Part 4—Sober as a judge: Incomparably, your Daily Howler keeps demanding—and getting—results.
Yesterday, MSNBC brought itself up to date with respect to its transcripts. In fairness, we’d be slow to post transcripts too, if we had transcripts like theirs.
The background:
On Wednesday morning, the New York Times reported on a four-page statement it said it had received from Paul Nunziato’s lawyer.
Nunziato is head of the Port Authority police union. (He hasn’t stepped down or been fired.) On Wednesday evening, Rachel Maddow built two segments around the Times report.
Below, you see the way Maddow started her first segment. By normal journalistic standards, little of what you see is accurate.
We can’t say we blame MSNBC for slow-walking such material. To watch the whole segment, click here:
MADDOW (3/5/14): When access lanes onto the world’s busiest bridge were shut down, apparently on orders from a staffer in New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s office, in order to act some sort of still unexplained political revenge on a little town called Fort Lee, New Jersey—It’s depressing to watch a “liberal news channel” broadcast that type of work.
When that happened this past fall, allies of the governor tried to cover up the fact that they had done it. They concocted a cover story, saying it wasn’t a political vendetta that made them shut down that bridge. They said it was a totally innocent, apolitical traffic study. They didn’t do it for some still unexplained political reason. They just did it as a traffic study.
It wasn’t a traffic study. But for a long time, they tried to get away with saying that it was. “Nothing to see here, nothing to see here.”
By the time Bill Baroni, Governor Chris Christie’s top appointee at the Port Authority, appeared before the New Jersey legislature in November to try to sell the legislature on the idea that it was a traffic study, that whole attempt at a cover-up had already pretty much been debunked by then.
It was almost two months before that testimony when the head of the Port Authority was quoted in the media as saying that not only had he never heard of a traffic study, no one else had either. Not local officials. Not local police. The Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed sources saying bluntly, “There was no study.”
The piddle got worse as Maddow proceeded. For now, let’s consider those five paragraphs.
On a journalistic basis, what’s wrong with that work? Let’s start with the novelization.
As Maddow starts, she starts telling a favorite story—a story about “a little town called Fort Lee” and “the world’s busiest bridge.”
As far as we know, the GW is the world’s busiest bridge. But on a journalistic basis, that fact has nothing to do with this story.
Would this problem be less significant if this was the world’s third busiest bridge? Obviously not. That phrase is endlessly used by Maddow for novelistic effect.
Meanwhile, is Fort Lee “a little town?” It isn’t exactly De Smet, the famous “Little Town on the Prairie.”
Fort Lee’s population is 36,000. For purposes of the lane closings mess, it serves a much larger area, an area filled with movers and shakers.
The little town by the busiest bridge is a novelistic device. It creates a version of Maddow’s favorite tale, in which she defends some pitiful little guy against an encroaching giant.
Ideally, journalists should try to avoid such novelization. (More prejudicial than probative.) In her standard, simple-minded way, Maddow went there first.
So far, none of Maddow’s claims were necessarily “false.” But as she continued, basic lines began getting fudged.
Your assignment: Evaluate the chronology in the passage which follows:
“When that happened this past fall, allies of the governor tried to cover up the fact that they had done it. They concocted a cover story, saying it wasn’t a political vendetta that made them shut down that bridge. They said it was a totally innocent, apolitical traffic study. They didn’t do it for some still unexplained political reason. They just did it as a traffic study.”
Allies of the governor “tried to cover up the fact that they had done it?” Through this construction, Maddow suggested, as she typically does, that the alleged cover story was concocted after the fact.
Maddow knows that chronology is false, but she constantly seems to assert it. Even accepting her supposition that the alleged traffic study was a sham, it would be easy to state the chronology in a clear, accurate way.
In such a presentation, viewers would be told that Wildstein went through the motions of conducting some sort of study or test before and during the traffic lane closings. (“Even before the lane closings happened, allies of the governor were acting out a cover story to hide what they were doing.”)
Maddow almost never does that, and this completely tilts her story. By her second paragraph Wednesday night, her report about the little town was already a bit of a mess.
“It wasn’t a traffic study,” Maddow then said, feeling no need to explain what she meant or how she knew it. And uh-oh! As she continued, she quickly began to deal in blatant misstatements of fact.
According to Maddow, “that whole attempt at a cover-up had already pretty much been debunked” by November 25, when Baroni testified before the legislative committee.
Watching Maddow Wednesday night, we didn’t know why she would say that. As she continued, she explained her claim—and she made some blatant misstatements, softened by a slippery selection of facts:
MADDOW: ...that whole attempt at a cover-up had already pretty much been debunked by then.Did the head of the agency say the things Maddow described? Pretty much, yes—he did. The Maddow Blog links to this October 1 report in the Wall Street Journal.
