Yesterday's Leftovers For 3/21/10: Well That Took Forever.....And It Wasn't Even That Good.

Today, despite being vindicated time and time again over the last few months, ACORN continues to spiral towards bankruptcy.

The New York Times spilled the details of how a conference call led by the organization's CEO Bertha Lewis will talk about filing for Chapter 7 (unless it has already happened already). And barring a miraculous influx of ostentation coming in, the nutty Right will have officially scored a win at the expense of the poor of the nation (if they haven't already with how publicly ridiculed the organization has received).

But the most revealing thing about that report today was not the fact of ACORN's impending bankruptcy. Rather, it was the fact that it came from the New York Times. Why is that a salient characteristic?

Because this is the same newspaper that won't admit publicly that it facilitated in ACORN becoming poor in the midst of fighting for......the really poor.

As Media Matters has documented as astutely as they always do, the New York Times was among virtually everyone else (outside of MSNBC to their rare credit) to get swept up in McDisguise Wannabe Phone Idiot's foray into being a pimp by writing down every word they got from whenever he was interviewed on the Fixed Propoganda Comedy Clown Channel.

They believed he was in his pimp attire every single time he entered an ACORN office, only to have that fact not be a fact at all.

As we noted last week, the New York Times, and specifically its public editor, Clark Hoyt, managed to emerge among the losers in the ACORN pimp hoax story. Why? Because the Times, both last year and this, erroneously reported that James O'Keefe had worn his outlandish pimp costume into the ACORN offices last summer.

But that was just bogus right-wing spin.

Worse, when confronted with the facts by blogger Brad Friedman, the Times' Hoyt agreed the pimp costume was not worn, but then refused to recommend that the newspaper correct the record.

Now ACORN has asked simply that the NYT just simply act like mature grownups, like Marc Ambinder did yesterday with the fake memos (and unlike the idiots at Hackio).

The New York Times continues to refuse to state the obvious -- that O'Keefe deceived the public, specifically by editing in "b-roll" of his absurd pimp costume and more broadly by misrepresenting what ACORN organizers do. This despite the clear admission by O'Keefe co-conspirators Hannah Giles and Andrew Breitbart both being caught on tape saying he never wore the pimp suit in any ACORN office. Despite the findings of the Harshbarger report. Despite Breitbart's admission that the pimp get-up was just a marketing gimmick.

Please send a letter to the editor asking the New York Times and other publications to change their reporting to reflect the truth about the ACORN videos

That still has not prompted an apology yet from Hoyt or anyone else at the Times.

So proud and arrogant is the New York Times, that they not only didn't offer a retraction right after the truth was out, but they haven't even bothered to admit their folly to this day.

And even worse is the decision to do an article on ACORN's wallow into fiscal irrelevance without acknowledge their role in making it happen.

Update: But wait a minute, just wait a minute.........I see that after weeks of requests, the New York Times has finally decided to apologize to ACORN just late tonight . Well about time Mr. Hoyt:

I could not reach O’Keefe — who is facing federal criminal charges of tampering with a Democratic senator’s phone in a different attempted sting — or Giles. But I am satisfied that The Times was wrong on this point, and I have been wrong in defending the paper’s phrasing. Editors say they are considering a correction.

Even so, Hoyt's apologize is still really poor in my mind. He shows penitence for ACORN only in that paragraph of a lengthy type up, as it is surrounded by a myriad of idiotic "balance" and even some finer pointing still at ACORN for being in the position they are in.

It is truly amazing how immature and childish some of the people in important positions in the American news world are.

And with an indifferent mindset that he and the paper displayed, Hoyt is another example why some can be justified in not shedding any tears for the demise of old, arrogant, corporate newspaper media.

Unless of course, they listen to whatever Fake pimp telephone guy tells them.