Pravda on the Potomac defends its Gunwalker uncoverage.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny "Darth" Breuer reads the Washington Post defense of its complicity in the Gunwalker cover-up. "I thought Pexton could lie better than that."

The WaPo Ombudsman defends the failure of the WaPo to cover the Gunwalker Scandal here: "Slow on the draw on Fast and Furious?"

Patrick B. Pexton also gives us this list of "Post stories on ATF’s Fast and Furious."

Pexton writes:

Conservatives have alleged that The Post has ignored this story because the paper’s editorial board, or more generally Post reporters, are liberal and pro-gun-control. The more outrageous conservative critics have even accused Post reporters of somehow being complicit in Terry’s death because an award-winning series The Post published in December, “The Hidden Life of Guns,” did not reveal Operation Fast and Furious and its missteps.

I have looked at all of the Post coverage, including December’s series, and the 16 stories The Post published between Jan. 31 and July 27 this year that were wholly or in part about Fast and Furious (all can be found at www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/omblog.). I have talked to the reporters and editors in charge of this coverage.

I think the conservative critics’ charges are unsubstantiated.

The Post was one of the first news outlets in the country, on Feb. 1, to break the news of the connection between Fast and Furious guns and Terry’s death. And a full report on the operation and its many faults, by staff writer Sari Horwitz, published on July 26, is one of the two best stories to date on the subject.

To be fair, The Post can be faulted in the early months of this year, after its Feb. 1 story, for being a bit tardy in pursuing Fast and Furious stories. Other news outlets, particularly CBS News, the Los Angeles Times and the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative journalism organization, advanced the stories in March, getting more details on what was fast becoming a cause celebre among conservatives who viewed it as a classic case of misguided anti-gun efforts by the government.

Uh, huh.

To remind our readers, here is the email sent to Pravda reporters Grimaldi and Horwitz on 2 February:

-----Original Message-----
From: georgemason1776
To: grimaldij ; horwitzs
Cc: dcodrea ; leibyr
Sent: Wed, Feb 2, 2011 3:06 am
Subject: Welcome to the Project Gunwalker Scandal story. You're just a month late, and a few million-dollar Pulitzer questions short.

Saw your story today. I'll post a link to it on my blog under the headline "Pravda (WaPo) Parrots Kremlin Cover-Up Line." David Codrea and I have been on this story from the beginning about a month ago, from when we picked up the first rumors of this scandal from ATF agents. And, yes, we have our own guys in the agency we talk to. Brave guys, honest guys, guys who we vectored Senators Grassley and Sessions staffers onto. Get this, these agents -- who risk everything -- did not approach the Senators. It was the other way round. We were the midwives of this scandal because nobody else would touch it and the agents were out there, twisting in the wind, willing to tell the truth at great risk to themselves.

You really ought to get out more and do a bit more than taking your crumbs from government press flacks. David is working on a update of my original timeline and summary of this story for "authorized journalists." Maybe you should get in touch with him so at least your questions can be sharpened a bit. Of course you'd have to be at least a little bit curious and drop some of your cherished notions of the way the world works. Are you willing to risk it? I copy Richard Leiby on this because he knows me from the story of the Aryan Republican Army in the 90s (my friends and I embarrassed the FBI into arresting one of the gang, Michael Brescia, with a poster campaign). Talk to him. You may doubt my ancestry, but he will tell you my footnotes and sources are always in order.

"There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your Weltanschauung," to paraphrase the Bard. But if you are both curious adults willing to go outside your comfort zone, be warned. It won't be easy. Like it said on the edge of the old map: "Heer there be Dragones." And most of 'em these days drive government cars. Some of them even have chauffeurs. And some of those even own lapdog "reporters" willing to do their bidding. I'm curious. Which are you?

Mike Vanderboegh
http://sipseystreetirregulars.blogspot.com

Grimaldi and Horwitz were both on the email list and got every Sipsey Street post relevant to the Gunwalker scandal from 2 February onward.

Pull the other one, Pexton.