David Weigel’s Feeble Defense of NYT’s Lichtblau, Plus Issa/Bardella Conspiracy Theory!

David Weigel, the former conservative movement columnist for the Washington Post, is running interference for Eric Lichtblau of the New York Times. Lichtblau authored the falsified New York Times article claiming Darrell Issa was engaging in business practices that led to profits improperly tied to his position as a Congressman.

Weigel’s column in Slate attempts to dispute Issa’s recent suggestion that Lichblau may never have traveled to California to research his negative article. Weigel says Issa is reading too much into Lichtblau’s famously botched description of the setting of Issa’s office.

Here’s what Weigel passes off as a rebuttal:

That’s a hell of an accusation, based not on proof that Lichtblau never went to San Diego, but on the way one detail was phrased. Yes, Lichtblau has won a Pulitzer. Actually, his previous reporting has been cited by Issa’s staff as ballast for their previous investigations and requests.

That sentence contains one irrelevancy (that Issa has previously cited Lichtblau’s work in a positive light), and one deception (that Issa’s evidence only consists of “the way one detail was phrased.”

Weigel’s claim is falsified by what’s in the rest of the selectively quoted Issa memo.

— Issa’s memo also questions whether Lichtblau really could have entered Shadowridge Country Club to observe Issa’s office. The San Diego Union-Tribune tried to gain entrance, but was rebuffed as Shadowridge is a private club. (Weigel even quotes from that part of the Issa memo, which has nothing to do with phrasing, but doesn’t attempt to refute it.)

— None of Lichtblau’s interviews in Vista appeared to have been done in person, according to the memo. Two Vista area residents Issa’s office talked to said Lichtblau interviewed them by phone.

—  The Union-Tribune was able to verify Issa’s claimed purchase price for a medical office building (the crux of a major profiteering charge against Issa), by visiting the county assessor’s office. If Lichtblau were in San Diego County, he could have done the same thing to verify the price, the memo states. But he didn’t. Why didn’t he?

A real tell about Weigel’s piece is that (as of when I read the article), it doesn’t link to Issa’s memo so readers can examine it for themselves. It’s the same problem that Lichtblau’s piece suffered from: it asked us to take his claims on faith. That’s bad journalism in any case, and there’s no excuse for not failing to link on the Internet.

It’s not as if Weigel can’t link on Slate. He does — three times to New York Times material, once to a Union-Tribune article, and once to an Issa letter that mentioned an unrelated Lichtblau article in passing. (Proof, Weigel claims, that Lichtblau was a “trusted source”).

No links to the Issa memo.

It fits. A shoddy piece of journalism gets a shoddy and disingenuous defense.

In fairness to Weigel, here is a defense from economist David Friedman from charges that putative libertarian Weigel is really a lefty who infiltrated the conservative movement to report on it under false pretenses. And yes, the father of Friedman, an anarcho-capitalist, is the late, iconic Milton Friedman.

(WARNING — Speculation ahead!)

Speaking for myself, I never doubted that Lichtblau visited Vista for the story. It’s hard to believe that such a seasoned reporter would make such a stupid lie as claiming to report from a location didn’t visit, at least after the Jayson Blair/Rick Bragg scandals.

But stranger things have happened. And Issa’s charge is unusually bold and specific — and unutterably dumb if proven wrong.  Such a charge would reek of desperation, as if Lichtblau had Issa on the ropes.

However, Lichtblau’s story has already been reduced to smoldering rubble. So there is no obvious need to up the ante. Unless . . . .

. . .  Unless Issa has come into solid evidence that Lichtblau in fact did not visit the locale for the article. If that were proven, the New York Times would have to fire Lichtblau, and retract his story.

To add further complication to the wild theorizing, Issa’s ex-aide and Rostrafarian, Kurt Bardella, has returned to Issa’s staff. Did Bardella bring knowledge about Lichtblau’s itinerary to Issa as part of the re-hiring process? What’s cooking in the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy?

Please remember this is pure speculation, with only very light circumstantial evidence on its behalf. It’s the kind of stuff you read only in the inaccurate, biased blogosphere. You wouldn’t see such flimsy speculation in a respectable and unbiased newspaper like the New York Times.

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(DISCLAIMER: This is my opinion, and not necessarily that of my employer, the North County Times).