It was almost two months before that testimony when the head of the Port Authority was quoted in the media as saying that not only had he never heard of a traffic study, no one else had either. Not local officials. Not local police. The Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed sources saying, bluntly, there was no study.
In fact, the Journal quoted only one unnamed source saying bluntly, “There was no study.” (The unnamed source wasn’t asked what he meant or how he knew that.)
Meanwhile, was Port Authority head Patrick Foye actually quoted saying the things Maddow describes in that passage? Actually, yes—he was! This is the relevant passage in the Wall Street Journal report:
MANN (10/1/13): Mr. Foye, an appointee of Mr. Cuomo, wrote that the lane closures were made without informing numerous interested parties, including himself, local and Port Authority police, Mr. Sokolich, and commuters.Assuming Mann’s report is correct, Foye said those things in that email. But here’s the problem: Long before Wednesday night, Maddow knew that several of his statements were wrong.
His email also throws into question the Port Authority's prior explanation for the shutdown: that the lanes were closed so the authority could perform the traffic study.
In the email, Mr. Foye listed the divisions within the authority that weren't consulted before the traffic pattern was changed, including the police department, and the Traffic and Engineering division.
In fact, the Port Authority police were consulted, as Maddow plainly knows. The traffic engineers had also been informed, as Maddow recently stated in detail. (Text below.)
If Foye said those things in that early email, he made some early misstatements. (It happens.) But please! As of Wednesday night, Maddow plainly knew—had known for months—that those statements were false. She also knew it was wrong to say that no one had heard about a traffic study.
Maddow knew that was wrong—but so what? She used that erroneous statement, attributed to Foye, to drive a puzzling claim—her claim that the traffic study “had already pretty much been debunked” by the time Baroni testified.
Readers, can we talk? If you’d played a drinking game that night, a game based on Maddow making accurate statements, you would have been stone cold sober by the time this segment was over. Let’s get clear on the extent to which Maddow is willing to play her viewers.
In that early email, Foye mistakenly said that the Port Authority police and traffic engineers hadn’t been informed. Maddow was willing to use those claims to “prove” a peculiar assertion.
Plainly, she knew those claims were wrong. Below, you see her, a few weeks ago, taking credit for breaking the story about the way the engineers were consulted.
At the time, we wondered if this was perhaps her latest “smuggled correction:”
MADDOW (2/19/14): Thanks to Steve Kornacki’s reporting, we now believe that that was David Wildstein taking a ride around with a Port Authority police lieutenant whose name is Chip Michaels. And Chip Michaels turns up in a few other places in the documents that have been released publicly so far.That was Maddow, taking credit for breaking the story about the way the engineers were consulted. (She had briefly mentioned this back in December.) And there she was this Wednesday night, saying no one had been consulted, using this fact to drive a puzzling claim.
Now we have previously reported, we actually broke the news on this show, about how David Wildstein actually did the work over a period of a couple of weeks of planning the bridge shutdown before he actually put it into effect. What was fascinating about that is that he got some options from the career employees around the bridge, from the technocrats, from the traffic engineers, about ways to mess with Fort Lee.
David Wildstein asked them specifically to model some new traffic patterns that would result in reducing Fort Lee’s access to the bridge. But the options that the traffic engineers gave David Wildstein once he asked for that apparently weren’t draconian enough. Because David Wildstein went back to the traffic engineers after he got the first batch of options from them and he asked them for worse options.
He asked them to make the lane shutdown even more severe than what the traffic engineers had initially offered him. Presumably so as to cause maximum pain to Fort Lee, since we know that’s what they were trying to do.
We reported previously on this show that that happened in August last year, ahead of the actual shutdown. Well, now, as of today, we have something that suggests at least a similar dynamic at work once the shutdown was already underway.
By the way, did Maddow know that the Port Authority police had been informed? Of course she did! On that same show, she was trying to hang Chip Michaels, an officer on the Port Authority police. On that program, she invented statements by two different people to make it seem that Michaels had been trying to make the traffic jams worse.
She simply dreamed two statements to help her allege misconduct by Michaels. On Wednesday night, she was pretending that no one had been consulted.
Maddow is almost pathological in her dissembling about Fort Lee. As she continued on Wednesday night, so did her misconduct.
As she began to focus on Nunziato, she wildly embellished several things he and Bill Baroni have said. What follows involves some clownish embellishment and a heinous omission:
MADDOW (3/5/14): What’s more interesting than the fact that Paul Nunziato was wrong when he was trying to advance the cover-up is the fact that he so adamantly and so publicly tried to advance the cover-up.Sorry, Piscataway! Baroni never said the cover-up was all Nunziato’s idea; neither did Nunziato. That was pure embellishment, creating a more pleasing tale.
