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4.
Issues and Bias
4.6
Accountability
If publishing or
broadcasting dubious reports about a major Republican [think 60
Minutes and Bush TX-ANG "memos"] is an example of "liberal bias" (which it was not, as I showed here) and a firing offense (or
requires
resignation) then, clearly,
publishing or broadcasting unending amounts of completely
fraudulent or fabricated stories against prominent
individuals on the Left (especially Democratic leaders) is an example
of conservative bias and should be an automatic firing offense? One
would think so, but it seems that accountability is a word that is largely unknown
to the big shots in the media when the targets of the smear or
fabrication happen to be on the Left.
I previously
presented a limited list of the media malpractice against
John Kerry in 2004 and against Al Gore in Campaign 2000. In this post, I
am extending the targets of malpractice to cover more Democrats to show
that the malpractice is not limited to specific individuals on the
Left. To make my point, I present here a very small set
(25) of more general examples illustrating cases of
blatant fabrication or lying by mainstream media reporters/columnists
against many prominent people on the Left. Let me repeat: this is just a small
subset of columnists/reporters and incidents - a mere drop in the ocean of mendacity
about Democrats (and liberals/progressives) that has pervaded the U.S.
media for a long time now. When such behavior
is rampant (a week spent reading the Daily
Howler, Media
Matters, Eric
Alterman, Joe
Conason and Gene Lyons - to name just a few references - will start
to give you a better idea of how rampant it is; why,
even conservatives occasionally,
weakly acknowledge it) and it is met with an almost complete
lack of accountability, it clearly demonstrates that on the issue of accountability
for media malpractice
there is clearly NO "liberal bias". Moreover,
when journalists/columnists report or express personal views (factual or otherwise)
against prominent targets on the Right in a negative way, this is usually met with
stricter punishment (see Sec.
4.7), that tells you that the ICM is in fact conservatively biased
when it comes to accountability and punishment.
EXAMPLES
4.6.1
William Safire (New York Times, now retd.) on Bill Clinton and the Wen
Ho Lee affair
4.6.2 Richard Cohen (Washington Post)
on Joe Lieberman
4.6.3 Sean
Hannity (Fox News) on Al Gore and Ted Kennedy
4.6.4
Lisa Myers (NBC/MSNBC) on Hillary Clinton
4.6.5
Tim Russert (MSNBC) on Al Gore and John Kerry
4.6.6
Kellyanne Conway (C-SPAN Washington Journal) and Tucker Carlson (CNN)
on Democrats
4.6.7 Joe Klein (Time) and
Democrats
4.6.8
Numerous major media outlets in the U.S. and Howard Dean
4.6.9
Katharine Seelye (New York Times) and Al Gore
4.6.10 Maureen Dowd and Sheryl Gay
Stolberg (New York Times) and John Kerry
4.6.11 David Brooks (New York Times)
and Hillary Clinton
4.6.12
George Will (Washington Post) on Al Gore/Democrats
4.6.13
Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post) - on Howard Dean:
4.6.14
Ceci Connolly (Washington Post) and Al Gore
4.6.15
Carl Cameron (Fox News) and John Kerry
4.6.16
Brit Hume (Fox News) and John Kerry
4.6.17
Bill O'Reilly (Fox News) on Florida 2000/Paul Krugman and other topics
4.6.18
Chris Matthews (MSNBC) and Bill/Hillary Clinton
4.6.19
John Fund (Wall Street Journal) on Florida 2000/Gore/Democrats
4.6.20
Wolf Blitzer (CNN) on Richard Clarke/Paul Krugman
4.6.21
Robert "The-Traitor" Novak (CNN) on Howard Dean
4.6.22 Margaret Carlson (Time) on
Bill/Hillary Clinton
4.6.23 Gloria Borger (CNBC) on
Hillary Clinton
4.6.24
Rush Limbaugh on a variety of topics [included since he dominates
talk radio]
4.6.25
Adam Nagourney (New York Times) and Wesley Clark
4.6.1
William Safire (New York Times, now retd.) on Bill Clinton and the Wen
Ho Lee affair
Daily
Howler:
Kondracke
didn’t seem to know these things, but perhaps it isn’t all that
surprising, given the way William Safire bungled the story back on
April 29. Risen and Gerth had revealed the alleged downloading on
page one of the Times the previous day, and Safire rushed into print
on the subject. His column remains the most frequently cited writing
on the Wen Ho Lee downloaded files.
Unfortunately,
the column was grossly bungled. In paragraph 3, Safire said this:
SAFIRE:
We are now informed by The New York Times’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning
investigative team that the codes--“legacy codes,” as they are
known at Los Alamos--were allegedly downloaded by Wan [sic] Ho Lee
in 1994. Our nuclear genie is out of the bottle. [Our
emphasis]
What did
he mean by that last remark? Safire immediately quoted Rep. Cox,
whose committee had done no investigation of the alleged
downloading:
SAFIRE:
“The People’s Republic of China is the number one proliferator,”
said Representative Chris Cox, chairman of the select committee on
Chinagate. “Now the secrets are out there in the stream of
commerce, and probably on to Iran and North Korea and Libya.”
We
don’t know if Safire quoted Cox correctly, but he soon made the
claim in his own words:
SAFIRE:
[Former senator Warren] Rudman has hired nine new investigators and
may come up with recommendations about locking the barn door now
that the secrets of almost every nuclear test we have undertaken
are on their way to Baghdad or Pyongyang via Beijing. [Our
emphasis]
Indeed,
Safire’s opening paragraph had made his claim:
SAFIRE:
During President Clinton’s watch, America’s most vital nuclear
secrets--guarded intensely for five decades--have been allowed to
spill out all over the world.
Clearly,
Safire’s readers were being told that the PRC had accessed Lee’s
downloaded data. They also were told that the downloaded data had
been passed on to several rogue states.
Unfortunately,
this is not what Risen and Gerth had reported, right on page one of
the Times. If Safire had read what the prize-winners wrote, in
paragraph seven he would have read this:
RISEN
AND GERTH (paragraph seven): The investigation is continuing, and officials
do not know whether the data transferred by Mr. Lee was obtained by
another country. [Our emphasis]
Later
on, he would have read this:
RISEN
AND GERTH: [A]n Energy Department official said that because it
remained unclear whether China actually obtained the data, the
case at this point “is serious but not of the scope of the
W-88.” [Our emphasis]
Nothing
in the Risen/Gerth article asserted that China had obtained the
data. Safire stated no authority for this new claim, other than the
words he attributed to Cox. (Again, the Cox Committee had not
investigated the alleged downloading by Lee.)
Soon,
excited talkers like Chris Matthews were telling viewers that Lee
had “just given away the entire nuclear capacity of the United
States” (see THE
DAILY HOWLER, 5/27/99). It had just been a week since the
talker’s false accusations against a journalist had led to a gun
incident in the journalist’s garage.
In the
weeks since Safire wrote his column, it has been reported, again and
again, that no one knows if China obtained the downloaded data. It
has been frequently reported that Lee’s reasons for the
downloading are still not clear.
Kondracke
should have known these facts when he questioned Richardson on FNS.
But Safire’s bungling still takes the cake--and pointed the way
for the bungling that would come.
Smile-a-while:
We chuckled over Safire’s early construction (from above):
SAFIRE:
We are now informed...that the codes...were allegedly
downloaded by Wan [sic] Ho Lee.
We have
been “informed”--of an allegation. In paragraph 3, Safire
admits he doesn’t know if the downloading even occurred. A few
paragraphs later, the crafty scribe has the data all over the world.
So we
see the laughable intellectual standards of the world’s most
important public discourse.
Does
Safire have editors at the New York Times? Do they read the
paper’s page one stories?
4.6.2
Richard Cohen (Washington Post) on Joe Lieberman
Daily
Howler:
Gore nominated Joe Lieberman to be his
VP—and Cohen trashed Lieberman up and down for “talking the
language of religion.” Cohen luuvvs religion talk now. But
here’s how he launched one giant attack, just two months before
the election:
COHEN (9/6/00): My own continuing crisis of faith is beside the
point. But the marriage of religion to politics is another matter.
I thought it was in bad taste for Lieberman to go on and on
about religion. But I thought it downright smug of him to
suggest that God somehow favors America above all nations. The
United States is a fortunate and exceptional nation, which I love
dearly, but it is no more divine than any other.
