Michael Gaynor
ACORN apologists Martin and Dreier rewrite history, Breitbart notes inadequate Dreier description
By Michael Gaynor
WHAT IS NONSENSE IS THE DESCRIPTION OF THE KILLED "GAME CHANGER" STORY AS ABOUT "ACORN'S ALLEGED VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD"! IT WAS ABOUT AN ILLEGAL ATTEMPT BY ACORN, THE OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN AND THE NEW YORK TIMES TO MAKE OBAMA PRESIDENT BY DECEIVING THE ELECTORATE ABOUT OBAMA, HIS REAL AGENDA AND HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH ACORN.
On November 25, 2009, Editor & Publisher (apparently "America's Oldest Journal Covering the Newpaper Industry) published an article by Christopher R. Martin and Peter Dreier titled "Have the Media 'Falsely Framed' ACORN?" Martin is a professor of journalism and communication studies at the University of Northern Iowa, Dreier is E.P Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and director of the Urban & Environmental Policy Program at Occidental College, and they are co-authors of "Manipulating the Public Agenda: Why ACORN was in the News and What the News Got Wrong" (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004047850).
"Pimp and Pro" ACORN story strategist Andrew Breitbart responded in a BigGovernment.com article dated the same day and titled "Study: Has Editor & Publisher 'Falsely Framed' Peter Dreier as an Objective ACORN Critic?" (http://biggovernment.com/2009/11/25/study-has-editor-publisher-falsely-framed-peter-dreier-as-an-objective-acorn-critic/).
The answer to Breitbart's question of minor importance is "Yes, obviously."
What is much more important (and problematic) than the incomplete description of Dreier at the end of the Nartin/Dreier article is that the Martin/Dreier "study" is rank revisionist history.
Why Breitbart apparently missed that is a mystery. After Heather Heidelbaugh, first vice president of the Republican National Lawyers Associartion and attorney for the Pennsylvania GOP in the Pennsylvania ACORN case hear in October 2008 starring ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief as a voluntary key witness, testified about The New York Times spiking an Obama/ACORN expose on which Ms. MonCrief had been working with New York Times national correspondent Stephanie Strom, Breitbart's Bcast had Ms. Heidelbaugh as a guest to discuss that important matter at some length.
Predictably, E&P just added a few words to the description of Dreier at the end of his article and then Breitbart posted this comment:
"Without acknowledging a mistake, E&P has inserted the following defensive wording into Peter Dreier's bio: 'Dreier has advised ACORN on policy matters but says he has never been paid by the group or any of its affiliates.'
"At no point did I assert Professor Dreier has a pecuniary interest in ACORN. My issue, as to make it more glaringly obvious than it already is, is that Professor Dreier has a political interest in ACORN and has used media criticism as a vessel to make a political attack without pointing out that Dreier and ACORN have simpatico politico goals.
"In attacking Big Government's coverage as politically motivated he seeks to neutralize its impact and throw the MSM off the scent of ACORN's crimes. The MSM didn't actually need it. They've chosen, too, for ideological reasons to ignore the ACORN story. When Clark Hoyt at the NY TIMES admitted the paper was, again, late to the story, it did not result in the NY Times beginning to report on the story.
"I stand by my large point. The mainstream media cannot handle that upstarts are taking on their Achilles' Heel — media bias — and winning. As long as they deny it and continue to dole it out, we will be there to make them look stupid. The warning has been issued now for the umpteenth time."
To be sure, Breitbart's right about "MSM" having "chosen...for ideological reasons to ignore the ACORN story" and the appropriateness of disclosing Dreier's ACORN relationship to E&P readers who otherwise might be thinking for some supposed academic objectivity.
But: (1) the problem with the "MSM" is much worse than "media bias," (2) both the "MSM" and those Breitbart called "upstarts" are politically and personally motivated too, and (3) "media bias" (and worse), political motivation and personal interest have kept the ugly truth about ACORN, Obama and the radical agenda largely at bay instead of from becoming common knowledge.
