"Media Matters"; by Jamison Foser
Jeff Gerth can't handle the truth
What happens to an investigative reporter best known for his role "breaking" three "scandals," each of which fell apart upon government investigation?
If he's Jeff Gerth, and the Clintons are the subjects of one of those stories, he gets to share a million-dollar book deal to recycle his own flawed reporting and rehash ages-old anecdotes.
And what did Jeff Gerth produce in exchange for his newfound riches? In Her Way*, Gerth and his co-author, Don Van Natta, compiled a laundry list of previously reported anecdotes -- some true, some almost certainly false, some "preposterous" -- and repackaged them for sale for $29.99.
This morning's Washington Post devoted a full page to recounting highlights from the forthcoming Her Way and A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton, by Carl Bernstein.
Like the compilation CDs offered for sale during late-night cable reruns of Back to the Future II that feature artists like Milli Vanilli and Rick Astley, the contents of Her Way and A Woman in Charge weren't that interesting when they were new. Years later, they seem comically irrelevant. We listened to that?!?
It probably shouldn't be surprising that new books about the most investigated, and perhaps the most written-about couple in the history of American politics (at least on a per-year basis) would fail to uncover meaningful new information about their past. Still, it is a striking reminder of just how thoroughly this ground has been covered before to see renowned investigative journalists like Carl Bernstein and Jeff Gerth reduced to breathlessly reporting "scoops" like these:
- Bill Clinton wanted to be president!
- Hillary Clinton wants to be president!
- Bill Clinton caused pain in his marriage!
But don't take our word for it. The early reviews are in, and they are bored.
Time Washington bureau chief Jay Carney wrote today:
[T]he revelations contained in the books are not of the bombshell variety. The idea that Bill and Hillary had a long-term "plan" for them both to serve as president is, even if true, not very exceptional. ... Telling me that a front-running candidate for president of the United States has actually been thinking about running for president for several decades is liking [sic] telling me flowers bloom in the spring. Yawn.
Politico reporter Ben Smith (who previously covered the Clintons as a reporter for the New York Daily News) wrote:
The most striking thing about today's Washington Post get of two, embargoed, much-anticipated investigative books about Hillary Clinton is what's not there: a single, memorable new fact that changes the way the public will view Clinton. [...] Instead, the books seem to flesh out a number of known anecdotes about the Clintons, from the newsflash that Bill cheated on his wife a lot, to the suggestion -- first suggested in Human Events in 2005 and chattered about intermittently since -- that Hillary didn't read the full National Intelligence Estimate before the Iraq war. [...] Also: The secret plan to make Bill president!
The Hotline's Marc Ambinder wrote:
Revelations are said to be:
Ooh -- HRC is ambitious. And ruthless. Ambitious people can be ruthless.
Ooh -- HRC fought to keep her family's private life private.
Ooh -- Bill Clinton had extramarital affairs.
Ooh -- the Clintons were worried about Whitewater.
[...]
But the only thing that really matters, politically, are new relevations about Clinton's marriage -- or revelations of recent misconduct by Pres. Clinton. There aren't any.
Other knowledge about Hillary Clinton is overdetermined, in sociological lingo. And there just aren't too many stories left to tell about Hillary Clinton, arguably the most scrutinized American political figure of the past 15 years.
It's hard to imagine we'll be talking about these books in August.
But while several journalists have noted the apparent lack of news in the two books, many have also praised Gerth as an accomplished investigative reporter. The Hotline's Ambinder, for example, wrote:
Don't get us wrong: the books themselves we will buy and plow through, and given the pedigree of the authors: Carl Bernstein, Don Van Natta, Jeff Gerth -- they are certain to be well-reported and worth the money.
The American Prospect's Garance Franke-Ruta wrote that she was surprised by the tone of Her Way because of the authors' pedigree:
The Clinton campaign's attempt to "yawn" off the book doesn't give you much sense of its actual flavor, which is too bad, because its opening tone is surprisingly nasty. And yes, I know it's the Clintons we're talking about, so that nastiness should never come as a shock, but these are Timesmen, of whom I would expect better, even in their private efforts.
In the Washington Post, Peter Baker and John Solomon made only passing mention of Gerth's background:
Unlike many harsh books about Clinton written by ideological enemies, the two new volumes come from long-established writers backed by major publishing houses and could be harder to dismiss. Bernstein won national fame with partner Bob Woodward at The Post for breaking open the Watergate scandal, while Gerth and Van Natta have spent years as investigative reporters for the New York Times.
And that's all Solomon and Baker wrote about Gerth's career. They gave readers not even a hint about Gerth's history of shoddy reporting, or that Gerth wrote countless Whitewater articles for the Times, or that his Whitewater reporting has been roundly criticized by fellow journalists, independent observers, and Clinton allies.