"Our nation is chosen by God and commissioned by history
to be a model to the world," Lieberman told the annual
convention of B'nai B'rith late last month.
Cohen went on and on (and on), trashing Lieberman for his vile
statement. “Lieberman's statement is preposterously false and
lacks humility,” the thundering columnist brilliantly said.
Indeed, by the end of his piece, he was telling the world that
Lieberman’s statement had been “downright repugnant.”
So, what made this column especially stupid? Stupid even
by Cohen’s standards? Uh-oh! In fact, the statement made at the
B’nai B’rith convention hadn’t been “repugnant” at all. In
fact, Cohen had quoted quite selectively; given the norms of
American politics, the fuller statement had been quite ordinary. But
what made Cohen’s column especially stupid? Here we go: The
offending statement wasn’t made by Joe Lieberman at all! In
fact, it was George W. Bush, not Joseph Lieberman, who had gone
before the B’nai B’rith convention and made the deeply-troubling
remark. Incredibly, Cohen had spent an entire column trashing
Lieberman for something Bush had said! (Again: There was nothing wrong
with Bush’s statement.) But so it went as an addled press corps
made a joke of your previous election. A small correction, sans explanation,
graced the end of Cohen’s next column.
Today, Cohen luuvvs Gore’s old-fashioned religion—but he
trashed Gore’s running-mate for it back then. He even trashed Gore
for religious statements that came out of George Bush’s mouth!
From what planet does this man type? He types from the far planet
Washington Post—a planet whose exotic race of scribes continued to
laugh hard, right in your face, as Cohen typed yesterday’s
nonsense.
4.6.3 Sean
Hannity (Fox News) on Al Gore and Ted Kennedy
Media
Matters:
In an
attempt to defend the Republican Party against a charge of
race-baiting, FOX News Channel host Sean Hannity falsely claimed
that former Vice President "Al Gore brought Willie Horton to
the American people." Hannity's comment came on the November 9
edition of Hannity & Colmes, after a guest, Princeton
University professor Cornel
West, named Horton, who is black, as an example of the GOP's
political exploitation of race.
In 1987,
Horton assaulted a man and raped his fiancée after escaping a
furlough from prison in Massachusetts. In 1988, then-presidential
candidate George H.W. Bush invoked
Horton on the campaign trail to portray then-Massachusetts
Governor Michael Dukakis as soft on crime. The Americans for Bush
arm of the National Security Political Action Committee also used
Horton in an anti-Dukakis attack ad that drew particular attention
to Horton's race. The ad was produced by Larry McCarthy, a former
employee of then-Bush campaign media consultant and current FOX News
Channel President Roger Ailes.
Hannity's
claim that it was Gore, and not the Bush-Quayle '88 campaign, who
engaged in race-baiting by using the Horton case against Dukakis is
false. During a 1988 Democratic primary debate, Gore did ask Dukakis
about "weekend passes for convicted criminals." But as Slate
"Chatterbox" columnist Timothy Noah noted
on November 1, 1999, "Gore never mentioned that Horton was
black; indeed, he never mentioned Horton by name."
Moreover,
as Daily Howler editor Bob Somerby noted (in documenting
a prior instance of Hannity making the same erroneous Horton claim
on November 1, 2002), in questioning Dukakis's tacit support of the
Massachusetts furlough program, Gore never mentioned Horton's crime.
Instead, Gore specifically mentioned two criminals who committed
murder after escaping from their prison furlough. Somerby also noted
that besides never mentioning Horton, his race, or his crime, Gore
also differed from the Bush-Quayle '88 campaign in that he
"never ran any TV ads on the topic; and never used any
visuals."
More
Sean Hannity (Fox News)
on Ted Kennedy:
Following
Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA)'s September 27 speech
criticizing President George W. Bush's policies in Iraq for
"not ma[king] America safer," conservative pundits almost
immediately began to distort the Massachusetts senator's words and
smear him.
On the
September 27 edition of FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes,
co-host Sean Hannity labeled Kennedy's speech
"insane." He falsely claimed that Kennedy "call[ed]
the soldiers failures" and said the senator placed himself
amongst "those of us who would like to cut and run [in
Iraq]." Earlier that day, on ABC Radio Networks' The Sean
Hannity Show, Hannity said Kennedy's speech worked to
"undermine the war effort, undermine our soldiers on the
battlefield"; he also erroneously claimed that Kennedy
"believes the U.S. military is an impediment to world
peace."
Here is
what Kennedy actually said
at The George Washington University:
KENNEDY:
No issue is more important today. The battle against terrorism
is a battle we must win. Even those who opposed the war in Iraq
understand that we cannot cut and run, that this is an
American issue. But to remain silent in the face of mounting
failures by this president and this White House is to weaken our
security even further, and we cannot let that happen.
[...]
KENNEDY:
Our soldiers were not adequately trained for the missions
thrust upon them. Month after month, our courageous troops
could not get even enough armored vests of their own or enough
armor for their humvees to protect themselves on patrol.
Hannity
was not the only pundit to smear Kennedy on the day of his George
Washington University speech.
Michael
Savage, on his nationally syndicated radio show, Savage
Nation, declared: "Kennedy may as well be Osama bin Laden's
p.r. [public relations] man." He later said: "[I]t's one
thing to disagree with Bush; it's one thing to disagree with the
war; it's one thing to say we shouldn't be there, but to go to the
other side, as Kennedy has done, is astonishing."
Tucker
Carlson, co-hosting CNN's Crossfire, dismissed Kennedy as
"discredited" and a "screamer."
4.6.4
Lisa Myers (NBC/MSNBC) on Hillary Clinton
Daily
Howler:
At issue
is the phone call where the Hubbells are discussing whether Mrs.
Clinton would be “vulnerable” to a probe of over-billing. Here
is the transcript of one part of the call, with one statement set
out in bold:
MRS.
HUBBELL: You didn’t actually do that, did you, mark up time for
the client?
HUBBELL:
Yes, I did. So does every lawyer in the country.
MRS.
HUBBELL: That would be one thing that you would look into the firm
for [in a countersuit].
HUBBELL:
Suzy, you are getting ahead.
MRS.
HUBBELL: No, I am just thinking out loud. That’s an area where
Hillary would be vulnerable. Not unless she overbilled by time,
right?
HUBBELL:
No, you are talking and not listening. We are on a recorded phone.
So I am trying to explain...
It’s
not clear what Hubbell objects to in his wife’s characterization,
or why she still doesn’t know even basic facts about why her
husband is sitting in prison. But it is quite clear, in the segment
printed in bold, that Mrs. Hubbell is not accusing Mrs. Clinton of
over-billing. She states first that she is “just thinking out
loud;” and it is clear to any listener, when she closes out with
her question, that she doesn’t know whether or not Hillary has
engaged in this conduct. (Hubbell tells her at length, later in the
call, that Hillary has not over-billed.)
But
that’s not the way NBC viewers heard the response on The Today
Show on Friday, May 1, by the time Spin Doctor Lisa Myers got
out her scissors and did a little surgical work on the tapes.
Incredibly, this is the conversation that Myers’ viewers heard--a
conversation in which Mrs. Hubbell makes a very different
presentation altogether:
MYERS:
At another point, Mrs. Hubbell talks about over-billing clients.
MRS.
HUBBELL (on tape): That’s an area where Hillary would be
vulnerable.
HUBBELL
(on tape): No, you are talking and not listening. We are on a
recorded phone.
And that
is precisely the way the transcript was presented on the screen to
NBC viewers as the tape rolls--with no ellipsis whatever to let
viewers know that material has been left out. Not that this would
have been an appropriate deletion even if an ellipsis had been used.
Myers’ cut in the tape completely changes the meaning of the
presentation by Mrs. Hubbell--changing it from a question
about whether Mrs. Clinton would be vulnerable, to an assertion
that she would be. The charade was even worse by that evening; in a
tape played on MSNBC’s May 1 InterNight program (apparently
taken from that evening’s NBC News), Myers doctors the
conversation in a more egregious fashion:
MYERS:
The Hubbells seem worried that Mrs. Clinton could be vulnerable on
an issue that sent Hubbell to prison in the first place--overbilling
clients.
MRS.
HUBBELL: You didn’t actually do that, did you? Mark up time for
the client? Did you?
HUBBELL:
Yes, I did. So does every lawyer in the country.
MRS.
HUBBELL: That’s an area that Hillary would be vulnerable.
