So, remember the attack on the McCain volunteer by a very large black man who was infuriated by her McCain bumper sticker? The one where he carved a "B" into her face with a knife? The one I said was probably a hoax?

Turns out it was a hoax. Duh.

How easy was it to guess that this was a hoax? Michelle Malkin figured it out. That's how easy. Even some of her commenters -- as intellectually deficient a bunch of people as you'll find anywhere -- figured it out.

But StubbornFacts.us did not. When I posted a comment very early on that said this was almost certainly a hoax, the comment was instantly deleted.

But Simon at SF wasn't content to run with this Drudge-pimped hoax, he just had to use this transparent nonsense to attack the dreaded MSM:

See this story on CNN, anyone? No? How about in the New York Times... No? Well, to be fair, they're far too busy - there was a McCain rally somewhere and someone might have suggested Obama was palling around with terrorists, and there's stories about Sarah Palin's clothes to write... They're just swamped. Actually, that isn't fair; it's not that the media isn't interested in the story, the Obama campaign just haven't told them how they'd like it covered yet.

Or maybe they didn't cover it because it was obviously bullshit.

The real question is: why was my comment casting doubt on the story deleted in such a hurry? I understand Simon is pissed at me for being right about the scattershot and downright weird attacks on Obama, right that the GOP's all-negative/no positive attack would fail, right about the questionable morality of his spreading the idiotic Michelle Obama "whitey tape" smear, right about the dishonesty of Republican's phony outrage tactics, right that Sarah Palin would be a gift to Democrats and, well, just generally right.

I understand I'm irritating. What with being right all the time. And not terribly humble about it.

But if you're spreading a story, and learn that there are some pretty obvious doubts about that story, and hastily remove a perfectly mild comment that points out the F*CKING OBVIOUS . . . excuse me . . . that draws a reasonable inference from the visible evidence, what does that say?

Now, Simon says:

And: looks like it was a hoax. But two things to say: that doesn't vitiate the media's failure to cover it before (they will certainly do so now, because whereas before it might have reflected badly on Obama and will now be made to reflect badly on McCain), and I would maintain that the immediate chorus of doubt was an inappropriate reaction. What is incredible here is that someone would fake it, not the original story.

No, the fact that anyone with a pair of eyes and a functioning bullshit detector could guess that this was in fact, bullshit, does not mean the New York Times should not have splashed it all over page one. They should have reported a story they easily guessed was bullshit. They should have reported a story they strongly suspected to be false.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, would show that the MSM are reliable.

Tada! Brilliant!

This entry was posted by Michael Reynolds, on Friday, October 24, 2008. You can leave your response.