This morning, Weekly Standard writer Stephen F. Hayes responds to Bill Moyers' allegations of distortion and outright duplicity in Hayes' recent cover story on the former LBJ staffer and the multimedia empire he runs.

I've been looking forward to the magazine's response because Moyers' complaints were, in many cases, specific and factual. Either Moyers was guilty of intentional deception, or Hayes was. Honestly, I suspected Hayes; Moyers' denials were unequivocal, and it made no sense for him to lie about easily verifiable facts. (A brief example: Hayes writes in his original article that, on September 20, a Moyers' program titled "America Responds: A National Conversation with Bill Moyers," featured "two hours of live dialogue between Moyers and, among others, author and rapper extraordinaire Cornel West, O.J. attorney Alan Dershowitz, and "Vagina Monologues" playwright Eve Ensler." Moyers states crisply in rebuttal: "I have never met or interviewed Alan Dershowitz or Eve Ensler." Sounds pretty strong, doesn't it? Well, that "denial" turns out to be a silly, what - the - meaning - of - is - is construction based on the fact that Moyers presented these guests rather than interviewing them directly. Talk about a credibility killer...)

It looks like my suspicions were wrong. Score this one for Stephen Hayes and The Weekly Standard.
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