Yesterday, Media Matters posted a brief overview of criticism of the three stories for which Gerth is best known.
But we needn't look to the past to see examples of Gerth's flawed reporting.
Indeed, a copy of Her Way obtained by Media Matters nicely illustrates the approach Gerth has taken to reporting about the Clintons. In the second footnote to Chapter 12, Gerth and Van Natta write in defense of the minimal coverage Gerth and The New York Times gave to a Resolution Trust Corp. report that exonerated the Clintons:
In their autobiographies, Bill and Hillary are especially critical of the New York Times and its reporter who broke the Whitewater story, Jeff Gerth. Both Bill and Hillary's books also falsely describe the Times's coverage of the Pillsbury, Madison report. In his book, Bill observes that the newspaper "didn't run a word" about the law firm's report, while Hillary, in her book, says the Times "ran a few paragraphs on the report." (See Clinton, My Life, 692, and Clinton, Living History, 328.) The newspaper's coverage was neither nonexistent nor a few paragraphs. The first Times article on the report was a 1,792-word article on July 16, 1995, when the report was still in draft form. Six months later, when the final report - essentially a duplicate of the draft report -- was released, a shorter piece, thirteen paragraphs was published. Two months later, the Times published two more pieces about an addendum to the report, one at 419 words and one at 1,168 words. The four articles: Jeff Gerth and Stephen Engelberg, "Documents Show Clintons Got Vast Benefit from Their Partner in Whitewater Deal," New York Times, July 16, 1995, 18; Stephen Labaton, "Savings and Loan Bailout Agency Will not Sue the Clintons," New York Times, December 24, 1995, 12; Irvin Molosky, "Banking Agency Will Not Sue First Lady's Former Law Firm," New York Times, February 29, 1996, 18; and Neil Lewis, "Agency Won't Sue Hillary Clinton's Former Law Firm," New York Times, March 1, 1996, 25.
This footnote can only be described as disingenuous. In defending Gerth and the Times from the criticism that they downplayed the Pillsbury report for the RTC, Gerth and Van Natta tout four articles the newspaper ran that mentioned the report. It is telling that Gerth and Van Natta focus on the length of those articles rather than the content, for the actual articles fatally undermine the defense of the Times.
Remember: the Pillsbury Madison Sutro report for the Resolution Trust Corporation exonerated the Clintons. As Gerth and Van Natta write in Her Way, the report found "no reason to sue various parties, including the Clintons, for losses stemming from the collapse of Madison." Madison's failure was one of the keys to the whole Whitewater "scandal." Gerth's original Whitewater article, published on March 8, 1992, led with a suggestion that the Clintons had something to do with the S&L's struggles: "Bill Clinton and his wife were business partners with the owner of a failing savings and loan association that was subject to state regulation early in his tenure as Governor of Arkansas, records show."
So the Pillsbury report's conclusion that there was no reason to sue the Clintons for Madison's failure should have helped bring the faux-scandal to a close. But it didn't; as Gerth and Van Natta note in Her Way, "the decision not to sue them did little to remove the cloud of suspicion hanging over the president and First Lady."
That's where Gerth and the Times come in. Gerth and Van Natta defend the paper's treatment of the Pillsbury report by noting: "The first Times article on the report was a 1,792-word article on July 16, 1995, when the report was still in draft form." That article, as Gerth and Van Natta note, was headlined "Documents Show Clintons Got Vast Benefit from Their Partner in Whitewater Deal." That certainly doesn't sound like an article that gives proper due to the fact that the report exonerated the Clintons, does it?
In fact, the article twisted the Pillsbury report into a figurative, if not literal, indictment of the Clintons. The article, which listed Jeff Gerth as the lead reporter, began:
From the moment questions about the Whitewater real estate venture began arising nearly three years ago, the main defense by President Clinton and his wife, Hillary, has been that they lost money on the ill-fated deal and were personally liable for its extensive bank loans.
But newly available documents -- including the first completed independent review of Whitewater, prepared for a Federal agency by a law firm -- cast both positions in a new light.
The review shows that the Clintons' partner in the deal, the owner of an Arkansas savings and loan association whose failure cost the Federal Government $60 million, shielded them, to an extent far greater than previously reported, from paying their half of Whitewater's losses.
From 1980 to 1986, that partner, James B. McDougal, advanced the Whitewater venture the $100,000 it needed to avoid a messy default on its bank loans, while the Clintons, half-owners of the corporation, contributed nothing, the report says.
It wasn't until the 23rd paragraph, more than 900 words into the article, that the first piece of exculpatory information was revealed:
The report said investigators could not determine "how much, if anything, the Clintons knew about the McDougals' advances to Whitewater." It explicitly supports the Clinton's oft-repeated assertion that they were "passive investors" in Whitewater and had little role in its financial management until 1988.