I mean, he took credit for it! Bill Baroni said, “Hey, it was all that guy’s idea.” And Paul Nunziato said, “Yes, yes! It was all my idea. That was me.”
Meanwhile, as Maddow complained about the way Nunziato “so adamantly and so publicly tried to advance the cover-up,” she failed to report what Nunziato’s lawyer had told the New York Times.
According to Nunziato’s lawyer, Nunziato believed there had been a traffic study all through the fall and early winter. According to the lawyer, Nunziato believed that until January 8, when the first batch of emails involving Wildstein and Bridget Kelly was released.
We can’t tell you if that’s true. But it isn’t enormously hard to believe, unless you’ve been misinformed about these events in the way favored by Maddow.
People! By all accounts, Wildstein went through the motions of conducting some sort of traffic study or test. By all accounts, two major bridge officials believed he was conducting some such test.
Each man testified at length, under oath. According to their testimony, they thought he was behaving very unwisely, but they didn’t believe he was staging a hoax. There’s no obvious reason why Nunziato might not have believed that too.
Nunziato’s lawyer told the Times that he did believe that until the emails appeared. But Maddow didn’t tell her viewers what the lawyer had said.
Instead, she accused Nunziato of heinous behavior—of “adamantly and publicly trying to advance the cover-up.” That was a very serious charge. Even as she pretended to discuss the New York Times report, Maddow forgot to tell her viewers what the lawyer had said.
We’ll repeat what we said some time back. Someone ought to take Maddow by the arm and lead her quietly away.
As she pretends to cover the Fort Lee case, her behavior borders on disturbed. That said, her supervisor’s background is entirely in comedy and sports, and viewers enjoy all her clowning.
Still coming: Two ways to imagine this conduct
OMB (Fresh Off the Last Pile of Dung)
ReplyDelete"That phrase is endlessly used by Maddow for novelistic effect."
Chris Matthews "almost got somebody killed"
BOB Somerby 2/18, 2/19. 2/20,2/20,2/20,2/21
But hey, we're just getting started. We haven't gotten to the part where BOB gives him credit for killing tens of thousands. You know, in that war to stop Saddam's Weapon's of Mass Destruction we'd be surprised if they weren't found.
KZ
Do you understand the difference between a blog that critiques the media and someone doing what is ostensibly a "news" broadcast? Will you acknowledge that perhaps what is acceptable in one situation isn't in another?
DeleteWill he acknowledge...?
DeleteNever.
Nor will he acknowledge that Somerby's principal point -- that Maddow is doing atrocious, mendacious work -- is dead-on accurate.
Is your head so far up Somerby's ass that you won't even click on the NYT link to see if Somerby's take on the story comes anywhere close to the story that was actually published?
DeleteIf you had any critical thinking ability left at all, you would see who is doing "atrocious, mendacious work." And unfortunately, it isn't the person to whom you have ceded your critical thinking ability.
Every time I've accepted this kind of challenge, there has been no problem with what Somerby has said. This kind of comment is meant to make readers who do not click think that Somerby is unreliable.
DeleteYes, and if Somerby wrote that the sun rose in the west, you'd have no problem with it, because wherever the sun rises, that must be west. Bob said so.
DeleteKZ, has it ever been proven "on a journalistic basis" that Hank Buchanan was even watching Hardball the night Chris Matthews "almost got somebody killed"?
DeleteIt is quite true that Matthews blurted out Cody Shearer's name. But it was picked up in nanoseconds by the inimitable Matt Drudge, complete with rotating red light, and from there the very next day made it to Rush Limbaugh's incomparable radio show, where he carefully spelled S-H-E-A-R-E-R for his listening audience.
Not to excuse what Matthews did, but "it is possible" that without the assistance of Drudge or Limbaugh, Hank might never have heard the name Cody Shearer.
And interesting how both Drudge and Limbaugh escape the scupulous scrutiny of our resident watchdog blogger, always on the lookout for egregious errors that "almost get somebody killed."
Poor work here K(ray)Z, I would assume that your brain is deteriorating due to overlong exposure to earth's atmosphere; please return to your planet before it's too late.
DeleteAnon 9:29 am
DeleteIt has not been journalistically proven that Mr. Buchanan
has anything other than a black and white set not connected to cable.
KZ
Well, there you go. Certain Bobfans have already proven, on a Somerby basis, that it was impossible to own a black and white TV after 1980 anywhere in the United States of America.
DeleteNot only that, but Rachel Maddow is also no sharpshooter.
