Here is the original story (also, see image above) by Politico "reporter" (using the word extremely loosely) Glenn Thrush. This is "journalism" (again, using the word extremely loosely) at its worst.
1. Thrush totally distorts Tom's comments on the townhalls by deleting the key words "the rare" using ellipses. I mean, how on earth can anyone - let alone someone who purports to be a "journalist" - justify replacing two words ("the rare") with an ellipsis? Let's face it, they're not even trying to hide it here; this is a hit-piece, plain and simple, totally distorting Tom Perriello's words to imply that he is calling his constituents racist. Disgusting.
2. Just to emphasize the smear, Thrush bolded the supposedly incriminating passage, the one he distorted to make look incriminating. Again, this violates pretty much every rule of "journalism." Who hired this biased hack?
3. Thrush changed the article without noting he changed it. Totally lame and unprofessional. Again, why is this "reporter" still employed at Politico? He should have been fired immediately for this (yeah, I'm really pissed).
4. Fascinating...now that the quote is presented accurately (and is no longer newsworthy in the least), it no longer warrants bolding the whole last section.
5. Then, in more comic pathetic-ness, the Politico had to change the headline because the entire story was so absurdly false. So now, the headline reads, "Pierrello witnessed "Racist" remarks at town halls." That's right, "Pierrello," as in "Perriello" spelled wrong. Nice job, Politico!
In sum, the Politico in this case went out of its way to a) manufacture "news" when there wasn't any; and b) smear Tom Perriello. In reality, what Perriello was saying was factual - that he witnessed a few rare cases (I'm 99% sure he was being generous about the "rare" part) of racism at town hall meetings he led. Actually, based on what we've all seen from videos of town hall meetings across America, we all know that racism isn't rare at all, it's rampant among the wingnuts. Which makes the Politico's manufactured "story" even more egregious. This is "journalism" in America, circa 2009? If so, we're truly screwed.
