Maggie Gallagher gave me permission to post this e-mail. She sent it in reference to this column in the Washington Post (reg. req.):
“Did you see Fred Hiatt’s column this morning? Maggie
Statement from Maggie Gallagher, January 29, 2005
Yesterday I sent a letter to the Washington Post, asking the paper retract the specific claim the Bush administration paid me ‘to help promote the president’s proposal.’ For, as I wrote, ‘whether Howard Kurtz and the Washington Post acknowledge it or not, it is this specific charge and not the question of disclosure that is feeding the media coverage.’
This morning, the editorial leadership of the Washington Post has done an honorable thing by retracting this charge: ‘[Gallagher] was not paid to covertly espouse administration views in her columns.’
I hope that other media outlets that, relying on the reputation of the Washington Post, repeated that false charge as fact will show the same integrity and issue their own retractions or corrections. I specifically ask the New York Times to retract the charges made in its January 27 editorial ‘The Best Coverage Money Can Buy.’”
{ 5 comments }
La Shawn,
Thanks for posting this – I’d not even gotten around to reading the WashPost today just yet. I’ll head over there to read their retraction right now.
Love the new three column design of the blog, by the way
La Shawn,
I’ve now seen Armstrong Williams interviewed by Hannity and Colmes and I think his description of what happened was truthful and gives him credit.
I’ve seen credit come back to Maggie and McManus now as well.
I see 3 instances where a standard was wrongly applied to tarnish people’s character.
2 instances where they owned a business and the business received the money and had the contract. Armstrong knows very well the fine line and has learned and has expressed that he learned.
What was the learning? The learning is that people will apply a standard free willy nilly to tarnish people with a good name.
I think that all 3 deserve an apology and some semblence of an understanding.
I, Baklava (poster name), provide computer consulting services for the state of CA and promise you that the contract for services in no way is making me lie as liberals do every day in thier quest to destroy capitalism, freedom and America as we know it. I am telling you facts and truth in this post despite the fact that I have a contract with the state of CA government.
Jeez, can’t believe the gyrations people on the right will go to when defending the illegal/immoral behaviour of their friends. If we could harness all this, we could power the US for the next 20yrs.
Howard Kurtz, who did the original outing of Ms.Gallagher, has not retracted anything.
Mr. Williams should have stuck with his original apology/denial instead of trying to sneak back into polite society.
Meade,
Point being that you don’t know what you are talking about just as most of the time that people spout out accusations, assertions and try to harm others verbally don’t.
“Defending the illegal/immoral behavior” – What was the law that was broken?
In Mr. Williams case the money went to his business to purchase time. During the times that were purchased there was disclosure.
While I understand people wanting Mr. Williams to disclose when writing personal columns on the subject of NCLB that his business received dollars on the topic, I find the harsh treatment of him, the innacurrate representations of what is the law and the calls for him personally to give back the money IRRESPONSIBLE. I also find that is reflects on the accusers character poorly. Accusations can come freely without substance. The left has been doing it (throwing mud) without logic and facts very well. There are people on the right who do it also. This higher standard business and want to throw out character assassinations is something that people seem to like to do to make themselves feel better .
Maggie
and
McManus as far as recent news reports displayed on LaShawn’s website have been just about exonerated.
With Mr. Williams it is a matter of the wording on his contract makes it seem like he really should’ve disclosed when writing personally as well and anyone can make that case.
But again people are calling for him personally to give the money back when it was his firm (with a lot of expenses – I know because I have a business) that received the money.
We have freedom of speech but really people should be ashamed of theirselves for needing to feel good by inaccurately portraying someone of good character like Mr. Williams as someone he isn’t.
The rules against using government money for propaganda are clear and Bush himself said this is unacceptable. What about all of this is ok with you? That these people took money to promote a point of view and did not disclose this to their readers is without question. That you think anyone is trying assassinate their ‘character’ is laughable. Gallagher and LaShawn’s assertions that she was issued an apology were denied by WaPo, but Ms Barber chose to delete my link to that denial. So here it is again, straight from the horse’s mouth. If Ms Barber doesn’t edit it out, again.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000780656
I was going to ignore this comment, then delete it, but I decided to let it stand so other commenters will know why I banned you. First of all, if I deleted a link, which I don’t remember doing, it was because I don’t allow linking in comments because the URL is usually not XHTML compliant and sometimes skews the formatting. Then again, I may delete it simply because I feel like it because this is my blog. How dare you imply that I deleted a link because I’m trying to hide something from readers? Are you on crack? You’ve got a lot of nerve, whoever you are. I have no reason to hide anything from anybody around here.
Sarcasm and disrespect toward me are two things I loathe in commenters. This is your last comment on my blog, by the way. – Admin
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