Tuesday, April 20, 2010

The new standard in shamelessness

In trying to defend the indefensible, a common neocon tactic is to go on the offensive with ad homenin attacks on the media carrying the story or on the source of the story. Sometimes this means villifying the victim, as the government of Canada has done with Abousfian Abdelrazik and Omar Khadr, sometimes this means trying to destroy the messenger as with the "revelation" that the investigator who uncovered the evidence that gives weight to the accusations against Helena Geurgis (whatever they are) has huge debts.
As dishonest a tactic as this is, it is generally accepted that it is part of the political spin game and will be attempted with varying degrees of shameless obviousness.
Even given all that, having a convicted fraud artist write - from jail no less - an attack on a news organization that  has long been considered the gold standard in journalistic credibility in order to defend the raping of altar boys and the popularity of hate merchants while at the same time blaming the press for the fall of Vietnam and attempting to rehabilitate the reputation of Richard Milhous Nixon -- well, that sets a new low in shamelessness and hypocrisy.
Well played, National Post. I'm sure a sinecure can be found for you at the National Review or someother wingnut welfare agency, or even within Lord Tubby's empire itself, when the magic hand of the marketplace finally gives your "newspaper" the finger.

Hat tip to Jim Dandy Goodness for reading the National Toast so that I don't have to.

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