David Freddoso is My Hero

Glenn Greenwald was right generous to merely put quotation marks around reporters in his Politico item.

"Stenographers" has a nice ring to it.

Last week, Politico ran a sloppy, badly-sourced item that was intended, it seems, just to piss of Ron Paul supporters. It did.

In a weird turn, they took some crap for it from, of all places, The Corner's newbie, David Freddoso. Still, the bastards refuse to back off.

"Bad choice," snarls Freddoso, my hero, who must be awfully lonely in that den of iniquity. He continues:

The original blog post, without offering a clear quote from Paul, had stated that the libertarian-leaning Republican had warned in a radio interview of the " U.S. government staging a terrorist attack." According to the original post, Paul "clearly insinuated that the administration would not be above staging an incident to revive flagging support." This gives the impression that Paul is a nut-job who thinks Bush plans to put bombs in a shopping mall. And that's the way Politico.com's readers understood it, if take a few minutes to read their comments.

It's not what Paul said, either. If you listen to the interview, Paul makes no mention of a fake or staged terror attack, nor any accusation of Bush doing such a thing "to revive flagging support." The only mention of a "staged terrorist attack" came from a Cindy Sheehan quote given somewhere near the beginning of a long, rambling multi-part question from a madman with an online radio show. To take Ron Paul's answer after that set-up and shape it into a conspiracy theory is both pejorative and unfair.

As for the "new Gulf of Tonkin provovacation" suggested by Jones at the end of his question, and assented to by Paul, it is true that several paleoconservatives — including Pat Buchanan today — are starting to use similar language, referring to the minor military confrontation that was massively embellished to justify our official escalation of the Vietnam War. But the Gulf of Tonkin incident was not a "staged terrorist attack" either.

David Freddoso, whoever you are, I salute you. As for Politico... you are teh suck!

UPDATE: If I may paraphrase Butch Cassidy, who is this guy? Dude...

But [the '06] election represented most of all an expression of anger at an incompetent White House that has us stuck endlessly in Iraq. The Bush Administration’s Iraq occupation was like a huge soot-spewing smokestack, polluting this year’s campaign environment. Iraq made a difference in every single race. It dragged down every single Republican on the ballot in every single state.

...this year, President Bush was radioactive. Stand near him for a few minutes, and your hair falls out, and then you die.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Spelling fixed. Thanks, Aelfric.