The key reason why that ugly truth is not common knowledge is that the greatest ACORN scandal — corruption of America's political process culminating in the election of Obama as POTUS, followed by his ongoing attempt to "fundamentally charge" America — was set aside as "upstarts" pursued and promoted the "Pimp and Pro" ACORN story, starring Hannah Giles, James O'Keefe and Breitbart and reported extensively only by Breitbart and Fox News (which was working on an ACORN special long before Republican National Lawyers Association Chairman David Norcross predicted the demise of ACORN on "Beck" (July 1, 2009) and the first surreptitiously videotaped visits to ACORN offices (July 24, 2009).
Martin and Dreier, blatant ACORN apologists portraying ACORN as a victim of a rightwing conspiracy, in their article pathetically promoting their "study":
"Until recently, ACORN, the largest community organizing group in the country, was well known primarily among liberal activists and the low-income people it has organized since it began in Little Rock in 1970. By mobilizing poor people and their middle class allies, it has won major victories — at the local, state and national levels — to improve the living and working conditions of everyday people.
"It has successfully fought banks that redline and engage in predatory lending, employers that pay poverty wages, and developers that gentrify low-income neighborhoods and refuse to provide affordable housing. In the past few years, it has registered over a million Americans to vote. ACORN now has about 400,000 low-income members in 70 cities and a $25 million budget, raised by a combination of dues, local fundraising events, and foundation grants.
"ACORN is now well known across America, but what most Americans know about it is wrong."Until recently, ACORN, the largest community organizing group in the country, was well known primarily among liberal activists and the low-income people it has organized since it began in Little Rock in 1970. By mobilizing poor people and their middle class allies, it has won major victories — at the local, state and national levels — to improve the living and working conditions of everyday people.
"It has successfully fought banks that redline and engage in predatory lending, employers that pay poverty wages, and developers that gentrify low-income neighborhoods and refuse to provide affordable housing. In the past few years, it has registered over a million Americans to vote. ACORN now has about 400,000 low-income members in 70 cities and a $25 million budget, raised by a combination of dues, local fundraising events, and foundation grants.
"ACORN is now well known across America, but what most Americans know about it is wrong."
Why are Martin and Dreier upset and what do they claim is "right?"
"Now, in November 2009, a national survey revealed shocking public misperceptions about ACORN: more than half of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of ACORN, and 52% of Republicans, 18% of independents, and 9% of Democrats think ACORN stole the election for Obama.
"How is it that after laboring in relative obscurity as a community organizer for almost 40 years, ACORN was so falsely framed in news stories that many Americans believed the absurd and alarming notion that it stole a presidential election? The answer is a tale of not only how the Republican Party and conservative news media framed ACORN, but also how most mainstream journalism organizations were negligent by repeating rather than fact-checking the spurious allegations."
Martin and Dreier are either hopelessly deluded or intentionally deceptive about ACORN, but they do have a point about "the Republican Party and conservative news media" focusing on ACORN.
The problem is NOT that there has been such focus on ACORN. Such focus has been desperately needed. The problem is that ACORN corruption and criminality have not been exposed either enough or entirely lawfully. A blind hog will find a nut occasionally, and finding wrongdoing involving ACORN is hardly akin to looking for a needle in a haystack.
After decades of fooling people as to its true subversive, corrupt, criminal nature, last year ACORN was exposed, not "framed." Unfortunately, it was not exposed fully.
ACORN helped Obama win the 2008 presidential election and members of the "MSM" were complicit, or inept, or oblivious. The bulk of "MSM" failed to scrutinize Obama and ACORN and to publicize the fact that Obama was blatantly lying about his relationship with ACORN and his presidential campaign was illicitly coordinating with ACORN. Fox News was not adverse to adverse reporting on ACORN and Obama, but it did not do enough.
