Ignoring own history of smearing Gore, Matthews claimed "Gore got himself in those problem areas" and repeated smears
SUMMARY: On Hardball, Chris Matthews stated: "Al Gore, he's the one who said he created the Internet. He's the one who put out the word that he was the subject or the role model for Love Story, that he pointed the country's attention to Love Canal. He stuck himself into that story." Matthews concluded: "Gore got himself in those problem areas by vanity and showing off and trying to make himself cool." Matthews' comments echoed debunked falsehoods that were spread by the media, and Matthews in particular, during the 2000 presidential campaign.
On the November 19 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, New Republic senior editor Michael Crowley asserted that Democrats "believe, fundamentally, process is the reason that [former Vice President Al] Gore and [Sen. John] Kerry [D-MA] lost in 2000 and 2004, that they got slimed. There was the Swift Boats smear that the press turned on Gore in 2000." In response, host Chris Matthews asserted that "there's a big difference between what happened to Al Gore and what happened to Bob -- John Kerry." After stating that Kerry "got hit unfairly by the Swift Boat, attacking his service to his country," Matthews claimed that Gore brought his trouble upon himself, saying: "Al Gore, he's the one who said he created the Internet. He's the one who put out the word that he was the subject or the role model for Love Story, that he pointed the country's attention to Love Canal. He stuck himself into that story." Matthews concluded: "Gore got himself in those problem areas by vanity and showing off and trying to make himself cool." Matthews' comments echoed several old smears and falsehoods characterizing Gore as a "liar" or "exaggerator" that were spread by him and many others in the media during the 2000 presidential campaign.
Contrary to Matthews' characterization, Gore did not say he "created the Internet," nor did he claim, as Matthews has previously asserted, that he "invented the Internet." As Media Matters for America has documented, during the March 9, 1999, interview on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, that gave rise to the myth, Gore said: "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet." Following that interview, numerous media outlets reported that Gore had asserted that he had "invented the Internet" -- a falsehood they continue to cite to this day. Matthews himself repeatedly mentioned this myth during his coverage of the 2000 presidential election. As Media Matters noted, in a September 22, 2000, article, the Los Angeles Times reported: "Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the House and a Republican who is no friend of the Gore campaign, said earlier this month, 'Gore is the person who, in the Congress, most systematically worked to make sure that we got to an Internet.' "
Further, Matthews' assertion that Gore "put out the word" that he was the "subject or role model" for the main character in Erich Segal's 1970 romance novel Love Story has been debunked. While Matthews and other media figures asserted during the 2000 campaign that Gore had claimed he was the "subject" of Love Story (examples provided below), Princeton history professor Sean Wilentz and many others have noted:
Gore never made the claim. ... Schmoozing one night about the movies with two Time reporters, Gore had mentioned an interview, reported in the Nashville Tennessean, in which Segal claimed that Gore and Tipper were the models for his story. There was such an interview, but the Nashville reporter misquoted Segal, who actually said that Al, and not Tipper, had served as one of his models.
In addition, Matthews' assertion that Gore said he "pointed the country's attention to Love Canal," a toxic-waste site in upstate New York, echoes a false claim first made in December 1, 1999, articles in The Washington Post and The New York Times and partially retracted in a correction printed in the Post's December 7, 1999, edition and the Times' December 10, 1999, edition, as Media Matters has documented. The allegation was cited by the media throughout the 2000 campaign to describe Gore as an "exaggerator." From the Times' December 1, 1999, article:
Later in the day, Mr. Gore ... said he was the one who had first drawn attention to the toxic contamination of Love Canal. He was telling a school audience that each person can make a difference in the world and he recalled a child writing to him when he was in Congress about a hazardous-waste site in Tennessee.
He then added: "I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal. I had the first hearing on that issue and Toone, Tenn.," he said. "But I was the one that started it all. And it all happened because one high school student got involved."
Mr. Gore held Congressional hearings on the matter in October 1978. But two months earlier President Jimmy Carter had declared Love Canal a disaster area, and the federal government, after much howling by local residents, had offered to buy the homes.
Mr. Gore was not available to answer questions from reporters after he made this statement.
In reality, Gore didn't say "I was the one that started it all" -- he said "that was the one that started it all" [emphasis added] -- a fact that was clear as early as the December 1, 1999, broadcast of MSNBC's Hardball, which played a clip of Gore saying:
GORE: I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal, had the first hearing on that issue in Toone-Teague, Tennessee. That was the one you didn't hear of, but that was the one that started it all. We passed a -- a major national law to clean up hazardous dump sites, and we had new efforts to stop the practices that ended up poisoning water around -- around the country. We've still got work to do, but we've made a huge difference, and it all happened because one high school student got involved.
Nor did Gore claim that he had "pointed the country's attention to Love Canal," as Matthews claimed and as the Times originally reported.
Contrary to Matthews' assertion that "Gore got himself in those problem areas," numerous media figures -- including Matthews -- repeatedly highlighted the falsehoods about and smears of Gore during their coverage of the 2000 presidential campaign. Indeed, Politico editor-in-chief John Harris and Time senior political analyst Mark Halperin have argued that the treatment Gore received in 2000 from the "Freak Show" media -- a term they coined in The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008 (Random House, 2006) -- played an important role in Gore's loss in the 2000 election. As Harris and Halperin noted in their book, the media in 2000 "exerted intense destructive pressure on Gore," seizing on Gore's "petty frailties" and making them his "defining" characteristics while downplaying Gore's "substantial strengths as a man and politician."
