Kudos And Reflections on the Gladney Case

Eric Boehlert had very kind words today in an excellent summary of the Gladney debacle:

An additional media note about the sad Gladney chapter: The two-year tale ended up pitting St. Louis blogger Loesch against an upstart local, a liberal blogger named Adam Shriver who runs a site called St. Louis Activist Hub. By the time the not guilty verdict was read yesterday it had become clear to everyone who followed the story that Shriver had absolutely demolished Loesch and her weak Gladney conspiracies.

Right from the outset, Shriver was among the very first bloggers to dissect the Gladney video and raise all kinds of factualdoubts about the tall tale the Tea Party was telling about the “union thugs.” And it was Shriver who stayed on the case since 2009 and who, I think, was largely responsible for helping to reveal, yet again, the kind of serial fabricator that Dana Loesch is. Andrew Breitbart, too.

So in that sense, the Gladney story helped highlight the stark, well-established contrast between the liberal and conservative blogospheres, and how Loesch and Breitbart effortlessly trafficked in lies, while Shriver stuck to the facts and undertook meticulous reporting.

And in the end, his story prevailed.

I'll add as well that while there was a lot of questioning of the Gladney story on the left, and especially mockery of the fact that Gladney appeared in a wheelchair, Boehlert by far provided the most responsible coverage among national bloggers, digging into the details of the case and asking the right questions, even from the very beginning. He's stayed on this case for two years, and took a lot of abuse for it, so it's definitely as much of a vindication of his careful approach to the story as it is of my local coverage.

The Riverfront Times should also be commended for, as far as I know, being the only established media outlet in St. Louis to investigate this story and ask serious questions about the validity of Gladney's story. It was the Riverfront Times, in fact, that revealed that David Brown, the man who was originally selling the offensive buttons, who just happened to immediately decide to be Gladney's lawyer and spokesperson that night, had allegedly told another employee that Gladney was his "gravy train.' There were some other media outlets that seemed to buy the tea party story so much that they actually contributed to the pressure campaign against St. Louis County to press charges when, in reality, there was no solid evidence. But the tea party was young then, and still had an ounce of credibility for people who didn't bother to dig in to their statements.

The Gladney story was actually my first real blogging. Activist Hub at that time was used primarily for posting weekly event listings, but when I saw the crazy narrative being pushed by the Right about this story I had to write a post questioning that narrative. I was immediately challanged by tea party blogger Jim Durbin, someone who admitted lying on this story but was nevertheless probably the only tea party person who was actually familier with the full body of evidence (Lord knows Dana Loesch didn't have a clue what she was talking about). I then proved, using Durbin's challange, that Gladney's attorney was lying, kicking off a new stream of right-wing vitriol against me. That probably is the real origin of my acrimonious relationship with the St. Louis Tea Party, though I can't imagine us liking each other even if this hadn't happened. Durbin was the source of all kinds of lies about me, including idiotic claims like "I attack people's children" that still continue on in the fantasyland of the right wing to this day. They continue on, I should say, without a shred of supporting evidence or even an explanation of what they're talking about. That's how sad and pathetic this group is: when they're desperate enough, they'll make accusations and personal attacks without even telling you what they're accusing you of.

And ultimately, that's why I agree with Boehlert that this incident was a great illustration of the, "stark, well-established contrast between the liberal and conservative blogospheres." Even to this day, I never once claimed that I knew that McCowan and Molens were innocent, or that Gladney was guilty of starting the fight. Rather, I dug into the evidence, asked questions about how conclusive it was, and challanged people who claimed that they were certain about what happened. In contrast, the tea party from the very beginning of this mess claimed that they knew beyond all shadow of a doubt that Gladney was "assaulted by union thugs," and they were immune to any facts that didn't fit their narrative and immediately personally attacked anyone who even questioned if there really was conclusive evidence. Though I'm happy to rub the right-wingers face in this one, I think the real lesson is that one should keep an open mind to the facts and analytically evaluate the available evidence. That's what jurors are asked to do, and twelve jurors, including two with tea party affiliations, came to the only rational conclusion: there was not any substantial evidence showing how the fight was initiated.

Update A couple other important kudos: Brian Matthews was someone originally accused of "resisting arrest" at this same incident, and has been repeatedly smeared by the tea party ever since. Ironically, a tea party video intended to attack Brian actually proved that the police account was innacurate, and the charges against him were dropped. Since that time (and probably even before), Brian has been tirelessly advocating on behalf of McCowan and Molens.

Furthermore, the defense attorney Paul D'Agrosa was really good. There were a lot of things I would have included in the defense (like video of one of the tea party witnesses having to be held back from an altercation earlier) but D'Agrosa apparently had a strategy of keeping it simple and focusing on the lack of evidence, and it worked.

