Like a broken record or agit prop artist, Radosh is again hawking his "fake news" story about Steve Bannon at the Daily Beast.

First, according to Radosh, Bannon announced to Radosh in early 2014 that he, Steve Bannon, was a "Leninist"  and, in response to Radosh's discussion of a pair of February 2014 columns by Thomas Sowell, he (Bannon), wanted to destroy National Review and the Weekly Standard.

After I wrote that this (stupid) conversation was probably not possible because the party in question all but certainly took place in November 2013 (thus Bannon could not be having this conversation with Radosh about February 2014 Sowell columns), and that the discussion, as Bannon told me not long afterward, was about me and American Betrayal, Radosh changed his piece around to reflect the correct party date and found some other Sowell columns, only they don't exactly fit ... oh dear.

Regardless of what Bannon said or didn't say in some conversation with Radosh on the evening of November 12, 2013, the fact is, everything about the incident as Professor Radosh has recorded it and perpetuated it is an error or lie -- including "and" and "the.”

See below for the shameful details -- not that shame stops a professional.

Updated from November 2016: "After Fact-Checking, What's Left?"

NOTE: As of February 7, 2017, a Google News search of Bannon Leninist turns up 11,000 entries. 

It is hard to decide whether Ronald Radosh is more incompetent than liar; or more liar than incompetent. What marries the two, however, is a malicious intent to deceive so maybe it hardly matters.

Take the latest Radosh mess, or, to use the term a la mode, "fake news" aimed at Trump senior strategist Stephen K. Bannon. I refer to Radosh's increasingly non-credible story that Bannon came up to him at a "book party" at the Breitbart Embassy, which doubles as Steve Bannon's home, and, unsolicited, revealed himself to Radosh to be a "Leninist.”

Radosh has now pegged this alleged incident to three different dates -- surely evidence of incompetence ... but then there are all the lies.

All of this is increasingly hard to overlook out there, as when Salon executive editor Andrew O'Hehir's incredulity shows through on writing of the Bannon-"Leninist" story -- "according to the somewhat reliable testimony of writer Ronald Radosh."

Ouch. "Somewhat reliable" also means "somewhat unreliable." Either way, not a historian's chosen testimonial -- although perfectly AOK for a fake historian/party-line propagandist.

Back to the three different dates.

It's probably worth mentioning that three different dates are par for the Radosh-fake-history course. In my own case, it was three different page numbers for anecdotes (and rather more) Radosh falsely claimed to find in my book, American Betrayal -- but which are not in my book, on those pages or on any others.

The above page, by the way, comes from The Rebuttal: Defending American Betrayal from the Book-Burners  (the original "book-burners" being deception-artists Radosh and David Horowitz.) Not in the slightest bit incidentally,The Rebuttal was originally published in three parts by Stephen K. Bannon at Breitbart News.

In other words, Radosh is no disinterested observer regarding Bannon or Breitbart News, where he was unmasked as a prevaricator and fraud -- and even, most trouncingly and embarassingly, by co-founder of the Soviet dissident movement Vladimir Bukovsky, also at Breitbart News (after Horowitz's Frontpage turned the great man's essay down).

Water under the bridge, true -- but still flowing.

In Radosh's original Daily Beast story of August 22, 2016, he wrote that this supposed "I am a Leninist" conversation took place at a "book party" in "early 2014." 

The date was key because the ensuing conversation Radosh reported on in detail turned on two columns by Thomas Sowell, one at National Review, the other elsewhere (the American Spectator). It was the National Review column, however, that triggered the next Bannon outburst, supposedly.

Here is what Radosh wrote in the original "early 2014" version:

I met Steve Bannon ... at a book party held at his Capitol Hill townhouse in early 2014. ... 

The same week as the party, Thomas Sowell had a column in the National Review Online, in which the conservative economist opposed the tactics employed by Ted Cruz in shutting down the government.

He goes on to quote from Sowell's NRO column plus a column Sowell published "later in the week."

Then:

During our conversation, I asked Bannon if he had read the pieces, since Sowell was criticizing a tactic which Bannon and the Tea Party had favored. 

“National Review and The Weekly Standard,” he said, “are both left-wing magazines, and I want to destroy them also.” He added that “no one reads them or cares what they say.”

Really?

After I nailed the book party date as having been, in fact, November 12, 2013, the date of a book party at the Breitbart Embassy for Radosh's lifelong comrade David Horowitz, Radosh corrected the Daily Beast story to backdate Bannon's alleged "I am a Leninist" statement to November 12, 2013.

The February 2014 Sowell columns, however, were out.

Mirabile dictu, Thomas Sowell writes columns every week. For the "corrected" version, Radosh found not two different Sowell columns as in the original, but one column that ran both at Townhall and  at National Review. Too bad, though -- this 2013 column was not about about Ted Cruz -- oh well -- it was about the Tea Party, but that would do just as well.

Only not quite.

Here is the "corrected" version Radosh published to keep his "Leninist" story together. (It does not include links to the columns in question.) 

I met Steve Bannon ... at a book party held at his Capitol Hill townhouse on November 12, 2013. ...

Riding on the Metro to the party, I read an article that had just been posted on National Review Online and in TownHall.com by Thomas Sowell, the conservative economist, in which he opposed the tactics used by the Tea Party in shutting down the government. 

The Metro again! (Private American Betrayal joke.) Note the original leisurely reading of Sowell columns through the week is now recalled to have occurred on the Metro to the party.  

I then asked Bannon whether or not he had read Sowell's piece, since Bannon was in favor of the very Tea Party tactic that Sowell had criticized.

Radosh is hoping no one will notice his bait (Cruz) and switch (Tea Party).

“National Review and The Weekly Standard,” he said, “are both left-wing magazines, and I want to destroy them also.” He added that “no one reads them or cares what they say.”

It is indeed possible Radosh read the Sowell Tea Party column at Townhall before attending the Horowitz book party on November 12, 2013. But he really needed that National Review trigger to fire up Bannon's purported follow-up comment about his wanting to "destroy" National Review and the Weekly Standard.

Unfortunately for Radosh, Sowell's National Review column -- the one he says had just been posted, that he read while Metro-ing to the party, and that would seem to be the  trigger of this alleged discussion on November 12, 2013 -- is dated November 13, 2013, 12:00 AM.

Thwack.

Fake historians of the world unite!

OK, National Review aside: What are the chances a Sowell column at Townhall about the Tea-Party- failure to force the Democrat-controlled Senate to defund Obamacare inspired then-Breitbart-News-chairman Steve Bannon to begin ranting and raving about destroying National Review and the Weekly Standard?

I wasn't there (thank goodness) but, given the rest of this mess and Radosh record, I think those chances are pretty slim or none. 

As for that third date, Radosh has now written a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, drilling down on his increasingly fractured story, in which he super-fakely dates the alleged incident to September 12, 2013. 

I may have a bit more to say about this whole load a little later; for now, I will close with what Steve Bannon told me personally about his David Horowitz book party meeting with Ron Radosh on November 12, 2013 -- a date that followed literally months of Breitbart coverage of the American Betrayal wars waged by that deceptive duo, Radosh and Horowitz.

Bannon noticed this old guy standing around. He went over to speak to him and found himself getting an earful about how awful American Betrayal was, how awful I was. It had to be Radosh -- who else?

Here is the line that I will never, ever forget. Bannon to Radosh: "What are you complaining about? She's the only reason you're relevant!"