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Another Anti-Trump Story Retracted
There’s a long list of anti-Trump stories which have fallen apart. Examples are the Russian collusion, Charlottesville, the Ukraine conversation, slandering wounded troops, etc. Now the “subverting Georgia’s election” fable has been retracted by the Washington Post. It’s almost as if they don’t care what’s the truth. A retraction two months later is close to worthless.
Published in Politics
They were confused because of never having an example of someone on THEIR side following the Constitution.
Fired for incompetence, if nothing else: does NOBODY know that putting something in the “trash” doesn’t really delete it?
Even when “the damage is done?”
I think we can expect at least some of them to parrot Dan Rather: “False, but accurate.”
Reminds me of something I heard years ago on NPR: Fiction in support of a higher truth.
After they point out that the big story is Republicans “seizing” on this issue to further their nefarious goals.
And “pouncing.” Don’t forget “pouncing.”
Never Trumpers! Come out to Play!
It’s worthless to be sure, but why would they retract it in the first place? The MSM doesn’t care about lying, so what do they gain by admitting they made a mistake? There’s an old expression, “Follow the money.” Perhaps we need a corollary that says, “Follow the political power” . . .
I would love a series of mea culpas, but did you ever notice that the chattering class doesn’t do that? They can spread a lie for weeks, and when it’s revealed to be false, just move on to the next topic as if nothing happened? And yes, I include several of our Ricochet-hosted podcasts in that.
As mentioned above, cover for any libel suit.
When the WSJ reported on this five days ago (“Trump Call to Georgia Lead Investigator Reveals New Details: Then-president says ‘Something bad happened’ and presses for investigation into Fulton County votes.”) it did not issue a retraction over previous reporting. Instead it evaded the issue and spun it to be damning against Trump. It also gave a link to a recording of the phone call, but from the comments it isn’t clear that anybody listened to it.
I’m pretty sure the link is behind a paywall, but I can send a working link via e-mail to anyone who is interested.
I could leave a comment asking if they’re planning to do a retraction on previous reporting, but the four days for comments have expired. (I take the four-day limit to indicate the shelf life of anything they report.)
That should also mean, then, that anything they don’t correct within 4 days, stands. Including for purposes of lawsuits.
Has anyone threatened? They could still sue . . .
I sure don’t see how “Oops, my bad” this long after so much damage was already done, could clear one of libel etc.
Didn’t the Warren Court make it almost impossible for a public figure to successfully sue a newspaper, no matter what it printed?
Nick Sandmann got a couple of out-of-court settlements only because he was not a public figure when he was libeled.
Are newspapers immune even if they knowingly print lies for political reasons? I hope not.
They use the “oops”defense: they claim they thought the lies were true.
Hard to disprove.
Weren’t there internal memos “leaked” showing otherwise?
Memos that say “Yep, we were lying”? Seems unlikely.
Probably the best you can go for is “reckless disregard for the truth”.
You know who knew immediately that the story of the phone call was fake? Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. You know who never said anything in defense of the President? Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
You know who should be booted from the Republican Party if not immediately removed from his position?
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
A good title for a book about the Trump Presidency is Cowards and Traitors: From Jeff Sessions to Brad Raffensperger.