This just in: Overly credulous wingnuts still overly credulous

by: Eric B.

Sat May 30, 2009 at 12:19:43 PM EDT

It's a fairly rare, special day when we get to link to Michelle Malkin here and laugh at her (usually, I only get to do this vicariously through Sadly, No).  At first, she cautioned restraint on reporting the current rightwing meme that the dealerships closed were political payback by the Obama administration.  Two days ago, she was leaning towards going full-bore Malkin (lips pulled back, mouth open, screech issuing forth).

The bloggers are continuing their intriguing work. Doug has a new post here shedding more light on Mack McLarty/Robet Johnson’s dealerships. Joey has more info on Lithia Motors here.

As I’ve stated from the beginning, there is still much to be researched on this issue. Given Obama’s Chicago gangland propensities, anything corrupt is possible.

...snip...

Well, why don’t you use all your professional journalism training and find out the answer, Mr. Pearlstein? And why don’t you look at the flip side of the question — as “amateur” bloggers have been doing — and investigate the circumstances of the protected dealers?

We might remember this from another time, when Michelle Malkin cited a wild-assed claim and then insisted it was everyone else's job to debunk it. Well, it just so happens that someone in Ye Ole Emm Ess Emm did some of the heavy lifting Malkin was insisted be done, at The Macomb Daily.  What did the reporter discover?

Anthony Viviano, president of the Metro Detroit Dodge dealer's association and owner of Sterling Heights Dodge, which will remain in operation, said politics was never a factor in the process.

"That's just a bunch of baloney," said Viviano, former president of the Detroit Area Dealers Association.

According to the FEC, Viviano donated $4,150 to federal candidates over the past 10 years, with most of the money flowing to former Republican senator Spence Abraham and GOP Rep. Candice Miller. The only deviation was a $500 contribution to Democrat Carl Marlinga's 2002 bid for Congress.

If you read down the article, you can discern some of Chrysler's reasoning.  Indeed, it is the stuff of a taut political thriller about corruption at the highest levels of government.

Do I sense a pattern here?  Why yes, yes I do!

There is just one problem with this theory. Nobody has bothered to look up data for the control group: the list of dealerships which aren't being closed. It turns out that all car dealers are, in fact, overwhelmingly more likely to donate to Republicans than to Democrats -- not just those who are having their doors closed.

This sounds kind of familiar.  Oh yes, from that report in the Macomb Daily.

According to the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics, the National Auto Dealers Association membership gives 69 percent of its contributions to Republicans. Some calculations indicate that the tilt toward the GOP is even more pronounced among all auto dealers.

By the way, you can see Michelle Malkin softly pushing this story line here.  One back-and-forth:

Fox News host: Beside, I'm sure the White House is going to deny this anyway.  And, it wasn't the White House that came up with this list ... wasn't it Chrysler?

MM: Yes, yeah, that's what they'll say.

Yes, "they" are a clever bunch, are they not?

She goes on to complain that newspaper reporters who refuse to pursue this story are unfairly denigrating the same people who fell for the Obama birth certificate story and the Africa Press International hoax, who insisted that Jamil Hussein was not a real person, and committed many, many more comical blunders, each more hilarious than the one before.