Instances in which Matthews repeated falsehoods about Gore include (taken from the Nexis news database):
- On the October 11, 2000, edition of Hardball, Matthews asked Democratic strategist Susan Estrich, "Does Al Gore have a truth problem, and is it going to hurt him?" After Estrich replied, "He's got this little problem, but it's not really about truth," Matthews said: "Let me put it this way. ... If you apply to college, or you apply for a job, and you say, 'I discovered Love Canal, I invented the Internet,' these little problems are serious questions of character and resume inflation."
- On the October 2, 2000, edition of Hardball, Matthews asked NBC correspondent Chip Reid, "While we're watching this, is -- is -- how do they co-- the staff people who are basically working for Al Gore, taking orders from him, how do they stop him from coming up with those fish stories he likes to tell about he invented the Internet or he was there at the creation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve."
- On the September 19, 2000, edition of MSNBC's The News with Brian Williams, reporting on a fundraiser Gore was holding with "the high-tech crowd," Matthews asserted that "everybody wants to show today that they're state of the art. We know what we know. Al Gore's the kind of guy that walks around with a Palm Pilot on his belt. We know that he's even claimed to have invented the Internet."
- On the December 16, 1999, edition of Hardball, Matthews reported that the Republican National Committee "opened their Al Gore Store. The store sells items meant to remind voters of the vice president's most memorable moments like 'I invented the Internet' mouse pads and Al's alpha male baseball caps."
- On the December 2, 1999, edition of Hardball, Matthews asked former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY), "Senator, how did he get this idea? Now you've seen Al -- Al Gore in action. I know you didn't know that he was the prototype for Ryan O'Neal's character in Love Story or that he invented the Internet. He now is the guy who discovered Love Canal." After Simpson asserted that "I came along, and we did the Clean Air Act and the Superfund, and I don't remember Al ever, you know, doing any heavy lifting," Matthews said: "Well, you don't know the beauty of digital movie making. You can now take a guy like him and make him Forrest Gump and put him in that scene with you." Matthews also asserted, "It reminds me of Snoopy thinking he's the Red Baron."
- On a separate segment of the December 2, 1999, edition of Hardball, Matthews asserted: "Well, let's talk about Al Gore and have some fun. We've gone into the serious part of the program. Now here's the hilarious part. This is Al Gore in this sort of Zelig co-- condition he finds himself in; you know, the guy who keeps showing up in historic moments in history." Later in the segment, Matthews said of Gore, "What is it, the Zelig guy who keeps saying, 'I -- I was the main character in Love Story, I invented the Internet, I invented Love Canal'?"
- On the December 1, 1999, edition of Hardball, Matthews discussed "the amazing assertion by the vice president of the United States, Al Gore, that he was the one -- just as he was the one who invented the Internet, and was the character upon which Love Story the movie was based. Now, apparently, Love Canal, the horror story, was based upon his investigative reporting." Matthews then told presidential historian Douglas Brinkley that "writing about Al Gore is a hard one, because he's almost like Ben Franklin, he invented everything."
- On the March 16, 1999, edition of Hardball, Matthews asked Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL), "[W]hy does Al Gore keep making these -- a bright guy who makes preposterous claims, like he invented the Internet and he starred in Love Story?" Matthews also compared Gore to Moe Greene, the casino-owner character in the movie The Godfather. According to Matthews, Gore is "like Moe Greene, 'I built this highway!' Just like in Godfather, 'I built this place!' " In fact, it was mobster Hyman Roth who asserted in The Godfather: Part II that Greene "had an idea -- to build a city out of a desert stop-over for GI's on the way to the West Coast" and claimed that "the city [Greene] invented was Las Vegas."
From the November 19 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:
MATTHEWS: Mike, last word. Michael Crowley, who won this big bout?
MATTHEWS: Is this going in -- it looks like it might be going in Barack's direction. He seems to want to play it a lot more than Hillary does. She hasn't shown up on camera on this. He's shown up on camera. He seems to want to wallow in this baby.
CROWLEY: You know, I don't know who's won. I think you're right. He's a little more eager to talk about it.
But I want to say, I think Chuck made a great point about the second punch. But I do want to say, the first punch -- the process question -- is so essentially important to Democrats right now, because I think they believe, fundamentally, process is the reason that Gore and Kerry lost in 2000 and 2004, that they got slimed.
There was the Swift Boats smear that the press turned on Gore in 2000. And, so, I think that what's so interesting here is you're seeing this kind of military exercise happening about a nonexistent scandal, where both campaigns are trying to show, we fight back hard and fast, and we squash things right away.
And the Hillary people in particular are trying to say, "We've been through this before and we know how to handle these kinds of stories." Obama is trying to say, "I'm ready for this kind of thing, even though I haven't really been through the meat grinder before."
And it's a reminder how important it is -- how traumatized Democrats are by the kind of media circus that they feel killed them off in the last two elections, and how determined they are to avoid letting that happen again.
MATTHEWS: Well, let me tell you, there's two -- Michael, there's a big difference between what happened to Al Gore and what happened to Bob -- John Kerry.
John Kerry got hit unfairly by the Swift Boat, attacking his service to his country. They conflated his opposition to the war when he came back, which we can all argue about, and his service to a country, his country, which is not really arguable. They trashed him.
But, in terms of Al Gore, he's the one who said he created the Internet. He's the one who put out the word that he was the subject or the role model for Love Story, that he pointed the country's attention to Love Canal. He stuck himself into that story.