Breitbart missed or ignored the revisionist history of Martin and Dreier and instead attacked the adequacy of the Dreier description. (He was right, but focused on a tree instead of the forest.)
The critically important truth is that people in control at The New York Times feared that the truth about the relationship between ACORN and Obama and his presidential campaign would be "a game changer" and therefore did not pursue or report it.
"Sex sells," but that critically important truth is far worse for America than the willigness of some ACORN employees to facilitate prostitution, child prostitution, child abuse, illegal immigration, bank fraud and tax fraud.
On October 22, 2008, I reported the coverup by The New York Times in "ACORN WHISTLEBLOWER: OBAMA'S THIRD STRIKE?" (http://www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=gaynorm&date=081022).
I publicly identified then former ACORN insider and still "liberal" Ms. MonCrief as a valued confidential source of New York Times national correspondent Strom and revealed that the day before Ms. Strom had been told to "stand down" by "higher up" on an Obama/ACORN expose.
I wrote:
"[Her] resume shows that Anita simultaneously joined ACORN and Project Vote in Washington, D.C. in October 2005. With ACORN, she was a strategic writing, research and design consultant. With Project Vote, she was a development associate. She designed ACORN's 2005, 2006 and 2007 political operations year end PowerPoint presentations.
"Anita...called...and provided many documents.
"It had to be very hard for a 'progressive' who supported Obama to come forward.
"But before Anita emailed Michelle Malkin and me, she had been working with...Stephanie Strom, but what ended up published as Ms. Strom's ACORN articles were so 'watered down' that Anita decided to turn elsewhere.
"Wisely so.
"Yesterday, Anita advised me, Ms. Strom apologetically canceled a meeting for today and explained that New York Times policy was not to publish what might be a game changing article this close to the election."
Like Martin and Dreier in both their article and their "study," Breitbart did not refer to Ms. MonCrief in his post on the Martin and Dreier article.
In that "study" Martin and Dreier tried to rewrite history in a way that would greatly benefit Obama.
Martin and Dreier wrote: "For the New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt, who investigated charges that the Times had dropped the 'game changer' story on ACORN's alleged voter registration fraud right before the election, there was no such story. Hoyt wrote on May 16, 2009 that 'I have spent several weeks looking into this issue — interviewing and e-mailing those involved, reading transcripts, looking at campaign finance records and conferring with legal experts. In a nutshell, I think the charge is nonsense."
Martin and Dreier absurdly praised Hoyt's "transparent fact-checking" as "refreshing." They either did not understand his op-ed or deliberately misrepresented.
WHAT IS NONSENSE IS THE DESCRIPTION OF THE KILLED "GAME CHANGER" STORY AS ABOUT "ACORN'S ALLEGED VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD"! IT WAS ABOUT AN ILLEGAL ATTEMPT BY ACORN, THE OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN AND THE NEW YORK TIMES TO MAKE OBAMA PRESIDENT BY DECEIVING THE ELECTORATE ABOUT OBAMA, HIS REAL AGENDA AND HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH ACORN.
Hoyt to MonCrief, April 3, 2009:
"I am the public editor, or ombudsman, of The New York Times, and I am following up on a number of reader inquiries I've received since Heather Heidelbaugh testified before Congress. Ms. Heidelbaugh quoted you as saying that you had been a confidential source for articles by Stephanie Strom about ACORN but that after you sent Ms. Strom donor lists supplied by the Obama campaign to ACORN, she reported to you that 'her editors at The New York Times wanted her to kill the story because, and I quote, "it was a game changer."'
"I'd like to know more about this and would appreciate any help you could give me. I'm especially curious about where the words 'game changer' came from. Were they words that Ms. Strom spoke or e-mailed to you, or were they words you used to characterize what she said? Ms. Heidelbaugh's testimony is ambiguous on this point; it is not clear to me who she is quoting. A voicemail from Ms. Strom to you that Bill O'Reilly played on Fox News did not contain those words. Did you and Ms. Strom have a subsequent conversation where they might have come up?