HUBBELL:
Suzy, you’re talking and you’re not listening. We are on a
recorded phone, OK?
Again,
there was absolutely no indication of any kind that the viewer was
hearing an edited phone call. Viewer had every reason to think they
were hearing the phone call just as it happened. And by the way,
Myers’ opening statement is completely inaccurate, if you listen
through to the end of this phone call. Hubbell makes it very clear,
later on in this call, that Mrs. Clinton would not be
vulnerable to charges of over-billing clients.
This is
truly egregious, disgraceful misconduct--a grotesque deception of
NBC viewers.
And yes,
we’re especially amused because this is exactly what David Bossie
bragged this week that even the Burton Committee didn’t do; Bossie
stated on This Week, in his defense, that at least the Burton
Committee never altered the tapes. As it turns out, the
committee never had to make these deletions--they had enterprising
journalists like Myers for that! NBC viewers heard badly
doctored tapes, in which a question was changed into accusation. But
the doctoring wasn’t done by GOP spinners--it was done by Dr.
Myers herself!
4.6.5
Tim Russert (MSNBC) on Al Gore and John Kerry
Daily
Howler:
We refer
to Russert’s Meet the Press session with Gore on July 16,
2000, in which he performed one of the most awful turns in recent
press corps history. As Russert neared the end of the session, he
had already conducted an interview for which he’d be hailed as
“prosecutorial.” But at the start of the show’s final segment,
Russert unloaded the following attack—a presentation he ought to
explain even now, some four years later:
RUSSERT
(7/16/00): Mr. Vice President, when we talk to voters all across
the country, they say they are looking for trustworthiness and a
strong leader. A lot of comments made about your role in 1996 fund
raising. And I'll give you a chance to talk about them. April 29,
1996, fund raiser at the temple, Hsi Lai—we can see it there on
our screen—and following right behind you is one of your
principal fund raisers, Maria Hsia, who was convicted of five
felony counts. The essence of the debate or discussion seems to be
that director of the FBI, Louis Freeh, and three other ranking
Justice Department officials believe there should be an
independent counsel, special counsel, to look into this matter,
because they think you may have broken the law or lied under oath.
And they point specifically to your denial that you knew that
event was a fund raiser.
Yikes!
According to Russert, the FBI chief and three other honchos thought
Gore “may have broken the law or lied under oath.” And Russert
was dropping this bomb on Gore just four months before a White House
election, and just one month before he would go to L.A. to accept
his party’s presidential nomination. But as of July 16, 2000,
establishment Washington had already spent sixteen months dropping
bombs on Candidate Gore, and most of their bombs, like Russert’s
this day, were bombs they had simply invented. But no
matter—Russert soon dropped his A-bomb again. “This is beating a
dead horse,” Gore said, responding to Russert’s endless (and
selective) charges. “No, no, it’s an open investigation,”
Russert said. “When the director of the FBI and three Justice
officials say it should be looked into, that’s why I’m asking.
You deserve a chance to talk about it,” Gore’s host
magnanimously said.
Russert’s
overall performance this day was among the worst in Sunday talk
history. We’ve discussed his outing in detail before (links
below), but it’s hard to avoid recalling this session when reading
his current self-impressed book—a memoir which tries to help
readers see how balanced and fair Russert is.
What was
so strange about Russert’s performance? According to Russert, four
Justice officials—including the head of the FBI—thought Gore
“may have broken the law or lied under oath” in connection with
the Buddhist temple incident. They were “pointing specifically”
to Gore’s denial that he knew the event was a fund-raiser. It’s
hard to imagine a more serious charge, offered in the heat of a
White House campaign. And excited scribes echoed the charge for
weeks. Not much later, Bush took the White House after one of the
closest elections in history.
But
there was one major problem with Russert’s charge—a charge which
produced so much heat. Did those officials actually think
that Gore may have committed a crime? In fact, two of the four had
repeatedly said something totally different. (The other two hadn’t
discussed the matter.) On June 11, 2000, for example, one of the
four, Robert Litt, had appeared on ABC’s This Week. “You
have to remember that this is not a question really of whether the
vice president committed a crime,” Litt said. “Nobody really
thought that was the case.” Nobody thought that, he told
Sam and Cokie! Appearing with Litt was Charles LaBella, another of
the Justice officials to whom Russert would refer five weeks later.
LaBella seemed to agree with Litt, and from April through June, he
made similar statements on a string of major programs. On June 27,
2000, for example, he was asked about Gore and the Buddhist temple
on Hannity & Colmes. “I have never said anything other
than I thought an investigation was warranted,” he replied. “I
also said I thought, at the end of the day, the investigation would
wash out the allegations.” And LaBella specifically told Sean and
Alan that Gore was unaware of Hsia’s illegal activities—the
crimes which Russert suggestively cited. “The fact is, when I was
there, there was no evidence that I was aware of that Vice President
Gore was aware of any of the [illegal] contributions that went on at
the temple,” the gumshoe debunkingly said.
Yikes!
On show after show, LaBella said that he favored appointment of an
independent counsel only as a “process matter;” he wanted the
public to know that the charges had been investigated outside the
Clinton Justice Department. Meanwhile, Litt had said the very same
thing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “It is important to
remember that no one really thought that the Vice President ought to
be prosecuted,” he told the committee on June 21. “The question
was only whether the technical provisions of the Independent Counsel
Act required that an independent counsel be appointed to make that
decision.” In the weeks before Gore did Meet the Press,
Litt and LaBella repeatedly made these statements in high-profile
forums.
Yes,
Labella and Litt repeatedly said it: “You have to remember that
this is not a question really of whether the vice president
committed a crime. Nobody really thought that was the case.” But
here’s the most surprising part: Despite Russert’s damaging
charge on July 16, LaBella had made similar statements to Russert
himself, right on the April 2 Meet the Press! “We’ve got
to put it in context for the American people because I think
there’s been a misunderstanding,” he told the squire of
Nantucket that day. “What we were saying was there should be an
investigation…[We were] not suggesting in any way, shape, or form
that charges were going to be brought, or that charges were even
appropriate.” But alas! When Gore did Meet the Press three
months later, Russert said that four officials—including
LaBella and Litt—thought he “may have committed a crime.” In
fact, LaBella had said something totally different. He had said it
right to Russert’s face, right there on Russert’s own program.
If
fairness plays any role in press culture, Russert’s performance
this day was appalling.
Daily
Howler:
When
Russert says it, we swing into action, assuming that it’s most
likely wrong. And on Sunday’s Meet the Press, it happened
again! Russert hit Dem spokesman Bob Kerrey with a familiar charge
from the late campaign. After the bin Laden tape appeared last
Friday, John Kerry had criticized Bush again, saying he had allowed
bin Laden to escape at Tora Bora. But was Kerry playing fair? Or was
he just talkin’ smack? At the outset of his Meet the Press session
with Bob Kerrey, Russert tossed his grenade:
RUSSERT
(10/31/04): In December of '01, Senator, John Kerry was on CNN after
Tora Bora. He was being asked about this [bin Laden’s escape
from Tora Bora]. He said, “I think our guys are doing a superb
job. I think they've been smart. I think the administration
leadership has done it well. We're on the right track.” Why the
change? Politics?
Russert’s
insinuation was obvious. John Kerry had appeared on CNN “after
Tora Bora”—and he had praised the way the operation was run! Bob
Kerrey gave a weak, evasive reply (text below). So Russert jumped
him again:
RUSSERT:
But it was after Tora Bora and he seemed to be praising
them back then and now he’s—
Bob
Kerrey interrupted and evaded again. Viewers had heard Russert say
it two times: Even after Tora Bora, John Kerry had praised
the operation—but now he was saying something different. And two
separate times, they had seen Kerry’s spokesman interrupt, hem and
haw, and evade.
But
Russert was wrong on his facts, as usual—and as usual, Kerry’s
spokesman showed no sign of knowing it. This incident offers Dems
one way (out of many ways) to examine the 2004 race.
Is it
true, this claim we heard again and again in the campaign’s
closing weeks? Did John Kerry go on Larry King “after Tora
Bora” and praise the way the campaign there had been conducted?
Actually, no—Kerry did no such thing; Russert’s statement on
Sunday was plainly inaccurate. John Kerry’s Larry King
appearance was on December 14, 2001. But guess what? This was not
“after Tora Bora”—the operation there was still underway.
