looks like the right wing media may be at it again, failing to fact check a story that makes a democrat look bad. remember last november when the conservative website the daily caller reported that senator robert menendez paid prostitutes for sex in the dominican republic? today the washington post reported that the prostitute who said menendez paid her for sex is recanting her story saying she was pat to make up the whole thing. the fbi has no evidence to back up allegations against the senator. menendez told fox news this is part of a plan to sabotage him. i can only say what i have said from the very beginning, that nameless, faceless, anonymous sources through right wing blogs drove into the mainstream a story that was absolutely false. that these were smears that began during my election process, and that increasingly become obvious that that s what they were.
for citizenship to respect the rule of law. now, that s a far cry from what he said last year, as late as last summer, presumably when he was writing this book, when he was seen as one of his party s most progressive voices on immigration. listen to what he told charlie rose back in june. you have to deal with this issue. you can t ignore it, and so either a path to citizenship, which i would support, and that does put me probably out of the mainstream of most conservatives, or a path to legalization, a path to residency of some kind. ron reagan, read the tea leaves for me. he seems more hardened now in his resolve against a path towards citizenship. you d expect the reverse, i think, given the direction of his own party in the last couple weeks and months. yeah, it s very difficult to read him on this as you pointed out. first he was for the path, then he was in the book against the path, and now he s maybe for some kind of path again. he s kind of delicately straddling the fenc
particularly after redistricting has made a lot of safe districts for the republican majority. it s very difficult to draw a map and look at it and see how they pick up those 17 seats. then again, we re getting used to some pretty big swings in the house. no doubt. and not all anticipated. thank you. it happens. thank you. you gene robinson. thank you, jonathan alter. up next, it s happened yet again, the right wing falls for another story without checking into whether it s true. this is hardball, the place for politics. her recipe with sharon, who emailed it to emily, who sent it to cindy, who wondered why her soup wasn t quite the same. the recipe s not the recipe. ohhh. [ female announcer ] .without swanson. the broth cooks trust most when making soup. mmmm! [ female announcer ] the secret is swanson. thto fight chronic. osteoarthritis pain. mmmm! up next, it s happened yet . today, you will know you did something for your pain. up next, it s happened yet
way off, of course, but the prospect that another bush might at least run for the highest office seemed a bit more likely after a recent round of interviews in which jeb bush was talking about his new book. take a look at what he said to nbc s chuck todd. you re being much more open about considering national office than i have ever heard you before. what s different this time? well, i m not saying yes. i m just not saying no. that s what s so different. you used to be pretty definitive. so 2008 i was asked about it, and i said heck, no. it wasn t the right time, in 2012 is wasn t either. this may be the wrong time, too, i don t know. it s way too early to go through that process four years out. but i guess what is your motivation to at least not shut the door this time? what s different this time than shutting the door before? i have accomplished some things in my life that allow me now to have that kind of discretion to be able to think about it. the washington post s
families grieving over the death of a loved one. but fast forward to today and i really do think you see this tension between a lot of ideologically driven media and being provocative and interesting is a whole lot more important than being correct. you see that every day. the story i was making reference to was the shocking story that now defense secretary chuck hagel received speaking fees from a group called friends of hamas. and breitbart tv ran with it even though it wasn t true. even members of congress chimed in before everybody found out it was false. here s senator rand paul on the hugh hewitt radio program. let me bring up one piece of information that breitbart put out today. which is one of the foreign funders behind senator hagel that he has not yet disclosed is something called friends of hamas. if that is, in fact, true, would