"According to Nunziato’s lawyer, Nunziato believed there had been a traffic study all through the fall and early winter. According to the lawyer, Nunziato believed that until January 8, when the first batch of emails involving Wildstein and Bridget Kelly was released."
ReplyDeleteMaybe, but there's other objective evidence, not the words of a mouthpiece, to suggest that the PA Police were not acting totally above board. For instance going out of their way to tell pissed off motorists to blame it on the mayor.
So, the words or Nunziato's lawyer, a person who has only one responsibility which is to protect his client, those words are relevant to Maddow's presentation. But cold hard objective evidence that supports the thrust of Maddow's report, that is irrelevant. Got it.
Delete"According to Nunziato’s lawyer, Nunziato believed there had been a traffic study all through the fall and early winter."
DeleteExcept that Bob is badly dissembling here. That is NOT what Nunziatio's attorney was saying to the Times AT ALL.
The attorney is saying that Nunziato had absolutely no idea about the so-called "traffic study" but chose to publicly support Baroni and Wildstein because they backed in on the fight against the federal government to have stand-alone fire departments at Port Authority airports, rather than cross-trained (and union dues-paying) police officers like the rest of the country.
Nunziato didn't like that idea because the firefighters could choose to join a separate union.
The attorney very clearly states that is client had no idea what happened in advance of the lane closings, and said the last conversation he had with his buddy Wildstein about the Fort Lee access was an entirely unrelated matter, and a full year earlier than Baroni testified it was.
Face it, Bob fans. Your hero has finally morphed completely into that which he has railed against for 16 years -- a full-blown "dissembler" reduced to lying to advance his War on Maddow.
I'm embarrassed that I actually believed Bob's characterization of what Nunziato's lawyer had said.
Delete"According to Nunziato’s lawyer, Nunziato believed there had been a traffic study all through the fall and early winter."
Where, Bob? Where does his lawyer say that? Good god.
Where is the evidence that PA police were actually telling drivers to blame Sokolich?
DeleteBergen County Record, Feb. 15:
DeleteIn numerous cases, say drivers, Fort Lee officials and others familiar with the situation, aggravated motorists were told by Port Authority police officers at the scene that they should call the mayor or borough officials.
One motorist said that an officer did not wait to be asked what was causing the traffic problems. The cop motioned the motorist to roll down his window and told him to call Mayor Sokolich.
Just how many motorists received those instructions may never be determined. But Fort Lee officials say they have a rough idea of the number of people who acted on the advice.
Dozens of motorists telephoned either the borough’s municipal offices or the Fort Lee Police Department, borough officials say. What was significant and suspicious, they say, was the similarity of the message. Many repeated the same line — that they were told by Port Authority officers to complain to either the mayor of Fort Lee or other borough officials.
What was significant and suspicious, they say, was the similarity of the message. Many repeated the same line
DeleteOoh! "Signifiant and suspicious"! The cops told irritated drivers to take their complaints to city hall. I wonder whether any of the cops told angry drivers getting tickets to tell their story to the judge?
DeleteI see Somerby's puppy dog as reported for duty.
DeleteAnd the clock trolls @2:49! You get called on your bullshit (or if it's not yours, the bullshit you like), and the caller is TDH's pet.
DeleteSo nothing substantive about the topic today?
Imagine my surprise.
Are you really that stupid, deadrat?
DeletePossibly. I'm not the best judge.
DeleteBut I'll take that as a "no" to my question about substantive contributions to the commentary.
to deadrat at 2:42, "The cops told irritated drivers to take their complaints to city hall. I wonder whether any of the cops told angry drivers getting tickets to tell their story to the judge?" Learn the difference between PA police and local police, only the latter reporting to city hall. Sorta makes like a huge difference here.
DeleteThanks for the lecture on law enforcement. Too bad it sorta doesn't make any difference here or in New Jersey. You say the PA cops deflected complaints away from the PA and onto the local municipality? Hard to believe, eh?
DeleteThese anecdotes don't mean squat until we get to the bottom of the fiasco. Maybe it was a giant conspiracy to screw Fort Lee from tying up drivers in gridlock to giving them phony information about who was responsible. I'd like to see some direct evidence first. You'd like to spin a yarn with some anecdotes about cops and drivers. To each his own.
"But I'll take that as a "no" to my question about substantive contributions to the commentary."
DeleteAnd I'll take that as a "No, I can't argue with the substantive contributions to the commentary, so I'll pretend they don't exist while I act like an 8 year old and call names."
You've learned well from your master.
"You say the PA cops deflected complaints away from the PA and onto the local municipality?"
DeleteAbsolutely amazing. First of all, it's not what he says, its what was reported in the Bergen County Record. Secondly, your recapitulation of the story changes the substance in a pathetic attempt to minimize its significance. Nobody said that complaints were "deflected". The story says that PA police proactively sought out motorists to plant the suggestion that they blame "the Mayor".
