Republican operatives beware: If you come at Mother Jones, you might face the wrath of David Corn.
Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary under George W. Bush, learned that lesson on Wednesday after he spoke dismissively of a tough piece on New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R).
The piece, authored by Andy Kroll of Mother Jones, contained audio recordings, text messages and emails in which Martinez and her staffers made derisive, profane remarks.
Martinez has already tried to raise money off the piece and conservatives have done their best to discredit Mother Jones. Fleischer took the latter approach in an interview with US News & World Report.
“Any time Mother Jones attacks, Republicans will rally around the ‘victim.’ It’s hard to imagine a more reviled outlet than Mother Jones,” Fleischer said. “Tell me the worst thing she said – not her aides, but her.”
Those comments left Corn incensed. The Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones lashed out at Fleischer in a series of tweets, highlighting the former Bush spokesman’s insistence throughout 2002 and 2003 that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Here’s a sample of Corn’s tweets.
Hey, @AriFleischer, get lost. http://t.co/b5U4lzZeLQ (BTW, let’s not forget the Iraq war & your defense of the 47% remarks.)
— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) April 16, 2014
.@AriFleischer: “We know for a fact that there are weapons there.” January 9, 2003
— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) April 16, 2014
.@JohnJHarwood It sure takes chutzpah for @AriFleischer to call anyone else “reviled.”
— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) April 16, 2014
Last word: I don’t think @AriFleischer should call anyone else “reviled” until the W gang shows regret for the 100K+ Iraqi civilians killed
— David Corn (@DavidCornDC) April 16, 2014
Corn wasn’t done there. He told TPM in a Wednesday phone interview he finds it “interesting that [Fleischer] is not taking issue with the accuracy of our reporting.” He also noted that Fleischer’s embarrassing pronouncements aren’t limited to the Iraq War.
“This is the same guy who defended Mitt Romney’s ’47 percent’ remarks and also believed that Mitt Romney was going to win by three or four points,” Corn said.
It was Corn who broke the ’47 percent’ story in the fall of 2012 and Mother Jones has continued to haunt conservatives with several notable scoops ever since.
Mother Jones reported last year that Chris McDaniel, the Mississippi tea partier running for Senate, once addressed a neo-Confederate conference host by a group of present-day secessionists. Earlier this month, the outlet revealed that Hobby Lobby, the company waging a legal challenge against Obamacare’s contraception mandate, actually invests in contraception makers.
Kroll continued that tradition with his story on Martinez and Corn said Fleischer’s criticism was unseemly.
“It seems a classic case if you can’t discredit the information and you are troubled by the information, you take a potshot at the messenger,” Corn said. “It’s low class.”
Fleischer did not respond to TPM’s request for comment.
