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NYT WILL NOT BUDGE on Issa’s golf course visibility!

It is adamant that you can see a golf course from the Representative’s San Diego office! Adamant! The Time has a third-party ad and everything! So there! But what about the allegations that Rep. Issa used his influence and position to make significant profits on both a mutual fund purchase and a real estate sale? Which is to say, two of three allegations* that the New York Times used as the framework for its hit piece on Representative Issa?

Yeah. About that.

Correction: August 26, 2011

An article on Aug. 15 about Representative Darrell Issa’s business dealings, using erroneous information that Mr. Issa’s family foundation filed with the Internal Revenue Service, referred incorrectly to his sale of an AIM mutual fund in 2008. A spokesman for the California Republican now says that the I.R.S. filing is “an incorrect document.” The spokesman, Frederick R. Hill, said that based on Mr. Issa’s private brokerage account records, which he made public with redactions, the purchase of the mutual fund resulted in a $125,000 loss, not a $357,000 gain.

And the article, using incorrect information from the San Diego county assessor’s office, misstated the purchase price for a medical office plaza Mr. Issa’s company bought in Vista, Calif., in 2008. It cost $16.3 million, the assessor’s office now says — not $10.3 million — because the assessor mistakenly omitted in public records a $6 million loan Mr. Issa’s company assumed in the acquisition. Therefore the value of the property remained essentially unchanged, and did not rise 60 percent after Mr. Issa secured federal funding to widen a road alongside the plaza.

But, darn it, there’s a golf course there. Or at least a driving range. Well, there was once a driving range there. That counts, right?

Background here. Executive summary: Eric Litchblau of the NYT allegedly trusted ThinkProgress as a research source [although if Litchblau did so trust them, he did not actually credit them] on Rep. Darrell Issa, and as a result wrote a remarkably inaccurate article about the Oversight Chair’s financial dealings. Issa’s office has responded by leisurely carving off strips of the NYT’s hide: this is merely the latest salvo. It remains unclear how long the NYT will keep this up before they finally surrender and simply run a black line through the entire article; judging from events thus far, they may go to the veritable wall itself to keep their first paragraph…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

(H/T: @ByronYork.)

*The third allegation – that Issa used his influence to aid Toyota because one of his companies was a ‘major supplier of alarms to Toyota’ – is still being stubbornly defended by the NYT despite the fact that it’s not actually true. And by ‘defended’ I mean ‘the NYT is simultaneously pounding the table, shouting, and screaming LALALAICAN’THEARYOULALALA while covering its ears. It’s such an impressive display that it’s almost Homeric.

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COMMENTS

  • ohiohistorian

    Christopher Dodd (D-Conn) who got “Angelo’s Special” loans, and how Barack Obama received a gift on land from Tony Rezko. Or how Dianne Feinstein was on the committee for all of the funding that her husband received at URS. Yet they can publish about Darrel Issa. It is just that they are so stuck on a lie about a Republican that they step over the truth on Democrats…

  • clintonformccain

    It was probably written and handed to them for publication by the Obama oppo research team.

  • jazzycmk

    The original hit piece was on the front page? Issa’s office asked for a front page retraction, which would only be fair. I’m guessing it got buried in the back.

    I’m invested in this answer. My younger sister has turned to the dark side and started subscribing to the NYT. I sent her the original story about the egregious errors the Times made with the story and bet her they would never print a front page retraction.

  • westcoastpatriette

    The unapologetic butt-kicker.

  • westcoastpatriette

    .

  • toadold

    So imagine that in 2013 congress passes a law that non voting stock can no longer be sold or traded to the public. All stock sold must have full voting rights. This would put the New York Times on toast.

  • Darin_H

    and it only has a flower bed in the middle of it. And a tree. And it’s only 2×3.

    Good enough for fact checkers as NYT.

  • http://www.FranBaker.com frankieb

    The AG, perhaps? The AG’s boss? Time to destroy Issa.

  • Adjoran

    They will at least survive another few years, as Carlos Slim (the Mexican billionaire who bailed them out a couple of times before) has agreed to a little more love cash for them, but their reputation is basically shot, and their business model is failing.

    They’ve been losing money, expect to lose money next year, and I know of no analyst who projects a five-year profit outlook for the company.

    Their circulation, advertising revenue, and creditibility are all steadily declining. Litchblau is just the latest in a long line of recent reporters whose work is pure propaganda and riddled with errors. Not correcting their errors is what the NYT does nowadays.

    There was a time when such a story on the NYT front page would have damaged Issa beyond repair – but like the days of fact-checking and honest reporting in the NYT, those days are long gone.