Having gotten that out of his system, Gerth immediately returned to insinuating wrongdoing:
But it includes some newly available documents showing that the chaotic finances of Whitewater did occasionally require the earlier attention of the Clintons. Taken together, those documents suggest that the couple could have had reason to suspect that the venture was failing to pay its bills.
Buried at the end of the article -- nearly 1,600 words in -- Gerth finally got around to acknowledging that "The report offers no evidence that Mr. [James] McDougal benefited from his relationship with Mr. Clinton."
By contrast, The Wall Street Journal had reported on the Pillsbury draft three weeks earlier -- and had emphasized that the report cleared the Clintons. The Journal article, headlined "Clintons Are Vindicated in New Report On Collapse of Madison Guaranty S&L," began:
A long-awaited report on the collapse of Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan corroborates most of President and Mrs. Clinton's assertions about their Whitewater real-estate investment.
The report to the Resolution Trust Corp. is noteworthy because White House aides were upset when the agency retained Jay Stephens, a Republican critic of the president, to prepare an analysis of civil liability stemming from Madison's collapse.
The Journal went on to note that the Pillsbury report "largely confirm[ed]" then-First Lady Hillary Clinton's accounts of her role in Whitewater, and that the report verified the Clintons' statements about their Whitewater losses.
So, the July 16, 1995, New York Times article actually supports the contention that Gerth and the Times downplayed the RTC's exoneration of the Clintons. In defense of Gerth and the Times, Gerth and Van Natta next point to Stephen Labaton's December 24, 1995, article, headlined "Savings and Loan Bailout Agency Will not Sue the Clintons."
This article came four days after the final RTC decision had been made public and was buried on page 12 of the Christmas Eve edition of the Times. Eight previous days that month, the Times had splashed Whitewater articles on its front page, including front-pagers on December 19, 21, 22, and 23. Simply put, the Times was pushing the "scandal," and pushing it hard: A search of the Lexis-Nexis database of Times articles yields 58 results mentioning "Clinton" and "Whitewater" in December 1995 alone. But when there was exculpatory news to report, the Times shoved it deep inside the paper on Christmas Eve, four days after the news happened. Oh, and the Times once again downplayed the extent to which the report vindicated the Clintons:
While the report was hailed by both the Clintons and Democrats in Congress as a complete exoneration of the First Family, it is not expected to have any effect on the significantly broader investigation of the President, Mrs. Clinton and Madison Guaranty being conducted by the Whitewater independent counsel, Kenneth W. Starr.
[...]
The report noted that its authors had been unable to interview a number of important witnesses, some of whom have been cooperating with the Whitewater independent counsel. It said its conclusions did not demonstrate that the transactions at issue "have been proved legitimate or that the evidence exonerates anyone; it simply means that no basis has been found to sue anyone, or in some instances that litigation would not be cost-effective."
Again, this is remarkably poor basis on which to defend the Times' coverage of the RTC report.
The other two articles Gerth and Van Natta point to also undermine their defense of the Times. The February 1996 article was fewer than 500 words and was placed on page 18; the March 1996 story ran on page 25. This last article finally included a somewhat detailed description of exculpatory conclusions. But given that it appeared roughly nine months after The Wall Street Journal reported that Pillsbury "vindicated" the Clintons, it is simply absurd to use the March 1996 article as evidence that the Times gave the exculpatory report adequate coverage.
To sum up: In Her Way, Gerth and Van Natta defend Gerth and the Times from criticism that they gave insufficient coverage to the RTC's exoneration of the Clintons. In order to do so, they point to an article that portrayed the report as undermining the Clintons, another report that was buried deep inside the Christmas Eve edition of the newspaper four days after the RTC decision was made public, another very brief article that ran months later, and a fourth article -- the first that actually included much in the way of exculpatory information -- that appeared nearly nine months after The Wall Street Journal had reported "Clintons Are Vindicated in New Report ..."
If Gerth and Van Natta had wanted to criticize Gerth and the Times' handling of the RTC report, they could hardly have found a better way to make their case than to point to the four articles they note in defense of Gerth and the Times.
But what is truly incredible about the defense by Gerth and Van Natta is that Media Matters pointed all of this out to Jeff Gerth in response to a question he asked while reporting his book.
Gerth emailed several questions for Media Matters President and CEO David Brock; the answers to some of those questions are referenced in the footnotes to Her Way. In his ninth question to Brock, Gerth offered a defense of his and the Times' coverage of the Pillsbury report that is substantively the same as the defense that appears in the footnotes to Her Way. In response, Brock explained why the four articles Gerth cited actually confirm, rather than rebut, the suggestion that Gerth and the Times didn't give the report adequate coverage. (Click here to view a PDF of Gerth's question and Brock's full response.)
