Paging The Daily Howler. Karl Rove takes a trip down the War-on-Gore memory lane
March 09, 2010 9:20 am ET by Eric Boehlert
As Media Matters noted in its fact-checking of Karl Rove's new book, the former Bush aide hit the motherload of misinformation with a paragraph that revived the 2000-era greatest hits about the Al Gore, the alleged exaggerator.
Just try to count the Gore lies found in this one single paragraph:
Over the past few decades, Gore had said that he had created the Internet, been the model for Love Story, led a crusade against tobacco, discovered the Love Canal chemical disaster, lived on a farm while vice president, never grew tobacco on his farm, didn't know that his visit to a Buddhist temple was a fund-raiser, faced enemy fire in Vietnam, and sent people to jail as a reporter. It was a compelling life story; unfortunately, none of it was true.
What's astonishing is that all these Gore lies have been thoroughly debunked. Like many, many years ago. It's common knowledge that this stuff is garbage. Yet here's Rove, ten years later, casually lying about Gore, secure in his knowledge that conservative readers of the book won't care that the claims are false, and apparently also secure in the knowledge that his publisher, Simon & Schuster's Threshold Editions, doesn't really care about fact checking and will publish whatever partisan tripe he types up.
Media Matters set the record straight yesterday. But Bob Somerby at The Daily Howler has been doing the Lord's work regarding the War on Gore for the last decade, teasing out what the lasting significance has been in terms of our politics and our press. Maybe he could weigh in on just how astounding that single Rove paragraph is and what it represents about our public discourse.
UPDATED: It will be interesting is to see how members of the chattering class deal with Rove's book, especially if they take the time to read it and see paragraphs like the one noted above; paragraphs that are literally built upon layers and layers of obvious falsehoods. Will the chattering class call Rove out, or play along?
I don't think you appreciate what Somberby tries to do, to get the media to deal with facts instead of invent stories. When Olbermann and Maddow act no different from O'Reilley, Somberby argues (correctly) that it hurts liberal causes. When we get into the game of exaggerating and fabricating, we lose, because we have the facts on our side.
Somberby has also complimented Maddow a few times. She often does good interviews. Olbermann is awful.
Somberby had done a good job pointing out what a bad job the press has done in explaining (or really not explaining) that the US is ranked 17th in the world in health care and pays double what other nations pay.
Reading the Howler the past year, you would never know they exist.
He attacked Maddow for point out myths about the Healthcare bill and made the comment 'we don't know if these things are true or not' despite that Maddow had cited the facts proving they were untrue. He did the same thing when Maddow pointed out GOP hypocrisy for claiming the stimulus bill didn't created jobs while making opposite claims in their districts. Them making the claim 'we don't know if the stimulus worked or not'.
The truth is Somerby was a PUMA who never got over Hillary Clinton losing in 2008 and now he is taking out his anger on Olbermann and Maddow.
Gore gets credit for volunteering (politically motivated as it was) and for being in country (shortened as it was, 5 months, normal duty 12 months). Facing enemy fire? In Bien Hoa sitting at a typewriter? About as believable as [url=faced enemy fire in Vietnam,]Hillary[/url] coming under sniperfire in Bosnia!
The worst part is that this criticism (of a man who did not avoid serving in Vietnam, Al Gore) was coming from a 3-year draft dodger who never served in the military at all (Karl Rove). Gore could have used the same student deferments people like Rove or Cheney used, but didn't. He also could have joined the National Guard to avoid being sent to Vietnam, but chose not to.
Gore also does not brag about his service.
From wikipedia:
Of his time in the Army, Gore later stated, "I don't pretend that my own military experience matches in any way what others here have been through. I didn't do the most, or run the gravest danger. But I was proud to wear my country's uniform. And my own experiences gave me strong beliefs about America's obligation to keep our national defenses strong."
Don't forget Clinton, Bill Bradly, Howard Dean, Al Franken, Dick Gephardt, Dennis Kuchinich, Chris Mathews, Bill Richardson, Henry Waxman, and last but not least Joe Wilson (Valarie Plame's deplorable husband).
As I said (it obviously went over your head), good on Gore for wearing the uniform. The Army needs typesetters too.
Eric, if you've kept up with the War on Gore via the Howler, then you know the fundamental truth is that it was waged by the mainstream, while liberal pundits either "played along" as well or just said nothing about it.
Although they no doubt possess in spades the hypocrisy required to now attack Rove's lies about Gore, I think the chattering classes for the most part prefer to let bygones be bygones, especially when it's the likes of Rich, Dowd, Huffington, Matthews, et alia that are most responsible for currency gained by these hideous lies and attacks on Gore.
"...and apparently also secure in the knowledge that his publisher, Simon & Schuster's Threshold Editions, doesn't really care about fact checking and will publish whatever partisan tripe he types up."
This is shameful behavior on the part of any book editor/publisher.
Between FoxNews and right wing radio, the amount of misinformation is staggering.
Nixon would never have had to resign if he had the advantage of todays media.
Some professional liar (Republican Stragegist) was on with Schuster today lying his a** off about the Iraq War. I'm afraid this book will be keeping MMFA busy for a few weeks.
Actually it's very uncommon knowledge. Almost nobody knows that the media elected Bush in 2000. If people knew that, the media would hardly get any ratings at all.
That sort of thing is a lifetime ban in other professions.