Indeed, on the front page of that morning’s New York Times, John
Kifner discussed the ongoing manhunt. His story ran beneath a
hopeful headline: ALLIED FORCES SAY THEY'VE CORNERED OSAMA BIN
LADEN:
KIFNER
(12/14/04): American-backed forces believe that they have
surrounded Osama bin Laden and the last of his hard-core fighters
in a complex of caves between two valleys just south of here, a
senior American military official said tonight.
While
American officials say they still do not know Mr. bin Laden's
exact location and acknowledge that he could still slip out of the
country, commanders are increasingly confident that a
growing number of American, British and anti-Taliban Afghan ground
forces have hemmed in the leader of Al Qaeda...
That was
the Times front-page report on December 14. That night, Kerry made
his appearance on Larry King, where he offered general
statements in response to general questions about events in
Afghanistan (text below). The following morning, Kifner continued
his page-one reporting about the Tora Bora campaign:
KIFNER
(12/15/01): American and British commandos, operating behind a
screen of local Afghan fighters, had the last remnants of Osama
bin Laden's followers—and perhaps the terrorist mastermind
himself—cornered here this morning in a narrow stretch of a
ridge line, canyons and caves high in the White Mountains.
"Al
Qaeda is finished," Cmdr. Hazarat Ali, the ranking Afghan
tribal military leader, proclaimed triumphantly this afternoon,
referring to Mr. bin Laden's terrorist network. "They are
surrounded."
In
Washington, the regional commander of American forces, Gen. Tommy
R. Franks, said 300 to 1,000 enemy fighters were caught between
the hammer of Commander Ali's forces and the anvil of Pakistani
border patrols.
Was bin
Laden among the surrounded forces? Tommy Franks wasn’t sure, but
was hopeful:
KIFNER
(12/15/01): General Franks said the fierceness of the battle near
Tora Bora provided one indication that Al Qaeda forces might be
shielding Mr. bin Laden.
But
General Franks cautioned Friday that the Pentagon has received
clashing information from surveillance aircraft, opposition
sources and Americans forces that had made it difficult to
pinpoint Mr. bin Laden's whereabouts. He also declined to rule out
the possibility that Mr. bin Laden had escaped into Pakistan.
“You
see all sorts of conflicting information,” General Franks said.
"So it's probably not a good idea to say with some certainty
where he is. But we know where our current fight is, and that's in
the Tora Bora area.”
That was
the Times front page the morning after Kerry’s appearance.
“American officials have gleaned other snippets of intelligence
suggesting that Mr. bin Laden remains holed up in a steadily
shrinking region south of Tora Bora,” Eric Schmitt wrote in a
separate article that day. After listing three signs that bin Laden
was present, Schmitt quoted a “senior military officer” about
the likelihood that bin Laden was cornered. “No single one of
these things would be enough, but put all three together and you pay
close attention,” the unnamed honcho said.
So
Russert was wrong on his facts, as usual, when he lectured Bob
Kerrey this Sunday. Indeed, on December 16, 2001—two days after
John Kerry’s appearance on Larry King—the New York
Times continued reporting indications that bin Laden had been
surrounded.
...
Readers
may remember Big Russ & Me, Russert’s best-selling
testimonial to his own remarkable character. In it, the Nantucket
Squire was careful to note that—just like any Boy Scout from
Buffalo—he is always prepared:
RUSSERT
(page 147): [T]he key to success is preparation. In
journalism, it’s absolutely critical. Like everyone else, I have
days when things go well, and days when they don’t. But one
mistake I have never made is to show up unprepared for an
interview.
Huh! So
Russert must have known the time-line of Kerry’s remarks.
He simply pretended that he didn’t!
4.6.6
Kellyanne Conway (C-SPAN Washington Journal) and Tucker Carlson (CNN)
on Democrats
Daily
Howler:
But back
in Washington, it didn’t take long for the lying to start about
Tuesday night’s event. On Wednesday morning’s Washington
Journal, for example, Kellyanne Conway (formerly
Fitzpatrick)—one of our most disingenuous pundits—made the
following ludicrous statement. Try to believe that she said it:
CONWAY:
I would commend the viewers’ attention to this morning’s
Minneapolis Star-Tribune, which I thought did a bang-up job of
reporting on this memorial service. Among the excerpts, Steve and
Celinda, you’ll note that the Star-Tribune covers the fact that the
people who were in attendance were told by screen when to cheer
and when to jeer, and they were told to cheer when the
Clintons and Ted Kennedy were displayed and they were told to
jeer when Trent Lott and Rod Grams, former senator of Minnesota
who lost in 2000, were displayed.
Amazing,
isn’t it? Who on earth could really believe that attendees were
“told by screen” when to jeer? The Star-Tribune, of course, had
said no such thing; we provide the paper’s report below. But that
didn’t keep the hatchet-heart Conway from lying to her host, Steve
Scully. Nor was she kept from her favorite pastime—lying in the
faces of viewers.
And
Conway was hardly alone in her conduct. On Crossfire, Tucker
Carlson quickly engaged in some pleasing embellishment. He offered
this gonzo misstatement:
CARLSON:
Walter Mondale. The political world is still reeling tonight from
yesterday’s nauseating display in Minnesota, where a memorial
service for the late Senator Paul Wellstone was hijacked by
partisan zealots and turned into a political rally. Republican
friends of Senator Wellstone were booed and shouted down as they
tried to speak.
Clearly,
Carlson knows a few things about “nauseating displays.” But were
Republicans “booed and shouted down as they tried to speak?” To
state the obvious, no, they were not. Maybe Carlson just didn’t
know. Or maybe he was—yes—simply lying.
...
Steve
and Celinda, “you’ll note” that nothing in the
Minneapolis Star-Tribune said that attendees were directed, “by
screen,” to engage in such conduct. That was just the latest
example of Conway’s repetitive, gonzo dissembling. What does it
mean when nonsense like this is larded all through our great
discourse?
For the
record, Conway went on to imply what many have said—that Lott left
early because he was jeered. That turns out to be untrue too (and it
wasn’t reported in the Star-Tribune). In today’s Star-Trib,
Rochelle Olson reports:
OLSON:
Daschle dismissed reports that Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott,
R-Miss., left because the memorial turned political. “It had
nothing to do with it,” said Daschle. “He made a point of
emphasizing that to me before he left.”
Daschle
said Lott had a flight to catch, which was confirmed by a Lott aide
Wednesday.
Final
question: To what extent were Lott and Grams jeered? At THE HOWLER,
we don’t have a clue. We watched almost all of Tuesday’s event,
but we missed the very earliest segments, when the conduct would
have occurred. But the Star-Tribune described the conduct on October
30, before it became a cause celebre. Lead writer: Chuck Haga:
HAGA:
The biggest cheer was for Walter Mondale, the former senator and
vice president who is expected to announce today that he will seek
to take Wellstone’s place on the ticket. Moments later, scattered
boos greeted Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., as he
entered the arena. Lott smiled and waved.
In a
crowd of 20,000, the Star-Tribune reported “scattered boos.” But
don’t worry. Twenty-four hours later, Carlson had Republican
speakers “shouted down” as CNN’s viewers were deceived once
again. But this is how our discourse now works. Our question: Why
are people who dissemble so freely hired to go on our air?
4.6.7
Joe Klein (Time) and Democrats
Thomas
Lang at CJR Daily:
Already this week, Time's Joe Klein offers up a dubious revision
(subscription required) of very recent history in his column about
the Democrats and Social Security.
Klein writes:
Finally, there was the boorish and possibly unprecedented
hooting of the President by Democrats during the [State of the
Union] speech.
"No! No! No!" they shouted, inaccurately, when Bush
asserted that the Social Security trust fund would, in a decade or
so, start paying out more money than it takes in. If nothing is
done, it surely will.
Beyond the fact that such "hooting" was far from
unprecedented [eRiposte: Indeed, Republicans
in Congress did it quite a lot against Clinton - evidence
here], Klein's short-term memory must be playing tricks
on him. Democrats did not start crying out "No! No! No!"
when the president asserted that the trust fund would soon start
paying out more money than it takes in. Rather, the Democrats accurately
started calling out "No! No! No!" when the president inaccurately
asserted that "By the year 2042, the entire system would be
exhausted and bankrupt." You can hear for yourself on the White
House video of the address (Real
Media or Windows
Media) -- the moment in question is about 15 minutes into the
speech.