"Anecdotes"
Bravo, deadrat. You sure are a wordsmith.
What's absolutely amazing is your capacity to believe your own nonsense. Here's the story from the BCR:
Delete<quote>
In numerous cases, say drivers, Fort Lee officials and others familiar with the situation, aggravated motorists were told by Port Authority police officers at the scene that they should call the mayor or borough officials. One motorist said that an officer did not wait to be asked what was causing the traffic problems. The cop motioned the motorist to roll down his window and told him to call Mayor Sokolich.
Just how many motorists received those instructions may never be determined.
</quote>
So what do we actually know? Almost nothing. When I say "we," I mean people who don't have a story to push. So that leaves you out. The PA cops told irritated drivers to call city hall. And one instance where a driver claimed that the advice was unsolicited, so no, there's nothing about the PA police seeking out, proactively or otherwise, motorists, plural, Did the PA cops receive marching orders from unnamed co-conspirators? Or did they just get tired of listening to aggrieved drivers blaming them for something out of their control? Or did they call the duty sergeant, ask how they should respond to complaints, and got told to blame Fort Lee?
The PA says the delay was an extra 2800 vehicle-hours. How many drivers is that? 2800?, 1400? According to the BCR, Fort Lee got "dozens" of calls. 24? 48? 96? How many of those were from drivers trying to cross the bridge? The traffic jam also inconvenienced drivers whose trips were local. Borough officials say the messages were suspiciously the same, but then report that some drivers were told to call the mayor and some were told to call "other borough officials."
Now, what's your complaint about my using the word "deflected"? The PA cops directed some complaints to Fort Lee and away from the PA. "Deflect" doesn't capture that sense for you? Who's the "wordsmith" here?
And yes, all the evidence is anecdotal. As in what one person reports to a second what he was told by a third. That doesn't mean the events described didn't happen.
And nothing I've said eliminates the possibility that the "Call the Mayor" campaign wasn't orchestrated as part of a punitive exercise against Fort Lee. But some people would like to get beyond our suspicions and find out what really happened.
Once again that leaves you out.
"These anecdotes don't mean squat" deadrat
DeleteInteresting word choice. Rarely used aroung here.
What's really funny is that somebody asked for evidence that the PA police were telling motorists to blame city hall, somebody else produced a passage from the Bergen County Record, and deadrats panties immediately wadded up.
DeleteIt is really hilarious go all apoplectic.
The clock trolls @5:05P! Another buffoon reads a comment and can tell that I'm "apoplectic."
DeleteCould it be that reporters asked for a comment from the Fort Lee city hall, and someone said, "We're getting bombarded* with calls from people directed to us by the PA police"? What's so "funny" about finding this out?
The "someone" who produced a passage form the BCR was mm, and it didn't support his point. But thanks for playing.
*Where for large values of "bombarded," we get at least 24.
These anecdotes mean something between squat and sqadoodle.
DeleteIs that better, Anonymous @3:12P?
"The "someone" who produced a passage form the BCR was mm,..."
DeleteNo, that wasn't me, but I appreciate 12:26 taking the time to dig it up.
You say it doesn't support me point.
We know for a fact, as BOB kindly reminded us, that the PA police were informed ahead of time about why the lanes were being closed. Hint: City Hall wasn't mentioned. So to me it remains suspicious and significant.
It certainly is suspicious and it may even turn out to be significant. But don't kid a kidder. For you, it's dispositive.
Delete"By all accounts, Wildstein went through the motions of conducting some sort of traffic study or test."
ReplyDeleteStill stuck on that line?
Good God, Bob. Wildstein told Durando on Friday to shut down two of the three lanes on Monday. Then he told Fulton what he told Durando to do.
That's going "through the motions of conducting some sort of traffic study or test"?
Only in Bob's World where the entire testimony of Fulton and Durando, the e-mail exchange between Kelly and Wildstein, and the famous Foye e-mail ordering the lanes re-opened immediately get thrown down the memory hole.
Fortunately, Bob is leading the kind of sheep for whom that is quite easy to do.
"Baroni never said the cover-up was all Nunziato’s idea; neither did Nunziato. That was pure embellishment, creating a more pleasing tale."
ReplyDeleteHow many ways can Somerby dissemble in a single post.
Maddow never claimed that the "cover-up" was Nunziato's iidea, or that Baroni said the "cover-up" was Nunziato's idea.
She said that Baroni testified that the whole "traffic study" story that Baroni brought before the NJ committee was cooked up AFTER the fact -- including the notion that it orginated with the Port Authority cops -- and that Nunziato initially went along with it, BEFORE the Kelly/Wildstein e-mails became public.
