For those not familiar with the details, here is what happened: Sean Hannity, in his role as mouthpiece for the McCain, or more precisely the Palin campaign, presented a documentary on Fox outlining Barack Obama's dangerous associations with "domestic terrorist" Bill Ayers. Yeah, yeah, I know, anybody that's likely to listen to Hannity is already for McCain so what's the big deal? The big deal is that the featured "expert" on Hannity's show was Andy Martin, also known as Andy Martin-Trigona. Martin is a well known anti-semitic crackpot in Florida (see Jason Linkin's piece on HuffPo from Oct. 6). We've come to expect this kind of thing from Hannity and Fox, but what the hell is with the New York Times?
This morning an article entitled "Obama Personal Ties Are Subject of Program on Fox News Channel" by Jim Rutenberg appeared in the Times. In the first sixteen paragraphs of the article, we learn that Martin is:
"...a conservative writer and frequent political candidate who is credited as being among the first -- if not the first -- to assert in a chain e-mail message that Mr. Obama was secretly a Muslim."
The Times then adds:
Mr. Obama is a Christian; his campaign says he "is not, was not and has never been" a Muslim.
Notice that the Times takes no position. Martin says Obama is secretly a Muslim. The Obama campaign "says" that he isn't. Then we are told that Martin:
...was careful not to present his theories about Mr. Obama as proven fact.
"That is my opinion -- expert opinion -- if you will," Mr. Martin said of his commentary on Mr. Hannity's program. "I don't pretend to be an exclusively fact-based reporter, though I try as hard as I can to get the facts."
These reassurances of Mr. Martin's "fairness" are accompanied by this "balance" to charges against Mr. Hannity:
It (the program) comes as one of Fox News's rivals, MSNBC, becomes increasingly liberal, with hosts like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann advocating against Senator John McCain.
It isn't until the sixteenth, and second to last, paragraph of the article that we are told:
Mr. Martin came under strong attack from liberals on Monday. Many noted that the Republican Party of Florida decided against backing his bid for the State Senate in 1996 after receiving documents from his Congressional race 10 years earlier in Connecticut listing the purpose of one of his political committees as "to exterminate Jew power in America and to impeach the judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York City."
Wow, talk about burying the lead. Sixteen paragraphs in we get the first mention of Andy Martin's avowed anti-Semitism. But then, with the final word, the Times offers yet more balance:
Mr. Martin had previously said the documents were forged, and again denied their authenticity on Monday. He also denied harboring anti-Semitic sentiment, saying "it's peripheral, it draws you away from the issue."
Wait a minute, did he deny his anti-Semitic sentiments or did he say they were "peripheral"?
In any event, the Times seems to be suggesting that there was one statement on ten year old "documents" that may have been forged linking Andy Martin to anti-semitism, when there is a long, documented history of it including court documents (see here).
Now the New York Times may be too genteel to state unequivocally that the main source for a major network documentary on "Obama Personal Ties" is a virulent anti-semite, but the Florida Sun-Sentinel, where they presumably know him better, had no qualms.
So, what's the upshot? Sarah Palin is now claiming that her charges that Barack Obama "pals around with terrorists" are merely comment on the "news of the day" as featured in.... The NY Times. Does this remind anyone of Dick Cheney citing his planted information in Judith Miller's NYT reporting to support his lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Fool us once, shame on you New York Times. Fool us twice, shame on you again.