The parents, all Democrats and so not inappropriately having a Democratic spokesman, have asked that such stories cease as it causes them unbearable pain and obstructs police efforts to find the killer.That their son was a strong Clinton supporter makes the logic of his turning on her absurd. So does citing an anonymous claim as fact or suggesting that a Democratic family having a Democratic spokesman is a "reality check."
But last week, as the Trump Russian scandals swirled around the world, the old story was resurrected by an ancient enemy of Clinton, Fox News. They claimed that private investigator and Fox contributor Rod
Wheeler has 'seen" "confirmed evidence" of the email leaks.....and thus set up the story that he was murdered, not in a botched robbery, as the DC police and the parents believe, but as payback for damaging Clinton or about to sing to the FBI.
But Rod Wheeler, hours later, as the resurrected story made the rounds, denied having seen such evidence and said he got the claim from a Fox Reporter. Fox, having just fired key figures and seeking to re-establish its credibility, within hours apologized, claimed the report was fake news, and said, to honor the parents' request, they would no longer publish such fake stories.
Ironically, some on the progressive side, still grieving from the way Clinton ripped off Sanders, and stuck in the denial and blaming stage, have resurrected the old Brietbart/Drudge and now Fox-repudiated story....and I was shocked to find an OEN editor that I much respect, Josh Mitteldorf, writing an article Please Don't Read about the Seth Rich Murder.
To this article, the kind that causes such unbearable pain to the parents, let us consider the parent's plea: Stop politicizing our son's murder.
Why is a progressive bringing to life a story long touted by the far right and even declared fake news by the "new" Fox?
I was inspired to write this rebuttal because when I pointed out that the article had stated an anonymous claim as a fact an that therefore was promoting fake news, the response was to assert I was miming the NYTimes, a newspaper I have distrusted since they printed the Judith Miller articles legitimizing the Bush lies about Saddam's WMD program.
You don't have to be fan of the Times, which I am not, to know that taking an anonymous claim off a chat room is not a fact and cannot be used a a "reality check." This article I am writing is the reality check needed to expose the fake news claiming an ER doctor declared Rich alive but that the hospital was forced to let him die. This is not journalism, this is grabbing at the flimsiest of straws to promote fake news as fact.
But the source of the claim stated as fact was not NYTimes but rather a far right creationist website that wrote: "Yesterday, on the Internet chat forum 4chan, an individual who goes by the alias of Anonymous (ID: rhotYJAg) claimed to be a surgery resident at Washington Hospital Center who had attended to Seth Rich -- the 27-year-0ld Democratic National Committee (DNC) staffer who leaked thousands of damaging DNC emails to WikiLeaks." fellowshipoftheminds.com
The anonymous post was on 4chan, an alt-right websiite famous for its frauds and hoaxes (and conviction for violent threats and pornography). Whom shall we believe; an anonymous individual on an online far right chat room or the parents of Seth Rich? And what shall we make of a progressive website publishing an article that repeats these claims and presents them as damning facts? I do not know but this article is my attempt to expose fake news and the cruelty it causes.
When I quoted this to the OEN author, who had written up this anonymous claim of a person claiming to be an attending ER doctor, as fact, he dismissed me as a NYTimes mimic, saying "Thank you, Dale.
The NYTimes couldn't have said it better."
He wrote, as a concluding bit of "evidence" of a cover up by the police and the hospital the following as if fact:
"An ER doctor who treated Rich the night he was shot has said that Rich was not fatally injured, but that doctors were prevented from seeing him, and that he was left to die."
This is to present an anonymous claim on a chat line as a given fact, and that, I would suggest, is the essence of fake news. His response to this source was to claim I was just repeating NYTimes propaganda. But my source is not the NYTimes,nor could any responsible journalist take such a claim as a fact.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
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