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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