Frank Rich is a Big Fat Liar, Part 2

Hollywood loves a sequel, and so does Big Hollywood. My post about Frank Rich and his penchant for repeating left-wing urban legends as fact garnered many comments from both sides of the issue asking for the post to be longer or to add more examples. I admit that calling Rich a “Big Fat Liar” with only one example may have been a bit thin. So here is another quick example, and I’ll keep bringing them if Theatre-boy Frank keeps writing them.

Big Lie: “Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies”

In his October 11th column, Theatre-boy Frank cites, “At McCain-Palin rallies, the raucous and insistent cries of “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!” as well as the uninhibited slinging of racial epithets…”. I’ve included all of his links so you can hunt them down yourself. I find it interesting that his three sources are Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, MSNBC and The Huffington Post. What happened to the paper of record as a source for news? Are you really citing another opinion columnist, a left-wing blog and MSNBC as your news sources?

The great John Leo unmasks the lie behind these statements and then concludes: (by the way, I get the irony of linking to his post at the HuffPo considering I just lambasted Rich for sourcing HuffPo, but it’s John Leo for crying out loud, and I’m not the NY Times!)

By the time the outrage on the left reached Frank Rich’s Sunday column, the narrative line about two-person abusive crowd was set in cement. At Rich’s hand, the one racial remark in Clearwater became “the uninhibited slinging of racial epithets.” The one shout of “Kill Him!” aimed at Ayers after Palin’s description of his bombing career became “raucous and insistent cries of “terrorist’ and “Kill Him!” All untrue. This is a classic example of awful journalism. Adam Clymer, the former New York Times reporter and Congressman John Lewis both issued statements alleging that the Palin crowd in Clearwater reminded them of George Wallace. Lewis, who also accused McCain, pointed out that Wallace never killed anyone; he just set the stage for the Birmingham bomb that killed three black children.

But don’t take his word or mine, the Secret Service investigated the “Kill him” remark and concluded:

The agent in charge of the Secret Service field office in Scranton said allegations that someone yelled “kill him” when presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s name was mentioned during Tuesday’s Sarah Palin rally are unfounded.

See what they did there? It says “when presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s name was mentioned,” but reread Dana Milbank’s description of what happened:

“One of his earliest supporters is a man named Billayers,” she said. (“Boooo!” said the crowd.) “And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,’ ” she continued. (“Boooo!” the crowd repeated.)

“Kill him!” proposed one man in the audience.

Clearly, even if you take the report from Milbank as fact, the “Kill him” remark was directed at William Ayers. But by the time Theatre-boy Frank “reported” it, it was right out of Nazi Germany.

Please take a look at the pattern here. Left-wing blogs misunderstand or, in some cases, purposely misrepresent a comment or event and start to spin a tale that paints Republicans in the standard, racist, bigoted, sexist, fascist, homophobic way. It spins on the web for a week or so, and then Theatre-boy Frank puts it in the paper of record and it becomes mainstream media Gospel.

But, at the heart of it is a half-truth and in some cases a lie. And when a voice as powerful as Frank Rich’s in a paper as influential as the NY Times repeats lefty BS from the Huffington Post, it’s worse than sloppy journalism, it’s a Big Fat Lie.

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