As we have pointed
out (along with several other reporters
and watchdog
organizations), the Social Security system cannot go
"bankrupt" in the legal sense of the word. What Social
Security's trustees predict will happen in the year 2042 is that the
program's trust
fund will be empty. Nonetheless, the system will still take in
enough money to pay out 73 percent of benefits due to recipients
under current law. That is neither "exhausted" nor
"bankrupt," to use the president's words. A more
legitimate description would be a comparison with an individual who
fritters away all his savings, and finds that he has only $73 of
income for every $100 of bills coming due.
Unfortunately, inaccurate columns like Klein's are often
catalysts for an echo chamber of misguided history. Fortunately, audio
speaks louder than print.
As Bob Somerby says:
The biggest problems with Klein’s Time column remain the
ones we cited last week. He trashed those “boorish” Dems for an
innocuous statement by Ron Reagan—a TV pundit who isn’t a
Democrat. He called Harry Reid a “demagogue” for daring to make
an obvious observation about the outlines of Bush’s plan. Worst of
all, he baldly misstated the part of Bush’s speech which provoked
derision from congressional Dems, pretending that Dems had tried to
reject a perfectly accurate statement by Bush. But will the real Joe
Klein stand up? On The Daily Show, he trashed Bush’s
“amazing” plan, calling it Even-Worse-Than-Hillary! Four days
later, his column appeared. Assignment: Read the transcript, then
read the column. Then try to stitch them together.
Oh yes—one last point. Note Klein’s statement to Stewart:
“Well, they’re going to lower our benefits...and the president
said he would last night.” Four days later, he called Reid a
“demagogue” for making this same observation.
As he also says:
How easy is to disinform voters? With fallen life-forms like Klein
on call, it’s amazingly easy to do so. What’s the state
of our current discourse? It isn’t just that mainstream
journalists fail to challenge Bush’s misstatements. No, it’s now
much worse than that—when Bush deliberately misleads the public,
men like Klein simply pretend that he said something else! How easy
is it to disinform voters? Many voters will read Klein this week,
and for their trouble, he’ll lie in their face about what his Dear
Leader said. (To read Thomas Lang’s superb treatment of Klein’s
piece, you know what to do—just
click here.)
Of course, no one should be surprised
to see Klein misbehave so inexcusably. Here at THE HOWLER, we’ve
chronicled Klein’s descent from journalist to pundit plutocrat
over the course of the past five years, and because Klein is a
powerful “mainstream journalist,” it’s been fairly lonely
duty. But Klein just presents an especially advanced form of the
“mainstream” press corps’ moral squalor. How easy is it for
Bush to disinform voters? Here’s the way Nicholas Kristof began
his column in
last Saturday’s New York Times:
KRISTOF (2/5/05): Liberals are making a historic mistake by lining
up so adamantly against Social Security reform.
It's impolite to say so in a blue state, but President Bush has
a point: there is a genuine problem with paying for Social
Security, even if it isn't as dire as Mr. Bush suggests.
Only Kristof can work so much nonsense into a two-sentence opening.
Liberals are “lining up adamantly against Social Security
reform,” he says, an opening claim he never quite explains, and he
includes an idiot jibe about “blue states” in the process. But
just how easy is it for Bush? For the previous week, the president
had been parading about, making a series of bald misstatements about
the nature of his “reform” and about the actual problem itself.
Kristof’s response is to criticize Democrats, while
appending a mild disclaimer. The problem “isn’t as dire as Mr.
Bush suggests,” he says, in a column whose headline screams—as
Klein’s headline does—that the “liberals” are mainly at
fault. George Bush can disinform you as much as he likes with pious
tools like Nick Kristof around.
Klein exhibits moral squalor; Kristof
is simply a serial coward, a man who always finds a way to say that
it’s mainly the Democrats’ fault. But all around the Washington
press corps, his approach has prevailed in the past few weeks. How
easy is it to disinform voters? Just try to find the big-time pundit
complaining about Bush’s relentless deceptions! More likely,
you’ll find the outright misstatements of a Joe Klein, or the
slacker, Dem-bashing standards of Kristof. More likely, you’ll
find the slacker moral values of a recent Washington Post editorial:
WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL (2/1/05): [A] bit of hyperbole in the
cause of generating responsible action on Social Security isn't
the worst sin that is apt to be committed in the course of the
coming debate.
After noting Bush’s misstatements, that was the editors’ closing
judgment. A bit of hyperbole isn’t that bad! Post to Bush: Just
keep on misleading.
Today, nine days later, the Post and the Times both pen
editorials about Bush’s endless dissembling. And what a surprise!
The Post, on page one, prints a long piece about the way the voters
are misinformed about Social Security! Tomorrow, we’ll offer more
thoughts about the press corps’ recent conduct. But how easy is it
for Bush to mislead you? George Stephanopoulos sings McCain’s
praise when the famous straight-talker lies right in his face—and
Joe Klein, plutocrat, is there to lie too. It’s amazingly easy
to mislead the rubes with men of this type all around.
4.6.8
Numerous major media outlets in the U.S. and Howard Dean
Let's start this
section off with a simple example of the mainstream
media's egregious journalistic malpractice on the topic of Howard Dean:
Murder
by media: The Dean Scream
BY
EDWARD WASSERMAN
...
Still,
it's never clear why some media wrongs are made into a big deal
while others slip by. Take the CBS 60 Minutes report on
Bush's military non-service: The story itself was old, the dubious
evidence was of dubious importance, and the broadcast had no
discernible effect. It became a major scandal anyway.
On the
other end of the scale is an instance of clear-cut media wrongdoing
that involved unquestionably fraudulent evidence and had dramatic
consequences. This one, however, has gone largely unremarked. It is
the famous incident involving Democratic presidential hopeful Howard
Dean that is known as The Dean Scream.
And with
Dean's recent appointment as Democratic Party chairman it's being
hauled out as constituting the ceiling on whatever political
ambitions he might still have, proof that he's shaky, unstable,
unfit to serve -- Howard Dean's Chappaquiddick.
You've
seen the clip. After Janet Jackson's ''wardrobe malfunction'' at the
Super Bowl, it's the most famous news video of 2004. Dean is
addressing campaign supporters after he lost the Iowa party caucuses
in January. He's screaming for no apparent reason, practically
shrieking, ticking off the states where he's vowing to continue the
race. His face is red, his voice breaking. He looks deranged. It's a
portrait of a man out of control. It's documentary evidence that
Dean lacks the temperament for high office.
In fact
the Dean Scream was a fraud, probably the clearest instance of media
assassination in recent U.S. political history.
Last
year, a young cable news producer attended one of our twice-yearly
Ethics Institutes at Washington and Lee University, in which
students and journalists gather to discuss newsroom wrongdoing. He
brought two clips.
• The
first was the familiar pool footage of Dean in Iowa. The candidate
filled the screen, no supporters were visible. Crowd noise was
silenced by the microphone he held, which deadened ambient sounds.
You saw only him and heard only his inexplicable screaming.
• The
second clip was the same speech taped by a supporter on the floor of
the hall. The difference was stunning. The place was packed. The
noise was deafening. Dean was on the podium, but you couldn't hear
him. The roar from his supporters was drowning him out.
Dean was
no longer scary, unhinged, volcanic, over the top. He was like the
coach of a would-be championship NCAA football team at a pre-game
rally, trying to be heard over a gym full of determined, wildly
enthusiastic fans. I saw energy, not lunacy.
The
difference was context. As psychiatrist R.D. Laing once wrote: We
see a woman on her knees, eyes closed, muttering to someone who
isn't there. Of course, she's praying. But if we deny her that
context, we naturally conclude she's insane.
The Dean
Scream footage that was repeatedly aired rests on a similar
falsehood. It takes a man who in context was acting reasonably, and
by stripping away that context transforms him into a lunatic.
But that
clip was aired an estimated 700 times on various cable and broadcast
channels in the week after the Iowa caucus. The people who showed
that clip are far more technically sophisticated than I and had to
understand how tight visual framing and noise-suppression hardware
can distort reality.
True,
some network news executives commented afterward that perhaps the
footage was overplayed and offered the bureaucrat's favorite
bromide, that hindsight is 20/20. But the media establishment has
never acknowledged this as a burning matter of ethical harm.
