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Fight the smears even against Dick Morris

Fight the smears even against Dick Morris

Political Wire and Politico still have not corrected their misleading partial-sentence quote

It would be very easy to let slide the false meme that Dick Morris “admitted” that his election projections were made only for the purpose of helping Mitt Romney.

We’re not happy with Morris and other Republican pundits who predicted a win based on a turnout model which did not happen. It would be easy to say “who cares” if the left maligns them.

The meme that Morris admitted to a deliberate deception has spread far and wide, but it is not true, as I demonstrated in my prior post, Before you jump on the bandwagon accusing Dick Morris and others of being dishonest.

In fact, Morris denied a deliberate deception and defended his conduct as ultimately wrong but made in good faith at the time.

The false meme was started by a MoveOn.org related the Fox NewsHounds website, which twisted Morris’ statement on Fox News, and then made even worse when Taegan Goddard at Political Wire cut off Morris’ statement mid-sentence.  At least the MoveOn.org related Fox NewsHounds folks quoted the full statement, as did HuffPo in its misleading article.

Political then linked to Political Wire this morning, as follows (via Mark Finkelstein at Newsbusters):

DICK MORRIS, who has not been taken seriously by serious people for a very long time, confessed on Fox News yesterday that he deliberately misled viewers: “I think that there was a period of time when the Romney campaign was falling apart, people were not optimistic, nobody thought there was a chance of victory and I felt that it was my duty at that point to go out and say what I said.” http://goo.gl/6YbLh

Political Wire and Politico are the only outlets I have seen which cut off Morris’ statement mid-sentence.

There was no confession by Morris that “he deliberately misled viewers” as described by Politco based on the Political Wire report.  None.  In fact, Morris said just the opposite.

I emailed and tweeted both Goddard at Political Wire and James Hohmann at Politco pointing out the inaccuracy and requesting a correction.

As of this writing, neither Political Wire nor Politco has corrected the misleading partial quotation of a sentence.

Fight the smears, even when against people you’re not real fond of right now.

The lies they tell about Dick Morris today are the lies they will tell about us tomorrow.

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Comments

Dick Morris was wrong in his election analysis….nothing more. He was wrong the same way Michael Barone was wrong and Hugh Hewitt was wrong and even Romney’s own internal polling was wrong.

So why go after Morris? Because he hates Hillary? Naw….EVERYBODY hates Hillary.

Because he once was one of them….? Knows where the bodies are buried….? Must therefore be marginilized….?

Who can say…..?

casualobserver | November 14, 2012 at 6:08 pm

I doubt these seemingly coordinated attacks are really about Dick Morris by themselves. They are more likely signs of efforts to both demoralize the ‘losers’, or the right in general, and to take power and influence away from any and every voice. After all, the attacks on Fox News have stepped up to a large degree (or so it seems in my random exposure), as have attacks on Rove, Limbaugh, etc. It’s also nothing new for the left.

moveon.org and false meme, there’s a shocker.

Joan Of Argghh | November 14, 2012 at 7:14 pm

Whoa! Hey! I’m blog of the day?!! Thanks, Professor!

I’m no Morris fan and never have been. That said, and his “Landslide!” nonsense aside, he had far more solid company with Karl Rove & Michael Barone. All, to my stunned horror, got it wrong.

Barely breathing after a week.

Why doesn’t this pass the Sullivan test – it is knowingly false and published with actual malice? Maybe somebody from our camp can start using the court system? This seems to be ripe for a libel suit.

American Freedom Fighter | November 15, 2012 at 7:09 am

“Political Wire and Politico still have not corrected their misleading partial-sentence quote”

So Political Wire and Political are outraged that Morris “mislead” voters, by, um, misleading readers.

Yeah, no hypocrisy there.