◼ Politico Is Tawdry - Andrew C. McCarthy/National Review Online
Politico’s initial story was woven out of insufficient evidence, anonymous sources, and vague allegations that — even if you construed every possible inference against Cain — would amount to an impropriety that outfits like Politico would find too trivial to cover like this if the culprit were a left-leaning Democrat....
[W]e’ve learned the most about Politico. Look, for example, at this: Politico this morning had a post about how, after Cain blamed Perry for being the source of the sexual-harassment story, Perry promptly turned around and floated Romney as the likely source. Yes, congratulations GOP on the circular firing squad — but that’s not the point. The point is: Politico knows who the source is.
This isn’t a game-show where the host has the answer on his little card and his job is to have the contestants keep guessing until someone stumbles into the right answer. This is supposed to be news coverage — professional journalism about a serious matter with a goal of edifying the reader about what actually happened.
Politico has now framed discovery of the identity of the source as is a noteworthy story. Yet, Politico knows that if the identity of the source is a story, it is only because Politico itself is being coy. Politico has reported that Perry may be the source and that Romney may be the source. Yet, Politico knows precisely whether the Perry campaign or the Romney campaign (or both . . . or neither) is the source. It is thus almost certainly true that at least some of the conflicting allegations Politico is airing are known by Politico to be false. In fact, both the Perry and Romney camps have denied involvement — if it so happens that one of those camps is the source, then Politico knows the denial is a lie, yet it published the denial anyway. That would amount to colluding with its source in order to tarnish Cain while fraudulently portraying its source as above the fray.
