September 18, 2005 -- Open Thread
As casualties from Bush's chrony capitalism mount before America's eyes the Republican punditocracy is looking farther afield for comparison material to which they can submit their falling leader for positive comparison. Here, from Media Matters, are two examples of the latest:
Then there's this mangled logic from the brain trust at Faux News via Bill O'Reilly:
Moving on...yesterday during Air America affiliate station 1010 KXXT's airing of the bitingly funny M&M Show, Fred McChesney made an insightful, scathingly sarcastic, comment regarding the upcoming Republican-led investigation of potential government mishandling of Katrina (and I paraphrase): "Republican's say they want no blame-placing about the Katrina disaster--it is too important to give over to partisan politics--that is why they are mounting the government investigation in which Democrats will have no leadership roles or subpoena power. That is because first they have to play the destroy-the-evidence game THEN they will play the blame-game!"
Hmmm, isn't round one in the destroy-the-evidence game known as distort, distract, deny? Maybe Fred's right. Again from Media Matters:
On CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, senior political analyst Bill Schneider falsely equated President Bush's current widespread unpopularity -- and that of President Reagan during the Iran-Contra scandal -- with President Clinton's standing with the public during the Monica Lewinsky matter. Noting that, despite his poor overall poll numbers, Bush still enjoys support from Republicans, Schneider said, "Sooner or later, every leader gets in trouble. President Reagan had Iran-Contra. President Clinton had Monica Lewinsky. Like Bush, they had a base that helped them get through it."
But Schneider's suggestion that all three presidents had to rely on the support of their base during times of general public unhappiness with their performance is mistaken: While Reagan did see his approval ratings plummet to the low 40s during the Iran-Contra matter, Clinton saw no similar erosion of public support during the Lewinsky matter. -snip- Clinton's approval ratings were very high all through 1998 as the Lewinsky matter played out -- typically in the 60s, occasionally (such as when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives impeached him) breaking 70 percent.
-snip-
As Schneider himself reported on the December 30, 1998, edition of CNN's Inside Politics: SCHNEIDER: President Clinton's job ratings have been in the 60s for most of the year -- the highest ratings for any president on record in his sixth year. Clinton's ratings spiked three times this year: after the State of the Union speech in January and again in August just after his speech in which he confessed his, "misleading the American public for the past seven months." The president got his biggest bounce of all, a phenomenal 73 percent, after he got impeached in December. A few more setbacks like that and he'll go into the stratosphere.
-snip-
From the September 15 edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight:
SCHNEIDER: President Bush has one thing going for him as he tries to regain the initiative: He has kept his base. Every leader needs a base. Your base are the people who are with you when you're wrong. This president's base is not abandoning him. Eighty-five percent of Republicans stand behind President Bush. His allies defend him.I'm particuarly fond of one line of Schneider's comments, "Your base are the people who are with you when you're wrong." Did Schneider actually state what we know will never come from the WH? An admission (even a hint) that Bush has been and is now, doing something "wrong"?
Then there's this mangled logic from the brain trust at Faux News via Bill O'Reilly:
On his nationally syndicated radio show, The Radio Factor, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly again compared the poverty rate at the midpoint of both the Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies to argue that Bush has more effectively alleviated poverty in the United States. Ignoring the overall trend lines during their respective White House tenures, O'Reilly claimed that comparing the 1996 and 2004 numbers is the "only fair comparison" and the "only accurate measuring stick." But as Media Matters for America has noted -- and as Radio Factor caller "Larry" repeated -- such a comparison obscures the more relevant fact that the poverty rate declined every year of the Clinton presidency and has increased every year under the Bush presidency.
From the September 14 edition of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:Wooo...for those of you whose brains haven't atrophied from the mere exposure to such tainted crap, let's just point out at least one glaring logical fallacy; the assumption that "Bush the Elder's recession" and Bush the Younger's 9/11 "hit" were economically equivalent! And since we're on a little roll here, how about the assumption that "the fairest measure (is) halfway through both terms..."? That is a false premise! Who says that O'Reilly's opinion is the "only accurate measuring stick"?! Oh yeah, he does...HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA that would be so funny if only people didn't believe him (but some do...sigh).
CALLER: Hi, Bill.
O'REILLY: Larry.
CALLER: Let's see, poverty is up since Bush took office.
O'REILLY: That's not true.
CALLER: It is true.
O'REILLY: I have the stats right here, Larry.
CALLER: I just looked at the figures. Gun crime is up since George Bush took office.
O'REILLY: All right, Larry, hold it, hold it, hold it. Let's deal with one at a time. The only fair comparison is halfway through Clinton's term, halfway through Bush's term, OK? That's the only fair comparison. You gotta go real time.
