Some things just need to be said.
From Baron Bodissey @ Gates of Vienna (Oct 4): Becoming the MSM
As longtime readers will recall, the trouble began on October 19th, 2007, at the conclusion of the Counterjihad Conference in Brussels. At that time all of us still assumed that Charles Johnson was a friend of our movement. He had been invited to the conference, and we kept him apprised of what we were doing.
When Dymphna and Pamela sent him our press release about the event, he immediately began attacking the Belgian party Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) and Sverigedemokraterna (the Sweden Democrats) for their participation. Several LGF commenters were primed and ready with disinformation provided by such extreme Left sites as Yelloman, Blokwatch, and EXPO. Charles Johnson used their material uncritically, without doing due diligence on it; in fact, he seemed to accept it at face value without any checking at all.
For details concerning the accusations and our refutations of them, see “Suggested Corrections for Charles Johnson”.
[…]
Charles Johnson made his substantial reputation back in October 2004 as one of the major bloggers who helped discredit CBS, Dan Rather, and the forged “Killian Memo”. Now, five years later, he has been brought low by the same sort of behavior — including using a blatantly doctored photograph in an attempt to smear Filip Dewinter — for which he so rightly pilloried CBS.
He has become the Dan Rather of the blogosphere.
Back in those heady days when political blogs first came into their own, the bloggers promised the MSM that they would “fact-check their a**.”
But what about the major blogs? Who will fact-check their a**es?
The answer, in a word, is: nobody.
In December 2007, after I posted the “suggested corrections”, I wrote to most of the major American blogs and requested that they take a look at the documentation we had amassed. I asked them to help us hold Little Green Footballs to account.
[…]
But none of them answered my request. No one dared to fact-check a fellow blogger.
[…]
No one seems inclined to state the plain facts: Charles Johnson smeared good people using outright falsehoods that were never withdrawn or corrected.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Read it all here. Lots of good stuff in between.
Update: Thanks to jeppo for the first link. -hey, it was midnight here when I posted it :}
The thread was linked in the comments on this thread at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler by Emperor Misha I (Oct 3): From the Chuckles Chronicles and the reply was great.
Emperor Misha I says:
October 4, 2009 at 6:35 pmLC kepiblanc sez:
[Today Gates of Vienna has the LGF obituary. Furthermore, the tombstone is in an early beta.] It is, however, a bit disapponting that The Rottie Empire is missing on its ‘hall of fame’. May I humbly suggest to his Majesty Emperor Misha to correct such a blatant mistake before the final release is out?I wish I could say that I’d earned it, but I haven’t. As a matter of fact, I owe sites like Gates of Vienna an apology. When the blogwar between Chuckles the Prevaricator and them (as well as other good people), I didn’t pick up on just how serious it was. I thought it was just a spat and thus it flew under my radar.
I was wrong, they were right. I should have stood up back then, but I didn’t. Not because I was skeered of Chuckles, but because I wasn’t paying attention, which is just as inexcusable. Back then, I still thought that Chuckles had some honor and that they could iron out their differences, that he could see reason and calm down. He was, after all, at the time the Blogger Who Buried Dan Rather and considered somebody who’d respond intelligently to facts, so I thought nothing of it. He’d be corrected, he’d realize he’d misjudged something and that would be the end of it.
Looking back, that was a huge mistake. I had no idea what a narcissistic, megalomaniacal fool he was and just to what lengths he was willing to go to avoid admitting to having made a mistake.
My bad.
And it’s my bad even more because my voice, had I used it, would have carried quite a bit of weight. As an American with European roots I was in a unique position to explain to other American bloggers just how European politics work and just exactly why morons like Chuckles were wrong about just about everything.
I didn’t, because I didn’t think it was a big problem. I thought it would all blow over. I was wrong, and I am ashamed of that. I hate it when my judgment fails like that.
At any rate. I don’t belong in the “Hall of Fame.” Sites like Gates of Vienna did all the hard work.
And for that I owe them, we ALL owe them.
I won’t forget, and I won’t allow my judgment to lapse like that again.
Nice.
Tags: Gates of Vienna, nicedoggie
