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Right now it is Ben Carson and Senator Marco Rubio who are being marginalized in the American press.
Both men of course seeking the presidency, so aggressive reporting on them is certainly legitimate.
But defamation is not.
Talking Points well knows the game. Back in 2001 Michael Kinsley, a former editor at the LA Times, wrote a column that said I faked my working-class upbringing.
Three years later the despicable Al Franken wrote a book accusing me of lying, saying I did not grow up in Levittown, New York.
Gleefully, the mainstream media picked up Franken’s incredible deceit, calling me all kinds of names.
Thankfully, I still had the deed to my parent's home in Levittown, New York.
You see it on the screen.
My mother got a big kick out of the whole thing, but I did not find it funny at all.
That's because Franken, Kinsley and their co-conspirators were trying to destroy my reputation because The Factor was becoming very successful.
Same thing happened earlier this year: A far-left rag printed that I had exaggerated my reporting.
Again, I presented the evidence and The Factor's ratings actually went up.
Now Dr. Ben Carson and Marco Rubio are experiencing the same thing.
Let's take Senator Rubio first.
There is no question that he has had financial problems in the past.
He is the father of two boys and two girls who have been educated in private schools.
Mr. Rubio, while a member of the Florida House, used a Republican Party credit card to pay some bills.
About $22,000 of personal expenses were charged to the card.
The senator says he paid that amount with his own money.
At this point there is no evidence to contradict that statement.
So Talking Points will leave it to you fair-minded Americans to decide whether or not Rubio's financial history is a big issue.
But the media certainly has made a big deal out of it, almost as big a deal as Hillary Clinton’s financial situation surrounding the Clinton Foundation.
As you may know, she served as secretary of state for more than 4 years.
During that time the Clinton Foundation brought in nearly $500 million in revenue.
Much of that money from overseas concerns.
Conflict of interest? You make the call.
But Talking Points will say this – Rubio: $22,000; Hillary Clinton: $500 million.
Now on to Ben Carson, there's a bunch of small ball stuff in play.
CNN says it can't find anybody to confirm that Carson was an angry child.
Yet in a 1997 Parade Magazine article the doctor's mother confirmed an attempted stabbing incident.
The Wall Street Journal says it cannot corroborate the doctor's claims that he protected white students during a school fracas.
And finally the Journal says Carson's explanation of a psychology exam at Yale does not exactly stack up, but the Carson campaign has produced an article by the Yale student paper that gives Carson cover.
Okay, fine. But is this important stuff?
Remember a couple of weeks ago Hillary Clinton testified in front of a House committee that she gave separate explanations of the Benghazi terror attack.
Privately she told people it was an organized terrorist action.
Publicly she went along with President Obama and blamed it on a video tape.
So Dr. Carson is on the defensive about a number of tiny things in his life, while Mrs. Clinton largely got a pass on the Benghazi situation.
Does this make any sense to anyone?
Now some of you might accuse me of being partisan, but that is false.
If Dr. Carson is proved to be a deceiver, I will say that. If Marco Rubio used GOP money to pay private bills, I will report that.
No problem there.
But it is now an industry in America to try to defame individuals with whom you disagree.
George Will tried to pull that stunt on Friday. We confronted him, and we'll have your reaction in our mail segment a little bit later on.
On the Carson front, we'll give you some reaction from fair people.
First, columnist Kimberley Strassel, who writes for the Wall Street Journal.
KIMBERLEY STRASSEL, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: “There's a difference between vetting and vendetta. And I think a lot of times when it comes to the press, when they are looking at conservative candidates, they get this treatment that just nobody else gets, and it's …”
CHRIS WALLACE, ANCHOR OF FOX NEWS SUNDAY: “I'm curious, do you think that examining whether or not he was offered a scholarship to West Point, trying to find out the truth about that, is that a vendetta or vetting?”
STRASSEL: “That's probably something worth looking at.”
And we have. The West Point thing is simply a matter of imprecise language. We see no attempt to deceive by Carson.
As Talking Points stated on Friday, it is simple to find people to say anything about what happened 50 years ago.
Evaluating its own reporting, The Wall Street Journal editorialized this way today, quote:
"Our view is that voters will decide what is or isn't a voting issue, and conservatives shouldn't play the Clinton game of claiming that challenges to credibility are out of bounds. But the CNN and Politico stories don't strike us as all that damaging, much less disqualifying, and neither one undermines the truth of Mr. Carson's rise from poverty to the pinnacle of the medical profession."
That editorial strikes me as logical; no political candidate is perfect.
Ben Carson has written nine books, given thousands of speeches, done thousands of interviews.
Same thing with Hillary Clinton, who also got hammered for misremembering her history.
You may remember she told the world she was under sniper fire in Bosnia.
That turned out to be false.
Yet Mrs. Clinton will secure the Democratic nomination for presidency because voters know not everyone is perfect and enough left-leaning Americans like her so that she will be the nominee.
One final thing, you may remember the President Obama birth certificate controversy.
Some Americans claimed without any evidence that the president was not born in the USA.
The Factor investigated and here's what we said four-and-a-half years ago:
O'REILLY: “The state of Hawaii has once again said Mr. Obama's birth certificate is on file. A Certificate of Live Birth has been released. A Factor investigation also showed Mr. Obama was born in a Honolulu hospital and we stand by our reporting.”
So once again Talking Points does not analyze from a partisan point of view. We are in the truth business here
And the truth is that Barack Obama was born in Honolulu; his father abandoned the family; his mother -- kind of a hippie -- then took the young boy to Indonesia.
Barack returned to Hawaii, was raised primarily by his grandparents, and rose up to become president of the United States.
He is not a Muslim, he is not a Manchurian candidate, he is simply a politician.
While we have been very critical of Mr. Obama's tenure in office and we believe the country has been weakened by it, we do not play foolish games here.
And we suggest to the left-wing press that it follow our example.
And that's the memo.
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