Gerth and Van Natta omitted any mention of Brock's explanation, pretending instead that an article that portrayed the Pillsbury report as drawing conclusions damaging to the Clintons is a defense against charges that the paper downplayed exculpatory information.
If that seems like odd behavior for someone trying to defend himself from allegations that he has ignored evidence that doesn't fit his preconceived notions, it also must sound painfully familiar to anyone who remembers Gerth's treatment of Beverly Bassett Schaffer.
In his original March 8, 1992, Whitewater article, Gerth reported on Bill Clinton's appointment of Bassett Schaffer to be Arkansas Securities Commissioner:
After Federal regulators found that Mr. McDougal's savings institution, Madison Guaranty, was insolvent, meaning it faced possible closure by the state, Mr. Clinton appointed a new state securities commissioner, who had been a lawyer in a firm that represented the savings and loan. Mr. Clinton and the commissioner deny giving any preferential treatment. The new commissioner approved two novel proposals to help the savings and loan that were offered by Hillary Clinton, Governor Clinton's wife and a lawyer. She and her firm had been retained to represent the association.
As Arkansas journalist Gene Lyons explained in a 1994 Harper's article that grew into the 1996 book Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater, Gerth's portrayal of Bassett Schaffer's appointment was deeply misleading:
The clear implication is that in response to a Federal Home Loan Bank Board report dated January 20, 1984, suggesting that Madison might be insolvent, Clinton in January 1985 installed Bassett Schaffer as Arkansas securities commissioner for the purpose of protecting McDougal.
So how come he waited an entire year? In reality, the timing of Bassett Schaffer's appointment had nothing to do with the FHLBB report, which there's no reason to think Clinton knew about. (The Clintons had no financial stake in Madison Guaranty, although that, too, has been obscured.) The fact is that Bill Clinton had to find a new commissioner in January 1985 because the incumbent, Lee Thalhiemer, had resigned to reenter private practice. Appointed by Republican Governor Frank White and kept on by Clinton, Thalhiemer says he told Gerth this in an interview, and describes the Times version as "unmitigated horseshit."
According to Lyons and fellow journalist Joe Conason in their book The Hunting of the President: The Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill and Hillary Clinton, Bassett Schaffer had provided Gerth with "twenty pages of memoranda" that he ignored prior to writing his article. According to Conason and Lyons:
Arkansas had no authority to close state-regulated S&Ls without the concurrence of the federal agencies who held the real power. "It may be important for you to know," Bassett Shaffer had written Gerth, "that state law grants the savings and loan supervisor no emergency acquisition authority similar to that of the FHLBB and FSLIC (the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation)." Subsequent Senate hearings would establish that not one of the 746 institutions that failed during the S&L crisis of the eighties was shut down by state officials anywhere in the country. Bassett Schaffer had been an active participant in a July 1986 decision to remove Jim and Susan McDougal from control of Madison Guaranty S&L after auditors discovered his insider trading and other abuses. She had also directed the Times reporter's attention to her certified letter dated December 10, 1987, all but begging federal regulators to shut down Madison and two much larger Arkansas S&Ls.
[...]
When the Times story appeared, Bassett Schaffer briefly considered filing a libel suit. "I provided you with a detailed account in writing of the facts," she wrote Gerth bitterly. "This information was ignored and, instead, you based your story on the word of a mentally ill man [McDougal] I have never met and documents which you admitted to me on the telephone on February 26, 1992, were incomplete." He never wrote back to her. "I subsequently had conversations with her in which I tried to explain the situation. I sought to come down and meet her," he said later. "I had hoped to explain what happened with the editing of the first piece. She never would agree to see me."
In an October 29, 1994, Washington Post article, Howard Kurtz quoted Gerth explaining his decision not to quote the memo Bassett Schaffer had given him: "I had 1,500 words. She was a tangential part of the story."
"Tangential"? The sixth paragraph of Gerth's article was about Bassett Schaffer. Paragraphs comprising nearly 20 percent of the article dealt directly with her. If that is a "tangential" part on the story, how in the world can Gerth pretend that the July 16, 1995 Times article made anything other than "tangential" mention of exculpatory conclusions drawn by the RTC?
In 1992, Gerth ignored a lengthy memorandum from Bassett Schaffer, then portrayed her appointment and actions as securities commissioner so misleadingly that her Republican-appointed predecessor described his account as "unmitigated horseshit."
In 2007, Gerth ignored Media Matters' lengthy explanation of the shortcomings of Gerth and the Times' coverage on the Pillsbury report, then offered a misleading defense of that coverage.
After 15 years, Jeff Gerth is still ignoring information that doesn't fit his story. Gerth apparently hasn't learned from his mistakes. Hopefully the news organizations that repeated his overheated reporting in the 1990s have learned from theirs, and will take his reporting about the Clintons with a shaker of salt.
