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Veteran Expediter
Most Embarrassing Failures Of The Year By Conservative Websites
Link to full article: FULL LIST: Most Embarrassing Failures Of The Year By Conservative Websites | Media Matters for America
3. When Mexicans invaded Texas, even after we gave them Arizona
Worrying about the impending - or, depending on who you ask, ongoing - invasion of America by Mexico is practically a national pastime for online conservative outlets. This year brought us two unrelated, but equally absurd, classics of the genre.
In July, at his "Diggers Realm" blog, Dan Amato claimed that "word is coming in that Los Zetas, the highly trained killers formerly with the Gulf Cartel, have crossed into the United States and taken over at least two ranches in the Laredo, Texas area." Amato claimed that San Diego Minutemen founder Jeff Schwilk had "tipped me off to this story."
In an Examiner.com blog post, Kimberly Dvorak echoed Amato's claims and added that "two sources inside the Laredo Police Department confirmed the incident is unfolding."
Completing the feedback loop for the fabricated story, Amato then updated his post to claim that Dvorak's post meant his scoop was "now 100% confirmed."
Though stories don't get much more thinly sourced than this one, that didn't stop Breitbart's Big Peace, Michelle Malkin, Weasel Zippers, and Jawa Report from picking it up.
Shortly thereafter, both the Laredo Morning Times - quoting actual law enforcement officials with the Laredo police department -- and conservative blogger Bob Owens thoroughly debunked the story, leading to yet another round of embarrassing updates to supposedly reputable conservative blogs.
It's a sad year for conservatives online when this story may not have been the most embarrassing in the "scary Mexicans" genre. In June, Fox News picked up a report - possibly from fringe website "U.S. Border Fire Report," though it's impossible to know where they come up with this stuff - about the U.S. supposedly "giving a major strip of the Southwest back to Mexico."
Seizing on the Fox segment, Fox Nation, Jim Hoft and several other conservative blogs alerted their readers to the story.
After contacting the Fish and Wildlife Service, we were told that the story was "ludicrous," and that not only hasn't the land been "given back to Mexico," but that it was first closed in 2006 during Bush's presidency. Oh, and that it is only five square miles, not a "major" swath of land.
But other than that, this Fox Nation headline was pretty accurate:
2. Obama skips daughter's soccer game to buy drugs or something
Depending on the results of the 2012 election, there are either two or six years left in the Obama presidency. But even with all that time remaining, I think we can safely say that we won't encounter many conspiracy theories about the president that are more insane than this one.
Back in April, Obama went to his daughter's soccer game in Northwest Washington, D.C. without first alerting the White House press pool. To reasonable people, this was barely worth passing mention.
To conservative bloggers, it was nefarious evidence of...something.
In her first and only post at American Thinker, Cat Corben explained that while this press snub "appears harmless," it is "rather disturbing when you dissect it."
Apparently, by "dissect it," Corben meant "make laughably false and unsubstantiated claims about it."
In order to insinuate that Obama was not actually watching his daughter play soccer but was instead purchasing drugs or kicking puppies or criminally loitering or some other unspecified and unsavory act, Corben made three assertions -- all of them false or completely misleading:
•Corben: "[T]he area reported that the game was played at appears to be one of high crime." It isn't.
•Corben: Nobody in the press pool was able to "document his whereabouts." They did.
•Corben: "[T]here were no scheduled soccer games for Sidwell Friends April 10." True! And this would have been interesting, but several club leagues had games at the same field. Corben just decided it was a Sidwell game, then pointed out there were no Sidwell games.
Corben also did some highly scientific Mapquesting to try to prove that the times given for Obama's whereabouts didn't make sense -- a move that Rush Limbaugh later referred to as a "timeline analysis" when he ran with the conspiracy theory on his radio show.
Yes, despite the fact that this was perhaps the most on-its-face-ridiculous piece of investigative reporting in internet history, Rush Limbaugh and conservative bloggers actually found it compelling.