And when [New Republic editor-in-chief] Marty Peretz's daughter wrote that piece in the Vanity Fair a couple months ago -- I'm sorry, she didn't make the case. Gore got himself in those problem areas --
[laughter]
-- by vanity and showing off and trying to make himself cool. But John Kerry got unfair treatment. I think there's a big difference, guys, big difference in how those two were treated.
CROWLEY: That may be so, but not --
MATTHEWS: Anyway, thank you, Chuck Todd.
CROWLEY: -- that's not how most -- many Democrats feel.
MATTHEWS: Well, why would you expect a partisan to think anything more than partisan? That's what partisans do think.
[laughter]
CROWLEY: You're right.
MATTHEWS: Of course you think you were rooked. Everybody that loses an election says they were rooked, OK?
CROWLEY: Sure.
MATTHEWS: And they blame it on the umpire.
CROWLEY: Right.
MATTHEWS: Keep it up. Thank you, Chuck Todd. Thank you, Mike Crowley.
From the October 11, 2000, edition of Hardball:
MATTHEWS: Does Al Gore have a truth problem, and is it going to hurt him?
ESTRICH: He's got this little problem, but it's not really about truth. I mean, you have to say about Clinton that when he lied, at least it was worth it to lie.
MATTHEWS: Right. Let me put it this way --
ESTRICH: Gore -- this is like --
MATTHEWS: -- you're not answering the question --
ESTRICH: -- [former Rep.] Dan Rostenkowski [D-IL] --
MATTHEWS: -- I want to try it again. No --
ESTRICH: -- and postage stamps.
MATTHEWS: -- no. If you apply to college, or you apply for a job, and you say, "I discovered Love Canal, I invented the Internet," these little --
ESTRICH: Oh, no.
MATTHEWS: -- problems are serious questions of character and resume inflation.
From the October 2, 2000, edition of Hardball:
MATTHEWS: While we're watching this, is -- is -- how do they co-- the staff people who are basically working for Al Gore, taking orders from him, how do they stop him from coming up with those fish stories he likes to tell about he invented the Internet or he was there at the creation of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Do they fear he might let loose with own of those babies in tomorrow night's debate?
REID: It's always a worry that he would exaggerate in the same way the Bush people are worried that he will flub a line or get something wrong. But my guess is that both of them are so cautious on that kind of thing that it's unlikely that Al Gore is going to do any exaggerating in this. And from what you just heard him talking about, you heard him talking about this discussion, this -- it sounds like a calm discussion he wants to have with the American people. They're trying to get him out of worrier mode. They don't want him to be this gladiator debater who goes in and chops George Bush to pieces. That will not work. They want him to talk in calm tones about the problems of real people, and at times, they say, it will be as though he's ignoring the fact that George Bush is even on the stage, talking directly to the American people about the policies and the issues that they care about.
MATTHEWS: Thanks a lot, Chip Reid, who's down in Florida with Gore.
From the September 19, 2000, edition of MSNBC's The News with Brian Williams:
WILLIAMS: More tonight from Chris Matthews, the host of the MSNBC Hardball, who joins us now from a stop on the Gore campaign in Mountain View, California, where I understand Air Force Two has just rolled to a stop -- Chris.
MATTHEWS: Brian, you're right on time tonight, I'm standing here on this platform. Right behind me is Air Force Two with the vice president arriving here for his big fundraiser among the high-tech crowd.
WILLIAMS: Chris, let's talk about what's going to be done tonight, what kind of amounts are going to be raised? And is there a political purpose in addition to the fund-raising stuff on this trip?
MATTHEWS: Well, of course, everybody wants to show today that they're state of the art. We know what we know. Al Gore's the kind of guy that walks around with a Palm Pilot on his belt. We know that he's even claimed to have invented the Internet.
Tonight in terms of dollars and cents, about $3 million. That's not big money, it's not chump change, but it's not big money compared to what the Republicans have been able to raise among the high-tech crowd, about twice that amount.
So Gore is the underdog in the high-tech world, even though he's got that Palm Pilot.
From the December 16, 1999, edition of Hardball:
MATTHEWS: The Republican National Committee. Today they opened their Al Gore Store. The store sells items meant to remind voters of the vice president's most memorable moments like "I invented the Internet" mouse pads and Al's alpha male baseball caps. Proceeds from the sale go to the United Way. Republicans say they hope to raise more money from Al Gore -- than Al Gore himself donated to charity in 1997.
From the December 2, 1999, edition of Hardball:
GORE [video clip]: I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal, had the first hearing on that issue, and Toone-Teague, Tennessee; that was the one you didn't hear of. But that was the one that started it all. We passed a major national law to clean up hazardous dump sites. And we had new efforts to stop the practices that ended up poisoning water around--around the country. We've still got work to do. But we've made a huge difference. And it all happened because one high school student got involved.
MATTHEWS: "I found a little town in upstate New York called Love Canal." Bob Reich, Mr. -- Mr. Secretary, professor, what is it in a man that makes him build a mountain out of a molehill?
ROBERT REICH (former Clinton administration labor secretary): Well, I don't know, Chris. Maybe he doesn't want to emphasize his starring role as vice president. He wants to talk about something else. Change the subject.