This reminds me of that guy who wrote that HRC smear book a couple of years ago. He came on the Al Franken Show to plug his book, but instead got himself bitch-slapped by Joe Conason. Conason challenged him on numerous "facts" and the guy just blubbered and stammered as Conason challenged him to answer, How, When,Where, Who? The guy (Sorry, I can't remember his name) crawled out of there with his tail between his legs.
That "illustrious" man was Joe Klein. And did he ever get his butt kicked by Conason and Franken. It was stunning.
Klein is a Republican in wings.
And as recently as a week ago, Bay Buchanan was claiming HRC had a " psych disorder ". Maybe we should also compare the two books? And the craniums that make this stuff up ?
Well, she does. She's sociopathic. But then most of DC is sociopathic. It's the politician's disease. Government without conscience or empathy for the governed. Sociopathy en masse.
Wow.
Damning gathering of facts that make the latest author of a smear-Hillary book look really corrupt! Great job Jamison.
Defending Hillary website.
mmfa is in high gear...4 articles on Friday about the new books on Hillary...plus their pre-emptive strike on Thursday.
Well, at least that keeps some of them out of the beer joints.
Wesley, will you buy the book or have you heard this before? Or just believe everything you hear?
And if misinformation is abounds, why does it bother you that MMFA says something about it? What's the big deal? Why does it worry you? I think we will agree that this little website is not comparable to the vast Right Wing radio when it comes to putting out the TRUTH. Limbaugh and the wannabees will believe, again, everything that is written about the Clinton's (true or false) without ever searching for the veracity of the statements. When you are a commentator instead of a journalist I guess playing to your audience and sponsers is the way to go. Why does it bother you?
Sorry to burst your bubble prince.
I have not made any judgements on the claims in either book...
It doesn't bother me that mmfa is employing a full court press on the authors and their claims.
I am pointing out the lengths that mmfa will go to in their obvious support for Hillary's run for the presidency.
Does it worry me...nope. mmfa's media watchdog tiara is slipping as they become more openly involved in promoting Hillary...it is what it is.
If you were not burdened by the delusions that come with being a rabid right-winger, you would see and acknowledge that the haters are targeting not only Clinton but Obama (the "halfrican") and Edwards ("haircuts") and Richardson ("sombrero"). And you would see that Media Matters has highlighted the right-wing disinformation attacks on all of them.
Oh come now, have you seen the Hillary attacks on Obama and Edwards??? They're much more demeaning than anything from the right or from the media. Hillary floated the Obama madras story to the right-wingers at Fox and elsewhere, knowing they'd take the bait, which they did. She's also saying that Obama's a dummy. Check out her hilary is 44 web site. Don't be a sucker, unless you're actually part of the Hillary machine.
"Hillary floated the Obama madras story [...] She's also saying that Obama's a dummy."
The baseless Clinton-Obama madrassa (not "madras"-as you stated) story has been debunked-thoroughly.
As for the alleged "dummy" statement: a google web and a google news search for "clinton obama dummy" produces zero results.
Not very suprising, that.
I ass-u-me that you have substantiation for at least one of your charges? Or am I the "butt" of your little prank?
Don't worry, they'll defend all Dem front-runners even if they had Mussolini himself in the race. Party machine propaganda ops. Standard fare.
We will defend fellow Democrats who are subject to conservative misinformation.
In my opinion, that includes a prominent misinformer like Gerth, or a nobody like "Adams".
But what about that greatest peice of misinformation....that Democrats are liberals and not the conservatives they clearly are. Where's the challenge to that bit of far-right misinformation?
should i remind you again about what david cobb, the green party candidate in 04, said about voting republican vs. democrat? he clearly saw a difference.
Did it ever occur to Wesley that, because David Brock began as part of the distortion machine against the Clintons, Brock has both knowledge and motivation to now have his organization follow the story and continue to point out the distortions? It doesn't imply robotic Clinton devotion - merely a desire to set the record, a record he knows well, straight.
Media Matters defends against misinformation.
Do you understand cause and effect?
Lies and distortions get rebutted by the staff here. If there are a lot of lies about any one individual, then there are lots of refutations about that info that revolves around that individual.
You're putting the cart before the horse here.
But they never refute the claim that Democrats are liberals. They're not. They're conservatives. So that's misinformation they do not wish to counter, the intentional motive being called DISinformation. it all comes down to two fascist party machines trying to keep their supporters in as tight a grip as possible.
But they never refute the claim that Democrats are liberals. They're not. They're conservatives. So that's misinformation they do not wish to counter, the intentional motive being called DISinformation. it all comes down to two fascist party machines trying to keep their supporters in as tight a grip as possible.