Hot Air's Ed Morrissey named it his "Obamaetuerism of the Day." Don Surber headlined a post "Where was the president on Saturday?" and confidently asserted that "there was no soccer game."
Setting the bar considerably lower was Big Journalism's Ron Furtrell, who picked the story up several days after it had been completely debunked and used it as evidence that the press needs to "grow some and stand up to [Obama]." In his post, the article Furtrell linked to as evidence that Obama ditched the media for "what he said was his daughter's soccer game" was actually an extensive rebuttal of the very "conspiracy theories" Furtrell was pushing.
Nevertheless, as a writer at Breitbart's Big Journalism, Furtrell continues to give the media advice on how to practice journalism.
1. Breitbart hires racist sex wizard to write about Shirley Sherrod
Near the end of July, Andrew Breitbart and his "Big" websites were the recipients of well-deserved national criticism and ridicule for posting a deceptively edited video and using it to smear former USDA official Shirley Sherrod as "racist."
Breitbart and his cohorts spent weeks scrambling, unsuccessfully, to find a workable defense -- they parsed the word "editing," accused CNN of putting on imposters to attack Breitbart, and lectured the administration for naively trusting Breitbart's reporting.
When all else failed, they resorted to outsourcing their dirty work to someone they had found online: the esteemed Dr. Kevin Pezzi.
Who is Dr. Kevin Pezzi? Apparently Big Government was too enamored with his attacks on Sherrod as racist to attempt to answer that question.
Had they bothered to do the bare minimum of research -- or simply read the bio he posted on their website -- they would have seen that Pezzi has claimed to have built, among other things, a "robotic chef that will enable people to prepare meals using a touch screen on the device."
This bizarre detail compelled us to run a quick Google search on the good doctor, and what we found was... interesting.
In addition to being overtly racist -- having repeatedly used ethnic slurs like "Japs" and "Chinks" to denounce Asians and claimed African-Americans should be grateful for their subjugation by whites -- Pezzi is, by his own description, perhaps the most interesting man in the world.
Some highlights from his self-described history:
•"A government official once claimed that Dr. Pezzi achieved the highest score ever attained on an IQ test administered nationwide, although Pezzi dismisses this as disingenuous pandering." [Link]
•He has "information about a new cure" for cancer, which he "stumbled upon while reading an editorial and article in one of the many journals I read. The editor said there is good evidence that this new treatment works, and that it truly cures cancer -- not just temporarily treating it, as so many cancer therapies do. However, he lamented that the cure is being overlooked, which he felt stemmed from the fact that there isn't any way for pharmaceutical companies to profit from it." [Link]
•Thanks to his "advanced enlargement techniques" -- apparently gleaned from his discovery of the "second puberty" -- his "penis size went from embarrassingly small (at least to me) to bigger than some porno stars." [Link]
•He "declined an offer to go on a blind date with Katie Couric," because, in part, "my political beliefs would clash with Katie's well-known liberal bias," and "Katie's career will keep her in New York (or some similar megalopolis) for the indefinite future. I can't stand cities." [Link]
Pezzi has also authored numerous books and launched several websites designed to get you to pay him money for things like "Cranberry Freshness Sorting Machines," "several ways to tighten the vagina," and burglary prevention systems that consist entirely of compact discs with construction noises on them.
Pezzi also apparently created numerous fake MySpace and Twitter accounts of women that were enamored with his work, often altering (read: increasing the breast size) stock photos of female models to use as their profile pictures.
A few hours after we posted our Pezzi material, his posts vanished from the Big Government website and were replaced by an "editor's note" explaining that they pulled his writings after being "made aware of other writings from this author which do not reflect the principles and values of this site."
While this entire incident was bizarre -- and, of course, hilarious -- it did demonstrate that Breitbart and his merry band of hacks are comfortably at home in the conservative online media, where "publish, then (time permitting) verify" is the standard operating procedure.
