Note to SF Chronicle's Debra Saunders: Stop Digging
October 25, 2010 3:46 pm ET by Eric Boehlert
I guess this is what happens when you request a correction from a conservative columnist who clearly botches the facts. They refuse the correction request and then make up more stuff. I'm not surprised. But I must say watching Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders try to explain away her mistake is rather painful/comical to watch.
Over the weekend Saunders, echoing lots of right-wing misinformation, wrote that I urged NPR to "sever its association" with Mara Liasson over her continued on-air association with Fox News. That's false. In fact, the day before Saunders' column appeared I specifically wrote that I wasn't calling for NPR to fire Liasson. I noted instead that NPR's code of ethics clearly states the network should deny her requests to appear on Fox since those appearances damage NPR's reputation.
So I requested a correction from Saunders. Her response? Behold [emphasis added]:
Boehlert posted this blog asking for the correction. In this blog, Boehlert referred to a posting that appeared on Friday, after my deadline, in which he claimed, "I never suggested NPR fire Liasson and I don't think they should. NPR could, for instance, prohibit its employees from apeparing on Fox." Translation: Get her off Fox -- and if she still refuses -- get rid of her. Ergo, the correction request is bogus.
Ergo, I' m not even sure what Saunders means. I never called for NPR to sever ties with Liasson, but I did suggest they stop her from appearing on Fox News. So from that, Saunders offers up a muddy translation in which NPR does stop Liasson but she refuses to comply. Or something. And because of that hypothetical, Saunders doesn't have to correct the mistake she printed in the SF Chronicle.
Fact: I have not urged NPR to cut ties with Liasson. Saunders claimed I did. When called on her mistake, Saunders refused to concede her error and instead concocted an imagined future scenario to justify her false claim.
Like I said Debra, stop digging.
Looks like a request to end a relationship. Keep spinning Eric, it appears you are the one that is wrong.
Good job of the insult you hurled at me at the end of your spin. It appears that you are intolerant of the truth when it is inconvenient to your political beliefs. It also shows that you have no interest in civil dialog.
Really?!?!? You get your hackles up over "doofus"? Really?!?!? This from a person who remains silent while his compatriots throw out accusations of nazis, traitors, sexual deviants and other incredibly offensive names? And you have the gall to get upset over "doofus"? Typical. Conservatives call their opponents every name in the books and should someone dare fire back, no matter how mildly, they go hurl back accusations of "intolerance".
Well, listen up m0therf***er, you are one thin skinned, sorry @ss, sh!t for brains, nazi loving, racist piece of stinking horse sh!t whose only job seems to be wasting oxygen that could be used by people with more than one or two normal firing synapses in their brains, you sanctimonious, self righteous a$$hole, go f**k yourself, the horse you rode in on (make sure you make a video and send it Paladino - I hear likes watching that kinda of stuff) and go sit in corner while you wallow in your mastubatory fantasies of victimhood.
M0therf**ker!!!!
How long before the un"hippy" comes back whining about intolerance again?
It's not MY fault you're too much of a doofus to understand that.
And it's not MY fault that I caught you being a doofus, pointed it out, and then accurately described your behavior.
It's not an insult/namecalling when you call Son of Sam, a convicted murderer, a murderer. It IS an insult/namecalling if you suggest that an abortion provider is a murderer. This analogy should help you figure out that it's not an insult to call YOU a doofus after YOU were unable to comprehend what Boehlert wrote to know that the issue was the relationship between Liasson and FoxNews!
Sheesh, that was really weak, even for you.
If you're set to burn Eric for this one question, then you should have razed Fox Propaganda to the ground by now.
If you follow the scenario to its logical conclusion you would have to know that after Liasson was fired by NPR for refusing to stay off of Fox, she would go to Fox headquarters to visit Roger Ailes. She would then ask Ailes for a deal similar to the one Juan Williams got. However, after having shelled out $2 million for one NPR "liberal" Ailes was not interested in sinking any more money into that hole.
Without a job or any prospects, Liasson would then go into a frenzy during which she would grab a letter opener off of Ailes' desk and stab him with it repeatedly.
So you see, Eric, your posting about Liasson being held to the stated ethical standards of NPR was really a call to have Roger Ailes murdered. Why can't you just admit it?
The woman clearly read the column you posted, and is consiously choosing to misrepresent it. That's her problem, and she should be terribly embarrassed. Write to the paper--write HERE are my words, in whole. Now, SF Chron readers, make of them what you will. A newspaper should love that type of stuff, when a reader writes in to dispute what one of their reporters wrote.
It's like the hoax chain emails that get passed around which say they've been confirmed by snopes.com or where, include a link to the mythbusting site, and the link actually disproves the whole point of the email; or least seperates fact from fiction in the email. People will swallow just about anything that is shovelled at them.