4.6.9
Katharine Seelye (New York Times) and Al Gore
Daily
Howler:
Gore
plainly had not said "I was the one that started it
all" at the forum where he mentioned Love Canal. On Wednesday
evening, a tabloid talker had said so, straight out, on his normally
inventive cable program. He was discussing Wednesday morning's piece
in the New York Times which had started the chain of misquoting:
MATTHEWS
(12/1): But of course the Times—of course, this always
happens—the Times went further than they should have and they
misquoted him [Gore], this is the paper of record, misquoted him,
said, quote, "But I was the one that started it
all" when in fact he said "That was the one that
started it all." [Talker's emphasis]
Indeed,
the talker had played tape of Gore at the forum, and Gore quite
plainly had not said "I was the one who started it
all." But there was Connolly the next morning—even Matthews
had corrected it!—still highlighting the baldly false quote, and
telling her readers it was just like other things Gore has
said in the past. Just for the record, here is the passage from the
Wednesday morning Times which started this idiocy off:
SEELYE
(12/1): Later in the day, Mr. Gore, who suffered some
embarrassment this year when he took credit for the development of
the Internet, said he was the one who had first drawn attention to
the toxic contamination of Love Canal. [Seelye's paraphrase is
highly tendentious.] He was telling a school audience that each
person can make a difference in the world [the hapless Seelye is
surely proving that] and he recalled a child writing to him when
he was in Congress about a hazardous-waste site in Tennessee.
He then
added [only after material which Seelye has edited], "I found
a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal. I had the
first issue on that issue and Toone, Tenn.," he said. [Seelye
does more editing here.] "But I was the one that started
it all. [More material is deleted without indication.] And
it all happened because one high school student got
involved."
...Oh
yes—one other thing, just for the record. How did the two papers
handle the corrections? You know—how did the Timesand the Post
tell their readers that what they had written was false? To use a
word from Michiko Kakutani's review, the answer to that question is
predictable. There has been no correction, in either paper, of the
baldly false quote they put into print.
...One
other point—even when Seelye seems to quote, she does so in a
spirit of license. At one point, she "quotes" Gore's
statement as follows:
SEELYE:
"But I was the one that started it all. And it all happened
because one high school student got involved."
In
Gore's actual statement, four sentences separate the two Seelye uses
(one of which she rewrites, of course). But she uses no ellipsis to
alert her readers that material from Gore has been left out. (The
use of the ellipsis was invented, of course, to protect us from
writers like Seelye.) Simply put, a high school senior can't pass in
work like this. Welcome to the New York Times, a talker's sad
"paper of record."
4.6.10
Maureen Dowd and Sheryl Gay Stolberg (New York Times) and John Kerry
This is about the quote "“Who among us doesn't
like Nascar?" that Dowd attributed to Kerry.
Daily
Howler:
We finally have the full information. Yes, Maureen Dowd invented
that fake NASCAR quote—the comical “quote” from pretentious
old Kerry (see THE
DAILY HOWLER, 9/21/04). And once Dowd invented the phony
quotation, it spread through the great New York Times. It was
repeated by Tierney; repeated by Stolberg; repeated by Egan;
repeated by Rich—and Kerry was mocked for his pompous (fake)
statement every single time that they did it. Five separate times in
the past several months, Kerry was mocked in the Times for his
comment. And oh yes, let’s repeat this—the “quotation” in
question was phony. Kerry never made the statement in question.
Maureen Dowd simply made the “quote” up.
We discussed this matter on September 21, and last week, we
finally got the full facts. Did pretentious Kerry really say, “Who
among us doesn’t like NASCAR?” According to Dowd, when Kerry
made this laughable statement, it made him “come across like Mr.
Collins, Elizabeth Bennet's pretentious cousin in ‘Pride and
Prejudice.’” But wouldn’t you know it? Kerry never made the
laughable statement! Writing in Slate, NPR’s Mike
Pesca finally laid out the basic facts:
PESCA (9/28/04): Dowd wasn't at the event where Kerry supposedly
said "Who among us ... " She learned about it in a
casual conversation with Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg,
who said Kerry said it on Feb. 17 at a union rally in Milwaukee.
What Kerry actually said at that rally was "There isn't
one of us here who doesn't like NASCAR and who isn't a fan."
Because of the roundabout way in which the quote got into print,
it didn't get the normal vetting, i.e., playing back the tape.
Stolberg now says it's possible that she made a mistake and that
Kerry never said “who among us.”
Indeed, Pesca even provides a link to the tape of Kerry’s actual
comment (you can still play it). Here’s the fuller transcript of
what Kerry said at that union event:
KERRY (2/17/04): This president went to Florida just the other day
to start the NASCAR races. There isn’t one of us here who
doesn’t like NASCAR and who isn’t a fan, but I’ll tell you
what—instead of just saying, “Gentlemen, start your engines”
and during the race listening and looking at a race while 350
manufacturing jobs were lost and $171 million was—
Yes, that’s where Pesca’s tape shuts off. Fairly typically of
the press corps, Pesca doesn’t even let us hear the end of
Kerry’s substantive point. But one thing is perfectly clear from
that tape. Kerry’s NASCAR reference was a trivial aside on his way
to a larger point. And oh yes, one other thing. Kerry didn’t make
the statement which made him seem like pretentious Mr. Collins. He didn’t
make the statement Dowd put into quotes. As usual, Maureen Dowd
made it up.
But oh, we’re sorry—Dowd didn’t make it up. No, let’s use
pandering Pesca’s polite constructions, the constructions we see
in the passage above, the constructions he employs as he fawns to
authority. Actually, Dowd “leaned about” Kerry’s statement
from Stolberg, “who said Kerry said it on Feb. 17 at a union rally
in Milwaukee.” And you know what happened next! “Because of the
roundabout way in which the quote got into print, it didn't get the
normal vetting, i.e., playing back the tape.” Let’s put that
into simple English. Dowd didn’t bother to check the quote—a
“quote” which was simply too luscious to check. She simply put
the “quote” into print, mocking Kerry for having said it, and
four of her colleagues then followed suit. From July 25 through
September 5, pompous Kerry was mocked four more times for having
made this laughable statement. And you know how those Timesmen are!
By August 22, the fake quote wasn’t funny enough any more, so
Timothy Egan jacked it up just a tad. “Who among us doesn’t love
NASCAR,” Kerry was now alleged to have said. Frank Rich also
used the embellished version of the original fake in his September 5
column. The fake quote didn’t seem fake enough any more. The fake
quote now needed improvement.
No, this latest fake quote didn’t have the effect of past
Dowd-Rich inventions. One past and potent example: In December 1997,
the highly inventive pair of scribes created the damaging Love
Story incident; when Gore began his White House campaign in
March 1999, the nonsensical story was widely adopted, and the press
corps used it for the next twenty months as it waged its war against
Clinton’s successor. But for some reason, the wider press corps
showed restraint about the Times’ fake NASCAR quote. Although it
ran five times in the Times, almost no one else picked the quote up.
It never appeared in the Washington Post. The AP never ran the fake
quote; neither did the Washington Times. In this case, as in so many
others, our greatest paper was also our fakest. And by the
way—just how fake are the stars at the Times? Drink in the
irony—it’s just delish—as Stolberg, the person who attended
the original event, recycled the fake, phony quote:
STOLBERG (7/30/04): To anyone who has listened to Mr. Kerry
extemporize at length—who among us can forget his ''Who among
us doesn't like Nascar?'' remark? —the thought of the
Brahmin from Boston disdaining speechwriters and trying humor
seemed odd, shall we say, for the most important address of his
career.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Darlings, it was simply delish! “Who among
us can forget Kerry’s remark,” Stolberg asked—the remark which
Kerry never made! Indeed, Stolberg had been there to hear him not
make it! Now, the phony reporter chose to pretend that she
couldn’t get it out of her head. And yes—this is the way
the fakes and the frauds work at the fake New York Times.
Question: Why do these people still work at the Times? More
specifically, why isn’t someone like Maureen Dowd fired? Dowd has
a long history of this kind of fakery—please don’t make us run
through it here—but she just keeps making a joke of your lives
with fake, phony stories about your leaders. And by the way—the
Times has now known, for a good chunk of time, that Kerry never
uttered this much-maligned “quote.” But so what? No correction
has appeared. If you read these five articles on time, you’d still
think that John Kerry said it. (Maybe that’s why the Hartford
Courant ran a syndicated column by Steve Chapman mocking Kerry for
the comment. When did the column run? Yesterday!)