Most Democrats are liberal. Some more than others. Most Democrats are not Conservatives. A few are "conservative".
There are similarities between the two major parties, but they are quite different.
Since you support another way, you try to equate the two parties every chance you get. Like I said, there are similarities, but they are not the same, and when you falsely equate the two, you lose credibility, RedKing.
Both parties are not fascists. The Democratic Party does a lot less goosestepping than the Republicans, and much of that is due to the machinations of the liberal base of the Democratic Party. We don't all agree and we don't force everyone to agree.
When you try to claim that we are just like the Republicans in the way we demand fidelity and unanimity, you're the one who loses credibility.
I've watched the MAJORITY of the Dem Party in DC vote FOR the war crimes, vote FOR the destruction of our economy, vote FOR the funding of foreign human rights abusers, vote FOR the corporations that poison our children and our minds. A few weak liberal voices from a horde of RIGHT-WING Democrats does not make a liberal party. 2% difference in Dem and Repub policies...2 percent!!! Wow, huge ideological differences make such a stark contrast between the two, eh? They are practically IDENTICAL in policy...all but 2 little percent.
As for Democracts supporting democracy, when they stop forcing Green party candidates off ballots, maybe we can talk about their committment to democracy and allowing the voters freedom of choice versus the two party Duopoly on the ballot box. Until that day, they rank under the "tyrant" category and will not get my support.
Methinks it's your blind support for a party with a proven track record of corporatism and human rights abuses means you are the one without credibility. If you want to play slave for the DLC, be my guest, but don't expect your fellow citizens to have to put up with your masters' tyranny.
Wesley,
Wouldn't it be a lot better for the country and the world if you and people just like you were to look at Richardson, Obama, or even Hilary (or basically those that can tolerate and accept) for at least their attempt to accept other cultures and/or differences instead of hiding behind your personal phobia of people that act and look different than you.
In other words, try and look past the deep seeded history of racism, hate, and intolerance that pervades the right-wing idealog, grow your own brain on this.
Take a step back pal and stare at the damage being caused by all the inuendo's and flat out lies that are being 'reported' as part of a right-wingers 'facts of life'
This goes for all people that can't see past their own skin color, religious beliefs, or cultural dress.
The under the breath comments (name your Fox Noise commentator) or the outlandish and obvious venom from Savage or Rush or the pathetic little whisper campaigns by Karl Rove, or the carefully crafted words in a column from the likes of Ann Coulter........
Wes (and every other defender of this kind of crap), you may come back and claim that you don't care for these people, or their whatever......
But you can't deny that you are just like them in more ways than you might care to admit.
This country was supposed to have been found on the principles of tolerance, justice, liberty, freedom, and the Rule of Law.....
I know its human nature to be afraid of that which we can't or won't or don't understand but it is also human nature to evolve and to be able to break free of those primitive bonds.
If we as a supposed 'free' country don't take the first step in healing these old and new wounds then we are in real trouble because dropping 500 lbs bombs on peoples homes isn't going to win over anyone.
I lost track of what the thread was about, I went off topic but I couldn't help it. This is Memorial Day weekend after all and it got me thinking about how wonderful this place would be if only........
Richardson, Obama, and Hillary have all assisted in committing the war crimes against Iraq. Richardson under the Clinton regime, Obama and Hillary with Bush. 16 years of US agression, 2 million dead and rising, no end in sight. All guilty as charged. Their previous human rights record is appalling and their actual contributions to the nation are extremely minimal. They do not deserve the Presidency, they deserve jail time.
If you look at the entire line-up, Dem and Repub, Kucinich, Gravel, and Paul are the only ones with any sense or any track record of empathy for the people. But they're not the big-money side of things and will not get nominated. The rest are selfish fascist warpigs who will just continue to run our country into the dirt.
Get the war machine money out of politics. Work for public finance of campaigns.
There is no such obvious support. Cough up the places where they call for us to vote for her, give her money, THAT is support. Calling out the misinformation is doing THEIR JOB. When there is a more concerted focus by THEM on Hillary it translates into more Hillary here. The agenda is YOURS to do ANYTHING to take a swipe at MMFA calling out the conservative TRIPE you would rather was NOT exposed.
This new book and those upcoming in the near future read like this, "Blah, Blah, ditto, seen that, read that, been there, Blah Blah Blah, ditto again, nothing new, Bill had affairs WOW that's new, BLAH BLAH. The hilarious end to this is that these so-called Republicans will flock to the stores to buy these reruns.
Somewhere along the course of these books, a little plagarism must occur. Blah Blah Blah should be the descriptive term used by everyone when discussing these Pooplitzer nominees.
