A couple days ago, I wrote a diary about a statement Senator Kerry made at a town hall in Massachussetts, where he suggested that Democrats in the Senate only pushed co-ops as a trojan horse to sneak through a public option; that diary shot to the rec list, but a comment by the original dkos diarist who had attended the town hall briefly brought things into question for a few minutes before it was clarified that this indeed WAS what he heard Kerry say, and a second kossack who attended the hall confirmed that account.
Unfortunately, in those few minutes of doubt between that question being raised and answered, a cascade of subsequent unrecommends swiftly knocked the diary off the rec list BEFORE any this was clarified, leaving a false and misleading impression with most of the community that I had misrepresented the original diarist's account of the town hall. I post this now not just for my own reputation, as someone who has never been accused of reporting misinformation in over three years of posting here, but so that the facts here are known.
A crystal clear explanation below the fold...
The quote from the original diary about the town hall said that Senator Kerry:
told a wry story about the death of the co-ops--that the Republicans had lost their taste for them when they found out the Democrats had backdoored the public option into them.
This suggests that Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee who have supported a co-op have only done so to sneak in a public option and still get Republican votes, which would be very encouraging news.
Now, this is the comment by the original diarist in my diary that raised questions:
I don't think I said that Dems in general supported the public option, but after last night it is quite clear to me that Senator Kerry does. Very passionately.
Is it on C-SPAN for a transcript? Don't take my word for it.
Of course, I wasn't saying the diarist was saying Dems in general support the public option, I was saying that Kerry seemed to be suggesting as much according to the diarist's account. However, I wanted there to be NO confusion - either my diary was right and I was leaving it up, or it was wrong and I was deleting, so I quickly got to the bottom of it with this response:
I wasn't saying that you were representing other Dems positions, but rather that what you quoted Kerry saying seemed to do so - and that's what I'd like you to clarify for me if you could:
When you said Kerry talked about Democrats supporting a co-op only doing so to get Republicans to vote for public option, Kerry did say that, correct?
Or was he saying something else altogether, and I just misread you?
The original diarist then replied that I was correct:
That was the meaning behind what he said. He said that the Republicans were behind the co-ops until the Democrats changed the language, and then they complained that the co-ops were just like the public option and withdrew their support.
A second comment by that original diarist confirmed this further:
I'll try to remember the exact quote
He said the Dems changed the language so that the co-ops were in essence the same as the public option, and the Republicans didn't like that and changed their mind against the co-ops.
Additionally, in a reply to that comment, a second first-report from another kossack who was at the town hall also confirms this is what Kerry said:
Yeah, I agree that's the sense I got of it.
I was there last night too.
To which the original diarist replied:
If two people heard it, does it give it more weight? I should hope so.
Clearly, this proves I DID NOT misrepresent the original diarist's words, as per the presumption that got my previous diary unrecced into oblivion.
Furthermore, we now have two first-hand accounts of the statement by Kerry from two unrelated kossacks who are respected community members and not trolls, which strongly suggests the reports are accurate.