Colorado tea partier describes ‘surreal’ day of wrongly being linked to Batman massacre

The Daily Caller ^ | 07/20/2012 | Alex Pappas

[Hotlanta Mike]

Colorado Tea Party Patriots member Jim Holmes told The Daily Caller in a Friday interview that his day has been “surreal” after falsely being linked to the Batman movie massacre in Colorado by an on-air ABC News reporter.

“What kind of idiot makes that kind of statement?” Holmes told TheDC. “Really, seriously, how do we take a journalist seriously when it’s pretty clear they really haven’t done any sort of check on their facts?”

Holmes has the unfortunate coincidence of sharing a similar name with James Holmes, the 24-year-old accused of going on a rampage during a midnight showing of the “Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, Colorado early Friday morning.

Because of this, ABC News Brian Ross, appearing on “Good Morning America” on Friday, suggested the suspect could be a member of the tea party, citing the fact that “there’s a Jim Holmes of Aurora, Colo., page on the Colorado Tea Party site.”

But Ross had the wrong guy: The tea partier he was referring to is this 52-year-old former law enforcement officer. ABC News was forced to apologize online.

Holmes told TheDC that ABC News didn’t call him before going to air and he still hasn’t heard from them or received a direct apology. “No, not a thing,” he said.

“They could’ve contacted me through the Tea Party Patriots website,” said Holmes, who said he only recently joined the group and started attending lectures. (RELATED: Tea party leader tells media to stop ‘reckless and false’ reporting)

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/20/colorado-tea-partier-describes-surreal-day-of-wrongly-being-linked-to-batman-massacre/#ixzz21CQfGw1d

[TigersEye]

I think that’s the only way to curtail their deliberate false reporting of TP and conservatives - slam them with lawsuits.

I think you're right. Nothing else seems to even slow them down.

[Smokeyblue]

"Needless to say, it turned out that this wasn't the guy. I don't normally call for people's heads for making a mistake, even a bad one, but this is really beyond the pale. What kind of reporter says something like this on national TV despite knowing full well that he has no idea if he's pegging the right person? Is there really any good reason Ross should still be employed by ABC News by the close of business today?"

I happened to tune in for the tail end of this fiasco this morning. George Stephanopolis was the war room chief for Clinton. Does anyone doubt that he and his crew (ABC/DEMS/OBAMA) orchestrated this? I don't. Ross should definitely go but Stephie looked like he was going to pee his pants he was so happy he could quote Ross and under the color of "urinalism." This was all orchestrated.