MSNBC's Countdown documented the "swift-boating of Al Gore"
On MSNBC's Countdown, fill-in host Brian Unger denounced the baseless attacks -- including Nazi references -- against the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, which chronicles former Vice President Al Gore's campaign to raise awareness about global warming. Noting that these attacks ignore the scientific facts put forth in the movie, Unger characterized them as "swift-boating."
On the May 31 edition of MSNBC's Countdown, fill-in host Brian Unger, a commentator on National Public Radio's Day to Day, denounced the baseless attacks -- including Nazi references -- against documentary film An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount Classics, May 2006), which chronicles former Vice President Al Gore's campaign to raise awareness about global warming. Noting that these attacks ignore the scientific facts put forth in the movie, Unger characterized them as "swift-boating," referring to the attack ads by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth against Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) during his 2004 presidential campaign. He added that "Third Reich analogies are the nuclear bombs of oratory, rhetorical, or literary devices," which "obliterate any logic or reason within miles of the hurler."
Unger pointed out that global warming skeptic William M. Gray, professor emeritus of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, stated that "Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews," according to a May 28 Washington Post Magazine article. Unger also highlighted an unnamed pundit who compared An Inconvenient Truth to Joseph Goebbels's Nazi propaganda films. Unger may have been referring to Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, who, as Media Matters for America has documented, called the film "propaganda" and added: "You don't go see Joseph Goebbels's films to see the truth about Nazi Germany. You don't want to go see Al Gore's film to see the truth about global warming."
From the May 31 edition of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann:
UNGER: Third Reich analogies are the nuclear bombs of oratory, rhetorical, or literary devices. They obliterate any logic or reason within miles and the hurler of the Hitler bomb almost always looks worse than the intended recipient of the blast. Seinfeld's soup Nazi episode gets the only waver. The latest target of the Hitler comparison: Al Gore and his global warming film. And anyone who has a beef with it should probably base their criticism on the science and not the mindset of old Adolf.
In our third story on the Countdown: the swift-boating of Al Gore -- the former vice president's wake-up call on climate change, leading to some unfortunate analogies and a debate that seems lacking in substance. The documentary itself, An Inconvenient Truth, making an impressive debut at the box office, raking in an average of just over $70,000 per screen over the holiday weekend. The No. 1 film, X-Men III, averaging less than half of that. As a result, the counterattacks beginning in earnest. Meteorologist Bill Gray making little mention of the weather in his rebuttal. Quote, "Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews." Which doesn't even make sense.
Then there's the pundit who compared the Gore movie to Joseph Goebbels films about Nazi, Germany. The Fox News analyst who said that global warming was bogus and dreamed up by environmentalists to stop economic development. And in true swift-boat fashion, the campaign-style attack ads produced by a conservative think tank that is funded largely by the energy industry.
ANNOUNCER [clip]: There's something in these pictures you can't see. It's essential to life. You breathe it out, plants breathe it in. It comes from animal life, the oceans, the earth, and the fuels we find in it. It's called carbon dioxide -- CO2. The fuels that produce it have freed us from the world of back-breaking labor, lighting up our lives, allowing us to create and move the things we need, the people we love. Now, some politicians want to label carbon dioxide a pollutant. Imagine if they succeed. What would our lives be like then? Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life.
UNGER: Time now to suspend this lesson on photosynthesis for a closer look at the politics involved here with the White House correspondent for the New York Daily News Ken Bazinet.
Thank you for joining us.
BAZINET: Hi Brian. Good evening.
UNGER: For five years now, Al Gore has been, you know, little more than a political punch line at times. Why go to all this trouble of attacking him now? I mean, are conservatives legitimately scared of a Gore comeback here?
BAZINET: I don't -- I don't know that they're necessarily scared of a Gore comeback, but I think it's the message. It's sort of a -- it's a wine whose time has come, I think. In 2000, when Al Gore was talking about climate change and global warming, I don't think people by and by could state their position, articulate how they felt about it or even tell you what it was. I think now, in 2006, we're at a place were people actually do have an opinion of this. They go on the Internet and they want to try and find out what does climate change have to do with hurricane season, for instance. What exactly are greenhouse gases? So, I think the timing of this really is -- is what's essential. I don't think it's so much the messenger as it is the message.
UNGER: It feels, though, that this is a personal attack. The politics of global warming has -- of course, you know, the science has long been in dispute. Is this more personal?
