And they think he's still relevant?! (UPDATE)

Benny-wenny, who blogs over at Not Larry Sabato (no, I'm not going to link him), seems to think that he can use blatant lies and poor reporting to promote his candidate, Creigh Deeds, over Bob McDonnell to govern Virginia. While Deeds is gallivanting off on an excellent adventure (well, he did use the word "daring") and trying to use the abortion issue to disguise the fact that he's following McDonnell on every issue...

While Deeds is busy playing catch-up and being irrelevant, Benny-wenny tries to trip up McDonnell for supposedly displaying the Confederate flag at a gun show (see comments from Bearing Drift [UPDATE: See Jim's commentary this morning, 12Aug09... OUCH!], Shaun Kenney, SWAC Girl, and the Write Side of My Brain). Unfortunately for Benny-wenny, he's in such a rush to be "relevant" that he can't be bothered to check his facts (note the Bearing Drift post in particular).

Benny-wenny has participated in shoddy attempts at journalism before, and has promoted smear campaigns and included me and several conservative Virginia bloggers in one in particular ( - yeah, Joey Stanley was his hatchet man, but Benny was behind him all the way).

It's not surprising that - even today - political bloggers are regarded with some suspicion and disdain by the general public when this sort of muckracking and ad hominem idiocy seems to run rampant. And, while I know there are more than a few right-leaning bloggers who really like to pile on, it seems to me that it's the lefty blogs that love to wallow in hypocrisy, double-dealing, and character assassination.

But then, with hacks like Benny-wenny on "their side," I suppose one would expect a cesspool of lies, obfuscation and the twisting of facts. I was taken in by Benny once, a looooong time ago. But, as the saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!"

I would suggest that my readers approach anything he has to say with the same skepticism.

UPDATE: Oh, and the hits just keep coming!

• Redstate

  The other day, the Deeds campaign decided to stop talking about the economic downturn affecting Virginia, taxes, education, and other issues a majority of voters pay attention to in order to fixate on baby killing. That’s right. Deeds decided his winning issue in Virginia would be that if Bob McDonnell were Governor of Virginia less babies would be aborted than if Creigh Deeds were Governor.

  It didn’t work.

  So the campaign rapidly moved from abortion to the Confederacy.The other day, the Deeds campaign decided to stop talking about the economic downturn affecting Virginia, taxes, education, and other issues a majority of voters pay attention to in order to fixate on baby killing. That’s right. Deeds decided his winning issue in Virginia would be that if Bob McDonnell were Governor of Virginia less babies would be aborted than if Creigh Deeds were Governor.

  It didn’t work.

  So the campaign rapidly moved from abortion to the Confederacy.

• I'm Surrounded by Idiots
• Virginia Virtucon

  Tribbet, Abbey and Deeds can save the phony outrage. Were any of them complaining about Democrats who employed the Confederate flag or spoke of it with reverence such as Sen. Jim Webb or Ben “Cooter” Jones who ran for Congress?  Didn’t think so.  (In fact, Tribbet brags about how he ran Jones’ losing race where Jones went around in the “General Lee” car from “The Dukes of Hazzard” with a big Confederate flag painted on the roof.)

• J's Notes
• Right Wing Liberal (who skewers Benny - I mean, "WHAM!" Love it!)

  But noooooo, Ben decides to dig himself even deeper with a hilarious reach for – you’ll love this – geometry [...]

  AAAACK! THE DREADED MEDIAN POINT! WE’RE DOOMED!!!

  Now, I have no idea what mathematical genius allowed Tribbett to determine the “exact median point” from the picture, but allow me to use this to establish Blogospheric Rule # Um, we’re supposed to be counting? – When you are forced to resort to a syntactical precision best suited for a college-level dissertation, you lose the argument.

• Crystal Clear Conservative

Oh, and LOOK! The Deeds campaign and Benny-wenny even get slammed by the Washington Post (hardly the bastion of conservative thought...) when they actually do the research and get the story RIGHT:

"The flag was not in our booth,'' McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin said. "However, there still is an actual story here. The fact that Creigh Deeds' campaign is actively pushing this falsehood demonstrates their desperation is greater than anyone expected. And it also will cost them a lot of credibility right as the campaign enters the home stretch. Not a good day for them."

"To mispresent a photo for political gain is the worst kind of politics,'' Martin said.

Of course, Benny-wenny whines and refuses to man up about the whole thing:

Not Larry Sabato posted the photo on its blog last night. Ben Tribbett Benny-wenny, who runs the blog, said he received the photo by email but would not reveal from whom. He said he was not himself present at the event and though he believes the photograph shows that the pole of the flag is indeed in the McDonnell booth, that it is troublesome even if the flag was at the next table.

"If a confederate flag was placed at the exact median point between the McDonnell booth and a confederate booth and the McDonnell campaign was not smart enough to demand that it be taken down or that their booth be moved, that's almost as bad as if the flag were at their booth," he said. "Either way, it shows a real insensitivity to what the flag means."

Aw, cry me a river. It's an issue of personal responsibility, Benny. PERSONAL responsibility. I am not responsible for your actions, just as you are not responsible for MINE. To try and smear McDonnell (or anyone) through the actions of someone else with whom they had no connection is low-down dirty dealing and reprehensible behavior.

But then, that's what I pretty much expect from you...

('Nother UPDATE) And, yeah, the Deeds campaign tried to promote this-

- until it got smacked down pretty hard by several people... Including the WaPo article cited above:

"It was Joe's [Joe Abbey, Deeds' campaign manager - ed.] personal retweet, not the campaign's,'' said Mo Elleithee, Deeds spokesman. "Today we're focused on drawing a contrast between Creigh's vision of moving Virginia forward and Bob McDonnell's record of hurting southside Virginia and his support of the Bush economic agenda. If the McDonnell campaign would like to answer for that, we're all ears."

"Creigh's vision of moving Virginia forward"??? May I direct my readers' attention to the video at the top of this post? Who's actually "moving Virginia forward"? It sure ain't Deeds...

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