Journolist: The Consequences


Who didn’t figure the Journolist members colluded on stories, hid information they didn’t want to come to light and generally worked together to serve the liberal greater good? No one. We all figured it was happening. To see the obvious evidence, though, is pretty damning.

Question: Will the esteemed journalists on the list report on the Journolist?

Of course, by avoiding the story, they prove the point. They’re counting on the fact that the majority of Americans will never see the story if they don’t report it.

What story? Just that the Journolist could see how the Jeremiah Wright story would hurt President Obama so they deep sixed it. The Daily Caller breaks the story:

“Part of me doesn’t like this shit either,” agreed Spencer Ackerman, then of the Washington Independent. “But what I like less is being governed by racists and warmongers and criminals.”

Ackerman went on:

I do not endorse a Popular Front, nor do I think you need to. It’s not necessary to jump to Wright-qua-Wright’s defense. What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically.

And I think this threads the needle. If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us. Instead, take one of them – Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares – and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes *them* sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction.

Ackerman did allow there were some Republicans who weren’t racists. “We’ll know who doesn’t deserve this treatment – Ross Douthat, for instance – but the others need to get it.” He also said he had begun to implement his plan. “I previewed it a bit on my blog last week after Commentary wildly distorted a comment Joe Cirincione made to make him appear like (what else) an antisemite. So I said: why is it that so many on the right have such a problem with the first viable prospective African-American president.

So, they overtly and explicitly decide to call an innocent racist to push forth their liberal agenda.

Remember, these are the same folks who will talk about journalistic ethics, fact checking and the biggest lie of all, objectivity.

Andrew Breitbart, who offered $100,000 to the Journolist member willing to give him the archives says today in the Daily Caller:

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.

No journalistic steadfast rule is unbendable when it comes to justifying and protecting the racket that is modern journalism, specifically, political journalism in the United States today. The ends justify the means for the Democrat Media Complex. They lie when they claim to be objective. They lie when they claim to be unbiased, because these so called “truth seekers” are guilty of engaging in open political warfare. And when the whistle is blown, they simply double down. “Journolist” – like Media Matters, but more insidious, if that’s possible – is an attempt to put the genie back in the bottle.

Who knows what other stories the press worked together on to either amplify or minimize depending on whether it hurt the leftist cause. I suspect these stories will continue to drip out drop, drop, drop, wearing away the teensy bit of credibility these people still had.

Ben Domenech notes who is exempted from Leftist wrath:

With the caveat that I don’t know Douthat personally – Jonathan Last thoroughly eviscerated his position on Journolist – this is just an incredible smear. Fred Barnes is a devout Christian and a gentleman, a respected writer who has never given any indication of racist views. The fact that Ackerman would recommend this wrathful and baseless attack isn’t surprising. But it does say something about membership in the menagerie of tame conservatives that where Barnes is maligned by the Left, Douthat is exempted.

I would just note that the left only likes those they’ve co-opted. I respect Douthat’s writing but his moderation is their brand of conservatism, which I would say is toothless conservatism. If Douthat harmed the leftist agenda, he’d be maligned.

Ace says:

And that was the media’s actual attitude, wasn’t it? They mentioned it begrudgingly, but then sought to penalize those asking questions as racists, or suspiciously unwilling to let go of old racial grievances, didn’t they?

The defense will be made, and it’s true to some extent, that the people engaging in these racist strategy sessions are mainly out-and-proud lefties, and so this doesn’t say anything about the broader MFM.

But it does — because the broader MFM may not have been commenting — too careful to weigh in like that and leave tracks — but their representatives were reading. And they seemed to be of like minds.

The participants in the slash and burn campaign to obfuscate the truth of Jeremiah Wright should be ashamed. That’s assuming they have the integrity, ethics and moral compass to even know to be ashamed. That seems unlikely. Oliver Willis, a blogger for Huffington Post tweeted today:

@owillis: u should see the devastation at mm hq today after the breitbartocalypse. we’ll need a star studded telethon.

Beyond shame. They’ve given up any notion of even truth.

So, these guys need to be outed. A Journolist made and given to the public so that people can filter accordingly.

This would all go away if the pretense of objectivity were let go. Just let it go, mainstream media members. You’re liberal. You’re biased. Declare it. At the top of every article, put an asterisk and say who you voted for and how much you donated.

Spare us the sham. It’s over anyway.

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