"I look forward to hearing from you, and thanks in advance."
MonCrief to Hoyt, April 3, 2009:
"Those were her words in the conversation we had after I got her voice mail. She said that it was their policy not to print a game changer for either side that close to the election...."
I posted all the email exchanged between Ms. MonCrief and Hoyt in two articles: "Times Public Editor Seeking Facts About Times Killing ACORN-Obama Expose Before 2008 Election From ACORN Whistleblower Anita MonCrief" (April 21, 2009) (http://www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=gaynorm&date=090421) and "Exposing the Truth About ACORN, Obama and New York Times Expose Spiking" (May 18, 2009)(http://www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=gaynorm&date=090518).
In the latter article, I responded to a shameless Hoyt op-ed:
"Message to Public Editor Hoyt: ACORN has been an unofficial arm of the Democrat Party for years, Obama misrepresented his connection to ACORN in the last presidential debate, ACORN's Project Vote and the Obama campaign were improperly coordinating and the Obama donor list (2d quarter 2007) that the Obama campaign provided to Project Vote in 2007 was the COMPLETE list, including the small donors, not the much shorter list that it filed with the Federal Election Commission.
"Apparently The Times felt a need to defend itself as a result of Congressional testimony last March and subsequent Fox News coverage and Hoyt obliged.
"As Hoyt conceded: 'The charge, amplified by Bill O'Reilly on Fox News in April and reverberating around the conservative blogosphere, is about the most damning allegation that can be made against a news organization. If true, it would mean that Times editors, whose job is to report the facts without fear or favor, were so lacking in integrity that they withheld an important story in order to influence the election.'
"Hoyt is right about the nature of the charge: it's so explosive that an admission can't be made.
"Instead, a 'whitewash' is needed and Hoyt brought the paint.
"Hoyt insists that he investigated thoroughly: 'I have spent several weeks looking into this issue — interviewing and e-mailing those involved, reading transcripts, looking at campaign finance records and conferring with legal experts. In a nutshell, I think the charge is nonsense.' The charge is true!
"Hoyt: 'The story involved allegations that Barack Obama's campaign, in league with Acorn, a left-leaning community activist group, was guilty of technical violations of campaign finance law. Evidence supplied by the source could not be verified. Even if the story had panned out, it is hard to see how any editor could have regarded it as momentous enough to change an election in which the Republicans were saddled with an unpopular war and an economic meltdown.'
"'[C]ould not be verified' means that New York Times national correspondent Stephanie Strom confirmed that she had been ordered by her editors to 'stand down' on the story, but did not admit that she not admit that the reason why was that her editors feared 'a game changer.'
"Ms. Strom had no choice but to admit the 'stand down' order, since it was memorialized on a voicemail that Bill O'Reilly played for the world.
"And, truth be told, Hoyt's own email shows that Ms. Strom did NOT flatly deny making the 'game changer' remark (and risk being proven to be a liar)."
Fortunately for Obama (but unfortunately for America), the "Pimp and Pro" ACORN story has not significantly hurt him politically.
Unfortunately for Obama (but very fortunately for America), if the whole truth becomes generally known, it can thwart Obama's radical agenda and make him a one-term president. THAT requires much more than eight or so surreptitiously videotaped visits to ACORN housing offices on America's east and west coasts (some legally videotaped and some not) by a beautiful young scantily clad faux prostitute and a clever sometimes absurdly dressed faux pimp testing ACORN employees and a tantalizing tape release strategy showing that the persons running ACORN lie reflexively. THAT requires a thorough expose of ACORN's corrupt political machinations by a person or persons now or once inside "the belly of the beast" (and perhaps previously even more brainwashed than Breitbart as a C college student and young liberal Democrat) blessed (or to be blessed) to see the light, step forward bravely and do what is right, because it is right.
