Lefty Outrage at ‘Conservative’ Article Misses Key Fact, Writer Isn’t Conservative

by Warner Todd Huston | September 30, 2009 3:18 pm

The left is in an uproar today. They got their panties in a bunch over a piece that ran on the conservative newsblog NewsMax.com where it was suggested that Obama’s irresponsible actions as president could result in a military coup that would “restore” the Constitution.

Not completely without reason, many lefty blogs have lost their tiny little minds over this article. The piece was written by NewsMax blog contributor John L. Perry and talked of a “bloodless coup” where “Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars.” Perry wondered if some “patriotic general” might confront the president (or a president of the future) and demand that he allow the military a shared power in government or face a military overthrow.

It was all speculation and phrased as a question, not asserted as fact or presented as imminent, of course. But this sort of over-the-top foolishness really does not add to the national debate, I have to agree. So, the lefty sites that railed against this NewsMax.com piece were right on that base level.

NewsMax.com has since removed the article and issued a statement that Perry is an unpaid member of NewsMax.

But there is one tiny, little, bitty fact about this story and its author that every single one of these lefty sites that are railing about this story have left out.

The fact of the matter is that John L. Perry is not a conservative. In fact his bio page[1] says that he’s worked for Jimmy Carter, a Democrat governor of Florida and other Democrat Party institutions.

Perry also has had a distinguished career in public policy. He served President Lyndon B. Johnson as deputy under secretary of commerce and was a White House speech writer and race-relations trouble-shooter for President Johnson.

In the Jimmy Carter administration, he was executive assistant to the under secretary of Housing and Urban Development and was interim director of public information for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Perry served as press aide to Gov. LeRoy Collins of Florida and executive assistant to the speaker of the Florida House of Representatives.

Perry was also assistant to the president of the National Association of Broadcasters, a member of the top-management team and director of public relations for the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tenn., and an academic fellow at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in Santa Barbara, Calif.

With all that background as a liberal democrat, Perry does not fit the normal image of a “right wing conservative.” Yet not on eof the lefty sites going nuts on this story have mentioned this.

The profane and unserious Wonkette.com[2] that the lefties love so missed it. So did Crooks & Liars[3], a popular site for lefty extremists. The far left talking point site conveniently called TalkingPointsMemo.com[4] has several updates about this tale and not one of them mentions Perry’s liberal background. FiresDogLake.com[5] also touts the story without all the relevant facts. Finally, no one at Media Matters[6] was able to ferret out the truth, either.

One has to wonder what sort of standards these lefty sites have? I mean, if they are claiming to inform their readers why leave off the fact that the writer they are upset at has a long history of liberal activism?

Curiouser and curiouser.

(Confederate Yankee[7] has the full text of the pulled Perry piece.)