Excellent catch by Hugh Hewitt this morning. Hugh notes that Washington Post staffer Terry Neal wrote yesterday:

Eleven years ago, when Republicans were still in the minority, Sen. Orin [sic] Hatch (R-Utah) said the filibuster tool should be used because “the minority has to protect itself and those the minority represents.”

This is a lie.

Orrin Hatch actually said the following:

Mr. President, one of the games that is being played around here is that whenever the majority leader wants to move something along, he files cloture, whether or not anybody has decided to use extended debate. I have heard the majority leader—who is a person I have great regard and respect for—say how beset we are with filibusters in this body.

Naturally, in the last week or so of a session, there is going to be the threat of some filibusters. It is one of the few tools that the minority has to protect itself and those the minority represents. But this is not a filibuster. I find it unseemly to have filed cloture on a judgeship nomination—where I have made it very clear that I would work to get a time agreement—and make it look like somebody is trying to filibuster a Federal court judgeship.

I think it is wrong, and I think it is wrong to suggest in the media that this is a filibuster situation, because it is not.

I personally do not want to filibuster Federal judges. The President won the election. He ought to have the right to appoint the judges he wants to.

So where did Neal get the idea that “Orin” Hatch had supported filibusters of judicial nominations, when the exact opposite is true?

You guessed it: a liberal interest group.

Hugh notes that when you plug “Orin Hatch” and “the minority has to protect itself and those the minority represents” into Google, the top hit (putting Neal’s column itself aside) is a screed from the liberal activist interest group People for the American Way.

Interesting, eh?

It had me rolling on the floor.

Hewitt may not know how to pronounce my handle, but he knows how to catch the mainstream media with its pants down.