This Week In Gateway Pundit

In case anyone was wondering what our local right-wing conspiracy theorist was up to:

• Hoft advanced a proposal to defund the American Lung Association based on a lie that the EPA was "paying them to attack Republicans."
• As Eric Boehlert of Media Matters humorously pointed out, Hoft's Obama Derangement Syndrome is so powerful that he can't even get President Obama's NCAA brackets right. Hoft claimed that "the Obama Curse" was in effect because Duke lost after Obama "picked them to go all the way", but Obama actually picked Kansas to win the tournament.
• More disturbingly, though, is that Hoft continued his implicit support for two completely absurd right-wing conspiracy theories. First he blogged about some nut advancing the "Obama is a secret Muslim" theory that is pretty obviously rooted in bigotry. Then he blogged approvingly about Donald Trump's support of birtherism, saying that Trump was a "leader" and "wasn't backing down."
• Oh, and Hoft also got really upset that the federal government was going to run a disaster training where they simulated dealing with armed white supremacists on a shooting rampage. By the way, the event was cancelled because someone threatened to actually carry out the shooting.

Back when the GOP had some dignity, Hoft would have been laughed or shamed out of the party.

Loesch Contradicts Herself in Six Minutes

Of course, this is nothing compared to the average 4.7 contradictions per minute of her radio show, but it's still a pretty funny example. Loesch, as always, is angry at Media Matters for America Senior Fellow Eric Boehlert, presumably because he retweeted this post about Loesch's failure to do basic research. So first she accuses him of "using a mother for politics:"

It's not at all clear why Loesch claims Boehlert is using Kelley Williams-Bolar for politics: I don't think he's even written about the subject and certainly hasn't made any statements like, "it's Glenn Beck's politics that are responsible for her situation." But the really funny part is Loesch's very next tweet:

Yup, it's Eric Boehlert's political views (or rather, what Dana Loesch imagines are Boehlert's political views) that are entirely responsible for Kelley Williams-Bolar being convicted for allegedly lying to get her children into a better school district (I write "allegedly" because the case is complicated, and I agree with most others that her punishment was way too harsh for the suspected crime). Given that Boehlert's particular political views have absolutely nothing to do with the outcome of this case, and considering that solutions to education problems in general and the Williams-Bolar case in particular are complicated, there could not be a more textbook example of "using someone for politics" than Loesch's statement.

The Definitive Profile of Gateway Pundit

Media Matters has produced a pretty thorough and detailed profile of the kind of garbage Jim Hoft, aka Gateway Pundit, regularly peddles on his blog. The tragic thing is that Hoft is still treated as a credible source of information by the St. Louis media and, occasionally, the national media (though usually the national attention is restricted to Fox News). I would hope that any reporter going through Hoft's track record provided here would think twice about citing him as a primary source on any story. He has demonstrated repeatedly that he's willing to peddle the most outlandish conspiracy theories and, at times, to simply make things up.

I do want to offer a caveat before linking to the story. It is unfortunately titled, "Jim Hoft: Dumbest Man on the Internet?" and repeatedly makes references to how "dumb" Hoft is. This, in my opinion, seriously detracts from the quality of the research. The information is all pretty self-evident: there's no need for Media Matters to tell the reader how they need to evaluate it. The reader can decide for herself whether Hoft is "dumb" or "dishonest" or whatever other adjective one would choose. I think the excessive name-calling just makes it too easy for reporters or moderates to dismiss the post as "just another squabble between the angry Right and the angry Left." In fact, it's much more than that. It's a damning critique of the type of propaganda, innuendo, and smear techniques that characterize the core of Hoft's work. The post should be read as an evaluation of the type of "journalism" the Right engages in, not as a personal attack on Hoft.

Nevertheless, the information is invaluable. So, with no further ado, I give you the Media Matters Profile of Jim Hoft.

Yes, Dana Loesch Still Owes Seven Corrections

Yesterday, I wrote a post titled "Seven Corrections Dana Loesch Needs to Make Before She Can Talk About Journalism (with a straight face)" in response to Loesch's personal attacks against Karoli at the blog Crooks and Liars. Well, Loesch responded in her typical fashion today. Namely, she:

Was too scared to link to the original post.

Attacked Eric Boehlert at Media Matters rather than addressing my claims directly, even though Boehlert's post doesn't even talk about the Gladney case and his tweet linked to my article. Obviously Boehlert is a more high-profile target than I am (witness Breitbart's strange obsession with him), but Loesch should have some decency and actually address the source article rather than trying to promote her career.

She responds to only one out the seven points, and then offers up excuses why she doesn't need to correct her other blatant falsehoods.

