Think Progress, an arm of John Podesta’s terrible Center For American Progress, is an organization with one heck of a misnomer. The people who work over there don’t do much thinking, and it’s idea of “progress” is floating every cockamamie left wing conspiracy theory there is to prove to the world conservatives are little Lucifers, bent on destroying the United States while drinking the blood of children.

Via Hotair comes this wonderful little nugget involving CNN’s Jake Tapper, who were the victims of Think Progress’s duplicity in 2009 when Tapper was on ABC. One of the awful theories Think Progress and their garbage sister site, Media Matters For America often float, is conservative outlets such as talk radio and specific websites push lies that are then picked up by the mainstream media and just reported verbatim. As if television journalists never do any of their own investigating and reporting.

From Hot Air:

Back in May 2009, Think Progress (a site connected to the Center for American Progress) contacted Tapper about a story it was preparing. The story Think Progress wanted to tell was simple, in fact, it literally had three simple steps:

• Step one: “Right-Wing Radio Gives Corporate Hedge Funds A Venue To Attack Obama”
• Step two: “Right-Wing Pressures White House Reporters To Take Up Its Attack”
• Step three: “ABC’s Jake Tapper Picks It Up, Drudge Promotes It”

The problem is that the author of the piece knew steps one and two had no connection to step three before the story was published. We know this because Wikileaks released an email in which Tapper responded to TP’s request for clarification of how he learned about the story and why he decided to cover it. And, surprise, it did not involve listening to the pleas of right-wing radio hosts.

So what did Think Progress do? They went and published the story anyway. 

Tapper wrote an email, blasting them:

As I told you many times off the record, both in email and on the phone, the premise of your story is just false.

You nonetheless wrote it anyway, indicating quite clearly that you don’t care about accuracy or the truth in your reporting.

You wanted to push a narrative that I was used by the right wing media, so you wrote what you wrote regardless of the facts. That’s shoddy journalism, and it’s simply not reflective of the truth.

As I told you, I heard of Lauria’s claims when I overheard Ann Compton talking with someone at ABC News radio about Lauria’s interview. That was the last I heard of it.

I was interested in speaking with someone representing the hedge funds since President Obama spoke so strongly against them. Friday I was busy with Justice Souter’s story, so I didn’t get a chance to look into it.

On Saturday, I found Lauria’s interview on the WJR-AM website. I looked into Lauria, found him to be a credible voice, a leading bankruptcy attormey who indeed had represented the firm in question. Moreover, he had recently given $10,000 to the DSCC so he had no discernible partisan motives.

I reached out to the White House, they denied Lauria’s story, which we gave prominence in the story.

Nothing in your story about my reporting on this matter is accurate. No one pressured me, no one peddled anything to me, and no one reached out to me to cover this. Indeed, the first I heard of Mark Levin pushing this story was on your post.

The fact that you don’t mention Lauria’s giving money to Democrats is quite telling. This is inaccurate and you should be ashamed to have written it after I told you what happened.

Jake

Depending on who you talk to, Tapper is either a left winger who kowtows to the CLINTON NEWS NETWORK or a right wing ideologue who hates Hillary Clinton’s guts.

It’s neither. He’s just a damned good journalist.