George Soros’ gigantic waste of money, Media Matters, is upset at the National Review and The Daily Caller for not adequately correcting allegations about the hit-and-run incident involving blogger Jim Treacher.
Points of contention? Treacher blamed the Secret Service initially (based off an eye-witness account), but it was the diplomatic division of the state department. Not a true correction, though both the Caller and NRO kept readers updated on the changing status of the story (my paper no longer runs corrections, so I can’t see the beef). Also, the accident wasn’t “technically” a hit and run since the agent who ran over Treacher did stop and call The Daily Caller office. He also failed to identify himself at the scene, and only identified himself as the driver when Tucker Carlson performed a rather contentious phone interview with him a day later.
The driver did have enough time to call his place of employment, which promptly sent an agent to follow the DC police to Treacher’s hospital room, where Treacher was handed a jaywalking ticket as he sat delirious from painkillers.
As for Treacher, he had surgery performed on his knee and is now suffering from a pulmonary embolism, or what my talented and medically-employed wife put, a blood clot.
In the days to follow, Media Matters will surely assemble the pieces of this effort to cast down big government, hastily constructed by the neo-conservative mainstream media complex. That same media complex which employs Democrats by a factor of nine.
What’s lost on Media Matters in this insanity is the simple truth of bureaucratic malfeasance. Unless Treacher was somebody with stroke in the government, chances are his fate wouldn’t have been different if he was a Democrat or a Republican. That simple truth should raise the ire of everyone in the blogosphere. But we are far from the days of yore, before media business was about afflicting the afflicted and comforting the comfortable. Still, there is ways to go before the press catches the government in that regard.
I thought it was a little off when he said it was the Secret Service. First, occasional abuses aside, our federal law enforcement are professionals held to a higher standard. Not only would something like this result in consequences for an agent–possibly job loss, or least suspension–but the character of the average person chosen to carry the badge is such that I give them the benefit of the doubt. The SS is an organization with a long tradition of honorable service. It’s a shame that their reputation is sullied by the politicians they have to protect.
A few years back, there was an accusation leveled at the Minneapolis PD about officers who supposedly urinated on an American Indian fellow after they picked him up for public drunkenness. Had all the PC boxes checked off and the guy got the whole activist brigade to turn out for him. DNA testing showed the urine on his clothes was his own. He had pissed himself while drunk and the story was a crock. It completed evaporated, with nary a mention of an apology or any attempt to redress to the harm done to those officers reputations.
“I thought it was a little off when he said it was the Secret Service.”
That’s what I was told. When I received new information, I posted it.
If you choose to blame me, instead of the State Dept. employee who drove around making illegal left turns and failing to identify himself, I can’t stop you.
Good luck, Jim. When I was having trouble with blood clots a couple of years back, I was under doctor’s orders to strictly avoid grreen vegetables, but that alcohol was fine. I managed to follow that program perfectly.
(I can give you my doctor’s number, if you want.)
Knee injuries are awful things, though.
I know it’s trite to say it, but it could have been so much worse.
You didn’t do anything wrong, obviously. I’m just saying that detail in the initial report didn’t sound quite right. It wasn’t and you corrected it. No big deal. If nothing else, the fact that you were getting run over at the time sort of absolves you of anything, but it was a perfectly honest mistake to begin with.
As a general matter, though, law enforcement undeservedly gets second-hand splatter from all the crap spilled by politicians. Whether an honest mistake where due diligence was done, as in your case, or cynical exploitation, the first impression has the deepest impact, with far likely to hear the correction than the initial report. That’s just the way of the world.
correction: far fewer
I don’t think he was blaming you at all… just saying that it didn’t sound like Secret Service.
That being said… having been a lawyer for a State (not State Dept.) bureaucracy I can tell you that the federal gov’t is an ass-covering institution. Good luck in getting both the truth and some cash to pay for the injuries and time.
Good luck in getting both the truth and some cash to pay for the injuries and time.
You may have to settle for having this arrogant Mario Andretti wannabe being temporarily reassigned to a gardenspot like Searchlight, Nev. for a few months as punishment. (And then getting a new assignment with a higher pay grade…)