Nunziato, Christie, and the entire world and everyone living on it, with the lone exception of Shepherd Bob and his Merry Flock, realized at that moment, "traffic study" was no longer operative.
I continue to suspect that Mr. Somerby is conducting some strange sort of study of his commenters: how any of them will fall for his mischaracterizations of the evidence and his bad summaries of others' reporting, because they want to believe, have an investment in, the narrative about Maddow (among others) that he has constructed?
ReplyDeleteI can understand why people with no connection to the NY/NJ (PA) area have limited interested in pursuing the details of this story. But if you're looking for a quick, sound summary of it, don't come to Bob (though some of his critical commenters, so-called "trolls," provide good accounts and links to good accounts -- remember, there is always the Bergen Record and the Star Ledger -- both of which endorsed Christie, btw, in his last run for governor). You don't have to be a blind Maddow fan, or think the NYT walks on water, to believe they (and the WSJ, to name another major outlet) have reported this whole story well on the whole.
mch
Right, go watch Rachel Maddow instead.
Delete834: enjoying the sweet hay?
DeleteOMB (Lets Take BOB One Step at a Time)
ReplyDeleteStep 1...In the Beginning....Traffic Was Still
We start with the assumption that BOB is not pretending to have his nose in a joint because Maddow is not following good journalistic practices. Our assumption allows us to charge he hasn't figured out she is not and has not ever been a journalist. This lets us infer he is one of the stupidest people on your planet. (In truth, BOB comes from a showbiz family and gave the comedy circuit a whirl...he knows better.)
BOB begins his post with his own form of novelization... Little Blog brings big change, (BOB endearing himself by being cute with his readers...a joke endlessly repeated).... and transcript delay is borne from shame at shoddy work. Neither have a thing to do with the topic of the post.
His first criticism of Maddow is naturally, that she begins by novelization, is repetitive to boot, and her descriptions of bridge and town have nothing to do with her story but they do further her meme. Then he writes two fun things:
"In her standard, simple-minded way...."
"So far, none of Maddow’s claims were necessarily “false.”
These two lines immediately follow an admonition from BOB about being prejucidial rather than probative. They are aimed at implying either Maddow is dumber than her PhD should allow or thinks you are, and although the big lies are yet to come, even these little facts might be "false."
If BOB wasn't writing his novel, he could have just said "Maddow begins by trying to oversimplify her story, using the overfamiliar tale of the big bridge and the little town at its foot." But BOB has a mentally questionable antagonist in his tale.
If BOB wasn't writing his novel he could have continued "her opening comments are true" because, in fact, they are. Or he could have just passed on them altogether.
The ordinary viewer, being neither a BOBfan or Maddowist, might have simply blinked and not have been in the least bit prejudiced by a rather modest effort to make opening lines a bit more interesting than "When three access lanes serving the George Washington Bridge were shut down in Ft. Lee, New Jersey." Ordinary viewers are not the loser/rubes BOB once proclaimed them to be the last time he tackled the "busiest bridge" line. They are unlikely to be prejudiced in the least by "big, biggger, biggest" categories of bridge descriptors, or by "little, littler, or teeny tiny" town.
We wonder what BOB would have said if Maddow had called
Ft. Lee "a borough."
KZ
OMB (Lets Take BOB One Step at a Time)
ReplyDeleteStep 2...Let There Be Traffic Problems...Cover Story Begat Cover Up
"Your assignment: Evaluate the chronology in the passage which follows:"
Why thanks, Professor BOB. Do you really want an evaluation, or do you want us to provide you with a chronology? We'll do both.
Evaluation: First Professor, we throw out your statement: "Through this construction, Maddow suggested, as she typically does, that the alleged cover story was concocted after the fact." Why? You use the word "suggested," as you typically do, to imply someone said something they in fact did not. We learned this in the fable you taught: St. Al Crucified on the Cross of the Internet." Just because some said "I took the initiative to create the Internet" suggested Al was claiming he "invented" the internet does not mean he said that. What do you think, Professor BOB, that we slept through Howler 101? You think we are rube losers?
Once we rid ourselves or your trick, we have to evaluate the statement on its overall merits. We evaluate it as pretty much true. Can anyone look at the false press release on Friday, September 13 calling the lane closures a "study of traffic safety patterns" and not conclude there was a cover up or cover story concocted involving the highest appointee of Governor Christie at the port Authority, Bill Baroni?
