Howard Beale at the Show-Me State’s watchdog, Fired Up! Missouri, hits another home run on Friday with a devastating piece comparing the Kansas City Star’s altered version of Greg Gordon’s recent brilliant piece at McClatchy exposing Missouri as “Ground Zero” for the GOP’s widespread, well-funded national “voter fraud” scam. As Thor Hearne, of the now-defunct American Center for Voting Rights (BRAD BLOG’s Special Coverage Page here) and his Missouri law firm Lathrop & Gage were at the epicenter of “Ground Zero,” the Star’s actions in butchering the original piece — in order to save GOP/Missouri face and deceive their own readers in the bargain — is all the more scandalous.
The Star, it seems, after waiting a day to run the story in their pages at all, managed to hack up Gordon’s excellent exposé to effectively excise as much GOP culpability as possible. With a particular eye towards removing anything that could be seen as embarrassing to local GOP’ers, like Thor Hearne, Gov. Matt Blunt, etc.
“Every change made to the story has the clear effect of reducing the exposure of the GOP,” writes Beale, who calls the hatchet job “a total embarrassment” for the once-distinguished KC newspaper which is, ironically enough, actually owned by McClatchy!
See Beale’s full piece for the undeniable sham exposed when the two versions of the story are compared side-by-side.
By way of just one example, the headline of Gordon/McClatchy’s original was changed from “2006 Missouri’s election was ground zero for GOP” to the Fox “News”-like “GOP sought to suppress votes in Missouri, critics say.”
As Beale points out, this not-so-subtle change has the effect of turning the detailed, fact-based reporting by Gordon into a “he-said-she-said” difference of opinion:
The Star’s editorial decision, via its headline, to turn the story into some sort of he-said-she-said difference of opinion is an insult to the intelligence of its readers as well as a slap in the face to Greg Gordon, whose remarkable reporting their headline trivializes.
Ditto. But it gets far worse throughout the altered and excised text of the article itself where entire passages are re-written and phrases such as “No significant voter fraud was ever proved” and “inquiries found little evidence to support the claims” and “the government had produced no evidence of fraud” have been entirely removed.
KC Star ought to be absolutely ashamed of themselves, McClatchy ought to bust out some pink slips, and subscribers would do well to raise holy hell and/or cancel subscriptions as quickly as possible while letting them know why.
Where the hell have all of the real newspapers gone in this country?
Thor Hearne is no doubt smiling in his grave (or, more accurately, his mansion in Ladue…but if the facts don’t matter to KC Star why should we give a damn either?).
No surprise here. Remember that this is the state that elected religious extremists/fundamentalists to its state and local school boards, which then began systematic closing-downs (as opposed to opening-ups) of their public school children’s minds, with denouncements of evolution/natural selection, promotions of the book of genesis as a substitute for science, and book bannings.
Look at it this way: Kansas is a fun place from which to report current events. You’ve got to keep your sense of humor if you do, and remember that it’s not the same Kansas anymore that Dorothy and Toto are from.
Actually, isn’t the KCStar based on the MO side, versus the KS side? (Or does it actually matter, in this case?)
There are more trees in MO than there are in KS. Oh, and MO has The Ozarks and John Ashcroft. Other than that, what’s the diff?
This is good stuff…
Couldn’t this be considered election fraud? I’m getting real tired of the republican’ts and the Christianists committing felonies on a daily basis with impunity. Are we a nation of laws or a theocracy? I’ll vote for anyone who promises to put these criminals behind bars.
Re; Comment # 1 It is my belief that “No Child Left Behind” was designed to fail so that familie’s will make use of Voucher’s to send their children to private, and most likly christian school’s, most of which will be paid for with taxpayer money. The intention is to capture the mind’s of future generation’s and to foster a theocracy.
That’s some mighty fine reporting, as long as you truly believe that there is no such thing as vote fraud in this country.
If you buy the incredibly dubious proposition that relaxed voting laws (like voting by mail or voting without an ID) mixed with voter rolls that have more registrants than live people in the county, then maybe this story would go somewhere.
It would be highly proper for Republican lawyers to be involved in preventing vote fraud, especially when Democratic lawyers in the tens of thousands were prepped all over the country to head to hot spots if we had had another Florida 2000 debacle.
Ask Dino Rossi what happens when you wait until after an election to try to clear up vote fraud.
The paragraph starting with “Ditto” makes no sense at all. You have the perps removing statements that were in their favor.
almost OT
http://page15.com/2005/06/new-faces-at-table-chertoff-brain.html
kinda OT
http://www.firedupmissouri.com/node/5826
Looks like whack-a-mole time again.
Jim Durbin (#7) said:
Apparently you don’t get out much, Jim. This story has “gone somewhere” in that the GOP claims of “Voter Fraud” have now been outed to have been a complete and utter scam. Well-funded and perpetrated by the GOP using their entire apparatus from the White House to the DoJ to the Republican Media to local state houses and phony “grass roots” front groups.
Sounds like you didn’t bother to read the actual McClatchy story which outlined the scam, the report on “The Politics of Voter Fraud” which gives much more detail, the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission’s bi-partisan report which showed that claims of “Voter Fraud” was a scam (and which the partisan EAC subsequently buried and altered because of it) or any of the thousands of articles we’ve now run here at BRAD BLOG on it.
Instead, you continue to perpetrate the scam without a hint of evidence because you are either a sucker or a liar.
For the record, there have been no “relaxed voting laws” concerning Voter ID. Only increased and restrictive ones which have been found unconstitutional time and again.
Sure. If there was any. Other than Ann Coulter’s proven voter fraud, anyway.
You listen to too much Rush Limbaugh or read too much Matt Drudge, boy.
If Dems were ready to “heat to hot spots” it was only because the GOP vote supression attorneys were already there making phony cases. Unless you have a few thousand you can show me that I — and the Republican U.S. Attorneys who refused to bring such cases because there was no evidence for same — failed to notice.
Dino Rossi? You mean the Republican candidate for WA state governor who went to court to challenge his election but was unable to show a single instance of voter fraud and had the case summarily rejected by the judge to the point where the GOP — who presented no evidence of fraud — decided not even to appeal it?
Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight, son.
You’re way in over your head. Try selling your bullshit to a more gullible crowd. I’m guessing the Freepers would be happy to jump into lockstep with you. But it don’t work over here.
Vote SYSTEM fraud is the meme they have effectively removed from the public discussion on election fraud. With the discussion of election SYSTEM fraud quarantined into VOTER fraud, the public can be media driven onto fluff, such as, Anne Coulter and her voting habits.
The biggest difference between MO and KA(except for the trees part), Kansas has a Dem governor. We(in MO) have a corrupt relative of a corrupt congressman(Blunt) as governor, claiming(lies) he inherited a total disaster brought about by a former Dem governor(Holden), when in reality, it was * and his admin that caused the grief for almost ALL blue states.
Brad #11
Thanks for sparing me one posting. You did it very well too.