© Michael Gaynor
November 27, 2009
WHAT IS NONSENSE IS THE DESCRIPTION OF THE KILLED "GAME CHANGER" STORY AS ABOUT "ACORN'S ALLEGED VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD"! IT WAS ABOUT AN ILLEGAL ATTEMPT BY ACORN, THE OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN AND THE NEW YORK TIMES TO MAKE OBAMA PRESIDENT BY DECEIVING THE ELECTORATE ABOUT OBAMA, HIS REAL AGENDA AND HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH ACORN.
On November 25, 2009, Editor & Publisher (apparently "America's Oldest Journal Covering the Newpaper Industry) published an article by Christopher R. Martin and Peter Dreier titled "Have the Media 'Falsely Framed' ACORN?" Martin is a professor of journalism and communication studies at the University of Northern Iowa, Dreier is E.P Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics and director of the Urban & Environmental Policy Program at Occidental College, and they are co-authors of "Manipulating the Public Agenda: Why ACORN was in the News and What the News Got Wrong" (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004047850).
"Pimp and Pro" ACORN story strategist Andrew Breitbart responded in a BigGovernment.com article dated the same day and titled "Study: Has Editor & Publisher 'Falsely Framed' Peter Dreier as an Objective ACORN Critic?" (http://biggovernment.com/2009/11/25/study-has-editor-publisher-falsely-framed-peter-dreier-as-an-objective-acorn-critic/).
The answer to Breitbart's question of minor importance is "Yes, obviously."
What is much more important (and problematic) than the incomplete description of Dreier at the end of the Nartin/Dreier article is that the Martin/Dreier "study" is rank revisionist history.
Why Breitbart apparently missed that is a mystery. After Heather Heidelbaugh, first vice president of the Republican National Lawyers Associartion and attorney for the Pennsylvania GOP in the Pennsylvania ACORN case hear in October 2008 starring ACORN whistleblower Anita MonCrief as a voluntary key witness, testified about The New York Times spiking an Obama/ACORN expose on which Ms. MonCrief had been working with New York Times national correspondent Stephanie Strom, Breitbart's Bcast had Ms. Heidelbaugh as a guest to discuss that important matter at some length.
Predictably, E&P just added a few words to the description of Dreier at the end of his article and then Breitbart posted this comment:
"Without acknowledging a mistake, E&P has inserted the following defensive wording into Peter Dreier's bio: 'Dreier has advised ACORN on policy matters but says he has never been paid by the group or any of its affiliates.'
"At no point did I assert Professor Dreier has a pecuniary interest in ACORN. My issue, as to make it more glaringly obvious than it already is, is that Professor Dreier has a political interest in ACORN and has used media criticism as a vessel to make a political attack without pointing out that Dreier and ACORN have simpatico politico goals.
"In attacking Big Government's coverage as politically motivated he seeks to neutralize its impact and throw the MSM off the scent of ACORN's crimes. The MSM didn't actually need it. They've chosen, too, for ideological reasons to ignore the ACORN story. When Clark Hoyt at the NY TIMES admitted the paper was, again, late to the story, it did not result in the NY Times beginning to report on the story.
"I stand by my large point. The mainstream media cannot handle that upstarts are taking on their Achilles' Heel — media bias — and winning. As long as they deny it and continue to dole it out, we will be there to make them look stupid. The warning has been issued now for the umpteenth time."
To be sure, Breitbart's right about "MSM" having "chosen...for ideological reasons to ignore the ACORN story" and the appropriateness of disclosing Dreier's ACORN relationship to E&P readers who otherwise might be thinking for some supposed academic objectivity.
But: (1) the problem with the "MSM" is much worse than "media bias," (2) both the "MSM" and those Breitbart called "upstarts" are politically and personally motivated too, and (3) "media bias" (and worse), political motivation and personal interest have kept the ugly truth about ACORN, Obama and the radical agenda largely at bay instead of from becoming common knowledge.