MATTHEWS: It reminds me of Snoopy thinking he's the Red Baron. I mean -- I mean, how did he g-- Senator, how did he get this idea? Now you've seen Al -- Al Gore in action. I know you didn't know that he was the prototype for Ryan O'Neal's character in Love Story or that he invented the Internet.
SIMPSON: How do you --
MATTHEWS: He now is the guy who discovered Love Canal.
SIMPSON: How do you get into that kind of a box as a politician? It makes no sense. It's like -- it -- it -- it's fantasy land. I was on the Environment and Public Works Committee. I came along, and we did the Clean Air Act --
MATTHEWS: Right.
SIMPSON: -- and the Superfund, and I don't remember Al ever, you know, doing any heavy lifting. I -- he wasn't lifting timbers.
MATTHEWS: Well, you don't know the beauty of digital movie making. You can now take a guy like him and make him Forrest Gump and put him in that scene with you.
From the December 2, 1999, edition of Hardball:
MATTHEWS: Well, let's talk about Al Gore and have some fun. We've gone into the serious part of the program. Now here's the hilarious part. This is Al Gore in this sort of Zelig co--condition he finds himself in; you know, the guy who keeps showing up in historic moments in history. Here he is. Here's what Al Gore said today about putting Love Canal on the map. He said this the other day.
GORE [video clip]: I found a little place in upstate New York called Love Canal; had the first hearing on that issue in Toone-Teague, Tennessee. That was the one you didn't hear of, but that was the one that started it all. We passed a -- a major national law to clean up hazardous dump sites, and we had new efforts to stop the practices that ended up poisoning water around -- around the country. We've still got work to do, but we've made a huge difference, and it all happened because one high school student got involved.
MATTHEWS: Well, that's the vice president of the United States stepping into an elaborate trap of his own construction. Here's Lois Gibbs, the woman who did blow the whistle on Love Canal talking here on Hardball last night.
[excerpt from December 1, 1999, Hardball]
GIBBS: I would say he was reading the newspapers --
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
GIBBS: -- that he did find it, but he -- he held hearings in March of '79. In -- August 2nd of 1978, 239 families were evacuated.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
GIBBS: There was emergency declaration by the president and by the state. So, you know, by the time he got involved --
MATTHEWS: Kicked in, yeah.
GIBBS: -- at Love Canal, it was quite a ways down that road.
[end of excerpt]
MATTHEWS: Right. Twenty-six front-page stories in The New York Times about Love Canal, f-- action by Jimmy Carter, the president of the United States, incredible knowledge by the whole country of Love Canal at the point that Al Gore stepped into the story and began to identify it by holding hearings.
Here's what Al Gore said last night to clear the air in retracting his claim that he discovered the Love Canal story. Quote, "If anybody got the misimpression that I claimed to do what citizens in Love Canal did, I apologize. I give credit to Lois Gibbs and her neighbors for raising Cain. Many people were stirred up, appropriately so, before I ever even found out about it.'
Well, there's Al Gore. What is it, the Zelig guy who keeps saying, "I -- I was the main character in Love Story, I invented the Internet --
ED ROLLINS (Republican strategist): I think he's --
MATTHEWS: -- I invented Love Canal"?
ROLLINS: I think he has Edmund Morris writing his speeches for him. The -- the -- the -- the reality is that Al Gore needs to be Al Gore. He needs to write his own scripts.
From the December 1, 1999, edition of Hardball:
MATTHEWS: Let's go to New Orleans for another little aspect of New York politics. That's the amazing assertion by the vice president of the United States, Al Gore, that he was the one -- just as he was the one who invented the Internet, and was the character upon which Love Story the movie was based. Now, apparently, Love Canal, the horror story, was based upon his investigative reporting. I don't know what you make this Doug Brinkley, but writing about Al Gore is a hard one, because he's almost like Ben Franklin, he invented everything.
From the March 16, 1999, edition of Hardball:
Rep. JOE SCARBOROUGH (R-FL): We--we've been doing--we've been doing such a good job over the past four years on P.R., I think it's really starting to help these national candidates. Now I think, you know, Al Gore -- you know, give Al Gore a task, and he does a great job, as far as vice president, whether you agree with him or not because he's sort of this life-time senator bureaucrat type. But I -- I just don't see the leadership there. And -- and for this guy to come out, give a vision of where he wants America to go in the 21st century, I think it's gonna be a hard sell. I mean, we -- every time he steps out, he stubs his toe, whether it was the no-controlling precedent situation, or now he's the father of the Internet or the fifth Beatle or whatever it was. And -- and -- and -- and --
MATTHEWS: He invented the Internet, he said.
SCARBOROUGH: He invented the Internet and, also, you know, he was in Ryan -- you know, Ryan O'Neal's story --
TOM SQUITIERI (USA Today reporter): Love Story.
SCARBOROUGH: -- Love Story. So this guy steps on his -- sort of steps on his toe a good bit.
MATTHEWS: Yeah, he was the guy who was making the snowprints there with Ali MacGraw.
SCARBOROUGH: Exactly. He was -- he was Ali MacGraw's -- and, of course, he -- he -- he's -- I think we're gonna be able to embarrass him --
MATTHEWS: Why does he do this stuff? Bob Wexler, a co-Democrat with this fellow, why does Al Gore keep making these -- a bright guy who makes preposterous claims, like he invented the Internet and he starred in Love Story?
Rep. ROBERT WEXLER (D-FL): Well, you know, you -- you guys will just pick on anything.
MATTHEWS: I'm just asking.