BAZINET: Well, I don't think that Al Gore has sort of manufactured himself to become a candidate overnight, but I do think that he can lay claim to this issue. But again, I want to get back to my -- to really, my first answer. They're attacking Al Gore because he's the perfect messenger. He can articulate this. I spoke with someone who attended a screening of this film, and one point that she made was that he really does a good job of simplifying things that are very complicated to, I think, the untrained mind. I think that's very dangerous. If you can say in a simple declarative sentence what the problem is, back it up with science, I think that really you have a hot potato there and I think that the right is very concerned about that, potentially those folks who are on the payroll of big oil at this point, I believe.
UNGER: The swift-boating of John Kerry helped secured four more years of George W. Bush. Anything that it would suggest that it won't work this time?
BAZINET: Well, first of all, what ballot is he on? And, you know, second of all, I think that there is probably more science to back up Al Gore's case at this point. I'm not sure that this will work to destroy Al Gore as much as it's going to cause an awful lot of people who, you know, quite frankly, he wasn't on their radar screens, but now he will be. Any time you hammer someone, I mean, people want to know why. So, I think it's a real risk move and I think that's why you don't necessarily see so-called mainstream Republicans jumping in on this, but rather sort of the fractured right at this point.
UNGER: Big box office does not mean a film like this will have any real lasting impact at the ballot box, Fahrenheit 9/11 being a recent example of that. Is it too soon to be hailing the success of An Inconvenient Truth?
BAZINET: I think -- I think it's not necessarily too soon to hail it, but I think that you can measure it, both dollars and cents wise -- people, obviously, showing up at the theaters -- but also, let's see whether or not he's able to, you know, get people talking. If he's able to galvanize, for instance, part of the true left, I mean, that can work to the advantage, obviously, of those Democrats, those progressives who are on the ballot this fall. So, I think, you know, yes, the jury's out, but we're already talking about this.
UNGER: Ken Bazinet, thank you very much for joining us.
BAZINET: My pleasure.
Media Matters: Limbaugh's Off the Wall spin on Michael Jackson's death
Howard Kurtz's wasted opportunity
And before the numbskulls get on here and pull the old "where's the conservative misinformation?" and proceed to quote MMFA's "about us" page to everybody, as though they are the final word on how to run this site...
This is a timely and informative report on a valiant effort to smack down the conservative misinformation that's going on about Gore and his movie. I haven't seen it yet, but I hope to have the opportunity soon.
Some of the lies that people are being told (and subsequently repeating) about Al Gore will make your jaw drop.
I recently spent two days of back and forth emails explaining to a conservative friend that, no, Gore did not in fact claim to have "invented the Internet" in so many words. And that, yes, what he DID claim was absolutely truthful and verifiable.
The Gore haters just don't get it. The difference between a Gore-hater and a Bush-hater is that we've had 6 years of Bush screw-ups to feed our distrust. Gore-haters have absolutely nothing to back up their claims against him.
Swift-boating indeed.
...that Gore would become president and vindicate himself and show those Bush supporters just how wrong they were in 2000 and show them how a real man governs ; but alas the right wing hate machine has made their minions hate him through the dissemination of the ususal misinformation and inuendos. It's amazing and sad how they crush the reputations of people better suited for governing then themselves.
[link to www.dailykos.com]
A Gore-Feingold ticket. I've got a real soft spot for Gore, not only was he more qualified for the presidency but he was robbed of the chance. God and just look at what we got in his place.
...but it would be a great cause, and I think many of his other constituents would agree with me.
We'd like Lake Superior to stay blue.
I think the Gore-haters hate Gore primarily because he is associated with Clinton, and secondarily because he's undeniably smarter than they are.
So a person who accurately, truthfully points out the current "about us" text is has a "thick or muddled head" (Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary)?
The Gore quote of interest is: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."
Fact: He did not use any form of the word "invent".
At issue: "Creating" and Gore's participation in the timeline of the development of the internet
The following is the quote from Al Gore's interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer on March 9, 1999: "I've traveled to every part of this country during the last six years. During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country's economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system." The conservatives lie when they say Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet. He was claiming that he took the initiative in creating the internet through his legislation. That is why he said "During my service in the United States Congres, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." You have to read the entire quote to understand what he meant. Otherwise it is a lie to say thet Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet - it is a lie that is intended to subvert the truth.
Al Gore served in Congress from 1977-1985.
Here is one timeline of the development of the Internet (There are others; check "internet" in the Wikipedia):
[link to www.internetvalley.com]
You may notice several dates before 1977.
Al Gore advocated funding for Internet development and can be thanked for that. However, for him to say anything about his part in "creating the Internet" provides fuel for his critics who paint him as an exaggerator.
