Apparently, today is "Unintentionally-Revealing Comments Day" on MSNBC
November 16, 2009 3:30 pm ET by Jamison Foser
Earlier today, MSNBC's Pat Buchanan and Andrea Mitchell had an exchange that nicely illustrates much of the media's fundamental misunderstanding of what the word "authentic" means:
BUCHANAN: When I went into New Hampshire, I went down to a basement store, and they said "Get rid of the Florsheim shoes and the blue suits and the red ties. We're gonna go get you what we call North Country Clothes: brand-new sweaters that look very old and all that stuff." You saw me up there, Andrea.
MITCHELL: I know, you were authentic, Pat.
Old sweaters are not more "authentic" than Florsheim shoes and blue suits. Nor are they less "authentic." They're both just clothes. Yet Andrea Mitchell thinks that Pat Buchanan wandering into a New Hampshire store and, on the advise of some unspecified "they," discarding his typical outfit in favor of new sweaters that are designed to look old was a mark of authenticity.
(It goes without saying that if Al Gore told precisely the same story Buchanan told, he would not be praised as having been "authentic.")
And just a few minutes ago, Politico's Andy Barr was on MSNBC, talking about the AP fact-checking Sarah Palin's new book:
This fight with the AP she's got going on is kind of funny ... It seems like they really took that slam from her personally, and in that fact-check they're really maliciously going after her, kind of point by point.
"Maliciously"? This is the state of modern political journalism: When a news organization fact-checks false claims by prominent Republicans, a reporter calls it "malicious."
Me? I'd call it "journalism."
I didn't know that.
Journalists checking a celebrity's book for factual errors is "malicious?" I'd call it their job.
I'd call it "Halloween," personally. Then again, considering it's Pat Buchanan, maybe it's an even worse horror movie.
I'd say new sweaters made to look old are pretty unauthentic. You're wearing new clothes and pretending they're old. I hate when I see that at stores like Hot Topic- brand new clothes advertising TV shows from the mid-80's, made to look ratty as though the wearer had had them all along.
Do you recall the same sort of "personal attack" meme when the AP fact-checked Obama's speeches to Congress this year?
Didn't think so ...
No, do NOT go there. That was a lie and we don't need to encourage it. Even if you don't care about telling the truth for its own sake, repeating proven falsehoods is one of the quickest ways to lose credibility.
Or, at least, it should be. This site suggests that's not always true, but let's try to be better than that.
But to play dress-up to please an audience does mark one as a "fraud".
Randy
As for the AP fact checking....they should start with Al's tome. Independent research has found numerous inaccuracies in that.
I wont hold my breath though.
Looks like you want to change the subject Tbone.