The Los Angeles Times’ Michael Hiltzik takes offense when Hugh Hewitt uses “uncivil language” — the word “lie” — to describe one of his posts:

“Now, jumping my statement up to a “lie” is a pretty extreme reaction, and would certainly get Hugh an “F” from anyone favoring civil discourse in America. It barrels right through such potential waystations as “mistake,” “misstatement,” “misinterpretation,” or “misunderstanding,” and imputes nefarious motives to me that Hugh can’t possibly have any basis for, since we’ve never met or talked and, by his own claim, he doesn’t know my work.”

This is in response to this post by Hewitt.

Hiltzik has had a surprising upgrade in his standards. Here’s some “civil discourse” from his own writings:

• on an Ann Althouse post: “imbecilic“

• on a Hugh Hewitt staffer: “amateur.” In another post he announces that “she’s a twentysomething Georgia grad who received postgraduate training in vacuous sarcasm from the Heritage Foundation.”

• On Hewitt’s Blog: “delusional“

• “… (Governor Arnold) Schwarzenegger’s studied indifference to the public employee initiative (he hasn’t taken a formal position) is just another fraud.” (no longer available for free at LATimes.com; our excerpt here)

• On June 16th he wrote a coulmn, also no longer available free, about which we wrote: “In a meandering piece that closed with Hiltzik comparing Schwarzenegger to Joseph McCarthy, he cites “fake,” “shameless” “low blows” and “baldfaced lie(s)” with examples that mysteriously only include Republicans.”

• Guest blogging at Political Animal: the belief that the Los Angeles Times’ circulation decline is in part caused by its “supposed liberalism” is “an ignorant partisan trope.”

And Hiltzik has been psychic as well. In the June 16 Golden State piece (no longer free at the LAT site) he said “Gov. Schwarzenegger’s version of education reform, which derives entirely from his personal pique at the teachers union, is to stiffen tenure requirements to discourage qualified teachers from even joining the system.” How did Hiltzik know that? Ouija board?

And while we’re discussing “mistakes,” let’s go to his significant mistatement of the number of detainees at Guantanamo Bay …

We look forward to Hiltzik’s appearance on Hewitt’s show Tuesday (12/13). Perhaps all these misunderstandings will get straightened out …

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Our Hiltzik posts show up in this search (but ignore the one titled “Smoking Hot French Anchorwoman Covers Riots and Stuff” … that’s not him!

Technorati Tags: Michael Hiltzik, hugh hewitt

This entry was posted on Friday, December 9th, 2005 at 1:21 pm by A Senior Administration Official and is filed under LA Times' Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.