My humble opinion: If you use stilted language like "took the initiative" you are almost asking for someone to simplify your direct words. That's where the fun begins. Call these attempts at speaking simple English "lies" if it makes you feel good.
"Took the initiative" is hardly stilted language. Gore probably isn't capable of dumbing down his speech enough to make it comprehensible to the Republican base.
..boy do they like dumbed down speechifying, just ask the Decider.
Lynn you are too funny!
All these Nazi references coming out of the right wing media are doing nothing but proving
Forgot to close my anchor tag, dough! Post should read:
All these Nazi references coming out of the right wing media are doing nothing but proving Godwin’s Law. But I’m sure they’d say that it’s only a theory and a disputed theory at that.
thank you.
Doesn't this just show that the media really are liberal? (<---sarcasm)
Incidentally, it seems okay when the right uses Nazi references, but if anyone from the left even subtly alludes to how fascist regimes have been created in the past, all hell breaks loose.
No, nazi references always stiffle debate. In my opinion it not only demonizes the one who is refered to, but also downplayes the atrocities that the nazies committed. Gore is no nazi, and neither is Bush!
...all that fake indignation oozing from the TV screen
I'm always amazed at the fever-pitched anger that is leveled against anyone that challenges the machine. Other than $$, what's in it for Limbaugh, Gray, et al., to be the great defenders of pollution.
Maybe they're dillusioned into thinking they know best, and are actually saving "us" poor touchy-feely tree huggers from our own devices.
exactly, even if veiled.
This is not the best term to use, "swift-boating".
That term not only invokes something past, and perhaps different, but even then the term was used senselessly: What did "swift boats" truly have to do with the insults and innuendo heaped upon Sen. Kerry during the 2004 campaign?
Nothing; the term was merely incorporated into the name of a well-financed group of vitriolic and hateful Vietnam veterans who had vowed long ago that they would someday payback Lt. Kerry for speaking out against the Vietnam war upon his return home from it.
And they did, pay him back, those vitriolic and hateful Vietnam veterans...
In spades.
The term "swift-boating", strained and strange then, is only more so now, in this context.
If it's insult and innuendo, then call it that; if it's untrue or a lie, call it that; if it's slander or libel, you could call it that too, but calling a good lawyer is a better course of action in those cases.
"Words are a wise man's tokens, he does reckon by them; but they are the money of fools, so easily counterfeited and uttered false are they."
Perhaps, just perhaps, Gore's time has come. Perhaps, enough Indys and fed up moderate conservatives will persuade Gore that he WILL...not can...win the presidency.
The concept of swift-boating (telling outright lies to influence the vote) is not new. The problem with swift-boating is that our populace seems to be highly susceptible to this tactic for two reasons. First, right-wing media (which is to say, all major media outlets owned by right-wing interests) support swift-boating when it attacks liberal causes and candidates. Second, by and large, our populace is too uninformed or uneducated to see through the lies.
Unfortunately, we are due for another round of swift-boating in 2008, and perhaps even this election season in certain areas. I can only hope that our populace has become aware enough of what's really going on to be immune to swift-boating, but time will tell.
If they're resorting to all those old misquotes they say 'proves' he lied--every one of which has been well documented to be wrong--it's because they can't think of any stronger ammo.
They can't attack his sense of duty. They can't attack his personal life. They can't attack him for being a lightweight. They can't attack him for being the last guy to hop on any bandwagon.
When the best reason Fox analysts can offer in support of their claim (hope) that Gore won't run in 2008 is that "he'd have to explain his stance on the environment", the right is running very, very scared.
The whole reason Sen. Clinton has been misrepresented by the right wing as the Democratic front-runner for 2008 is because she seems, to the conservatives, like the easiest Dem to defeat.
The reason the right is suddenly discussing Gore only incidentally concerns the timing of his movie: Republicans are terrified at the prospect of him running. As a candidate, all Gore has to do is get up on a podium to trigger the automatic reaction on the part of many Americans, both those who voted for him in 2000, and (fewer) those who didn't: that he really should have been president these last few years.
his administration and what they and the rest of his henchment are doing to the U.S. can be compared to 1930's Germany, just before Hitler and his henchmen took over the government.
[link to www.hermes-press.com]
A minor complaint: Brian Unger assumed that the swift boating of Kerry was a factor in giving the election to Bush and that Fehrenheit 911, even though a box office hit, did not have an impact on the election. All of this assumes that Bush won the election. Read the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. piece in Rolling Stone. The election wasn't even close. Kerry won big.