THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2012
With your help, we'll keep the ball rolling: In yesterday’s Washington Post, Melinda Henneberger did a good thing.
To see what she wrote, click here. In the hard-copy Washington Post, her piece appeared at the top of page A2.
In her column, Henneberger started to hint at the truth about the coverage of Campaign 2000. Thirteen years have passed since that campaign began, with the instant assault on Candidate Gore, who was quickly reinvented as the world’s biggest LIAR.
Bill Clinton’s impeachment had just reached its end. The press corps had lost its mind and its soul. As a group, they were eager to punish Clinton's anointed successor.
Henneberger’s piece is just a start. But we’ve never seen anyone go this far to acknowledge that something corrupt occurred.
We say “acknowledge,” because Henneberger was a campaign reporter for the New York Times during Campaign 2000. She wasn’t a major offender in the press corps’ war against Gore, although she had a couple of moments. But her 1997 news report on the ridiculous Love Story matter helped the GORE LIAR theme get its start, although it was subsequent work by Frank Rich, Michael Kelly and Maureen Dowd which really got the ball rolling.
Yes, that's right—Frank Rich. This war wasn't run by Bill O'Reilly, who was really quite fair.
In her piece, Henneberger starts to hint at the truth about what they did those summers. In our view, her piece is just a small beginning—but no one else has gone this far. If a truth commission ever occurs, this could count as its start.
The full story ought to be told.
For that reason, we’re asking you to consider our third non-annual fund-raising drive. We have just posted Chapter 6 at our companion site, How He Got There. (To read Chapter 6, just click here.) But we have a long way to go on the story which is being recorded at that site. We hope you’ll consider contributing to the project, which takes lots of time and some money.
To contribute to the effort, go ahead: Just click here.
Mainstream reporters have always kept quiet about what happened in that campaign. The code of silence has been very strong. We think Henneberger did the right thing in her piece, although her piece is just a beginning.
Future generations should read the full story. We hope you’ll play along.
The truth about a key point: At one point, Henneberger explains why Candidate Romney won’t get “the Gore treatment" from the press corps. She writes this:
In the end, we won’t ‘Al Gore’ Mitt Romney because Romney won’t let us get close enough to have as much to use against him.
Please! Romney won’t get treated like Gore. But that just isn't the reason.
Why won’t Romney get treated like Gore? Because we have two press corps again! In 1999 and 2000, there wasn’t an inch of room between the mainstream and the conservative press when it came to the war against Gore. Everyone pimped for the RNC, including a wide range of mainstream press figures.
Chris Matthews was much more culpable than Sean Hannity. On the bright side, he got very rich in the process.
Today, our mainstream press has again split away from the conservative press corps. The mainstream is doing some clowning about Romney—but there will always be powerful organs pushing back in his favor.
That didn’t happen with Gore. Go ahead—read Chapter 6. In that episode from December 1999, Gore was misquoted over and over and over again, and we’re talking about flat-out misquotation.
No one ever said a word. George Bush went to the White House.
That will never happen to Romney. During Campaign 2000, the mainstream press corps went into the tank for the RNC. No Republican nominee will ever see the conservative press corps, or conservative columnists, pimping the DNC’s lines.
The mainstream press corps sold its soul, in a deeply appalling way. The overall pattern won’t happen again. Candidate Romney won’t get the Gore treatment—though Henneberger still avoids explaining why that is.
Forgive me for harping on this but no one corrected the record about all the misquotes of Al Gore including, most importantly, Al Gore himself. If he had pointed out that he was being lied about and turned the tables on the press and asked why they were being such weird, lying exaggerators, he would, in all likelihood, now be enjoying his presidential pension. But, no. He refused to defend himself and decided to go all Mr. Positive Attitude. Gore was a victim of unfair press coverage because he let himself be victimized.
ReplyDeleteI don't want to harp either but 1999 and 2000 was just an extraordinary time in which, as Bob points out, Gore was trashed not because of Gore but because of the press dislike of Bill Clinton. Just what was Gore to do, with the poor treatment in the media not only in favor of Bill Bradley but of George W. Bush. Gore *still* won, but a combination of factors allowed GW Bush to become selected President. Should Gore have been monitoring Lexis-Nexus to respond to all the RNC garbage being repeated at the Post and Times ? I didn't discover how bad it was until I found this site around 2002, when I was *out of work*. As a black man, I see what is going on with Obama but it was really bad with Bill Clinton, even going back to when he was [my] home state Governor. Gore could not have "defended" himself when the clowns were already repeating RNC talking points. And what does refuse to defend himself mean ? "Bill Clinton and I do not wear earth tones or 3 button suits"
ReplyDeleteReally ?
-PT Dennis
The press *still* hates Gore. Just see Jacob Weisberg's lunatic rant in today's Slate.com. I have long doubted the theory that Gore-hatred springs from Clinton-hatred. It strikes me as a malady unto itself.
ReplyDeleteAnd Hieronymus Braintree: it is bogus to day Gore "let himself be vandalized," any candidate who tries just gets ridiculed even more. He couldn't have done anything about it. It was up to the Democratic and liberal world to raise holy hell, just like the conservatives do. But as Somerby notes (again and again), nobody did.
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