But on the upside, if he ever needs a "shed shaped like a lighthouse," now he knows a guy.
Link to full article: FULL LIST: Most Embarrassing Failures Of The Year By Conservative Websites | Media Matters for America
3. When Mexicans invaded Texas, even after we gave them Arizona
Worrying about the impending - or, depending on who you ask, ongoing - invasion of America by Mexico is practically a national pastime for online conservative outlets. This year brought us two unrelated, but equally absurd, classics of the genre.
In July, at his "Diggers Realm" blog, Dan Amato claimed that "word is coming in that Los Zetas, the highly trained killers formerly with the Gulf Cartel, have crossed into the United States and taken over at least two ranches in the Laredo, Texas area." Amato claimed that San Diego Minutemen founder Jeff Schwilk had "tipped me off to this story."
In an Examiner.com blog post, Kimberly Dvorak echoed Amato's claims and added that "two sources inside the Laredo Police Department confirmed the incident is unfolding."
Completing the feedback loop for the fabricated story, Amato then updated his post to claim that Dvorak's post meant his scoop was "now 100% confirmed."
Though stories don't get much more thinly sourced than this one, that didn't stop Breitbart's Big Peace, Michelle Malkin, Weasel Zippers, and Jawa Report from picking it up.
Shortly thereafter, both the Laredo Morning Times - quoting actual law enforcement officials with the Laredo police department -- and conservative blogger Bob Owens thoroughly debunked the story, leading to yet another round of embarrassing updates to supposedly reputable conservative blogs.
It's a sad year for conservatives online when this story may not have been the most embarrassing in the "scary Mexicans" genre. In June, Fox News picked up a report - possibly from fringe website "U.S. Border Fire Report," though it's impossible to know where they come up with this stuff - about the U.S. supposedly "giving a major strip of the Southwest back to Mexico."
Seizing on the Fox segment, Fox Nation, Jim Hoft and several other conservative blogs alerted their readers to the story.
After contacting the Fish and Wildlife Service, we were told that the story was "ludicrous," and that not only hasn't the land been "given back to Mexico," but that it was first closed in 2006 during Bush's presidency. Oh, and that it is only five square miles, not a "major" swath of land.
But other than that, this Fox Nation headline was pretty accurate:
2. Obama skips daughter's soccer game to buy drugs or something
Depending on the results of the 2012 election, there are either two or six years left in the Obama presidency. But even with all that time remaining, I think we can safely say that we won't encounter many conspiracy theories about the president that are more insane than this one.
Back in April, Obama went to his daughter's soccer game in Northwest Washington, D.C. without first alerting the White House press pool. To reasonable people, this was barely worth passing mention.
To conservative bloggers, it was nefarious evidence of...something.
In her first and only post at American Thinker, Cat Corben explained that while this press snub "appears harmless," it is "rather disturbing when you dissect it."
Apparently, by "dissect it," Corben meant "make laughably false and unsubstantiated claims about it."
In order to insinuate that Obama was not actually watching his daughter play soccer but was instead purchasing drugs or kicking puppies or criminally loitering or some other unspecified and unsavory act, Corben made three assertions -- all of them false or completely misleading:
•Corben: "[T]he area reported that the game was played at appears to be one of high crime." It isn't.
•Corben: Nobody in the press pool was able to "document his whereabouts." They did.
•Corben: "[T]here were no scheduled soccer games for Sidwell Friends April 10." True! And this would have been interesting, but several club leagues had games at the same field. Corben just decided it was a Sidwell game, then pointed out there were no Sidwell games.
Corben also did some highly scientific Mapquesting to try to prove that the times given for Obama's whereabouts didn't make sense -- a move that Rush Limbaugh later referred to as a "timeline analysis" when he ran with the conspiracy theory on his radio show.
Yes, despite the fact that this was perhaps the most on-its-face-ridiculous piece of investigative reporting in internet history, Rush Limbaugh and conservative bloggers actually found it compelling.
