing other than character assassination that justifies it.
For example, the piece opens by describing Issa’s home office on “the third floor of a gleaming office building overlooking a golf course in the rugged foothills north of San Diego.” The problem with this is that Issa’s office isn’t in that location. Rather, the office is located at 1800 Thibodo Road, in a building that does not overlook a golf course.
The piece also states that the Issa Family Foundation made “$357,000 on an initial investment of less than $19,000” when the truth is the foundation “took a loss of $125,000” on what was actually an initial investment of $500,000.
Lichtblau was so desperate to score a goal here that he actually argued that the Kennedys exemplified the idea of not seeking one’s own enrichment while in office. (I know that’s always the impression I got when I read a story about America’s Camelot or saw a picture of the expansive Kennedy compound.)
Honestly folks, the last time I found this many fabrications in one place I was reading John Kerry’s attempted rebuttal of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
To be clear, I’m not trying to say the Obama administration put in a call to the Times asking them to do what they could to get Issa off the scent. But for reasons that maybe only Lichtblau and the Times know, I wholeheartedly believe this piece was meant to somehow slow down the good work Issa is doing in uncovering the tangled web of Fast and Furious. (And as more and more of the evidence associated with
Fast and Furious seems to link it to the White House, there is more and more need for outlets like the Times to run interference if Obama is to stay above the fray.)
Call me crazy, but my theory is that because Issa’s chasing Fast and Furious, the Times has deployed a smoke screen to stall his progress.
Big Journalism