The key reason why that ugly truth is not common knowledge is that the greatest ACORN scandal — corruption of America's political process culminating in the election of Obama as POTUS, followed by his ongoing attempt to "fundamentally charge" America — was set aside as "upstarts" pursued and promoted the "Pimp and Pro" ACORN story, starring Hannah Giles, James O'Keefe and Breitbart and reported extensively only by Breitbart and Fox News (which was working on an ACORN special long before Republican National Lawyers Association Chairman David Norcross predicted the demise of ACORN on "Beck" (July 1, 2009) and the first surreptitiously videotaped visits to ACORN offices (July 24, 2009).
Martin and Dreier, blatant ACORN apologists portraying ACORN as a victim of a rightwing conspiracy, in their article pathetically promoting their "study":
"Until recently, ACORN, the largest community organizing group in the country, was well known primarily among liberal activists and the low-income people it has organized since it began in Little Rock in 1970. By mobilizing poor people and their middle class allies, it has won major victories — at the local, state and national levels — to improve the living and working conditions of everyday people.
"It has successfully fought banks that redline and engage in predatory lending, employers that pay poverty wages, and developers that gentrify low-income neighborhoods and refuse to provide affordable housing. In the past few years, it has registered over a million Americans to vote. ACORN now has about 400,000 low-income members in 70 cities and a $25 million budget, raised by a combination of dues, local fundraising events, and foundation grants.
"ACORN is now well known across America, but what most Americans know about it is wrong."Until recently, ACORN, the largest community organizing group in the country, was well known primarily among liberal activists and the low-income people it has organized since it began in Little Rock in 1970. By mobilizing poor people and their middle class allies, it has won major victories — at the local, state and national levels — to improve the living and working conditions of everyday people.
"It has successfully fought banks that redline and engage in predatory lending, employers that pay poverty wages, and developers that gentrify low-income neighborhoods and refuse to provide affordable housing. In the past few years, it has registered over a million Americans to vote. ACORN now has about 400,000 low-income members in 70 cities and a $25 million budget, raised by a combination of dues, local fundraising events, and foundation grants.
"ACORN is now well known across America, but what most Americans know about it is wrong."
Why are Martin and Dreier upset and what do they claim is "right?"
"Now, in November 2009, a national survey revealed shocking public misperceptions about ACORN: more than half of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of ACORN, and 52% of Republicans, 18% of independents, and 9% of Democrats think ACORN stole the election for Obama.
"How is it that after laboring in relative obscurity as a community organizer for almost 40 years, ACORN was so falsely framed in news stories that many Americans believed the absurd and alarming notion that it stole a presidential election? The answer is a tale of not only how the Republican Party and conservative news media framed ACORN, but also how most mainstream journalism organizations were negligent by repeating rather than fact-checking the spurious allegations."
Martin and Dreier are either hopelessly deluded or intentionally deceptive about ACORN, but they do have a point about "the Republican Party and conservative news media" focusing on ACORN.
The problem is NOT that there has been such focus on ACORN. Such focus has been desperately needed. The problem is that ACORN corruption and criminality have not been exposed either enough or entirely lawfully. A blind hog will find a nut occasionally, and finding wrongdoing involving ACORN is hardly akin to looking for a needle in a haystack.
After decades of fooling people as to its true subversive, corrupt, criminal nature, last year ACORN was exposed, not "framed." Unfortunately, it was not exposed fully.
ACORN helped Obama win the 2008 presidential election and members of the "MSM" were complicit, or inept, or oblivious. The bulk of "MSM" failed to scrutinize Obama and ACORN and to publicize the fact that Obama was blatantly lying about his relationship with ACORN and his presidential campaign was illicitly coordinating with ACORN. Fox News was not adverse to adverse reporting on ACORN and Obama, but it did not do enough.
Breitbart missed or ignored the revisionist history of Martin and Dreier and instead attacked the adequacy of the Dreier description. (He was right, but focused on a tree instead of the forest.)
