Fool Me Once...

I wonder if Andrew Breitbart, Fox News, James O’Keefe, and Hannah Giles will apologize to Juan Carlos Vera, or issue corrections to what can no longer be considered a journalistic effort. They portrayed this guy as a willing accomplice to the smuggling of underage illegal immigrant prostitutes. As it turns out, he used what little English skills he possessed to draw out their made up story, pin down contact information, and report what he found out to police soon after the twenty-somethings left his San Diego office.

In other words, Mr. Vera did the right thing. Mr. Breitbart can claim he was ignorant of that fact. But unless he publishes one hell of an apology… well, even if he does so I can’t say I’ll ever again be inclined to trust anything he publishes, so I guess now that the truth is out it’s another public test of his character. Will he persist in arguing that the means justify the end even when it involves tarnishing the reputation of an apparently innocent guy?

Sometime this week I’ll issue appropriate corrections to any factual errors I find in stories I’ve written on this subject, presuming that the California Attorney General report reveals any. In the meantime, even the fact that some ACORN employees behaved inappropriately doesn’t change the fact that I missed half the story here for too long, irrespective of whether rereading my work shows it to be technically accurate or not. Initially I trusted “Big” content far more than I should have — an especially vexing realization given that the suspicions I’ve always had about the Breitbart approach to discourse. I should’ve known better, and I let the illusion of evidence (misleadingly edited video, transcripts I read too credulously) fool me.

I suppose this post frees commenter Chet to pursue corrections from all the other sites that were misled by Mr. O’Keefe and Mr. Breitbart. Go get ‘em…