Matt Tully Proves Why The Star Can't Be Saved

One thing that you can always count on from Matt Tully's columns in the Indianapolis Star is that he will always write what he thinks will keep him in good favor with the political insiders no matter how stupid it makes him look. Like the rest of the mainstream media in this state, he long ago tried and convicted Charlie White on trumped up charges Democrats lodged against him during last year's Secretary of State race. Tully fell for the allegations hook, line and sinker because he believed that the African-American candidate, Vop Osili, deserved to win simply because he was black and Indiana already has too many guys that look just like White. Even after a three-member Recount Commission ruled unanimously in White's favor, Tully, like the Democrats who are now referring to the respected Democratic appointee to that Commission as Pontius Pilate (a play on Bernie Pylitt), continues the drum beat that White is obviously guilty until proven innocence. Oh, the irony of someone who professes to be such a defender of social justice caring less about justice when it involves someone with whom he holds in disdain. And so it is when White points out the blatant hypocrisy in how he is being judged in comparison to other politicians held in high esteem by the political insiders, Tully takes pen to hand and derides him as simply being bizarre.

Tully begins his obligatory column to curry favor with those who feed him stories so he can continue working his 9 to 5 job without breaking a sweat by referring to White as a "poor lost soul." Taking a page out of the One's Alinski playbook, the name-calling comes out in his second sentence--"ill-equipped, felony-charged embarrassment of a secretary of state is at it again." Unwilling to accept the possibility that Evan Bayh has long played fast and loose with the same voting residency law that Democrats have sought to hang White over, he refers to White's factually-based complaint against Bayh as "a strange attack" representing "bizarre behavior" in "sad attempt to win back a career and a reputation."

Instead of trying to refute any of the facts White lays out in his complaint against Bayh, which not even Bayh would attempt to do in a brief e-mail he had an assistant send to the Star calling "baseless" the allegations contained therein, he says it reads like someone with "a scary obsession with Bayh." Once again, refusing to accept the outcome of a unanimous Recount Commission ruling in White's favor, Tully restates the fact that he was indicted by a Hamilton Co. grand jury, he has been called on by leading Republicans to resign--notably ignoring the fact that those calls all came in the rush to judgment before anyone had bothered to analyze the evidence more closely as the Recount Commission did, and that his actions are not defended by people within his own political party. Of course, Tully thinks that Mitch Daniels is the Republican Party in Indiana. Yeah, Mitch would like Charlie to leave his office so he can appoint someone of his own choosing to the office.

Next, Tully says that while White has been "pummeled by the Democrats", the case against him is "not partisan." Yeah, right, and pigs can fly. Let me point out to Matt as I've done repeatedly over the past four years that when I discovered that the Democrats had allowed a man to serve as my Indianapolis City-County Councilor for nearly four years who had never resided in my council district, and the Democrat's own chief elections officer in Marion County, Clerk Beth White, had allowed his name to be placed on the ballot for re-election knowing that he had completed a statement of candidacy admitting he didn't live in his council district, there were no formal complaints filed, special prosecutors or criminal cases brought. Beth White's excuse: "It wasn't my job to file a complaint against him." That Democrat was allowed simply to step aside for the sole purpose of launching the career of Andre Carson, and the matter was totally dropped without any consideration of any laws that were broken by the Democratic office-holder or the chief Democratic elections officer who had a legal obligation to uphold the law. Nor would Tully bother to study the facts of the Evan Bayh residency case challenge brought by Republicans in 1986, which if he had bothered to do so would have convinced him that the charges against White didn't come close to the evidence compiled against Bayh. Incidentally, the evidence against Bayh was initially gathered in an investigative report by one of Tully's predecessors at the Star back in the days when the Star actually engaged in investigative journalism. I don't recall reading any news stories suggesting that the Star reporter was stalking Bayh.

Tully can only continue to hang his hat on the fact that criminal charges against White are still pending, which as far as he is concerned is tantamount to his guilt. Has Tully ever actually sat down with a respected criminal defense attorney and discussed the substance of those criminal charges against White, particularly in light of the fact that the entire premise upon which they are based was completely shot down by the Recount Commission? Of course not. Tully, like everyone else who has preordained White's fate, will not be confused with the facts, let alone the law. Thank you, Matt, for once again reminding us why the Star and other newspapers like it is part of a fast-dying industry. You have lost the respect of the people whose trust and belief you require as a credible and honest journalist. Forget your colleagues public campaign to "Save The Star." You have earned the loss of that trust, and you will never get it back. Good luck in your next career, wherever that may take you.

NOTE: When Matt Tully sat down to write a column for today's Star, he had a choice of writing between two big political stories this week. He chose to ignore the bombshell report of how the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton forged dozens, if not hundreds of names, on their 2008 Indiana primary ballot nominating petitions in order to gain access to the ballot. A former Indiana Democratic governor has come forward and said he name was forged on Obama's petition. The names of the St. Joseph Co. Prosecutor and other prominent local officials were similarly among the forged signatures. Even the Indiana Democratic Party Chairman has conceded fraud occurred. The fact that Tully chose this story and this particular spin on the allegations Charlie White made against Evan Bayh should tell you all you need to know about Matt Tully and why you cannot trust the wisdom of anything he writes on the political front. Oh, and who was in charge of Hillary Clinton's campaign in Indiana in 2008? Well, of course, it was the sweet and innocent Evan Bayh.

UPDATE: My good friend and fellow blogger, Debbie Schlussel, has a spot-on take of the 2008 petition-forging scandal involving both the Obama and Clinton campaigns in Indiana that is being ignored by Tully and other members of the mainstream media and reminds us of her discovery that Obama's Selective Service Registration records were also forged:

It's a case of Forgery You Can Belive In . . .

You know that if this was one of the Republican campaigns, it would be national headlines. I’ve already told you about Barack Obama’s forged Selective Service Registration form for the draft (probably because he broke the law and never actually registered for the draft when he was supposed to). And, no surprise, Obama and his minions have an apparent pattern of forgery . . .

Again, it’s a story that should make national headlines and involve Watergate-style investigation. But since the participants have a capital “D” (and a capital “L” for liberal) after their names, that ain’t gonna happen in either case.

Yes, Obama’s “Hope” is not only phony, it’s forged.