The critically important truth is that people in control at The New York Times feared that the truth about the relationship between ACORN and Obama and his presidential campaign would be "a game changer" and therefore did not pursue or report it.
"Sex sells," but that critically important truth is far worse for America than the willigness of some ACORN employees to facilitate prostitution, child prostitution, child abuse, illegal immigration, bank fraud and tax fraud.
On October 22, 2008, I reported the coverup by The New York Times in "ACORN WHISTLEBLOWER: OBAMA'S THIRD STRIKE?" (http://www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=gaynorm&date=081022).
I publicly identified then former ACORN insider and still "liberal" Ms. MonCrief as a valued confidential source of New York Times national correspondent Strom and revealed that the day before Ms. Strom had been told to "stand down" by "higher up" on an Obama/ACORN expose.
I wrote:
"[Her] resume shows that Anita simultaneously joined ACORN and Project Vote in Washington, D.C. in October 2005. With ACORN, she was a strategic writing, research and design consultant. With Project Vote, she was a development associate. She designed ACORN's 2005, 2006 and 2007 political operations year end PowerPoint presentations.
"Anita...called...and provided many documents.
"It had to be very hard for a 'progressive' who supported Obama to come forward.
"But before Anita emailed Michelle Malkin and me, she had been working with...Stephanie Strom, but what ended up published as Ms. Strom's ACORN articles were so 'watered down' that Anita decided to turn elsewhere.
"Wisely so.
"Yesterday, Anita advised me, Ms. Strom apologetically canceled a meeting for today and explained that New York Times policy was not to publish what might be a game changing article this close to the election."
Like Martin and Dreier in both their article and their "study," Breitbart did not refer to Ms. MonCrief in his post on the Martin and Dreier article.
In that "study" Martin and Dreier tried to rewrite history in a way that would greatly benefit Obama.
Martin and Dreier wrote: "For the New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt, who investigated charges that the Times had dropped the 'game changer' story on ACORN's alleged voter registration fraud right before the election, there was no such story. Hoyt wrote on May 16, 2009 that 'I have spent several weeks looking into this issue — interviewing and e-mailing those involved, reading transcripts, looking at campaign finance records and conferring with legal experts. In a nutshell, I think the charge is nonsense."
Martin and Dreier absurdly praised Hoyt's "transparent fact-checking" as "refreshing." They either did not understand his op-ed or deliberately misrepresented.
WHAT IS NONSENSE IS THE DESCRIPTION OF THE KILLED "GAME CHANGER" STORY AS ABOUT "ACORN'S ALLEGED VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD"! IT WAS ABOUT AN ILLEGAL ATTEMPT BY ACORN, THE OBAMA PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN AND THE NEW YORK TIMES TO MAKE OBAMA PRESIDENT BY DECEIVING THE ELECTORATE ABOUT OBAMA, HIS REAL AGENDA AND HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH ACORN.
Hoyt to MonCrief, April 3, 2009:
"I am the public editor, or ombudsman, of The New York Times, and I am following up on a number of reader inquiries I've received since Heather Heidelbaugh testified before Congress. Ms. Heidelbaugh quoted you as saying that you had been a confidential source for articles by Stephanie Strom about ACORN but that after you sent Ms. Strom donor lists supplied by the Obama campaign to ACORN, she reported to you that 'her editors at The New York Times wanted her to kill the story because, and I quote, "it was a game changer."'
"I'd like to know more about this and would appreciate any help you could give me. I'm especially curious about where the words 'game changer' came from. Were they words that Ms. Strom spoke or e-mailed to you, or were they words you used to characterize what she said? Ms. Heidelbaugh's testimony is ambiguous on this point; it is not clear to me who she is quoting. A voicemail from Ms. Strom to you that Bill O'Reilly played on Fox News did not contain those words. Did you and Ms. Strom have a subsequent conversation where they might have come up?