WEXLER: And here's a guy who's a bright guy. He's taken on the super information highway as an issue. He brought into Congress -- he --
MATTHEWS: He built that. He's like Moe Greene, "I built this highway!" Just like in Godfather, "I built this place!"
SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, he remembers when Vegas was a ghost town.
I'm beginning to agree with Bob Somerby that Chris Matthews is literally nuts, at the very least delusional. After all these years they still cling to these easily refuted lies. They must know the falsity of these allegations, yet their hatred for Gore is so extreme that they will still knowingly LIE! At some point, some kind of intervention is needed if the public airwaves are being used for demonstrably false propaganda like this. I as a citizen own those airwaves and I am sick of this intolerable garbage.
We on the left make fun of Rush and Billo and Heil Hannity and it is a pleasant enough of a diversion, but Chris Matthews is very, very dangerous as he is "respected" and "serious", and supposedly defends our side! He's no liberal, sure he was right about the Iraq War (because it was obvious to anyone with a brain in their head that it was a horrible idea) but even a stopped clock is right twice a day. This man represents our side is the feeling of the Village, so it just kills us when he is allowed to be such a thuggish, misoginistic piece of garbage. "See, even a wild-eyed liberal like Matthews hates Gore," I can almost hear Rush saying that around his mouthful of Hillbilly heroin and a little boy's butthole. Him, and his fellow plutocrats of the D.C. press, are the influencers who we must diminish. I expect the Regressives to be greedy, selfish guardians of the monied elite. Hell, that's their job. But we cannot, and must not, accept this sort of behavior out of the press.
This election is it, people. Liberty lives or dies depending on what happens in eleven and a half months from now. Rudy's own kids hate his guts, that tells you something pretty freaking deep about his pathology. Shrub, as evil and stupid as he is, at least sometimes shows some sense of shame. Rudy will have his henchmen slit your throat and then yell at and abuse your corpse for bleeding all over the floor, and then send your family still locked up in Gitmo the bill for the clean-up.
This election is too vastly important to be left up to people like Matthews. Massive letter writing campaigns, boycotts of the corporations who sponsor his twice daily swill, even if it means we hurt Olbermann in the process by hurting MSNBC overall. (Hey Sue, I mentioned him so you don't have to, okay? :)) I know, I know, I'm taking away his freedom of speech, right? Um, no actually. He'll be able to stand on any street corner he wants and blather on and on about Hillary's laugh and her "Chinese clapping" and anything else that is on his pathetic, rotten little pea brain. He just won't be doing it on OUR airwaves! No one has a Constitutional right to have a tv show, no matter what anyone tries to tell you.
As you can see, this subject excites me a little. On a more friendly note, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Yes, even the wingnut trolls. Here's hoping that you don't have to eat your cheetos alone. :)
Jackson
Chris Matthews Is Becoming A Right-Wing Hit Man
Obsessed with the Democrat's best, Chris Matthews has lost all since of appearing objective. He continues to spend 90% of his shows bashing Hillary Clinton. I am not surprised he's bashing Al Gore, who also would of been a front runner had he run for president.
Night after night, show after show, Republican talking point after Republican talking point, Matthews uses didactics to indoctrinate his viewers to join him in bashing the Democratic front runner. He is not the only show in town doing it. CNN's Wolf Blitzer has taken the same approach as Matthews. You can call it bias with a capital B. I am tired of it.
There must be some rule against a cable network who decides to use propaganda tactics to sway public opinion. I have never scene media bias as openly as the likes of Matthews and Blitzer. These guys have made it their job to choose, by inference, to be bias toward the Democratic Party. They have succeeded in dividing the Democrats; they only have to wait for the conquest that comes with this strategy.
Is professional journalism turning in the direction of obsessive negative focus? How many times does the viewer have to hear the Clinton negatives? Actually, I know the answer to my question: We will hear it until we buy the right-wing message. I have hear it and I am tired of it, not confused by it, and every chance I get, I will enlighten my Party about its vice.
Joseph
Read more >> Options >>Oh Chris. Remember all of those things that you said Gore said. He didn't say them. Not one of them. He was misquoted, and then those same misquotes were repeated, and then repeated some more, and then repeated even further, until like now, schmucks like Matthews actually believe that those things were what Al Gore actually said, when they weren't.
Dear Diary,
Al Gore thinks he's so cool! OMG, he totally says he invented the internet, and inspired Love Story!
I don't like him or anything, not like that! I mean, when Mitt or Rudy are around , I hardly even think about him.I just wish he would take me seriously. He acts like I don't exist! Not that I care, he's not all that.
Until tomorrow, CM
Dear Diary,
HBL, that's hilarious!
HBL you totally crack me up.
schmucks like Matthews actually believe that those things were what Al Gore actually said, when they weren't.
Schmuck or sloppy liar,.. you choose. Probably about 1/3 of all Americans know those claims about Al Gore are NOT true but NEWSMAN Mathews does not? It's hard to believe.
Ignorant or Liar, no other options available
I agree with Chris. Gore by being a mush mouth and not beating these stories to death when the Right first sought to discredit him has played into this myth.
"A lie is half way around the world before the truth gets its boots on." Addendum -- That is why when you catch it you best strangle it to death before it scampers off only to come back again and again.
And has anybody in the history of politics been able to "beat these stories to death"? If so, please inform Gore/Clinton/Obama/Edwards/Kerry/etc of the secret recipe, I'm willing to bet they'd pay millions for such information.
