The meme is changing -- according to Democratic insiders! -- from one of doomed Harry Reid to Harry Reid the survivor:
There’s no denying that Reid still trails in most polls and that his approval ratings back home are in the tank. But with Angle’s shaky campaign launch, Democrats are now talking more about Reid’s post-November power and less about his inevitable demise.See how it works. Rasmussen just releases a poll showing Sharron Angle with a double-digit lead, and the Democratic spinmeisters portray Reid as lucky to have her. It's the narrative, stupid.
Nowhere is the spinning taking place more viciously than in the pixels of The Washington Post's new star blogger, Greg Sargent. Sargent's hit pieces get picked up by others, including campaign operatives, and take on a life of their own because he has The Washington Post name behind him.
Sargent is setting himself up as the point man for attacking Sharron Angle by distorting Angle's statements to paint her as a potentially violent extremist.
I documented a few days ago how Sargent conveniently cut off a quote from Angle to make it seem as if Angle wanted further deregulation of oil drilling in light of the Gulf spill. In fact, the sentences Sargent cut out made it clear that Angle was talking about businesses which had taken jobs overseas. But no mind, Sargent got the headline he wanted which was regurgitated throughout the left-wing blogosphere.
In that same post, Sargent stated that Angle was in favor of outlawing alcohol, even though the statement he cited said no such thing and her campaign already had issued a statement denying the accusation.
Now Sargent is at it again, claiming that Angle "floated the possibility" (Sargent's words) of an "armed insurrection." The term used by Sargent in his post title and text clearly implies that Angle was in favor of armed insurrection.
But the quote cited by Sargent (listen to the audio yourself) says no such thing. Angle states that the first step towards taking back the country is to get rid of Harry Reid (against whom she is running) and never suggests that anyone should take up arms.
What Sargent fails to note is what the Las Vegas Review-Journal did note:
Asked to comment on the issue, Angle spokesman Jerry Stacy said via email: "Sharron Angle does not advocate a revolution. Her goal is to go to Washington with other like-minded elected officials who understand the proper role of the federal government as already defined by our Constitution."Sargent is doing what many bloggers do. But now that Sargent has The Washington Post name attached to his posts, it takes it to a whole new level.
Sargent is embarrassing The Washington Post by turning its blog into nothing more than a political campaign website, going far beyond the usual political opinion columnists. Sargent may be targeting Angle, but he is hitting WaPo.
Why doesn't WaPo just sub-contract out to Media Matters or Think Progress?
The early attacks on Angle have been planned by the Reid campaign, but fortunately, Harry Reid is who Harry Reid is.
And even more fortunately, Sharron Angle has grassroots support, which propelled her to an unexpected victory, as well as the support of independent groups which can afford to match Reid's negative ads:
Note: With this post I start a Greg Sargent tag, since he is leading the charge against Angle.
Update: The National Review met with Angle earlier this week; I recommend its post for a discussion of where she stands on various issues, ‘The Accidental Politician’. (More here.)
Update 6-17-2010 - In a new post Sargent notes the denial by the Angle campaign quoted above.
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You're going to have your hands full with this one. The distortions, ommissions, and misinformation are coming fast and furious.
ReplyDeleteTalking Points Memo put out an article yesterday highlighting how Angle was a member of a "far-right fringe party" during the 1990s, of course noting the similarities with Rand Paul. But what TPM failed to mention, but what the AP did mention in an Angle story yesterday, is that she also spent some time as a registered Democrat while working on a conservative Democrat's campaign (or maybe she was working as a staffer after he won the election, I can't remember).
The point is that at one time she was a registered Democrat (per AP), but they didn't disclose that in the hit piece to portray her as a fringe loon.
Thanks for the post, and for starting the Sargent tag. This guy is as sleazy as they come- people should be skeptical of every column he writes.
ReplyDeleteI've noticed these people never have anything positive to say about their own preferred candidate (granted, a very difficult task in defending Dingy Harry); it's all distortion and mud slinging- and it's worse with people like Sargent because it pretends to be "news". The WaPo had their moment in the sun bringing down George Allen when people were also frustrated with Bush- but their constant distorted hit pieces on Bob McDonell went nowhere because voters were already starting to grow tired of the failed policies of Obama. Too bad for the slime-peddlers at WaPo that they can't spin Reid and Obama into effective, popular leaders.
We'd like to release Brother Harry Reid as Senator from Nevada and propose the he be given a vote of thanks. All in favor please manifest. (Using a bit of Mormon lingo.)
ReplyDeleteI don't know what else you would expect from the queen of maccaca.
ReplyDeleteThe comments to the blog post reveal its fans are the Kos-type angry vituperative types. I always wonder who people like Sargent think they are convincing with their decpetion. Since he knows he is omitting context and contriving his partialquotes to make a false case, he must think that effort will convince someone, but who? The angry trolls who are commenting on that site already have their closed minds made up. All teabaggers are racist, homophobic violent militia types. Or whatever.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that never seems to occur to these people is that deliberately pying about people is not going to convince those you are lying about to follow your line. It will merely confirm to them that you are a liar. Pelosi and Reid calling town hall attendees Nazis last summer, or astroturf, or all the other phony labels they came up with, only convinced those attendees that these people were liars. How could they not see this?
Maybe the thought is simply to vent. Or maybe to keep the angry True Believers fired up, I don't know. But they don't seem to realize they are turning away millions of ordinary American voters who aren't buying their crazed narrative. Good, I say. Keep up the bile. SHpow us who you really are.
You won't get much argument that Plum has abandoned "journalism" and is now flacking for his party, but don't forget the WaPo no longer seems to consider itself a news source so much as an organ of the Democratic Party.
ReplyDeleteThe Washington Post, the newspaper than(sic) mentioned “Macaca” in approximately 100 articles, op-eds, editorials about the 2006 Virginia Senate race between George Allen and Jim Webb, watches the video of Rep. Bob Etheridge, North Carolina Democrat, physically assaulting a questioner and concludes it warrants three paragraphs on page C3, in the Reliable Source gossip column.
http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/204192/i-washington-post-i-watches-bob-etheridge-and-yawns
She said: "if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies..." And, that is indeed "floating the possibility of armed insurrection" as Sargent says.
ReplyDeletePosts like this aren't going to convince very many of his readers not to trust him. If your goal is to discredit him (and not something else), the better idea might be to link pages like this to someone else's tag.
Teapartiers: if this comment is confusing to you, take a look at my site before responding.
@hotsopdotcom - your argument makes sense only because you delete words from her comment "I hope that's not where we're going" which preceded the language you quote. But of course, deleting those words makes the argument misleading and wrong.
ReplyDelete"The war is lost." - Harry Reid (D) Nevada
ReplyDeleteHe defecated on our troops in time of war for partisan political points.