Jack Kelly Sunday

In his column this week, the P-G's Jack Kelly has officially switched his support from the Sarracuda to Governor Secession and in doing so whines about how unfair the media's been to his newest BFF, Rick Perry.

It's quite a jolt to read Jack Kelly write:

GOP consultant Mark McKinnon says that the editor of a major newspaper told him, "We plan to declare war on Rick Perry and do all in our power to crush him."

Mr. McKinnon was outraged. "No pretense of integrity, professionalism or of unbiased news gathering," he wrote in Investors' Business Daily.

I am wondering where Jack's new found respect for "integrity, professionalism or of unbiased news gathering" was when he was quoting the wingnut World Net Daily in trying to bolster his ridiculous claim that former Weather Underground guy William Ayers actually ghostwrote "Dreams of My Father." In order to make that ridiculous claim, Jack had to pretzel-twist logic enough to posit another bit of ridiculousness; that maybe Obama and Ayers met at Columbia in 1983 more than a decade before they actually met in 1995.

All to "explain" the "coincidences" found by WND reporter Jack Cashill.

Or where his respect for proper rational journalism was when he smeared Van Jones grotesquely in a column so filled with "integrity, professionalism and unbiased news gathering" that it was pulled off the P-G website a few days later.

As I said, it was a jolt to read that from Jack.

Especially since Jack is quoting another columnist who's quoting an anonymous source. Perhaps the quote was a step or two away from on the record. Fine but was this unnamed editor speaking for him or herself or for newspaper editors as a whole? By what authority? Are there others somewhere that might agree? If so, how many?

Whatever else is going on in Jack's column, his own past misuse of any semblance of journalistic integrity invalidates any current credibility he might have to lecture anyone on "integrity, professionalism or of unbiased news gathering."