Patterico attacks me today and clams I got the facts wrong with regards to the sad tale of conservative blogger Jim Treacher getting hit by a car last week. I've been writing about it to highlight how conservative bloggers made false accusations against the Secret Service without having the facts about the alleged “hit-and-run.” And how Greg Pollowitz at National Review now refuses to admit his mistake.
Anyway, Patterico now claims that in my “screed,” I falsely reported that Treacher claimed he'd been hit by a Secret Service SUV. “No, Eric Boehlert, that's actually not true. It's actually quite false,” scolds Patterico, who then quotes Treacher rebutting me: "I did not claim Secret Service hit me. I said I was I was told Secret Service hit me by people who would know."
So according to Patterico, I owe Treacher a correction because he never, ever claimed he'd been hit by the Secret Service.
Except that, of course, he did.
Here are some of Treacher's tweets from the night of the accident; tweets that conservative bloggers used as the basis of their erroneous 'reporting' [emphasis added]:
Guess what? I just got hit by a car while crossing the street. At a crosswalk. With the right of way. By the Secret Service. Not joking
And:
My knee's broken. I'm staying at my boss Neil's house. I want to know why the Secret Service hit me, crossing w/ the Walk sign, & drove off.
And:
I know the Secret Service hit me because the cops said so. Oh, and so did the Secret Service. No apology, though. Yet.
So yeah, I feel pretty comfortable suggesting that on the night of the accident Treacher claimed he'd been hit by the Secret Service.
UPDATED: BTW, my original critique was not of Treacher and what he wrote about his accident. (I'm not in the habit of going after people who've just been hit by a car.) Instead, I criticized the National Review for its sloppy work. So it's worth noting that Patterico makes no effort to defend's NR's plainly false report about the so-called “hit-and-run.”
UPDATED: Here are the actual tweets
UPDATED: In his attack on my reporting, Patterico claims he “will cheerfully issue a correction when shown I'm wrong.” Well, prove it. You just insisted Treacher never claimed he'd been hit by the Secret Service. But I just showed, using Treacher's own writings, that he did.
Now, please issue a correction. Cheerfully.
UPDATED: Patterico responds, kinda. (It's a mess.)
To recap, Patterico claimed Treacher never accused the Secret Service of hitting him. But Treacher did exactly that. Note to Patterico: stop digging!