Liberal Reporter Cries On Being Outed As A Shill

Apparently Patterico wrote a post that I missed and it was finger licking good.  He wrote about a writer named Jennifer Hunter for the Chicago Sun-Times who, being the good reporter she is, did some follow-up and investigation on a claim that a supposed Republican had switched sides….

Ok, stop laughing.  Reporter and investigation don’t go together, I know that:

Just yesterday, the paper reported that a “staunch Republican” had undergone an astounding turnaround: he would, henceforth, support Democrats:

After watching the top five Democratic candidates for president speak before a trial lawyers’ group Sunday, attorney Jim Ronca of Philadelphia, a staunch Republican, became certain of one thing: He is not going to vote Republican in the 2008 presidential election.

He will support the Democrats.

“I’m not only going to vote Democratic, I’m going to financially support the Democrats,” Ronca said after a luncheon forum of the American Association for Justice, featuring Gov. Bill Richardson, Sen. Barack Obama, former Sen. John Edwards, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Joe Biden. “The Republicans in Washington are an embarrassment.”

My goodness. That really tells you something! And it gains extra credibility, because it comes from the one newspaper that has assured its readers that it will not be too liberal.

Just one problem: “staunch Republican” Jim Ronca of Philadelphia appears to have supported Democrats before.

Well she was none to happy that she got some emails that were a bit unhappy about this bit of "investigative" journalism so she wrote a new article today crying about those big bag meany Republicans: (h/t Patterico)

For the past few days, since a news story of mine was published on Monday, I have been bombarded with dozens of daily e-mails from Republicans calling me a liar, demanding I be fired, and insisting on a retraction.

The grumbling arose partially because my editor took a small part of my story and made it into a headline: "GOP lawyer sold on Dems." Reporters don’t write headlines, editors do. And they want to write something catchy so readers will read the darned story.

[…]One of the men I interviewed, Jim Ronca, identified himself as a disgruntled Republican, fed up with the Bush White House, who was going to give his vote and money to Democrats. In my story I called him a "staunch Republican." His wife was standing by his side, and so was a friend, a Democrat from New York, Ted Oshman, neither of whom disputed Ronca’s description of himself as a Republican.

[…]After the story was published, some Republicans posted to right-wing Web sites the two headlines and the two paragraphs quoting Ronca.

And so the madness began.

Industrious partisans, upset that anyone calling himself a Republican could possibly think of supporting the Democrats, decided to "investigate" Ronca, an attorney from Philadelphia. And what they found, they told me, was a long history of Ronca giving more money to Democrats than Republicans. (In fact, much of the money he donated to Democrats was after George W. Bush was elected.)

She continues on crying that the article was really not about this "staunch" Republican but about some speeches a few Democrats gave so who were we to be upset about such a minor detail. 

Yeah.

And then check out that last sentence quoted…apparently this "Republican" only gave to Democrats after GWB was elected, so being the ever so curious guy I am I checked out OpenSecrets and lo and behold….another lie has spewed forth from this reporters fingers.  Lets look at his contributions year for year (in order):

ROFL….huge RINO.

Or more often called the Democrat Party

A Democrat Senator

This guy was not easy to find but I finally found him…a Democrat State Attorney General:

Delaware lawyers, such as Charles M. Oberly III, a former Democratic state attorney general who represented Capano in the murder trial, said negative assessments, deserved or not, of Connolly’s work are not surprising, nor should they carry much weight.

Edward Kennedy?  Need I say more?

Ah….D’Amato, the man who sided with liberals plenty:

D’Amato was known for being fairly conservative, a reflection of then conservative-leaning Nassau County, yet very popular among New York’s liberal voters. He strongly supported the conservative positions of his party on "law and order" issues such as capital punishment and harsh penalties for drug offenses. On some issues he agreed with the opposition: in 1993 D’Amato was one of only three Republicans to vote in favor of allowing gays to serve openly in the U.S. military. In 1996 he was among the minority of Republicans to vote to extend federal protections against discrimination in hiring to homosexuals. On labor issues too he frequently sided with Democrats

A Republican.  Not sure if he is a RINO or not tho.  I am assuming so since the only other Republicans he gave to were of the RINO persuasion.  Anyone from Pennsylvania help me out on him?

A Democrat

Can’t find him.

RINO

Then we already know how he voted in 2004 from Patterico’s story.  Kerry and Edwards.

This took me 30 minutes of research and I found out that this James Ronca is anything but a "staunch Republican."

So stop crying Jennifer and do your damn job instead of being a shill for the Democrats.

Curt

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