Low lights... again

The "Swiftboating" of Rep. John Murtha has begun. There is no depth to which these bottom-feeders won't sink. Murtha's going to be on 60 Minutes this Sunday so they had to get the trash talk started. Obviously he deserves it, after all he said:

"I like guys who've never been there, who criticize us who've been there," Murtha said. "I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and sent people to war and then don't like to hear suggestions that what may need to be done."

Murray Waas says:

The Post article in amplifying the allegations of the Cybercast News Service, also, in turn quotes an article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

The article included a 1996 quote from Harry Fox, who worked for former representative John Saylor (R-Pa.), telling a local newspaper that Murtha was "pretending to be a big war hero" Fox, who lost a 1974 election to Murtha, said the 38-year old Marine veteran had asked Saylor for assistance in obtaining the Purple Hearts because the office believed he lacked adequate evidence of his
wounds.

What the Post leaves out of its story is that Saylor is deceased, and well, has been for some time now. (Saylor died way back in 1973, something that the Cybercast "News" Service, noted in their news story-- not to impugn their reporting practices.) In short, the Washington Post is relying on something said by a person with an axe to grind (Fox), who is quoting someone who is deceased (but who the newspaper forgot to tell you is deceased.) But it is even somewhat worse than that: the Post is quoting the ever-so-reliable and unbiased Cybercast News Service, which is quoting a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article, which includes an allegation by Fox... who is citing someone now deceased.

Makes you want to drop a dime to Howie Kurtz! But alas, Kurtz wrote the story. Oh well.

As Jane points out it's a transparent smear job and shouldn't see the light of day, except maybe to expose the attempt but instead, once again...

It starts in some quote-unquote "news source" run by a GOP operative like "Talon News," which then leaks over into the sheeplike mainstream media where people like Howard Kurtz run with it.

But rather than point out that this is an obvious GOP shop, Howie facilitates a pre-emptive defense against any such assertion. He refers to them as a "conservative website" (much like WaPo Editor John WATB Harris referred to the website of GOP operative Patrick Ruffini) and asks no probing questions about a story which even a monkey could see is conceived, bought and paid for by the GOP.

And now we have to spend our time beating it into the ground, because nobody in the "traditional media" is certainly going to do it.