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Friday, May 13, 2005
Charlie Hurt, a Hack, Hacks & Misses
Posted by Tim TagarisCharlie Hurt is about a year late in trying to manufacture this "scandal."
With Senator Harry Reid outplaying Bill Frist at every turn in the debate over the nuclear option, the GOP turned to Moonie Times hatchet man Charles Hurt in a piece that probably would have been rejected by the editor(s?) at Jeff Gannon's Talon News.
The public already knows a great deal about Michigan Appeals Court Judge Henry Saad, one of President Bush's judicial nominees right in the middle of the nuclear option debate:
• Last June, Michigan's Senators Stabenow and Levin, from Saad's home state, said there was "information from Saad's FBI background check that raised doubts about his ability to serve."• The public knows even more about Saad because the Senate Judiciary left the live web audio feed on while Senators were "raising and answering questions about the contents of Saad's FBI background check when the alarming call came that the entire private session was being streamed live on C-SPAN's audio Web site." (Roll Call June 7, 2004)
• We also know that Saad's wife was a contributed $10,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and a whopping $25,000 to the Republican National Committee.
And we also know that Harry Reid is ready to vote on the nuclear option, and the Republicans do not have the votes for passage. Quite an embarassment for the "Justice Sunday" crowd.
Enter Charles Hurt of the Washington Times and the GOP's latest "Hail Mary."
The Washington Times Moonie Times ran a piece today, linked above, that attempts to create scandal out of nothing - setting their sights on Harry Reid. The charge? Well, on the floor of the Senate today, Senator Reid said that Saad would be filibustered because of questions raised in his FBI background check. The GOP's latest lead trial balloon talking point merrily parroted by Hurt is that Reid should face expulsion from the Senate because of this.
This story will go nowhere, and fast.
First of all, this is old news, public news, that we became aware of because of discussion inside the U.S. Senate almost an entire year ago. Second of all, the details of that report were broadcast for the world to listen to - again, nearly a year ago. And third, Charles Hurt is a hack with zero journalistic credibility. The only thing separating Jeff Gannon from Charles Hurt is that Hurt still writes for a ficticious, fringe "news organization."
Here are some of Hurt's greatests hits, just to give you an example of his "brand of journalism:"
Edwards' malpractice suits leave bitter taste
The American Medical Association lists North Carolina's current health care situation as a "crisis" and blames it on medical-malpractice lawsuits such as the ones that made Democratic vice-presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards a millionaire many times over. One of the most successful personal-injury lawyers in North Carolina history, Mr. Edwards won dozens of lawsuits against doctors and hospitals across the state that he now represents in the Senate.Kerry flip-flops on terrorism
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry spent the past week hawking a tough national-security image to convince voters that he can be trusted to aggressively fight the war on terrorism, calling it the "greatest threat" facing America today. But less than six months ago, the Massachusetts senator said in a televised debate that the Bush administration had exaggerated the threat posed by terrorism.For a much more comprehensive list of Charlie's "journalistic" practices, check out Matt Singer's post (Left in the West) on some of Hurt's past articles.
Meanwhile, no word on whether the terror alert might be raised as we get closer to the "nuclear moment" on the Senate floor.
Posted at 01:23 AM in Nuclear Option | Technorati