The Cable Gamer missed this apology--a not at all sufficient apology--to Sean Hannity when it was posted in The American Spectator last week. The issue, of course, was Debbie Schlussel's smear of Hannity, and it was, as we now know, nothing but a smear.
So now the issue is healing the damage that was done. And for that healing to begin, we need an honest accounting of the damage.
The headline on Tabin's post, "Schlussel's Hannity Smear Debunked," was fine, but Tabin didn't go far enough in the body of his text.
The first graf was OK:
Tim Mak at FrumForum is debunking each of Debbie Schlussel's allegations against Sean Hannity and Freedom Alliance. (For some reason they're releasing the story in pieces; only the first two parts are posted at the moment, but they're pretty convincing, so I expect the rest will be, too.)
But in his second, and concluding paragraph, Tabin wrote, weasel-wordingly, that his real apology goes, not to Hannity, but to readers. (See screengrab above, as red-underlined by me.) And here's the full second graf from Tabin:
Schlussel has been unreliable in the past, and in retrospect I should have approached her report with more skepticism (the lede sentence on my post this morning -- "This is disgusting" -- should have been something more like "If this is true, it's disgusting"). I apologize to Hannity, and (much more importantly) to our readers.
Now he tells us, "Schlussel has been unreliable in the past"? Excuse me, but that's just not good enough. Nowhere near good enough. A real apology is a real apology, with no caveats and subordinators.
First off, Tabin should take a few paragraphs to explain when he first knew that Schlussel was "unreliable." And after that, Tabin should explain, at length, exactly what thought process was going through his mind when he wrote that Sean's actions were "disgusting." When he typed that word, "disgusting," was he choosing to disregard all manner of journalistic canons of ethics? Or was Tabin looking for an eyeball-grabbing headline? Or was he possessed by some demonic force of irresponsibility? None of those explanations would be particularly easy for Tabin to compose, of course, but AmSpec's readers are owed some sort of explanation. You don't just slander people--especially as fine an American as Sean Hannity--and then, say, "sorry." That's not good enough. If Tabin can't bring himself to give a full accounting of why he did what he did, then he should simply resign and slink away. Or failing that, the Spectator should fire him.
Second, what's up with that last sentence: "I apologize to Hannity, and (much more importantly) to our readers." Again, the "apologize" is good--a good start on genuine explanation and soul-searching. But why are AmSpec readers more important, in this instance, than Hannity? Tabin smeared Hannity. By contrast, he merely misled and misinformed his readers. Tabin's words, hedged like this, are the equivalent of a hit-and-run driver saying, "Before I get around to apologizing to the person I ran over, I must apologize, much more, to the witnesses to my crime." No. That's not the way it's supposed to work. The first priority is to apologize for damage directly done to an individual, in this case, Hannity. The second priority is to clean up the collateral damage done to those who might have been confused by shoddy journalism.
But Tabin should apologize to Hannity, and then to readers.
And so now The Cable Gamer asks: What is wrong with The American Spectator? The mag seems to have pulled down the original offending post, but how could the editors of AmSpec--and R. Emmett Tyrrell is the name on the masthead--let Tabin get away with such a half-hearted two-faced apology? How could they let Tabin get away with an apology directed more to readers than to Hannity?
That's journalistic malpractice, or worse.
Shame on you, John Tabin, although you are seemingly hopeless. And shame on you, American Spectator, although perhaps there's hope for you--if Tyrrell, or whoever runs the magazine these days, offers a full-throated apology to Hannity, and The Freedom Alliance. And announces, of course, that Tabin will no longer be writing for the publication, in print or on the web.