Once you do that, does it really matter how exacting the sequence of events is? The first public lie was after the fact. Were we Maddow, we would have thrown out the term "last fall" and replaced it with "last summer." Many think fall begins on September 1, but it really doesn't until the autumnal equinox. We know you would pick that nit if we didn't catch it and call it to your attention. The only thing that happened in the fall was when the allies of Governor Christie, knowing the cover story they concoted to cover up the closure, the lie about study of traffic safety patterns, wouldn't fly, changed the public cover story to match the cover story they may have fed the Port Authority staff to begin with starting in August. We don't know what they told the staff. They put nothing in writing.
Overall we would give Maddow a B+ for her report because she used language allowing room for critics to argue when she might have suggested the cover story was concocted, and because she should have noted the lies to the public began the day the lanes were reopened.
The Chronology Follows
KZ
OMB (Lets Take BOB One Step at a Time)
ReplyDeleteStep 2...Let There Be Traffic Problems...Cover Story Begat Cover Up
Chronology for Professor BOB
July (sometime) 2013
At an undocumented breakfast with Wildstein, Port Authority Police Prexy Paul Nunciato suggests the lane closures among other things. This event is described by Bill Baroni in November, 2013 and confirmed by Nunciato in a statment. In a statment by his lawyer in long after Wildstein and Baroni are no longer around to owe or do favors, in March, 2014 Nunciato "suggests" his suggestion was mythical.
August 13, 2013
Bridget Kelly e-mails David Wildstein "Time for some traffic problems in Ft. Lee." Wildstein replies, "Got it." Any precocious person would perceive this as shorthand for "Please pursue the "study" or "test" pursuant to proper procedure."
August 21, 2013
Durando has a conversation with Wildstein in which Wildstein asks if there is a Memorandum of Understanding that would prevent reducing the number of lanes dedicated to Ft. Lee from three to one. Although no "study" or "test" was discussed, clearly main lane performance enhancement is the primary purpose, a topic implying study.
August 28-29
The chief engineer for the Port Authority provides Wildstein with alternative schematics to reduce traffic lanes dedicated to Ft. Lee as Wildstein requested. The first schematics do not satisfy Wildstein so a schematic reducing the lanes from three to one are provided. Since it is obvious to all that main lane traffic enhancement is the goal of the request no "study" or "test" is mentioned, much less data collection to measure these long discussed and debated improvements. Therefore such things were implied. There is no record of when or why Wildstein made the request.
September 6, 2013
David Wildstein calls Robert Durando and orders the lanes dedicated to Ft. Lee reduced from 3 to 1 effective the next Monday morning. He then calls Durando's boss, Cedrick Fulton and informs Fulton of his order to Durando. In testifying about this, neither bridge official indicates they believed this was any "kind of study or test" they had ever been involved with in their long experience with the PA. Neither did they testify as to any discussion with Wildstein about how the test or study would be measured or evaluated. This was implied.
September 6, 2013
Following the conversations with Wildstein, Durando and Fulton e-mail a variety of people within the PA to collect traffic data on the impact of the change in traffic configurations. No consistent term is used to describe what is being measured. It is called an experiment, and a test. None of the e-mails indicate Wildstein requested it, nor is he copied. Since the top officials believed it was a study or test, they did
what came naturally.
September 9, 2013
The lanes dedicated to Ft. Lee are reduced from 3 to 1. The e-mails between PA staff indicate they have no idea how long the configuration
will last. They clearly believed they were in a study or test of indeterminate length. They disucuss and begin efforts to document the impact, though no indication is made of any request from anyone above them to do so.
September 13, 2013
Having told PA press staff not to respond to press inquiries during the lane closure, the afternoon following their reopening, Bill Baroni authorizes a press statement falsely calling the lane closures a "study of traffic safety patterns." This is the first item in writing from any Christie official using the word study. It occured after the fact, as Maddow may have, by construction, suggested. It is is the first official
cover story given to the public and the first act of the cover up.
KZ
KZ, I managed to make it through about one-third of your offerings in this thread. It's not that I don't appreciate your efforts, but,....
DeleteOK, I got nuthin' for that. But I take it that your objection is not to TDH's statements but to his style. Too "novelized" for you, I guess, which would make TDH a hypocrite.
No, the criticism is to his statements. Which is why you have nothing to say. Even you can't defend his dissembling, nitpicking and outright lying this time.
DeleteAnonymous @2:52, You could be right. The "criticism" could be to his statements. I just couldn't wade through the verbiage transmitted today from Galaxy Schizophrenia. At the beginning, we have "BOB begins his post with his own form of novelization... Little Blog brings big change, (BOB endearing himself by being cute with his readers...a joke endlessly repeated)...." So the complaint here is the tone and the trope. Perhaps it gets substantive later.
DeleteIf it does and I missed it, that's on me.
What, deadrat, was Somerby's first complaint about Maddow?