Among Democrats -- well no. However, the Right managed to get Dan Rather fired/ to resign/what-have-you with relative ease. It is time "to take up arms against this sea of injustice" or to face Death as a party and a nation. We should not count on the "well-informed" voter to keep us in office. Let's be honest how many well informed voters do you know? Most people still believe Gore said he "invented the internet" and that Iraq wad because of WMD or a good gesture on our part that when horribly wrong until recently.
Yeah, good luck with that. If you ever manage to kill one that has already been established get back to us and let us in on the secret. As far as I can tell they are immortal, like Twinkies
Once again, Hillary mentions helping start MEDIA MATTERS and the world is told to believe it...Gore mentions the Internet and by God, they don't believe it. These Republans just can't get anything RIGHT so they continue to take anything thats LEFT.
Hey, Chris, maybe GORE was joking like Limbaugh...you dope. And find the quotes from Gore.
Matthews is a psychopath.
There's no other explanation. He just talks and talks and talks like a little kid, ties everything together with some pat explanation, and his guests are always his attendants. Why won't anyone say anything to this guy? Will anyone ever refute him on the air?
I want to postulate a psychologically based theory – please note, theory, not proven fact – about why Chris Matthews appears to be tilting to the right with his persistent and gratuitous slurs of various Dems, Gore and Clinton included. My theory is not intended to get the "Olbermann's in bed with MMFA and Vice Versa" crowd foaming at the mouth, but I suppose I should be resigned to that collateral damage happening.First, keep in mind that, as with any psychological explanation, over determination is the form of causality that is operative. Thus, we can account for most of Matthews hit-and-run journalism by appealing to (dare I say universally accepted?) opinion that the man is simply a beta. He's been in over his head for years, and I can only assume that somehow an aging, blondish, pumpkin-faced ranter tested well at one time with the focus groups.But why now the perceptible tilt to smear journalism, and directed at Dems? (Can anyone cite instances -- with anything approaching the frequency of his Hillary-Al slurs -- when Matthews has said anything as viscerally mean and fraudulent about Giuliani, McCain, or Romney as he says regularly about Clinton, and has now resurrected about Gore?)My theory? It's the Keith, stupid!Matthews was used to being the numero uno – at least in his own mind – in terms of viewership but, most importantly, clout on MSNBC. Oh, maybe a nominal no. 2 after Tim Russert. But even Chris Matthews can see that Tim Russert gives new meaning to the term overachiever.But now, along comes Keith, who sneaks up on Chris and outright passes him, if not in actual viewership, certainly in clout and buzz. Consider. You're a vibrant, good-looking, fiendishly smart young thing on the (professional) make and find yourself at a cocktail party with Chris and Keith in the room. (Go ahead, add anybody else from cable or network news you want.) Who do you head for to chat up?What's an ego driven guy who has formerly had some claim to liberal credentials from his past years as a Dem staffer to do when Olbermann has now occupied all of the space in the liberal spectrum – and in the cocktail party room -- and left only crums for Chris to try to scoop up.Again, while the regression analysis does point to Chris' beta brain as the primary reason why he engages in the inane and fact-challenged snarky "journalism" (scare quotes essential) that he does, I am hypothesizing that most of the residual r-squared is explained by the adjacent presence of Keith Olbermann – adjacent both in terms of time slot and adjacent as the fear and envy factor in Chris' damaged psyche.A final twist. Olbermann was cheerfully handed Mission Impossible to go head to head against The O'Reilly Factor. Matthews would have never had the cohones to engage in that bit of suicide. But guess what? While Olbermann has not dislodged O'Reilly in the ratings race, he has clearly wounded him and, in the process, carved out his own very comfortable space on Cable News. Nobody at MSNBC would have actually predicted that. Certainly not Chris Matthews. And for that, Matthews can never forgive Keith – or the causes and people he perceives Olbermann to be supporting.Just a theory.
Nice analysis, I think. Professional envy? It's plausible.
But can you explain it to me as if I were a five year old? I mean can you simplify or explain the passages of technical jargon?
This isn't a snark, mind you, it's just that the reader (I speak for myself only, of course) can become alienated when the author assumes the the audience has a working knowledge of a specific realm of scientific discipline.
Thanks for the interesting read, though. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Roundhouse….Thanks for the feedback, which I do appreciate. Yes, my style can sometimes be a bit over-mannered and I'm sorry if terms such as "over determination," "regression analysis," "residual r-squared" – the latter two having been used more playfully than technically -- obscured more than they revealed. Though I hope that "Chris' beta brain" was not all that obscure!Anyway ….The short form explanation for a five year old might be:CHRIS: How come Melanie let's you ride her bike, Keith, and not me? I hate you! I hate you! And I hate Melanie too!For a somewhat older crowd, I think the best summary explanation really does come quite close to what I said in the comment -- and repeat here:"Consider. You're a vibrant, good-looking, fiendishly smart young thing on the (professional) make and find yourself at a cocktail party with Chris and Keith in the room. (Go ahead, add anybody else from cable or network news you want.) Who do you head for to chat up?"
Interesting BB, part of the story of our media is finding people to do the words in front of a camera/microphone. The intent comes from the group which supports this. The subjects and phrases to emphisize come further up the chain of comand. These folks can be extremely hard to catch site of much less study and report on.
I also look forward to further posts from you:o).
I heard this and thought, wow, that Matthews has no shame. Matthews is a consistent liar. I guess we should be glad that he is at least a consistent liar.
