Oops: Bloomberg Falls for Fake Report that Nancy Reagan Endorsed Hillary for President

April 13th, 2015 10:54 AM

Bloomberg Politics published a report claiming Nancy Reagan had endorsed Hillary Clinton for president. They fell for a fake news site called NationalReport.net. An editor’s note was added: “This story has been retracted. We fell for a hoax. Apologies.”

Hadas Gold at Politico noted Bloomberg Politics Executive Editor Mike Nizza said in a tweet it was a "very very stupid mistake, and one we take very seriously. Simple as that." Bloomberg is the news service owned by liberal former New York mayor and gun-control sugar daddy Michael Bloomberg.

The piece, headlined "Nancy Reagan Gives Her Endorsement to... Hillary Clinton," quoted a supposed "Drudge Report" saying that the former first lady told the History Channel series "First Ladies In Their Own Words" that the time has come for a female president. Mrs. Reagan never said such a thing and that series was actually on C-SPAN, not on The History Channel.

Erick Erickson at RedState slammed the false story: “the press believed this because they want to believe.” Why?

Rather bluntly — Hillary Clinton sucks as a candidate. She’s an old woman who everybody knows and only partisans really like. The more she is on the public stage, the more quickly people get tired of her. So she can only run a video announcement coupled with highly controlled events with a worshipful press.

The press cannot see it, because they are partisans. And they’ll fall all over themselves to not see the geriatric terrible campaigner behind the curtain as they establish a mythology for 2016.

Bloomberg fell for the Nancy Reagan story because they’re liberal hacks and they want to believe their mythology.