Anonymous WTNH Blogger Reaches Stratospheric Levels of Dumb (Updated)

by: tparty

Tue Jul 21, 2009 at 18:03:01 PM EDT

There are so many things completely wrong with this blog post by "ConnPolitics.tv Editor" at WTNH (the one that on first glance looks like the 100 other articles a week written about Chris Dodd's fundraising) that it's hard to know where to start. How about with the first sentence:

Of the 465 itemized individual contributions given to Sen. Chris Dodd's re-election campaign this year, only five Connecticut residents gave a donation to the senator, according to records posted online by the Federal Election Commission.

Wrong, and wrong. There have been many more than 465 itemized individual donations to Dodd this year, including over 100 itemized individual donors from CT in Dodd's second quarter FEC report alone. And 491 donors from CT in the 2Q, if you count donations both above and below the FEC reporting threshold of $200.

On to the second sentence:

The FEC lists Dodd receiving $608,995 in itemized individual contributions between Jan. 1, 2009 and June 30, 2009.

Wrong. The FEC lists Dodd receiving $664k in itemized individual donations in the second quarter alone, in addition to the $608k in itemized individual donations in the first quarter.

There are many more completely false statements that follow, but the big mistake the anonymous WTNH blogger is making quickly becomes apparent. WTNH is breaking this breathless bullshit story using numbers from the first quarter only, because they are apparently unable to find the second quarter numbers on the FEC's website.

Yet, when approached by the CT Dems with this information, this is how they update their post:

Update 5:25 p.m.: Connecticut Democrats have shared with us records not available on the FEC query cited above. Those records are being looked at now.

Wrong. Those records are available at the FEC.

Here's how you do it, anonymous WTNH blogger:

1. Go to fec.gov.
2. Click on Campaign Finance Reports and Data, and then View Images of All Financial Reports
3. Type in "Dodd". Click "Get Listing"
4. Click on "Friends of Chris Dodd"
5. Click on PDF under the entry "JULY QUARTERLY" for 2009.
6. Click "Generate PDF"
7. If you find you still need remedial help in learning how to count, try this:

The level of defensiveness and sheer ignorance on display by WTNH is jaw-dropping.

Update 6:17pm: The post on WTNH is quickly being edited, including the title. A screencap of the original post is below the fold.

Update 7:04pm: And if you wanted to leave a comment on WTNH's Connpolitics.tv to let the proprietor there, "ConnPolitics.tv editor," know that he or she is wrong, forget about it:

Comments are closed for this post.

Update 7/22 9:05am: Jeff Bailey at WTNH responds in the comments:

Yep, I made an incorrect assumption that a link marked "itemized individual contributions" available on Sen. Dodd's FEC page was up to date. It was not. I should have looked more closely at the dates on the FEC query. I didn't. And I should have left comments open. There should also have been a 'Contact' link. I'll rectify that when I'm done typing here.

In all, a pretty fair criticism here...

Much credit to Jeff and WTNH for coming here to post a mea culpa and correction.