Skeet-shootgate: Big Ed almost steps up to the plate!

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2013

Rachel entertains us: Inexorably, your Daily Howler just keeps getting results! We refer to yesterday’s post about the skeet-shoot lunacy/nonsense (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 2/4/13).

Last night, Big Ed Schultz flogged the lunatic debate about Obama’s skeet-shooting—and he almost named a relevant name in the process! During his program’s opening segment, he ridiculed "the Washington media"—and he even cited one actual famous newspaper:

SCHULTZ (2/4/13): This all started when The New Republic released a wide-ranging interview with the president. But the focus has been on this exchange. The president was asked directly, "Have you ever fired a gun?" He answered directly, "Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time."

The answer created a frenzy in the Washington media.

[...]

The Washington Post wrote more than 1300 words fact-checking the president’s answer. They wrote, "We are eager to see a photograph or hear from someone who saw him at the skeet range, to put this matter to rest."

Of course, Fox News was quick to keep the fire raging all week long. So, the White House—all right, they went along with it. They released a photograph. Now what do you think? Instead of ending the conversation, the press forced it even more, focused on it even more.

Now, the Washington Post was on defense. "Basically, all statements by public figures are subject to scrutiny. The president made an unexpected claim. And for nearly a week, the White House refused to back it up."

But in the end, they concluded the issue is settled. Not according to the White House press corps...

Incredibly, reporters asked more questions about this nonsense at yesterday’s White House press briefing. Schultz played tape of this manifest lunacy before he brought on two guests.

One part of Schultz's presentation made the analysts cheer. Schultz actually named the Washington Post as he discussed this lunacy!

For our money, we would have liked to see him name Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler by name. But naming the Post represented progress, given the way our career liberal leaders typically play this game.

Alas! Naming Fox News is incredibly easy; naming the Washington Post is hard. Last night, Schultz actually name-called the mainstream Post along with the old standby, Fox.

On the Maddow Show, the topic played out differently. Maddow didn’t fault the mainstream press corps for the continuing skeet-shoot lunacy. She didn't criticize George Stephanopoulos; she didn't mention the Post.

Dearest darlings, it just isn't done! Never has been!

Instead, she clowned and cavorted at the end of her program about the way our craziest pseduo-conservatives have treated this ridiculous topic. Mugging for us as is her wont, she mocked the way this nonsense has been treated at crackpot sites like Breitbart.

In truth, the lunacy of crackpot pseudo-conservatves is a serious issue—a major national problem. But Maddow played this matter for fun, treating us to the clowning that helps more gullible liberal viewers learn to love her more.

Schultz at least was willing to name the name of a major mainstream newspaper. Sadly, this represents a bit of a breakthrough for the career liberal world.

One major problem with Schultz’s discussion: When Schultz discussed this topic with his guests, Katrina vanden Heuvel quickly established a familiar time frame.

Remember what we’ve told you:

Within the career liberal world, all lunacy in the mainstream press corps started with Iraq. Vanden Heuvel was truly irate as she advanced this framework:

VANDEN HEUVEL: I mean, I think we’re looking at inside-the-Beltway media malpractice. It’s not new, Ed. I’m thinking we’re on the tenth anniversary of Iraq, and the press essentially—much of the press played stenographers to power, not an accountability watchdog media which we need.

This skeet-shooting incident has nothing to do, it’s utterly irrelevant with the actual policy proposals now under debate. So you have to ask yourself, “Who does the media inside the Beltway think it’s representing?”

As vanden Heuvel declaimed, she never named any particular inside-the-Beltway news org. Could that be because she herself is paid by the Washington Post?

To his credit, Richard Wolffe managed to name the Post—one time. But alas! Like vanden Heuvel, he spoke as if the war in Iraq was the starting point for this type of ludicrous press corps conduct.

Near the end of the discussion, vanden Heuvel tried to make a sale:

VANDEN HEUVEL: We’ve seen this before. The serious policy debates don’t get the coverage they deserve.

But the president can drive it more. And media, like The Nation or MSNBC, can try to amplify the serious messages that need to be heard, the serious policy, the serious accountability journalism that needs to be heard if there is going to be some advance.

How wonderful! Viewers can get the serious stuff from The Nation, where vanden Heuvel is part owner! Sadly, that fact helps us recall just how flawed her time frame actually is.

Vanden Heuvel was peddling piddle long before the war in Iraq! Mere weeks before the 2000 election, she put this disgraceful political porn into print:

COCKBURN (10/16/00): Gore's "populism" is comical, yet one more facet of a larger mendacity. What suppressed psychic tumult drives him to those stretchers that litter his career, the lies large and small about his life and achievements? You'd think that a man exposed to as much public derision as was Gore after claiming he and Tipper were the model for the couple in Love Story, or after saying he'd invented the Internet, would by now be more prudent in his vauntings. But no. Just as a klepto's fingers inevitably stray toward the cash register, so too does Gore persist in his fabrications.

Recently he's claimed to have been at the center of the action when the strategic oil reserve, in Texas and Louisiana, was established. In fact, the reserve's tanks were filling in 1977, when Gore was barely in Congress, a very junior member of the relevant energy committee. The legislation creating the reserve had been passed in 1975. At around the same time as this pretense, the VP claimed to have heard his mother crooning "Look for the union label" over his cradle. It rapidly emerged that this jingle was made up by an ad man in the seventies, when Al was in his late 20s.

As a clue to why Al misremembers and exaggerates, the lullaby story has its relevance as a sad little essay in wish fulfillment. Gore's mother, Pauline, was a tough character, far more interested in advancing Albert Sr.'s career than in warbling over Gore's cot. Both parents were demanding. Gore is brittle, often the mark of the overly well-behaved, perfect child. Who can forget the panicked performance when his image of moral rectitude shattered at the impact of the fundraising scandals associated with the Buddhist temple in Los Angeles?

"He was an easy child; he always wanted to please us," Pauline once said of him. The child's desire to please, to get the attention of often-absent parents, is probably what sparked Gore's penchant for tall tales about himself.

Alexander Cockburn’s scripted lunacy continued from there. To his credit, he managed to cite a long list of (invented) Gore lies—and to slime Gore’s mother!

Plus, he posed as a shrink!

It was vanden Heuvel who waved that porn into print, weeks before the nation voted in November 2000. Are we happy with how that turned out?

Today, career liberals know that press corps history began a bit later, with the war in Iraq. Vanden Heuvel tries not to mention the Washington Post—and she pretends that she herself hasn’t been part of this lunacy.

Maddow clowns about sites like Breitbart—and the rapidly sliding Kessler goes unnamed. But then, it has always been done this way within the career liberal press.