Buffoon Matthews has been doing this for over 8 years. The one who has detailed the eglomanical delusions , rantings, and pimping for the corporation that owns him, GE, is the DAILY HOWLER...[link to www.dailyhowler.com.] Just type in this little buffoons name in the search engine. Matthews, Russert, and Williams or the CORPORATE HIT MEN HIRED BY GENERAL ELECTRIC. They are nothing more than trained monkeys at the end of a rope attached to the GREAT ORGAN MACHINE who music in played by GE. They have their little monkey hats on as they dance to their tunes. The lie, deceive, invent 'story lines', and generate propaganda on behalf of the corporation that owns them. Then deny what they do. IN REALITY: THESE PIGS CALLED WILLIAMS, RUSSERT, AND MATTHEWS ARE THE NEW AXIS OF EVIL. They are as responsible for the destruction of our once great country called American as is the FUHRER THAT THEY SERVE: BUSH...and all the corporate interests that these fascist pigs represent. They are MULIMILLIONAIRE JOURNALITS. Whose interests then do you think they serve ? yours, mine ? normal and common people ? Working class ? the Poor ? Nope, they serve EVIL ITSELF ... that why they are doing all they can to get GULIANI ELECTED .. or should we say INSTALLED as the next president ........
That's right.
This is nothing new for Matthews but I was a little stunned he's still spreading debunked right wing talking points at this late date. What's next trying to prove the Saddam-9/11 connection?
Props to [link to www.dailyhowler.com] for keeping a record and asking the right questions.
Hmmm. Maybe Ezra Klein can bring this up in his next appearance on Hardball. Or would that make it his LAST appearance on Hardball?
Al Gore has made plenty of statements that were at the very least incorrect if not outright lies. Here is a long list of such statements made during the 2000 campaign. Perhaps MMFA would like to set the record straight on these as well.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZmExMjFlNzFmNWM5YWYwYzBiNWFmOTMzNmExOTkzZDU=
Hey, Bruce, mind commenting on the post instead of some seven year old (mostly discounted) web page by a conservative website? Here's some help: The issue here is Matthews claiming that it's Gore fault that Matthews had to smear him constantly.
By the way, if truth telling is so important to you, how do you feel about Scott McClellan's revelation on Bush?
If that website bothers you because it's partisan, then maybe we should talk about this one also.
I'm sure the McClellen story will be covered here next week.
As expected, Bruce, not much enthusiasm shown here for your challenge re: Gore's distortions and/or lies.
The British required a set of qualifiers and disclaimers @ the front of "An Inconvenient Truth" before it can be shown to gullible schoolchildren. Guess their NEA and NTA isn't as strong as in the U.S.
Hi Bruce,
The reason most thinking people do not use the NRO as a source for credible info, is because they tend to make stuff up.
Just for laughs, I looked at the first item in that List (R&D and Marketing expenditures foir drug companies). Then I did a little research.
First of all, it appears that drug companies have spent historically roughly 32% on marketing and 17% on R & D. SWo NRO's figures are a lie.
Second, the Henry J Kaiser Family Foundation (cited by NRO) doesn't appear to provide the type of statistics attributed to them by NRO. I searched their website and could not find anything.
Maybe you can help me out here.
But, that is only the first item. I'm sure i could go through each one and very easily prove how false they are.
Nice try though.
Thank you, it was a decent try. The post in question is as follows:
October 17; third presidential debate, St. Louis CLAIM: “The big drug companies…are now spending more money on advertising and promotion — you see all these ads — than they are on research and development.” TRUTH: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation reported in July that drug companies spent between $5.8 billion and $8.3 billion on marketing and $21 billion on research in 1998, according to CBS News.
The key is the year 1998. I believe that advertising and promotion spending has escalated tremendously in the last ten years but that AL Gore answer was from 2000. NRO's cited advertising dollar amount is verified here: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3374/is_9_21/ai_54944146
NRO's cited R&D figure for 1998 is shown in the table in this article: http://social.jrank.org/pages/1114/Drugs-Where-Our-71-18-Going.html
NRO may be citing incorrect sources but I highly doubt that they "make things up".
So they only tell little lies. That makes it all better.
Okay Bruce,
So from your charts, the R&D spending was $21 Billion and marketing was $13 Billion.
So NRO lied about sources, then used a fake number.
On top of that, Gore said the big drug compnaies not the entire industry. So they also lied by using the entire industry.
Show me the top five drug companies' numbers and then you might prove something, but the NRO article certainly did not prove anything exzcept that they lies and proved my point.
Nice try Bruce!
Skeptical: So from your charts, the R&D spending was $21 Billion and marketing was $13 Billion. So NRO lied about sources, then used a fake number.
Response: That is a false conclusion. The fact that I used different sources than NRO's does not mean NRO lied about theirs. I just could not find their source which isn't surprising since the article is 8 years old. And I did link to different sources that tied back to NRO's reported figures which would indicate that the numbers aren't fake. Please refrain from drawing these false conclusions about my posts.
Skeptical: On top of that, Gore said the big drug compnaies not the entire industry. So they also lied by using the entire industry.
Response: It is possible that they used a false comparison. However, it is more likely in my view that the top 5 drug companies expenditures would fall in line with the industry figures as a whole since they would have the vast majority of the money to spend. It's also quite possible that Gore was making a false comparison due to including administrative costs in with the marketing costs. I've noticed that those two costs tend to be lumped tgether in these pharmaceutical charts. In fact your 32$ million figure cited in the above post probably includes administrative costs according to what I've seen. Isn't that misleading on your part?
