Clark Hoyt Responds re Brad Friedman’s Great “Pimp Hoax” Hoax
Brad Friedman is going to be so upset.
For literally weeks now, he has been crusading for the New York Times to correct a trivial detail about the ACORN videos. And he has been trying to argue — as dishonestly as he knows how — that this trivial detail somehow undermines the whole ugly ACORN mess uncovered by Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe.
Well, it turns out that Clark Hoyt agrees on the trivial detail, but understands that the bigger picture is not undermined:
Acorn’s supporters appear to hope that the whole story will fall apart over the issue of what O’Keefe wore: if that was wrong, everything else must be wrong. The record does not support them. If O’Keefe did not dress as a pimp, he clearly presented himself as one: a fellow trying to set up a woman — sometimes along with under-age girls — in a house where they would work as prostitutes. In Washington, he said the prostitution was to finance his future in politics. A worker for Acorn Housing, an allied group, warned him to stay away from the brothel lest someone “get wind that you got a house and that your girlfriend is over there running a house of women of the night. You will not have a career.”
He said that in many more places than Washington, but Hoyt has the essence of it right. Yes, the New York Times botched a trivial detail about the videos: whether O’Keefe was dressed as a pimp inside the ACORN offices. Yes, their defense was pathetic.
And no, Brad Friedman and Eric Boehlert, none of it matters to the essence of the story in the slightest. Back to Hoyt:
[T]he most damning words match the transcripts and the audio, and do not seem out of context. Harshbarger’s report to Acorn found no “pattern of illegal conduct” by its employees. But, he told me: “They said what they said. There’s no way to make this look good.”
Well, sure there is, Mr. Harshbarger. It’s just that you have to lie to do it.
Friedman has been doing that for weeks. You just have to open up your imagination.
UPDATE: Friedman puts on his brave face and tries to declare victory, here. He “proves” that O’Keefe did not pose as a pimp by citing every instance of the word “pimp” and showing that O’Keefe was referring to someone else. Friedman thus does his usual sleight of hand where he wishes away the wall of evidence that O’Keefe said he sought to set up a house for Giles and underage girls to turn tricks and give him the proceeds for his Congressional campaign.
Unlike Friedman’s gullible readers, Hoyt has actually familiarized himself with the source evidence. He has read the transcripts and listened to the unedited audio, and Hoyt thus understands that the edited videos did not misrepresent the context of the most damning quotes from ACORN workers.
This is why Hoyt previously referred to Friedman as someone with a “political agenda” whose characterization of what happened on the ACORN videos is “not credible.”
Friedman will probably use Hoyt’s article as a springboard for another 3 weeks of whining, petitioning, and incessant yapping about this non-issue. Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap. The main thing that separates Friedman from an annoying barking dog is that dogs don’t know how to lie.
Oh my!
daleyrocks (718861) — 3/21/2010 @ 4:49 amMaybe we will get 7 consecutive not-at-all-obsessive wall o’texts from Bob, Brad, and Boehlert denying reality.
JD (5a5e2d) — 3/21/2010 @ 6:01 amThe elephant in the room is that the pimp that services the New York Times obviously doesn’t look like O’Keefe. Their definition of “pimp” is biased toward the pimp they see every day.
Neo (7830e6) — 3/21/2010 @ 6:36 amJD – Very unlikely. They will continue rewriting history by cheery picking text from the transcripts which supports their fabricated narrative while ignoring the substantial body of text in the transcripts which debunks it. For some reason Brad and his miserable loser friends wish the ACORN employees in the videos were convicted of crimes as well as losing jobs, because the conduct portrayed in the videos is just not bad enough for Brad et. al. without actual prosecutable illegal conduct being caught on tape. Go figure. Brad has lower moral standards than the Census Bureau, the IRS and both Houses of Congress, then again he is defending an organization whose employees counseled two people posing as a pimp and prostitute on tax evasion, mortgage fraud and how to maintain a child prostitution business. It might be better to say Brad has no moral standards in evidence.
daleyrocks (718861) — 3/21/2010 @ 7:17 amWell the thing you have to remember is that Hoyt was previously the hatchet. . .ombudsman for McClatchy and he learned all his clueless skills
ian cormac (9bc9a9) — 3/21/2010 @ 7:21 amthere. The Schatchman piece in Wired, is a little
better but not by much, it omits more than it includes
Maybe we will get 7 consecutive not-at-all-obsessive wall o’texts from Bob, Brad, and Boehlert denying reality.
I’m sure we’re going to get another encore of their well – rehearsed lame three – man dumb act of screeching about releasing all of the vids, no matter that they have easy access to all of the audio and haven’t found one thing to bolster their claims. Always the same MO, every time with these folks – deny, obfuscate and change the subject.
Dmac (ca1d8c) — 3/21/2010 @ 7:58 amInteresting but predictable that Mr. Hoyt neglected to mention that the girls would be illegal aliens as well. Maybe the NYT spell check does not allow that phrase to be used.
Dennis Keating (b8e95e) — 3/21/2010 @ 8:25 amMr. Hoyt has half-a-clue, as usual.