She doesn't actually justify her claim even on the one issue she addresses, as will be shown below.

Dana Loesch's response was to focus on this claim from my post:

1. The closest example to the case of Karoli (which the right-wing called a "smear job" even though it was clearly a unintentional mistake) is Loesch's false smears against St. Louis County Counselor Patricia Reddington. Loesch claimed on Breitbart's Big Government site that Reddington filed charges in the Gladney/McCowan dispute without looking at Gladney's medical records (which would indicate serious negligence on Reddington's part). This is false. The records had been included with the police report, as is standard practice. In fact, a fellow Tea Partier visited Reddington's office and got the same account. Yet Dana Loesch has never corrected her story. She owes Patricia Reddington an apology and owes all of us a correction.

Loesch, relying on a post by Jim Durbin at 24thstate, now admits that Reddington did look at the medical records from Gladney's visit to the emergency room. But she claims that Reddington didn't look at additional medical records, which Durbin supports by presenting a letter from St. John's Mercy Medical Center that says, "To my knowledge, St. John's Mercy Medical Center as of November 30, 2009 has not recieved a request for medical records on patient: Gladney, Kenneth...from anyone other than the patient himself" [emphasis mine]. It's worth noting right off the bat that "To my knowledge" is a hedge phrase that leaves open the possibility that the records had been requested. In other words, all the letter says is that the person didn't know of anyone else requesting the records. But even if we accept that additional medical records had not been requested on November 30, would that make Loesch's claim true?

No, because Loesch said the following:

County Prosecutors Downgrade Charges without Checking Medical Record in Gladney Case

and

It has been discovered that no one from Patricia Redington’s office ever accessed Gladney’s medical records for use in determining the charges filed in the case.

Loesch claimed that Reddington's office never looked at the medical records. But Reddington did look at medical records. A little Logic 101 for the tea partiers: if the statement "Patricia Reddington looked at the medical records." is true, then the statement, "Patricia Reddington did not look at the medical records" has to be false. Pretty simple. Therefore, Loesch's claim was false, and she still needs to correct her story if she seriously considers herself a journalist.

Now, if Loesch had said Reddington didn't check the full records, then what she said might be true. Unfortunately for her, that's not what she said. But this is Dana Loesch we're talking about, so naturally she tries in her current post to present it as if she said that. Check out the amazingly cynical slight of hand in this screenshot of her post:


Loesch starts by saying, "I wrote this in December of last year" then quotes herself. She then writes, "Continuing:" and quotes herself again. But then she writes, "Again:" followed by this quote:

Thus prior to the charges being brought, Redington’s office couldn’t check the full medical records. They didn’t know of the existence of the full medical record.

This makes it seems as if the quote about the "full medical records" came from Loesch. But it didn't. In fact, that quote was from Jim Durbin's blog, despite Loesch's misleading presentation of the matter. To make it even more misleading, after presenting Durbin's quote, Loesch then starts the next paragraph with:

From 24thState, who also has signed documentation from the hospital:

Her series of | I wrote this in December of last year...| Continuing,...| Again... | and then | From 24thState... | implies that only the material after the last phrase was from 24thstate, but not the material before, reinforcing the false impression that Loesch herself referred to the "full medical records" in her previous writing. But she never did. Epic. Friggin. Fail.

Also damning to Loesch's ridiculous arguments is the fact that Durbin himself admits there should have been a correction! From Durbin's post:

The existence of a second pair of medical records, as well as additional testimony from eyewitnesses on their dealings with Pat Redington's office was the reason I decided not to publish a correction about the emergency room records being in the reviewing prosecutor's hands.

And later:

So we'll call it three and a half correct accusations by Dana, and one that could have been worded better, but couldn't be defended without tipping off SEIU to information that I chose to not reveal. I provided that information to Dana, and so any fault is mine - but a correction could not be provided until now.

Earlier in his post, he provides a fuller explanation for withholding the info:

And it's also fair to say that I haven't published everything, precisely because SEIU's blatant lies about that night have led them to twist information, selectively present recorded video, and twist the testimony of eyewitnesses into some fictional account of Elston McCowan being the victim, with Perry Molens being an innocent bystander...What I knew is that publishing the information I had would make it easy for SEIU to concoct yet another version of the beating of Kenneth Gladney.

In other words, Jim Durbin is admitting that he knew that the information that he and Dana Loesch had put out in November was false yet he withheld information for 5 months because he was worried that it would help SEIU "concoct" another story. And this is what Dana Loesch is trying to spin as victory over Media Matters. Uh... wow.

So anyway, yes, Dana Loesch still owes us all at least seven corrections before she can talk about journalism with a straight face. It's probably much more than that, but nobody has time to fact check all the falsehoods she puts out.