Memo To Paul Burka: Sometimes When You Speculate Too Wildly, You Lose Credibility

Paul Burka at Texas Monthly, who has, of late, done all he can in terms of bad reporting to give all bloggers a bad name (and who some people strongly suspect of just making stuff up from time to time), had this to say earlier:

The Craddick fete at the Austin Club seems to have drawn an uninvited street crowd. In addition to TV cameras, a freelance photograph took photos of arriving guests with a digital camera. You can bet that Craddick will know who showed up, so the cloud of suspicion falls on Democrats looking for material to use against the Craddick Ds in the 2008 Democratic primary. I don’t think these intimidation tactics work (except when Craddick uses them), especially when you resort to the same tactics as the guy you’re trying to replace.

Really, Paul? The “cloud of suspicion?” Aside from, perhaps, one or two misguided blog posts that have popped up hither and yon, do you have any evidence that Democrats were doing this and engaging in eating-your-young politics?

Also, how do you know it was a freelance photographer? What kind of digital camer? There is a big difference between the journalistic Cannon D-60 and a hand held model that tourists carry. Maybe it was one of the Craddickats themselves just taking photos for their scrapbook? Did you talk to the photographer to know it was a freelance photographer? Maybe Craddick hired the photographer? Maybe it was a freelancer for a mainstream media outlet?

A lot of people respect Paul Burka and seemed to think that, when he came to the Blogsphere, people would pretty much stop reading all the rest of us and worship at the shrine of All Things Burka.

However, with his “reporting” on the speaker’s race (some of which was so poorly done that many regular bloggers with only the most minimal of journalistic skills wouldn’t have written such baseless rumor) and the 2006 elections, Burka’s star doesn’t shine as bright.

All bloggers engage in speculation, as do all columnists for the MSM. However, the speculation Burka engages in above is so un-called for it is pathetic. Pathetic!