Hot Air's Ed Morrissey named it his "Obamaetuerism of the Day." Don Surber headlined a post "Where was the president on Saturday?" and confidently asserted that "there was no soccer game."
Setting the bar considerably lower was Big Journalism's Ron Furtrell, who picked the story up several days after it had been completely debunked and used it as evidence that the press needs to "grow some and stand up to [Obama]." In his post, the article Furtrell linked to as evidence that Obama ditched the media for "what he said was his daughter's soccer game" was actually an extensive rebuttal of the very "conspiracy theories" Furtrell was pushing.
Nevertheless, as a writer at Breitbart's Big Journalism, Furtrell continues to give the media advice on how to practice journalism.
1. Breitbart hires racist sex wizard to write about Shirley Sherrod
Near the end of July, Andrew Breitbart and his "Big" websites were the recipients of well-deserved national criticism and ridicule for posting a deceptively edited video and using it to smear former USDA official Shirley Sherrod as "racist."
Breitbart and his cohorts spent weeks scrambling, unsuccessfully, to find a workable defense -- they parsed the word "editing," accused CNN of putting on imposters to attack Breitbart, and lectured the administration for naively trusting Breitbart's reporting.
When all else failed, they resorted to outsourcing their dirty work to someone they had found online: the esteemed Dr. Kevin Pezzi.
Who is Dr. Kevin Pezzi? Apparently Big Government was too enamored with his attacks on Sherrod as racist to attempt to answer that question.
Had they bothered to do the bare minimum of research -- or simply read the bio he posted on their website -- they would have seen that Pezzi has claimed to have built, among other things, a "robotic chef that will enable people to prepare meals using a touch screen on the device."
This bizarre detail compelled us to run a quick Google search on the good doctor, and what we found was... interesting.
In addition to being overtly racist -- having repeatedly used ethnic slurs like "Japs" and "Chinks" to denounce Asians and claimed African-Americans should be grateful for their subjugation by whites -- Pezzi is, by his own description, perhaps the most interesting man in the world.
Some highlights from his self-described history:
•"A government official once claimed that Dr. Pezzi achieved the highest score ever attained on an IQ test administered nationwide, although Pezzi dismisses this as disingenuous pandering." [Link]
•He has "information about a new cure" for cancer, which he "stumbled upon while reading an editorial and article in one of the many journals I read. The editor said there is good evidence that this new treatment works, and that it truly cures cancer -- not just temporarily treating it, as so many cancer therapies do. However, he lamented that the cure is being overlooked, which he felt stemmed from the fact that there isn't any way for pharmaceutical companies to profit from it." [Link]
•Thanks to his "advanced enlargement techniques" -- apparently gleaned from his discovery of the "second puberty" -- his "penis size went from embarrassingly small (at least to me) to bigger than some porno stars." [Link]
•He "declined an offer to go on a blind date with Katie Couric," because, in part, "my political beliefs would clash with Katie's well-known liberal bias," and "Katie's career will keep her in New York (or some similar megalopolis) for the indefinite future. I can't stand cities." [Link]
Pezzi has also authored numerous books and launched several websites designed to get you to pay him money for things like "Cranberry Freshness Sorting Machines," "several ways to tighten the vagina," and burglary prevention systems that consist entirely of compact discs with construction noises on them.
Pezzi also apparently created numerous fake MySpace and Twitter accounts of women that were enamored with his work, often altering (read: increasing the breast size) stock photos of female models to use as their profile pictures.
A few hours after we posted our Pezzi material, his posts vanished from the Big Government website and were replaced by an "editor's note" explaining that they pulled his writings after being "made aware of other writings from this author which do not reflect the principles and values of this site."
While this entire incident was bizarre -- and, of course, hilarious -- it did demonstrate that Breitbart and his merry band of hacks are comfortably at home in the conservative online media, where "publish, then (time permitting) verify" is the standard operating procedure.
But on the upside, if he ever needs a "shed shaped like a lighthouse," now he knows a guy.