Almost every blogger or reporter (myself included) has at some point jumped the gun on a juicy story without first nailing down the underlying details.  The key is to acknowledge the mistake when this happens.  But in the case of the local conservative blog Illinois Review, their response is to hit the delete key. 

For instance, when we recently caught "IR Editor" Fran Eaton peddling a debunked smear regarding Michelle Obama, the post in question suddenly disappeared from the site without any correction or clarification.  Poof!  Gone!  Nothing to see here!

Eaton provided another case study today, with a post suggesting Rep. Rahm Emanuel doesn't pay his fair share of taxes.  After failing to initially find Emanuel's property tax records in the Cook Co. Assessor's database, she went ahead and published this serious charge, going so far as to put forth a theory for how the congressman was dodging his tax bill and bringing up the specter of the Obama-Rezko property purchases in Hyde Park. 

When someone from the assessor's office wrote in and pointed out that Emanuel actually paid over $13,000 in property taxes last year, his comment was deleted from the site -- though not before Rich Miller managed to copy-and-paste it over to his blog.  Once Miller highlighted IR's bogus story and their attempt to cover-up the mistake, Eaton got cracking on an update.  She posted it this afternoon, acknowledging that Emanuel does pay taxes, but saying that the whole matter "seems to raise more questions."  Of course, her questions were either irrelevant or easily answered by a bit of cursory research.  Miller posted the assessor's incredulous response to the whole affair here.  Oof.

Meanwhile, if Eaton is so concerned about the property taxes paid by our local congressmen, maybe she should take a gander at my post back in June on GOP Rep. Mark Kirk's tax bill.  As I reported, while his property is worth more than $450,000, he pays under $1,000 in property taxes each year, thanks to a very shrewd -- and entirely legal -- use of the historic preservation tax credit program here in Illinois. (And just to be clear, I spoke at length with the Lake County Assessor's Office on several occasions before posting that article.)