...
And so, as he continues from the passage above, Pesca presents
the eternal explanation. Dowd invented a quote about Kerry. But
it’s OK. John Kerry asked for it!
PESCA (continuing directly): The Kerry campaign, though,
can hardly cry foul, having helped create the intense
competition over the "First Fan" title. Once you get the
full context, Kerry seems to know more about sports than the
Football Fans for Truth would have you believe, but less than a
seasoned candidate should. For instance, Kerry's full NASCAR line
might not have included "who among us," but it wasn't
nearly as sharp as the president's cheesehead barb.
For entertainment purposes, you can read the rest of Pesca’s
piece, as he explains that Kerry doesn’t speak quite as crisply as
Bush does.
But just drink in that highlighted sentence. The Kerry
campaign can hardly cry foul! Amazing, isn’t it? Dowd and her
colleagues make up a fake quote. They’ve run the fake quote five
times in their paper. Each and every time they run it, they mock
Kerry for his pretentious, Brahmin-like ways. And yes—this is the
way our White House hopefuls can lose in close elections. But get
this—although Kerry never uttered the quote, the Kerry campaign
can hardly cry foul! They can hardly complain about what the
Times did!
4.6.11
David Brooks (New York Times) and Hillary Clinton
Daily
Howler:
How reflexively fake is your Washington
“press corps?” Let David Brooks of the NewsHour show you.
Last
Friday night, Jim Lehrer asked co-pundits Brooks and Mark
Shields what they thought of Living History. The book had
been in the stores all week. After some vague remarks by Shields,
Brooks voiced a sad assessment:
BROOKS (6/13/03): The frustrating thing about the book to me is
that like many politicians, including Ronald Reagan, she is
incapable of having an interesting insight or an original thought.
All these people who have these positions where they could really
see something and say something interesting are just incapable of
thinking in that way and the person who has the high power and
also can write interestingly like a Winston Churchill or Teddy
Roosevelt is so rare. So the book is kind of frustrating because
it is frankly a little dull.
Sadly, Brooks announced that the book was dull. But then, we think
we’ve mentioned the Hard Pundit Law—pundits must say that
this book is no good. Every pundit knows what to say. Mrs.
Clinton is lying. Or the book is quite dull. Or she
just blames all the mess on her enemies.
But now, Lehrer turned back to Shields,
and the crafty host had a trick question. Of course, as Hard Pundit
Law requires, he received a Belittling Group Reply:
LEHRER (continuing directly): Have you read it?
SHIELDS: I haven’t, Jim.
LEHRER: Are you going to?
SHIELDS: It’s right behind the—
BROOKS: The Spanish-English dictionary.
SHIELDS: The Spanish-English dictionary or “The Franco I
Knew.” No, I don’t. Jim, I really don’t. I don’t plan to.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Left and right
mean nothing here; Shields and Brooks amused the rubes with their
witty putdown. But now a thought occurred to Lehrer. The host turned
back to David Brooks. And he asked Brooks if he’d read the
book:
LEHRER (continuing directly): Have you read it? You
talk like you you’ve read it.
“You talk like you’ve read it,”
Lehrer said. But guess what? David Brooks had been faking:
LEHRER: Have you read it? You talk like you you’ve read
it.
BROOKS: I read parts. I stood in the bookstore for about an
hour looking at it; I did not buy it.
LEHRER: You went into the bookstore and picked it up and, what,
skimmed it?
BROOKS: Simon & Schuster is now canceling my book contract
but I have to tell the truth.
“I have to tell the truth,” Brooks said, moments after
delivering his phony review—a review which, like all pundit
reviews, voiced the press corps’ Key Approved Scripts. Meanwhile,
can we ask the obvious question? Does anyone believe, for even a
minute, that David Brooks “stood in the bookstore for about an
hour” thumbing through the new Clinton book? Let’s face it. When
you bend the truth the way this gang does, pretty soon every word
from your mouth is a slick confabulation. We sometimes wonder why a
man like Lehrer lets these Jayson Blair types on his show.
But then, all over the “press corps” we saw the same thing;
we saw fake, phony pundits smashing a book which they hadn’t quite
managed to read. No, they hadn’t read the book—but they knew the
corps’ talking-points. They told us how dull this tiring book
was—so dull that they hadn’t yet read it.
4.6.12
George Will (Washington Post) on Al Gore/Democrats
Daily
Howler:
When the
going gets tough, George Will starts dissembling. On Sunday, his
column complained about "the mendacity of Al Gore's
pre-election campaign." It also slammed Gore's "serial
mendacity." And it mentioned Gore's "corrupting hunger for
power;" "he is, strictly speaking, unbelievable,"
Will said. He is also a "dangerous man," for whom aides
"do their reckless work." That is remarkably overwrought
rhetoric. But then the columnist tried to support it. Here was his
sad first example:
WILL
(paragraph 3): [Gore] staggered Bill Bradley in an Iowa debate by
asking why Bradley voted against flood relief for Iowa. Bradley
voted for $4.8 billion of relief, and opposed—as did the
Clinton-Gore administration—only an amendment to add $900
million.
Slick,
oh so slick. Unfortunately for Will's position, the Clinton
administration did support the supplemental bill in the end,
and Bradley did vote against the bill. As we have noted
before, Gore's question to Bradley in the January Iowa debate
explicitly referenced the second vote, on the $900 million. And
Bradley had voted against it. But back in January, when the debate
occurred, pundits began reciting the Bradley camp's spin. They said
that Gore had somehow misled with his question, and that Bradley had
merely forgotten how he voted on flood relief. In fact, Bradley did
vote against the $900 million, and the premise of Gore's question
was explicit and accurate. But spinners still distort this point,
including, alas, the shameless Bradley, appearing on This Week
last month (see THE
DAILY HOWLER, 10/2/00).
Will was
spinning about the flood relief query. But if you want to be spun in
various ways, just read his entire column. Get spun on Palm Beach,
for example:
WILL
(6): The Democratic Party dotes on victims, but what, exactly,
victimized those 19,000 Palm Beach County voters who, as almost
15,000 in the county did in 1996, botched their ballots by
punching two candidates for president? It is absurd to say it is
"unfair" to do what the law requires—disallow
improperly marked ballots. And it is sinister when Democratic
voters, after leaving polling places where they could have asked
for guidance or fresh ballots, suddenly "remember" that
they might have misread their "butterfly" ballots.
Start
first with Will's numbers of spoiled ballots (15,000 in 1996 vs.
19,000 this year). It has been reported, again and again, that the
15,000 spoiled ballots in 1996 included ballots where two candidates
were punched and ballots rejected for no punch at all. The
corresponding number in this election is 29,000 spoiled ballots, not
19,000. The change in numbers make no real difference, but that
doesn't seem to bother Will. Frankly, we're not sure he even knows
who he is; he seems to embroider, embellish and exaggerate even
where the real facts would be just as good! Meanwhile, he suggests
that the Palm Beach problem was dreamed up after the fact; that is,
of course, a complete affront to the well-established record. It has
been widely documented—over and over—that confusion about the
Palm Beach ballot was reported throughout Election Day. The fact
that voters reported confusion doesn't mean they should get a
revote. But Will's column misstates basic facts. This occurs, of
course, in a furious piece asserting that Gore is a serial
liar!
We don't
have the time to hit all Will's misstatements. But here's one more
worth noting:
WILL
(8): The Palm Beach ballots were designed by a Democrat and
approved by a process that included Democrats, and sample ballots
were published in newspapers and mailed to voters—all without
eliciting pre-election complaints.
It makes
a wonderful story. Unfortunately, if you've seen the sample ballot
from the Palm Beach Post, it looked nothing like the actual ballot.
The presidential candidates were listed in one column, eliminating
the source of the ballot confusion. But writers like Will "keep
spin alive," telling readers the stories they like.
4.6.13
Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post) [who is perhaps the most
pathological liar in the Washington Post payroll] - on Howard Dean:
Daily
Howler:
When
will the Washington Post fire its dissembling columnist, Charles
Krauthammer? And one other question obtains: What are the paper’s
obligations to its misled readers?
THE
POST’S LATEST LYING LIAR: Charles Krauthammer is deeply
dishonest. In fact, the Washington Post should fire him, now. In
a fire-breathing column in this morning’s Post, Krauthammer
tells the world what a crackpot that Howard Dean is. To promote his
point, Krauthammer presents a “transcript” from Monday’s
night’s Hardball—a “transcript” he has artfully
doctored. Here’s how the scribe presents one Q-and-A from Monday
night’s Hardball program:
KRAUTHAMMER:
Chris Matthews: “Would you break up Fox?”
