It's been nearly 24 hours since I informed Ellis Washington by email that his most recent Worldnetdaily column contains a fake quote from President Obama. Still no acknowledgment or correction posted.
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Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)
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Ellis Washington: Still No Correction
Posted on: July 28, 2010 12:45 PM, by Ed Brayton
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He needs more than 24 hours to finagle some ridiculously semantic excuse about how he's still right. Give him time and I'm sure we'll get a hilarious response, maybe even better than that Sherrod article written by Jeffrey Lord that you just posted. I can't wait to see this.
Posted by: catgirl | July 28, 2010 12:51 PM
This reflects not only on the journalist, but also on the outlet. Of course, in this case, the outlet is one whose reputation for adhering to fact couldn't get worse, even were its top story tomorrow "Sun rises in west!"
Posted by: Russell | July 28, 2010 1:23 PM
Since when did facts, corrections, or acknowledgements matter to that group?
Posted by: senor | July 28, 2010 1:26 PM
Why tell the truth when you can make something up?
Posted by: Paen | July 28, 2010 1:48 PM
Here's my prediction for Ellis Washington's (non)apology:
While the Obama quote was not literally true, it's understandable why people would regard it as a faithful verbatim report: It is such an accurate depiction of the president's evident attitude and so consonant with his extremist policies.
I hope Ellis Washington appreciates my efforts on his behalf, but I doubt he needs any help turning a simple lie into a convenient truthiness.
Posted by: Zeno | July 28, 2010 2:06 PM
I hope you're not holding your breath for a correction. The first rule of Worldnutdaily is that if the facts don't conform to the talking points, then the facts simply don't exist and can be ignored.
Posted by: greatbear | July 28, 2010 2:42 PM
Sourced by Snopes
http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/ownwords.asp
Posted by: googlesnopes | July 28, 2010 2:42 PM
"When you write for a fake newspaper you can use fake quotes." - Ellis Washington
Posted by: Rob Jase | July 28, 2010 3:47 PM
Oh, come on! Just because Obama didn't say those things there doesn't mean he didn't say those things ever, and just because some were taken out of so-called "context" doesn't mean that Obama didn't say them someplace else where the context was what Ellis sai... There's blood coming out of my ears.
Posted by: Modusoperandi | July 28, 2010 6:17 PM
Zeno @ 5 predicts a Washington response something like the below where he predicts Washington will avoid taking responsibility for misrepresenting the President and changing his behavior because of such misrepresentations:
This reminds me of the rhetoric deployed by David Barton after he was caught quote-mining the founding framers while attempting to justify his continuing to misrepresent their writings and positions.
Posted by: Michael Heath | July 28, 2010 7:20 PM
Awesome. Washington is like reading Conservative Fever Nightmares Digest.
With logic like that, who needs reason?
Like most other people who would describe themselves as Progressives, I have been anxiously awaiting the black marxo-fascist feminist messiah (since the 1880s!) to come so we can finally pervert the country with leftist hate until every american is an anti-american.
And like all people who passionately hate america, there's nothing we want more than to be President of the United States of America.
Sadly, only the most passionate and deeply committed anti-Americans are willing to take the effort to try and become President of the United States of America. Thankfully, our "mandates" will soon be fulfilled! Game Over man, cause we have a President (of the United States of America) who passionately hates America (the America of the United States of America).
You've had 130 year to thwart us, doo-gooder conservatives! Now it all comes to fruition!
Posted by: debaser | July 28, 2010 7:31 PM
You'll be glad to know Ellis Washington just came out with a statement:
"I was completely mistaken in attributing that quote to President Obama. In fact, now that I think of it, my entire political philosophy is hateful and bizarre. I don't know how I live with myself."
Actually, I not completely sure he said this - but he might have.
Posted by: Taz | July 28, 2010 8:51 PM
Come on now. Washington does all his reading on the toilet and, barring a major Taco Bell pig out, he just doesn't spend enough time on the pot to check his sources in 24 hours. Odds are he doesn't clear his e-mail every 24 hours without the help of a chicken enchilada or two.
My bet is Washington going to go the 'stay quiet and hope it blows over' route. It is the lazy man's way out.
An interesting alternative would be the 'Christian discernment' route as an excuse to explain away why he knows this quote is accurate, and you don't. It is a marvelous excuse. You see Christian discernment allows faithful Christians to see, feel, understand things things others can't. Anyone who doesn't agree is obviously lacking faith and God's favor.
Of course the right wing has lied to us, and itself, for so long in pursuit of momentary political advantage that dissembling has become their reality. For them there is no non-political reality. There is no capital-T truth.
Argument and assertion no longer have any value as representations or explorations of reality. Words have no set meaning. Arguments are not made in good faith. Words and arguments are just means to an end. The end being to induce a set of feelings in the citizenry that will induce them to do what their betters want. Primarily the effort is to maintain or increase wealth and power.
Posted by: Art | July 29, 2010 1:02 AM
Correction is for namby-pamby milquetoast liberals!
(heavy sarcasm here)
Posted by: jws | July 29, 2010 7:32 AM
So, recall, the quote is a first-person-ization of a quote from an AmCon article critical of Obama. If Ellis Washington thinks that is fair game, I have a suggestion. But first:
Ellis Washington loves to rape goats.
There! Now, Ed, your next post can lead off with the following:
Posted by: James Sweet | July 29, 2010 12:34 PM