Another looming theft, here: "Pooplitzer"! I may not find as much use for this, as I have for "hate-wing", but I'll strive happily to apply this whenever awards to hate-wing authors come up. And you may be certain even now, that credit will be given sparingly, if at all (and possibly, inaccurate accreditation - just ask snoopy).
"Documents Show Clintons Got Vast Benefit from Their Partner in Whitewater Deal"
"Savings and Loan Bailout Agency Will not Sue the Clintons"
"Banking Agency Will Not Sue First Lady's Former Law Firm"
"Agency Won't Sue Hillary Clinton's Former Law Firm"
Yeah, those headlines alert me right away to those articles being about how the report exonerates the Clintons.
It's like a parody, isn't it?
70 million dollars were spent looking into everything the Clintons had ever done and NOTHING came of it outside of Monica. The Clintons LOST money on the Whitewater deal and to this DAY the rightwing wont stop pretending they did something wrong. Of course they never cough up any of that all important and in this case non existant EVIDENCE they did anything wrong just keep tossing out the inuendo and baseless accusations like a monkey in the zoo tosses dung. Its pathetic actually
Since the star witness in Whitewater went to jail for not talking, we don't know the truth about Whitewater, so all of your spinning is worthless.
The "star witness" apparently could have talked 'til the end of time, but she wouldn't LIE, so Starr burned her. He still wound up stating under oath that he wound up with nothing. The "spin" is all yours, and you aren't even good at spinning.
What sickens me the most about these two books by OBVIOUS hacks with a political bent, are that they're being touted as "SERIOUS" journalism by everyone in the Right-Wing controlled (supposedly Liberal) Mainstream Media. The Clinton-Hating Chris Matthews devoted an entire show to these two books, basically making every attempt to try and label them "Serious" journalism that provide "New" and "Fresh" takes on the Clintons, rather than what they are.
The fact that Chris Matthews gets away with being touted as some "Liberal" television commentator simply because thirty years ago he was a speechwriter for Jimmy Carter, when it's obvious to a duck this guy has become nothing but a mouthpiece for the Right-Wing on most issues, and is a PASSSIONATE hater of the Clintons makes me want to puke. MMFA has exposed this dispicable scumbag on numerous occasions for his penchant for lying and smearing without any facts, especially the Clintons.
There is nothing I'd love more than to bitchslap that scumbag Matthews. He's a pathetic, obnoxious, completely ignorant piece of crap.
You are a bit off when you say that Gerth hasn't learned from his mistakes. They weren't mistakes; it was his intention to smear the Clintons.
The facts are and have been readily available. When confronted with the facts, Gerth dissembles. This is deliberate conduct, not error.
Unfortunately, neither the Clintons nor the Democrats have the corporate press/media working for them. Dan Rather can be brought down in a matter of days. Right wingers can lie repeatedly and not only are they not discharged, they are rewarded.
Hey, HOTNUKE, get off it. The public simply will not buy the ridiculous notion that the NYTimes is right-wing. Maybe Soros-adicts will fall for that, but not the median voter of 2008--so get over it. Just criticize the books on the FACTS. Seems to me Media Matters is doing an excellent job in doing that. Stick to the facts, rather than name calling, and you will win!
So calling Matthews a "scumbag" is bad? Even though that nomenclature allows Matthews the benefit of the doubt, ethically?
As to the NYT - no doubt about it, a long-term history of inventing "scandals" to assign to the Clintons speaks convincingly to me of some base motive there; if not participation in the Corporate Media Oligopoly, as a Repugnant tool, then what could it be? Feel free to enlighten us (me), since I cannot conceive a more fitting, nor more likely, explanation.
Adams, while the New York Times as a whole is certainly not a Right-Wing rag, which I never implied it was to begin with, moron, certain of its writers are PROVEN, DOCUMENTED Right-Wing Clinton-Hating Scumbags, including the two who wrote the book we're discussing. Now, morons like you can pretend this is not so. You can mouth all the same talking points your masters like Sean Insanity, Rush Limpballs, Bill O'Lielly do about how the New York Times is an ULTRA-LEFT-WING LIBERAL RAG, but please spare us the drivel that these views are MAINSTREAM...lol
The simple FACT is, people like Gerth, and Joe Klein, and a few others, even though they're NOT vitriolic Right-Wing Neo-Fascist Conservatives, hate the Clintons with a passion, and use EVERY opportunity to smear them with the most OUTRAGEOUS, PATHETIC, AND INSIDIOUS rumor and innuendo they can think of. They quote PROVEN LIARS at every turn and pretend they're respectable witnesses, they spout disproven claims with impunity, and basically show themselves to be, at best, willing participants and mouthpieces for the Right-Wing Neo-Fascists.