Skeptical: Show me the top five drug companies' numbers and then you might prove something, but the NRO article certainly did not prove anything exzcept that they lied and proved my point.
Response: As I showed earlier, NRO did not lie. You continuing to say that doesn't make it true. They used the same figures as reported by Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and CBS news.
The above should have read 32% not 32$ million. My apologies.
Well here are numbers from 2000 that show the largest drug companies spent for the most part more than TWICE as much on Marketing, advertising, and administration than R&D the reason the administration fees are relvant is the HUGE amounts they paid their CEOs
http://www.actupny.org/reports/drugcosts.html#chart_one
And before a few readers chime in that Matthews worked for Dems, which he did, let's also remember Dick Morris did too.
He's referencing the National Review...enough said.
As for Scott McClellan, here are the talking points: "He was taken out of context."
I think Matthews should throw in a disclaimer anytime he talks about Clinton or Gore that should go something like this...."I don't like them...isn't it obvious?"
You would expect a wing nut like Limbaugh or Hannity to to repeat these totally debunked claims but I thought Matthews had higher standards.
Again, degrading the NRO means nothing to me. They aren't exactly getting a lot of coverage by this website, a site that exposes conservative misinformation. Where are the threads if they are as unreliable as you seem to think?
Use the google.
[link to mediamatters.org]
You're right, they do have some threads on here. I stand corrected. Still, 34 threads in three years isn't a bad record in my view. Certainly not bad enough to dismiss everythinhg they write. If you're honest about it.
Bruce,
I looked at the first item on the list and found discrepancies.
Do you really want to go through each one?
That would be preferable to a blanket rejection of the list based on a faulty premise that NRO is not a valid source.
Speaking of honesty, good track record or not, a smear is still a smear.
NRO played a role in implanting falsehoods in the minds of voters, Skeptical has given us just a small example of their dishonesty. I know my heart swells with pride when I think of what a fantastic president Bush has been. I am so overjoyed to have contributors, like NRO, to thank for their part in maligning Al Gore's fitness for office.
Thank God for George W. Bush. We could have been stuck with a Nobel caliber environmental and social justice leader in our White House. What a nightmare.
Most of all I want to thank all the voters who chose to make their decision to reject Gore based in part on the hard hitting truth detectors at NRO, Powerline, Freeperville etc.
Thank you. Thank you so very much. My children's children thank you for the Iraqi occupation debt they will have the honor to repay in the good name of Bush.
Gore is a very smart man, smart enough to know better than to say some of the things he said during the campaign and his earlier political career which turned out to be exaggerated, embellished or outright falsehoods. I'm sorry his political opponents didn't give him a pass on it because I agree he would have been a better President than Bush turned out to be. But, seing as how this country has a "progressive majority" as MMFA has proven with its study, you all are smart enough to see through these smears and Gore should have won despite being "smeared" in your view. This "progressive majority" certainly didn't going out and vote for Bush. In fact, why do Republicans win anything with this "progressive majority" in place?" You should really educate your side about the virtues of going out to vote. Conservative America is a myth.
Actually they did get out to vote, but it didn't matter because the Supremes handed the Presidency to Bush. And don't hand me that get over it line. You know had the decision gone the other way Republicans would be seriously long term pissed.
The things Al has said have generally been misreperesented, you know it. I do fault him for not fighting harder to dispel the smears. I also fault him for not exploring all his legal options pertaining to the election. And I do fault him for not placing his policy decisions in the broader picture of Progressive moral values. But I don't fault him because his opponents had to rely on cheap poitical smears and mischaracterizations to counter his candidacy.
Yeah conservatism is a myth. It's a yarn spun to dupe salt of the earth Americans into voting for power hungry Republican politicians.
Roundhouse, I enjoy debating with you, you are an honest debater in my view. Happy Thansgiving to your family and to everyone in the MMFA community.
Bruce
I only wish I could match your genuine disposition, Bruce.
Happy Thanksgiving to you.
Thank you for saying that. It has been a slow evolution for me.
The unexpected death of a close friend of mine five years ago forced me to reevaluate my interactions with people and I have tried to improve in that area. See you around the threads.
I watched Chris Matthews during the Gore attack mental meltdown (during the 7pmEST broadcast), and it appears MSNBC has cleaned up the transcript and also the video tape.
At the time, I commented on this miserable messing with reality, and what was astonishing is that after Matthews beat down Young Crowley, he closed with something about Crowley had to get with reality!!
It was stunning in its pure projection and cognitive dissonance. Clearly Matthews has become Crazy Chris and actually believes this Bizarro World version.
Neither Nexis (as used by Somerby at dailyhowler.com) nor MSNBC has the actual ending in their transcript.
Digby does:
Crowley: that may be so, but it's not how many Democrats feel.CM: Well, why would expect a partisan to think anything more than partisan? That's what partisans think? Of course they think they were rooked. Everyone who loses an election thinks they were rooked and they blame it on the umpire.Crowley: That's the audience they're speaking to.CM: Yeah, well how about getting into the land of truth and understanding?
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/mission-accomplished-by-digby-man-novak.html
That is what I heard and saw. So nice of MSNBC and Nexis to clean that up for us.
"Chris Matthews Is Becoming A Right-Wing Hit Man"
This site is like Bizarro world sometimes. Up is down, black is white. Matthews is right wing.