Ground Game

Townhall's Matt Lewis has a post today catching Time's Jay Carney misidentifying the source of the Michelle Obama "whitey" rumors. While Carney was appearing on MSNBC he claimed that conservative bloggers were to blame for spreading the rumor (video here). Of course, anyone following the story knows that's exactly wrong.

Before correcting Carney, there are two points worth making. First, is that he was on TV, where unintentional slips happen all the time. However, he hasn't corrected himself yet either, so maybe he is in fact saying things on air without knowing what it is he's actually talking about. Which brings up the second point: this is not the first time Carney has been caught in a mistake by bloggers. Both he and fellow Swampland blogger Joe Klein have had their share of foul-ups with both the conservative and liberal sides of the blogosphere. Maybe it's an old-school journalism, "boy's club" thing, as Time's female bloggers haven't run into the same traps.

But back to the original point. The Obama campaign has received much attention in the past few days for its new website dedicated to addressing rumors about the candidate. On a side note, can someone please retire the word "smear" from the online debate? It really has become the "Hey Ya!" of the blogger lexicon.

Anyway, as Lewis points out, it was liberal blogger, and former CIA operative, Larry Johnson who was most recently circulating the Michelle Obama "whitey" rumors. Fellow Democrat Bob Beckel also hyped the video during a Fox News appearance. And it was Daily Kos himself, one of the least likely individuals to show restraint or a nuanced point of view, who yesterday acknowledged that National Review's Jim Geraghty, played a major role in tearing down the "whitey" rumors.


UPDATE: Carney apologizes for his mistake