CALLER: Bill, I --
O'REILLY: Poverty is down, Larry, one full percent in real time from 1996, halfway through Clinton, 2004, halfway through Bush. That is the truth, Larry, and if you're not willing to acknowledge that's the truth, this conversation is over.
CALLER: Bill, I just finished taking a look at the poverty chart. And in Bill Clinton's years, every year poverty fell. So far in George Bush, every year he has gone up. Those are the facts.
O'REILLY: The facts are halfway through. The poverty under Bush is down 1 percent. That's the fact and the only accurate measuring stick. You wanna know why, Larry? Because of 9-11, that's why. That's the only accurate measuring stick. When Clinton took office, he was coming off a Bush the Elder recession. So he came into a situation that he turned around, and things got better poverty-wise, but it took him time. It took him time. So, halfway through his eight years, he was at -- what's the numbers? -- 13.7, OK, 13.7. Bush comes in, he gets hit on 9-11, which wipes out, wobbles the economy. All right? Halfway through, he's at 12.7. Larry, you can use statistics to do and prove anything. You've gotta get a fair measure. We gave you the fairest measure -- halfway through both terms, both men had to deal with circumstances. Clinton, a Bush the Elder recession; Bush, 9-11 attack.
Moving on...yesterday during Air America affiliate station 1010 KXXT's airing of the bitingly funny M&M Show, Fred McChesney made an insightful, scathingly sarcastic, comment regarding the upcoming Republican-led investigation of potential government mishandling of Katrina (and I paraphrase): "Republican's say they want no blame-placing about the Katrina disaster--it is too important to give over to partisan politics--that is why they are mounting the government investigation in which Democrats will have no leadership roles or subpoena power. That is because first they have to play the destroy-the-evidence game THEN they will play the blame-game!"
Hmmm, isn't round one in the destroy-the-evidence game known as distort, distract, deny? Maybe Fred's right. Again from Media Matters:
In a segment on the September 14 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, correspondent Ed Henry misled viewers about Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's (D-CT) role in former Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) director Michael D. Brown's ascension to that job, selectively editing Lieberman's videotaped comments in order to create the false impression that Lieberman supported Brown's ascension.-snip-
Henry specifically edited out Lieberman's statement that Lieberman opposed a provision in the legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that resulted in Brown's elevation from deputy director to director without a second confirmation hearing. Worse, Henry not only omitted Lieberman's statement that he opposed the provision, but he also implied that Lieberman had actually supported it.
Henry asserted that "Senate Democrats also allowed the president to elevate Brown to director of FEMA without a second confirmation hearing when the agency was folded into the Department of Homeland Security."
But Henry had video of Lieberman specifically denying this point. The full video of Lieberman's comments from the press conference shows that he stated that he opposed the provision in the DHS legislation that ultimately allowed Brown to be promoted without a second hearing:
LIEBERMAN: This is one of those classic cases, deputy to an organization, where you say the president has earned the right to make the choice of who he wants to serve him. Congress has to decide not whether I would have chosen the person, but whether the person is acceptable for the job. And at that point, he sure looked like it. In the aftermath of what's come out in the last week, I'd say information -- that it seems that either consciously or unconsciously, there was an element of his resume that was wrongly stated, that suggested he had more background in emergency management than he did. I want to say just one thing: He became director of FEMA without a hearing, and that was wrong. That was as a result of a section of the law creating the Department of Homeland Security that I opposed but that the administration fought to keep in, where they could take somebody who had experience that was germane to the position for which they were being nominated in the new department and put them in without a hearing. I thought that was wrong. Needless to say, the replacement for Michael Brown will receive quite a hearing.
Henry carefully edited Lieberman's comments to exclude the statement about Brown's ascension and the DHS provision. How carefully? Henry aired both the sentence immediately before Lieberman's comments about Brown's ascension and the sentence immediately after it. He edited out Lieberman's comments about opposing the provision -- then told viewers that Democrats "allowed" it.
-snip-
This is not the first time Henry has misrepresented videotaped comments. During a July 15 report about the investigation of the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame, husband of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, Henry told viewers that "Joe Wilson himself has suggested that she was not undercover at the time" her employment at the CIA was revealed. Henry was apparently basing this on Wilson's statement the day before on CNN's Wolf Blitzer Reports that "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that [syndicated columnist and then-CNN commentator] Bob Novak blew her identity." Wilson's statement clearly meant that she was no longer undercover once she had been outed -- not that she was not undercover to begin with. Media Matters for America pointed this out when the Associated Press made the same error; the AP quickly corrected its mistake. Two months later, Ed Henry still has not.Oy, I'm feeling a little verklempt. Go, discuss among yourselves...
<< Home