GeneralMalaise (20e943) — 3/21/2010 @ 8:32 am“…lame three – man dumb act…”
Well, what with Moron, timmie, and imadickwad, we’re up to the task.
AD - RtR/OS! (4c0b43) — 3/21/2010 @ 8:39 amWow – The way Friedman seizes on a small selective quote and tries to frame a house of cards to prove vindication should be used in journalism classes as an example of declaring victory in the face of massive defeat.
Hoyt could have done a better job here but it was good enough to destroy Friedman’s credibility for any reader not drinking the kool-aid.
harkin (6d83ec) — 3/21/2010 @ 8:51 amBoehlert and Friedman are just fascinating: They get caught dead to rights in lies and fabrications and instead of evidencing any sense of shame or self-awareness or heaven forbid, humility, they just keep right on spinning away. They are very reflective of this current WH. If I talk loud enough and long enough, reality will become what I make it to be…and need it to be.
Dana (1e5ad4) — 3/21/2010 @ 9:12 amIt’s the entire Lefty MO at this point – filibuster until the cows come home, and never, ever allow a contrary opinion to upset your own little intellectual bubble.
Dmac (ca1d8c) — 3/21/2010 @ 10:06 amnever, ever allow a
contrary opinionfact upset your own little intellectual bubble.FTFY, Dmac.
Dana (1e5ad4) — 3/21/2010 @ 10:22 amPatternico:
“Hoyt has actually familiarized himself with the source evidence. He has read the transcripts and listened to the unedited audio”
Hoyt in the Times:
“With two associates, Michael McElroy andRebecca Ruiz, I have reviewed the entire available public record, including the O’Keefe videos and what are represented on a conservative Web site as the full transcripts and audio of his visits to the Acorn offices”
The differences between the two assertions above is not restricted to phrasing. The two assertions are different in several material particulars, and they yield materially distinct impressions.
The only “transcripts” that Hoyt et al reviewed were of the finished O’Keefe production, the Harshbarger/Craft report, and whatever Breitbart provided them. There is no suggestion that Breitbart provided them with a transcript of the “source evidence”.
Hoyt’s piece used the word “source” one time, but not at all in reference to the word “evidence”, or in any way that even implies anything Hoyt claims to have reviewed.
Hoyt’s piece does not even contain the word “unedited”.
Friedman accuses O’Keefe and Breitbart of partisan hackery, and the Times, its reporters, and its editors, including Hoyt, of professional hackery that effectively serves the partisan hackery. Patternico is serving the same partisan hackery and, by the implication of his non-blogging professional status in support, also showing professional hackery.
Avattoir (fd63d9) — 3/21/2010 @ 10:31 amWell, we now know what the legal defense for the indefensible will be.
AD - RtR/OS! (4c0b43) — 3/21/2010 @ 10:35 amWhen will “counselor” Avattoir file the discovery motions for the raw data?
Avattoir – Hoyt reviewed the same material available to Brad and came to the conclusion that Brad was completely fabricating unwarranted conclusions. Hoyt’s conclusion was reinforced by a conversation with Scott Harshbarger. Reread Hoyt’s piece. It is written in plain english and not hard to understand.
daleyrocks (718861) — 3/21/2010 @ 10:35 amIt is written in plain english and not hard to understand….unless it is in conflict with Teh Narrative.
AD - RtR/OS! (4c0b43) — 3/21/2010 @ 10:44 amMust be the red-tinted glasses they all wear…
GeneralMalaise (20e943) — 3/21/2010 @ 10:45 amNice headline on this over at JammieWearingFool:
NYT Ombudsman Blows Up ACORN Conspiracy Theory, Media Matters Hardest Hit
For some reason the story completely ignores Bradblog. Maybe JWF shares conventional wisdom that what Brad thinks is irrelevant.
http://jammiewearingfool.blogspot.com/2010/03/nyt-ombudsman-blows-up-acorn-conspiracy.html
daleyrocks (718861) — 3/21/2010 @ 11:19 amIsn’t the whole point of partisan propagandists like Brad Friedman, to keep natural allies like the NYT toeing the party line? Their lies are so absurd that I don’t see how the propagandists can hope to alter public opinion itself. It strikes me as more of a struggle of the inner party to police members of the outer party, and maintain ideological uniformity.
Brad (2886da) — 3/21/2010 @ 2:35 pmAh, of course! The whole phenomenon is exactly like Bagdad Bob. Brad Freidman and his fellow travelers fill the exact same role as and use the same methods as Bagdad Bob. The point isn’t to convince the outside world of anything, the point is to control their own side.
Brad (2886da) — 3/21/2010 @ 2:41 pmBrad Friedman is a little snippy today with the announcement that ACORN is winding up its operations. People should try to cheer him up.
daleyrocks (718861) — 3/22/2010 @ 4:37 pm[…] I criticize Clark Hoyt (the New York Times ombudsman) a lot, so it seems only fair to note when he gets one right. It doesn’t change the pattern; he’s still defending his paper, this time from the […]
Hoyt gets one right « Internet Scofflaw (2b4c8f) — 3/24/2010 @ 9:11 am