No wonder Breitbart's Big Government site never really bothers with posting corrections. They're so messy, what with all those facts and things!

That's what the “conservative journalist” is discovering after belatedly posting an “update” yesterday in which Breitbart kinda/sorta conceded Big Government's claim that ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis had visited the Obama White House was not accurate. This, after a WH spokesman went on the record to deny the claim, insisting the “Bertha Lewis” who showed up on WH visitor logs was not the same as the ACORN CEO.

Here's how Breitbart danced around the issue yesterday:

Since we have no information on how to hunt down the “other” Bertha Lewis — Ms. Psaki wouldn't reveal who she is, citing “privacy concerns” — Big Government will err on the side of prudence and grant the White House its side of the story.

But then during a subsequent round of his signature, late-night, incoherent tweets, Breitbart seemed to backtrack and claim what while he couldn't prove it was ACORN's Lewis at the WH, Media Matters couldn't claim it wasn't her. Or something.

Well, now Esquire quotes Lewis directly and she confirms she was not at the White House this year [emphasis added]:

Still, Lewis seemed almost shell-shocked: “We can't understand this obsession, and the vehemence. They just make up something and keep repeating it over and over — yesterday, I'm cleaning my house and I get a call, someone from my office saying 'This guy from Breitbart is going crazy saying you were in the White House!' Apparently some woman named Bertha Lewis visited the White House in September, so automatically they assumed — but it wasn't me.”

So, the WH has flatly denied the story and Lewis herself has flatly denied the story. Does anybody at Big Government have even the slightest evidence to back up its concocted story about the ACORN chief visiting the WH? Anybody?

I didn't think so because remember, Big Government is a rising star of “conservative journalism,” where facts are optional.

UPDATED: And where does all this leave Fox News, which predictably, and foolishly, followed Breitbart's lead on this bogus story. Remember, Fox News execs recently claimed they had instituted a “zero tolerance” policy for on-air mistakes. So now that this latest Breitbart misadventure has been thoroughly debunked (doesn't 2010 feel an awful lot like 2009?), when will Fox News admit that it peddled a phony story?