Last night, 17,000 19,298 people joined Senator Jim DeMint and me on the telephone to talk about several Senate races.

Talking Points Memo makes this the lead story this evening. And what is one of the key take aways?

Yours truly asked activists to not just donate to candidates but . . . wait for it . . . to pray for candidates too.

Scandalous.

See the screenshot of the headline, but just to clarify — it was conservative activists we were talking to.

As I mentioned earlier today, Talking Points Memo intended to do a hit job on me and I failed to cooperate.

Their reporter, who used to write obituaries and cover corn dog eating contests for a small newspaper, decided she wanted to be an activist and left for pastures further left.

Today, after I failed to cooperate, TPM released its hit job in which they revealed I did incendiary things like quote Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright, combat unions, and play the Left’s own “Hitler game” against them.

Shudder.

It actually makes for a humorous read on the level of an 8th grader’s first draft essay attempt at being salacious.

I am flattered though. It’s always nice to be validated by your political opponents as someone they need to attack.

What’s so funny is that most of the stuff the gal wrote is really only awful stuff if your presupposition in life really is that America is a loathsome place in need of a total makeover and all its defenders are loathsome too.

I’m sure there’ll be more of these in the future.

So I’m sitting here minding my own business and get this email:

From: Rachel Slajda
Subject: request for interview
Date: October 15, 2009 11:28:55 AM EDT
To: Erick-Woods Erickson

Dear Mr. Erickson,

Hi, my name’s Rachel Slajda and I’m a reporter for TalkingPointsMemo.com. I’m writing a bit of a profile on you and some of your recent writings, and I was hoping we could chat by phone. I’d like to get your take on how your critics respond to various tweets and posts you write, and some broader things, such as what, in your words, is the mission of RedState.
What do you say?

I’m heading out of the office now but I’ll be back about 1 pm and should be in for the rest of the afternoon. Give me a call whenever you can, at 212-645-xxxx.

Thanks so much, and I look forward to talking with you.

Best,
Rachel

–
Rachel Slajda
Newswriter, Talking Points Memo

Now, you and I both know that given Talking Points Memo’s habitual fabrication of stories and facts and constant attacks on the right, that (A) I have become someone of note the left feels threatened by and (B) this is soooo gonna be a hit job. See e.g. here,here, here, and here.

But, I was still amenable, though it’d have to be by email because I’m not where I can get use a phone right now. Then I decided if this “reporter” wants to report on me twittering, I’d see what she’s been twittering. I stumbled on to this one:

“Republicans: anti-Nobel Peace Prize, anti-Olympics, anti-women’s rights, anti-universal health care. Why are we still even listening?” If you scroll back further you’ll find her contempt for social conservatives and fiscal conservatives with scornful posts about both the Values Voters Summit and tea party activists.

So, my first question has to be why does she want to interview me if she thinks the left just needs to tune us out. My second would be that if she really thinks we are anti all those things as opposed to pro-America, pro-freedom, pro-free markets, and pro-quality healthcare, how could she even understand or process fairly what I say if her presuppositions are based on contempt for everything I and the right stand for, i.e. America as it is, not as the left would have it be?

I think I’ll pass.

But, for your edification, Caleb did transcribe the interview as it no doubt would have happened:

Read More →

David Kurtz of the aptly-named left-wing activist site Talking Points Memo complains that RedState has “no interest in being journalists. That’s not what they’re about and that’s not what they see as their primary function, which is advocacy.” His basis for this complaint is emails from Erick to the office of Governor Mark Sanford during Sanford’s now-infamous absence, seeking comment and offering to help get Gov. Sanford’s side of the story out. Those emails resulted in RedState getting a response from the Governor’s staff responding directly to the story, which led to a front-page post. Two points should suffice to respond to Kurtz:

(1) RedState has never hid the fact that we are an activism and advocacy site first and foremost. That’s no barrier to doing real reporting, as was done here, and unlike the South Carolina newspapers, we published immediately what we learned. Any reporting is only as good as the source, and when the truth came out, our site’s responses made clear our dissatisfaction with the fact that Gov. Sanford lied to his staff and to us. But we offer no apologies for the fact that we seek to advance a cause.

(2) What is laughable is the implicit suggestion that Talking Points Memo is not an activism site. It’s a left-wing blog bankrolled by left-wing donors, run by left-wing activist Josh Marshall, and dedicated to spreading left-wing talking points; even Kurtz’s post admits that it is “on the left.” If Talking Points Memo wishes to disclose its communications with the left-wing interest groups and politicians that feed it its talking points, or with the left-wing listserves and back-channels that ensure message coordination on the left, we would be most amused to read them. We will not hold our breath waiting.