Blowing Smoky

Howard Kurtz was at his most putztacular on Sunday's Reliable Sources. Kurtz is on vacation from his Post column, and I think feels more free to push his agenda when he doesn't have to hear from readers via his Post chat the following day. (Correction: As gimmeabreak points out in comments, Kurtz held an online chat today. It appears from his comments, however, that he is still on vacation from his column for another couple of weeks.)

Bob Somerby already has debunked Howie's laughable claim that the Joe-loving Beltway press has spurned Holy Joe. However, I haven't seen anyone comment on Kurtz's loving embrace of Charles "Smoky" Johnson, proprietor of a bulletin board for genocide enthusiasts:

KURTZ: All right. Charles Johnson, I don't think there's any question that liberal bloggers played a significant role in Lieberman's defeat. I mean, you had Markos Moulitsas, better known as Daily Kos, actually appearing in an ad for Ned Lamont, the man who defeated Lieberman.

What did you think do you make of the tone of much of the liberal commentary in the attacks on Lieberman?

CHARLES JOHNSON, LITTLEGREENBIGOTS.COM: Well, I was very appalled by the tone, actually. There was quite a bit of real nastiness directed at Joe Lieberman in this campaign.

For example, an image was posted on Arianna's site of Lieberman in minstrel black face. And there was also some sort of homophobic images posted on Markos Moulitsas's site. So yes, I think the overall tone was very negative, very nasty.

This is not just throwing Johnson a softball. By asking Johnson about blogger civility, the Putz is deliberately misleading viewers who don't know Johnson is the ringmaster of a hate site.

As an avid follower of blogs, the Putz surely can't claim he was aware of Johnson's promotion of bigotry, since it was documented in the Putz's own paper.

Howie also left unchallenged Johnson's claim that "if you notice, a lot of the people who voted for Lieberman are now experiencing a sort of a sticker shock and sort of wondering whether they did the right thing." It's clear that the racist douchebag meant to say "Lamont" instead of "Lieberman," but Howie neither asked Johnson to clarify nor called him on a claim that Johnson clearly pulled out of his ass. If you want to talk about media dishonesty, Howie, you don't call upon a liar without calling him on his bullshit.