Why they do this, when it's rather clear from their other writings that they're not COMPLETE Conservative Nazis, is beyond me really. Who knows, maybe they're being paid to do it. Whatever their motivations, the FACTS remain that they lie through their teeth about the Clintons at every turn. And regardless of whether they're doing it simply becuase they hate ONLY the Clintons, their lies are indirectly aimed at ALL LIBERAL DEMOCRATS. And that makes them scum of the earth, and people like you who defend their lies even worse scum.
Adam, why do you tell others to stick to facts, and yet you post unsubstantiated accusations that Hillary's campaign floated the Obama-madrassa story and that she called Obama a "dummy". People like you are the reason why Media Matters exists in the first place. Verify, verify, verify....
The government through the special prosecuter spent about $70 million not counting an unknown amount that Richard Mellon Scathe paid for investigations of whitewater, travel gate, Vince Foster and lots more. During the hearings in the house of representives Ken Starr had to under oath state for the record that they found nothing in all of the different investigations. NOTHING. Nothing then nothing more now. Just a bunch of old already debunked stories. Why do you think after all the investigations the impeachment was about a blue dress?
The impeachment was a smear campaign, that was obvious. The real reason they didn't go after Clinton's real abuses of office...using US military illegally, selling government positions for campaign contributions, chemical warfare against civilians in Colombia, etc....was because they SUPPORT all that stuff, too. Either they supported him doing it or they wanted to do it themselves when their chance came around again. Can't expect criminals to properly police other criminals, now can we?
REDKING so if I get your statment right all of government is corrupt. Left wing and Right wing, Republicans, Democrats, and independents. The Clintons are just the same as the Bushes. If Al Gore had been President in the last 6 years everything would be pretty much the same. You need to get a new tin foil hat, yours is leaking badly.
Yes, it would have been the same. Same people pulling the strings. Gore was very AIPAC, very Israel. If Sharon told Gore to attack Iraq, Gore would have attacked Iraq. You don't know your politicians very well. You keep assuming them to be different without looking at their track records. Gore was fine with Clinton killing a million Iraqis. He was all buddy-buddy with Netanyahu as he bulldozed people and ghettoized three million. Why wouldn't he have supported an invasion if AIPAC demanded it?
So take your little tin foil hat off, the one with the big shiny D on the front. You might notice how bad the DC establishment smells, the smell of rotting corpses, urine-stained torture chambers, gunpowder and sewage. You Dems keep trying to portray your side as angels when any OBJECTIVE view shows them to be lying war criminal scumbags in collaboration with the Republicans. Tin foil hats off, Democrats, join the real world.
Hot Nuke: "...morons like you." Now there's an intelligent way to begin a debate. Seems like you've been taken lessons in elocution from Bill O'Reilly. Why do you insist on ad hominum attacks when they're unhelpful and unnecessary? Frankly that level of debate is really not worth answering, but I will for the sake of this site, not for you. The point--a point that thankfully this website administrator well understands--is that Gerth and his like a dangerous PRECISELY BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT PART OF THE RIGHT-WING NUT CROWD. They have been sanctified in the past by established media, which are capable of being shamed into doing the right thing every now and again. MEDIA MATTERS has indeed been capable of turning things around by appealing to their decency and straightening out crooked stories. That's why I applaud Media Matters and David Brock in particular. Gerth is a renegade, and if we want to stop the lies from being propagated in the TImes and at the book stores, we don't do so by calling the NYTimes right-wing nuts. First goal is to get them NOT to publish the Gerth excerpts next week. Get it?
Problem is Adam, I don't see where anyone here said that the NY times is rightwing... Are you assuming that or you projecting??
it's Iraq, stupid.
[link to ourkarlrove.blogspot.com]
Good link! I've been there before, but neglected to add the site to my Favorites, so I hadn't been back. Thanks for getting me there again.
The site contains a lot of framing advice that I wish had been applied by our Dems, and much that still should be. Although I understood the need to back off on the supplemental, I certainly couldn't explain it to others (including RedKing) nearly as well as it was explained here; and lacking that framing effort on the part of Congressional leadership, I am most certainly only guessing that their understanding and intentions match mine.
"One, two, three. four, what are we fighting for?"
Is there some reason you ignore:
[link to ourkarlrove.blogspot.com]
?
I'm gonna keep chipping away with this guy. No one else except Chuck Hagel is making any sense about Iraq. Gore/Hagel '08! Vets with a Vengeance!
It's the Iraq Strategy, Stupid!
Hunter Thompson would be using less kind words. I respect you and would love to see your thoughts on this. Enough of these distractions with Joe Klein, Ralph Nader, whoever wrote that book on HRC, whoever reviewed it, etc, etc, etc.
Media Matters is doing a great job, yet all amount of time devoted to these topics make it appear like a Clinton Campaign mouthpiece. With all due respect, STAY ON TARGET!
I read the books.
They were boring.