"I look forward to hearing from you, and thanks in advance."
MonCrief to Hoyt, April 3, 2009:
"Those were her words in the conversation we had after I got her voice mail. She said that it was their policy not to print a game changer for either side that close to the election...."
I posted all the email exchanged between Ms. MonCrief and Hoyt in two articles: "Times Public Editor Seeking Facts About Times Killing ACORN-Obama Expose Before 2008 Election From ACORN Whistleblower Anita MonCrief" (April 21, 2009) (http://www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=gaynorm&date=090421) and "Exposing the Truth About ACORN, Obama and New York Times Expose Spiking" (May 18, 2009)(http://www.webcommentary.com/php/ShowArticle.php?id=gaynorm&date=090518).
In the latter article, I responded to a shameless Hoyt op-ed:
"Message to Public Editor Hoyt: ACORN has been an unofficial arm of the Democrat Party for years, Obama misrepresented his connection to ACORN in the last presidential debate, ACORN's Project Vote and the Obama campaign were improperly coordinating and the Obama donor list (2d quarter 2007) that the Obama campaign provided to Project Vote in 2007 was the COMPLETE list, including the small donors, not the much shorter list that it filed with the Federal Election Commission.
"Apparently The Times felt a need to defend itself as a result of Congressional testimony last March and subsequent Fox News coverage and Hoyt obliged.
"As Hoyt conceded: 'The charge, amplified by Bill O'Reilly on Fox News in April and reverberating around the conservative blogosphere, is about the most damning allegation that can be made against a news organization. If true, it would mean that Times editors, whose job is to report the facts without fear or favor, were so lacking in integrity that they withheld an important story in order to influence the election.'
"Hoyt is right about the nature of the charge: it's so explosive that an admission can't be made.
"Instead, a 'whitewash' is needed and Hoyt brought the paint.
"Hoyt insists that he investigated thoroughly: 'I have spent several weeks looking into this issue — interviewing and e-mailing those involved, reading transcripts, looking at campaign finance records and conferring with legal experts. In a nutshell, I think the charge is nonsense.' The charge is true!
"Hoyt: 'The story involved allegations that Barack Obama's campaign, in league with Acorn, a left-leaning community activist group, was guilty of technical violations of campaign finance law. Evidence supplied by the source could not be verified. Even if the story had panned out, it is hard to see how any editor could have regarded it as momentous enough to change an election in which the Republicans were saddled with an unpopular war and an economic meltdown.'
"'[C]ould not be verified' means that New York Times national correspondent Stephanie Strom confirmed that she had been ordered by her editors to 'stand down' on the story, but did not admit that she not admit that the reason why was that her editors feared 'a game changer.'
"Ms. Strom had no choice but to admit the 'stand down' order, since it was memorialized on a voicemail that Bill O'Reilly played for the world.
"And, truth be told, Hoyt's own email shows that Ms. Strom did NOT flatly deny making the 'game changer' remark (and risk being proven to be a liar)."
Fortunately for Obama (but unfortunately for America), the "Pimp and Pro" ACORN story has not significantly hurt him politically.
Unfortunately for Obama (but very fortunately for America), if the whole truth becomes generally known, it can thwart Obama's radical agenda and make him a one-term president. THAT requires much more than eight or so surreptitiously videotaped visits to ACORN housing offices on America's east and west coasts (some legally videotaped and some not) by a beautiful young scantily clad faux prostitute and a clever sometimes absurdly dressed faux pimp testing ACORN employees and a tantalizing tape release strategy showing that the persons running ACORN lie reflexively. THAT requires a thorough expose of ACORN's corrupt political machinations by a person or persons now or once inside "the belly of the beast" (and perhaps previously even more brainwashed than Breitbart as a C college student and young liberal Democrat) blessed (or to be blessed) to see the light, step forward bravely and do what is right, because it is right.
© Michael Gaynor
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