Howard Dean: “On ideological grounds, absolutely yes, but….I
don’t want to answer whether I would break up Fox or not….What
I’m going to do is appoint people to the FCC that believe
democracy depends on getting information from all portions of the
political spectrum, not just one.”
Wow!
“On ideological grounds,” Howard Dean wants to break up Fox!
According to Krauthammer, this exchange shows that Dean “is now
exhibiting symptoms of a related illness, Murdoch Derangement
Syndrome (MDS), in which otherwise normal people believe that their
minds are being controlled by a single, very clever Australian.”
Of
course, Krauthammer was playing Post readers for fools. Because
we’ve dealt with people like Krauthammer for years, our reaction
to this “transcript” was virtually preordained; our eyes were
drawn to those suspicious ellipses which broke up Krauthammer’s
pleasing text. And so we did what we’ve done for years—we
checked the official transcript. And yes, we found what we
frequently do; Krauthammer was playing Post readers for fools. The
key words in the transcript are [LAUGHTER], which Krauthammer deftly
removed:
OFFICIAL
MSNBC TRANSCRIPT:
MATTHEWS:
Rupert Murdoch has the Weekly Standard. It has got a lot of
other interests. It has got the New York Post. Would you break it
up?
DEAN:
On ideological grounds, absolutely yes, but—
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS:
No, seriously. As a public policy, would you bring
industrial policy to bear and break up these conglomerations of
power?
DEAN:
I don’t want to answer whether I would break up Fox or not,
because, obviously—
MATTHEWS:
Well, how about large media enterprises?
DEAN:
Let me—yes, let me get—
(LAUGHTER)
DEAN:
The answer to that is yes. I would say that there is too much
penetration by single corporations in media markets all over this
country. We need locally-owned radio stations. There are only two
or three radio stations left in the state of Vermont where you can
get local news anymore. The rest of it is read and ripped from the
AP.
MATTHEWS:
So what are you going to do about it? You’re going to be
president of the United States, what are you going to do?
DEAN:
What I’m going to do is appoint people to the FCC that believe
democracy depends on getting information from all portions of the
political spectrum, not just one.
So you
see what Krauthammer’s ellipses removed—and you see how men like
Krauthammer subvert your democracy. As anyone watching this program
would know, Dean was joking when he made his statement about wanting
to break up Fox. But then, anyone who read the transcript
would know that too—the transcript records audience laughter two
times, and shows Matthews asking Dean to “be serious.” But men
like Krauthammer hate your democracy; they want to reduce you to the
status of rubes. So the creative man began cutting-and-pasting,
making you think that Dean had been serious. The Washington Post
should do the right thing. They should fire Charles Krauthammer—now.
Of
course, there’s little chance that the Post will do so. The Post
established its very low standards back in March 1999, when Michael
Kelly dissembled so hard about Al Gore and those troubling farm
chores. As we pointed out at the time, it was clear that the Kelly
had deliberately misled Post readers. But the mighty Post kept their
man on the job. Why should they do different now?
How completely fraudulent
is Krauthammer? If the media really was liberally biased and if there
was any respect media outlets had for journalism, people like him
would not exist on payroll. See some
letters that Bob Somerby published about the vile column above.
Dallas
Morning News, 12/14/03
Former psychiatrist, former Mondale speechwriter and current
right-wing hawk Charles Krauthammer “diagnoses” a mental
disorder in Howard Dean based on Dr. Dean’s speculation that the
president may be hiding something by refusing to cooperate with the
9-11 investigation committee. In a puzzling tangent, he then claims
Barbra Streisand wrote a memo linking the logging industry to
“Iraq a country that is two-thirds desert.” You may see this
memo at www.drudgereport.com/strei1.htm and note that Mr.
Krauthammer is untruthful as to the authorship of the memo and the
silly claim that it stated a logging interest in Iraq. Dr. K
proceeds to identify Dr. Dean as having “no detectable sense of
humor,” then alters a transcript of MSNBC Hardball by deleting
“laughter” annotations, so that he can claim that humorous
banter initiated by Chris Matthews was a serious comment on breaking
up a news network. The public is clearly safer with Dr. Krauthammer
as a right-wing columnist, but I would suggest to him that he dig
out a copy of DSM-IV and read up on “narcissistic personality
disorder.” This may be a case of psychiatrist, diagnose yourself.
Joe Budd, Big Spring
The
Raleigh News & Observer, 12/14/04
A clear sign of a morally bankrupt political position is when its
defenders stoop to “diagnosing” its critics with mental illness,
as did Charles Krauthammer in his Dec. 5 column, “Shrink-rapping
Dean.” This is an especially egregious approach by someone trained
as a psychiatrist, as Krauthammer is.
On the one hand, under the guise of humor, he is nonetheless
attempting to “medicalize” political criticism, which as he
should very well know, is the same tactic used in Stalin-era Russia
to imprison political dissidents in mental hospitals. On the other
hand, he is doing a grave disservice to people with real mental
illness, a physiologically based medical condition that causes great
suffering and hardship. This trivializes a serious, and too often
stigmatized health condition, again, as he should know as a former
psychiatrist….
Janet R. Nelson, Raleigh
Newport
News Daily Press, 12/12/03
As a columnist, Charles Krauthammer has the right to interpret
events in whatever way he chooses. However, his Dec. 8 column
(“The delusions of front-runner Howard Dean”) is an exercise in
selective reporting, revealed by the ellipses he used to truncate
Howard Dean's response to a question from MSNBC’s “Hardball”
host Chris Matthews.
Looking at the transcript from the Dean interview, available at
msnbc.com, it is plain that Dean’s initial response was a joke, as
indicated by the laughter of the audience, the interviewer and Dean
himself. Further, those ellipses erase several minutes of give and
take in which Dean lays out his thoughtful position on concentrated
media ownership.
This tactic reminds me of the promoters of dud movies, who can pull
any complimentary adjective from a review and trumpet it in their
ads, regardless of the overall negative review. By stringing
elliptical phrases together and by placing them out of context,
anyone can prove anything. And who among us has the time and
resources to track down every original quote?
This is precisely the kind of abuse and manipulation that passes for
national journalism these days. If the Daily Press continues to
accept Krauthammer’s column knowing his practices, it casts doubt
on the newspaper’s own standards for reporting.
Andrew Smith, Williamsburg
4.6.14
Ceci Connolly (Washington Post) and Al Gore
Daily
Howler:
But this
week, incredibly, Ceci Connolly (and the Post) and Katharine Seelye
(and the Times) have managed to achieve that distinction. In the
process, they've successfully ginned up the latest
"scandal"—one the talker is blabbing all over the air.
Here was Connolly, telling a story she likes, in the Washington Post
Thursday morning:
CONNOLLY
(12/2) (paragraph 1): Add Love Canal to the list of verbal
missteps by Vice President Gore.
(2)
The man who mistakenly claimed to have inspired the movie
"Love Story" and to have invented the Internet says he
didn't quite mean to say that he discovered a toxic waste site
when he said at a high school forum Tuesday in New Hampshire:
"I found a little place in New York called Love Canal."
(3)
Gore went on to brag about holding the "first hearing on that
issue" and said "I was the one that started it
all."
That
short dispatch spills over with errors, as we will detail anon. But
here's the newest one: Gore plainly had not said "I was
the one that started it all" at the forum where he mentioned
Love Canal. On Wednesday evening, a tabloid talker had said so,
straight out, on his normally inventive cable program. He was
discussing Wednesday morning's piece in the New York Times which had
started the chain of misquoting:
MATTHEWS
(12/1): But of course the Times—of course, this always
happens—the Times went further than they should have and they
misquoted him [Gore], this is the paper of record, misquoted him,
said, quote, "But I was the one that started it
all" when in fact he said "That was the one that
started it all." [Talker's emphasis]
...
So that
was Seelye, on Wednesday morning. Wednesday night, Matthews
corrected the highlighted statement, playing tape that showed what
Gore plainly said. But the next morning, Connolly continued to tell
the story she liked, building a story around the bogus quote, and
mixing it in with statements about Love Story that are
baldly, demonstrably false.
Despite
a talker's correction of the plain mi |