Mud Slinging at the Morning News
Mike Hashimoto has been acting as messenger for conservative talk-radio wingnut Mark Davis, dutifully posting his "DNC diary" filings on The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog.
When readers complained about giving space to this knee-jerk right wing extremist, Mike Hashimoto dismissed the complaints, saying other readers have a right to read Davis' far right screeds. Hashimoto didn't address why The Dallas Morning News readers don't also have a right to read local left wing commentators to balance Mark Davis. Hashimoto attempted to suppress debate by publishing one reader's IP address as a sort of threat to reveal the identity of posters who offend him. Someone at The Dallas Morning News must have had second thoughts, because Hashimoto's own comments suddenly disappeared from the comment threads on the blog. Meanwhile, Hashimoto continues to pass on Mark Davis' daily attacks on the Democrats.
In one entry, Davis lavishes praise on smear artist Jerome Corsi, who just published a book insinuating that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim and Michelle Obama is a not-so-secret black power radical feminist. Mark Davis calls Corsi "gracious" and "noble."
In another entry, Davis tells us about a Michael Jackson concert he attended in 1984, then asks, "Do you sense where I'm going here?" Reader "Grumby Deacon" does: "Shorter Davis: 'Obama=Michael Jackson, an effeminate child molester.'"
Finally, Mark Davis goes a little too far. Instead of reserving his smears for politicians who know better than to wallow in the mud with a pig, Mark Davis attacks another talk radio nut, Alex Jones. Davis writes: "in shouting 'Kill Michelle Malkin!' at a protest yesterday, [Jones] reveals himself to be not just a dismissible loon, but a despicable soul whom I would identify as a blight on my industry if I actually considered him to be a part of it."
Besides the obvious irony of Mark Davis calling another talk radio host a "dismissible loon," a "despicable soul" and a "blight on my industry", there's a more serious problem with Mark Davis' latest effort. Jones claims he never said "kill Michelle Malkin" and accuses The Dallas Morning News of libel for publishing Mark Davis' allegation.
How do I know this? Not from anything I read in The Dallas Morning News. Robert Wilonski of Unfair Park has the story. There's been no comment on the libel charge from Mike Hashimoto. Maybe his readers have a right to read Mark Davis' alleged libels, but don't have a right to know when the attack dog is accused of libel.
This afternoon, Mike Hashimoto announced on the blog, "A portion of [Mark Davis'] commentary has come under fire as being inaccurate. Accordingly, we have taken that post down." That's it. No hint of what the alleged libel was. No admission of error. No correction. No apology for posting a reckless charge in the first place. No comments allowed. No explanation why. Just delete a day-old post and, poof, pretend there's nothing more to see here. Move along.
2 comments:
Hi, Ed.
In general, I am annoyed by Mike Hashimoto — and this morning, I am appalled. His attack on Craig Watkins is unwarranted and puerile; all right-wingers end their screeds against defense attorneys, fair judges and justices by citing the need to "punish" heinous crimes.
Hello? What about changing our society to "prevent" many of those crimes?
Hashimoto's essay in the paper edition of TDMN is nothing but a warmed over serving of something he wrote on the Opinion blog a few days ago. Apparently, he doesn't read the comments, because several people pointed out the logical flaws in his argument. He failed to address them in his rehash in the paper. As usual, Gritsforbreakfast did an admirable job of pointing out some of them in a comment on TDMN Web site.
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