February 27, 2007

Did Sam Graham-Felsen, New York Times lie about "Catch the Illegal Immigrant" game? (Howard Dean)

Dr. Gov. Chairman Howard Dean M.D. has come out against the College Republican game "Catch the Illegal Immigrant". More from his site.

Whether this came before or after or at the same time as the New York Times editorial "Game With No Winner" isn't known, but the Democrats.org post links to and quotes from that editorial. And, the editorial contains what may be an extremely scurrilous lie:

...It's a game with a name that says it all: "Catch the Illegal Immigrant." ... "Catch the Immigrant" is the brainchild of an intern with the College Republican National Committee, who lost her post after coming up with this and other campus recruitment gimmicks... ..."Catch the Immigrant" also reflects a larger misunderstanding of the immigration issue...

Yes, that's right: in a variation on the Big Lie, the New York Times appears to have changed the name of the game to make it look like "immigrants" - rather than "illegal immigrants" - were the subjects of the game.

Likewise with the Nation post by Sam Graham-Felsen called "GOP 'Catch the Immigrant' Game Catches Flak"; the form without "illegal" doesn't appear in the text of the post. And, with October 22, 2006's "'Catch the immigrant' is no game for college campuses" by Kecia Judson of the Hispanic Link News Service

A search failed to show any instances of "Catch the Immigrant" (with "game" or "GOP" appended to filter out noise) from any sources other than the ones above, and I doubt whether the College Republicans would be confused enough to call it the way that the New York Times and the others claim.

I'm certainly willing to apologize if I'm wrong, but as it stands now, I'm going to say that the editors of the New York Times, Sam Graham-Felsen, and Kecia Judson are liars.

Posted to Immigration2007a at February 27, 2007 05:08 PM

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