LA Times smears Fred! for playing a racist in 1988 made for TV movie

posted at 3:54 pm on May 4, 2007 by Ian
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Fred is now on the MSM’s hit list:

So can “Law & Order” actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) become the first presidential candidate with this credit? Thompson played a white supremacist, spewing anti-Semitic comments and fondling an autographed copy of “Mein Kampf” on a television drama 19 years ago.

His colleagues say that he was just an actor putting everything he had into playing the role of a charismatic racist, named Knox Pooley, in three episodes of CBS’ hit show “Wiseguy” in 1988. “Do you call Tom Cruise a killer because he played one in a movie?” asked show creator and writer Stephen J. Cannell.

Is the L.A. Times trying to imply something here? It is completely irresponsible to even hint Fred Thompson is a racist because he played one on TV decades ago.

The L.A. Times hit piece says “some conservative political blogs” are concerned about the “problem”:

But in the age of YouTube, this performance could raise an intriguing political question: How does a performer eyeing a presidential run deal with a video history that can be downloaded, taken out of context, chopped into embarrassing pieces and then distributed endlessly though cyberspace? Some conservative political blogs are already considering the problem.

It isn’t until several paragraphs later the L.A. Times identifies one of these “conservative political blogs” or should I say blog, in the singular form:

Some conservative websites are already discussing how a potential Thompson campaign may have to deal with these scenes. People who work out their politics on the Internet understand how potentially troublesome things like this can be. Like pebbles in a pond, you can’t know where the ripples are going to stop — or what the gullible or the mean-spirited may make of them.

One website called Patterico’s Pontifications asked the question recently: “How will they trash Fred Thompson?” Several respondents immediately mentioned the “Wiseguy” performance.

I went to Patterico’s blog to see what he wrote and found out he did not write anything. The L.A. Times quoted a comment from a post Patterico wrote nearly two months ago predicting the media would smear Fred. It turns out he was absolutely correct.

Patterico explains more at his blog.

Exit question: Why doesn’t the MSM go after real racists with the same zeal they use to go after fake racists?

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