DeleteI can't tell you TDH's first complaint about Maddow. His ongoing and traditional complaint is that she makes up shit.
Deletedeadrat, dear fellow, you chose to respond to a comment in which we were merely fulfilling the "assignment" given to readers by BOB. Your comments may be appropriate to our first comment, but not this one.
DeleteDo you find fault with this chronology. We'd be happy to read it. We think it is quite accurate, but if you have a better one, we'd be happy to hear it. We don't think you do.
KZ
Ah, mr deadrat. We say we should have refreshed before our last comment.
DeleteCan't tell us BOB's first complaint in this post. We covered it in our Step 1 comment. We'll quote it for you this time:
"On a journalistic basis, what’s wrong with that work? Let’s start with the novelization.
As Maddow starts, she starts telling a favorite story—a story about “a little town called Fort Lee” and “the world’s busiest bridge.”
As far as we know, the GW is the world’s busiest bridge. But on a journalistic basis, that fact has nothing to do with this story.
Would this problem be less significant if this was the world’s third busiest bridge? Obviously not. That phrase is endlessly used by Maddow for novelistic effect."
Would BOB's criticism be more valid if he started with something Maddow said which was not true? Obviously so, but BOB, in his own novelization, attempts to make even these two true statements from Maddow seem, if not true, then somewhat questionable. We believe the term was "not necessarily false."
KZ
KZ,
DeleteIs your chronology correct? I have no idea. Even supposing it is, I'd have to take the time to find out if any of it is relevant. I just don't have the strength.
You seem not to know what "novelization" is. TDH claims Maddow is guilty of it. You claim that in making this claim, TDH is also guilty of it. Only one of you is right, and it's not you.
It's fair to point out that Maddow's characterizations aren't false -- the GWB really is the world's busiest bridge -- and that the local color doesn't deceive anyone in any case. If you buy that, then TDH is misguided, but he's not making up a story about Maddow. He's reporting on what she does; it's just that what she does in this case isn't bad or at least not bad enough to carry the indictment. But that's different.
You have no idea. We know.
DeleteKZ
You know?
DeleteWhy doesn't your head explode from the irony?
One of them has. The others are irony resistant.
DeleteForgot to sign our comment, dr.
DeleteBut while we have the box open, we will note we asked you to either criticize our chronology or offer your own. You did neither.
You instead say "You claim that in making this claim, TDH is also guilty of it." ( "it" being the claim of novelization)
We made no such claim. We simply said BOB begins his post with novelization. What he says about Maddow's post and his complaint about how it begins is on this page for all to read. You earlier stated you did not know what that complaint was.
KZ
KZ, deadrat won't say that your chronology is inaccurate because it is not. So he does the "Bob thing." He says he doesn't know.
DeleteBut we live in a country that values the First Amendment. Made it the first one, in fact. So even the willfully ignorant are granted the right to speak, even on this Internet thingy.
They are not, unfortunately, protected from making jackasses out of themselves. And that applies to both Bob and his prized pupil.
To be accurate, I said I didn't have the strength to read through the latest missives from the Galaxy Schizophrenia, which even if correct, are likely to be beside the point. If history is any guide.
DeleteThe First Amendment doesn't grant the right to speak. That is an inalienable right that we all have as the result of our being human. The First Amendment serves to protect that right from government suppression, which of course, means that it has no application to conversation, ignorant or learned, involving private parties on the intertubes. But please try to imagine how much I treasured your civics lesson. I believe I once gave KZ a procedure for estimating such quantities . You might find that valuable in your calculations.
Oops! Forgot to note the clock trolling at 5:07! You get called on your bullshit, and the caller has to be "Bob's" prized pupil.
DeleteI apologize for the omission.
KZ,
DeleteLike the omission of your signature left me in doubt as to who was commenting.
I didn't know how far back you meant to go for TDH's first complaint. I blame the lateness of the hour for my misunderstanding.
So TDH's first complaint was Darlin' Rachel's novelization. And your complaint about TDH is that he is also a novelist, but not because he accuses Darlin' Rachel of novelization but because he attempts to make her novel "questionable." Have I got that straight?
But, of course, TDH's point is that novelization is a questionable technique. It might lead people to believe that the irrelevant offered detail is important to the story. Now this may be wrongheaded because no one would be misled by a little, true local color. But that's a different criticism from the hypocrisy that you try to tag TDH with.
BOB's novel is the tale of the little blog that couldn't. It's telling, at the beginning of this post, is irrelevant to the topic. It is told, by the way, along with his imaginary analysts and sprawling campus, repeatedly. It's folly stand on its own. Its purpose is no different than efforts he derides by Rachel Maddow, to make her adorable to her readers. Is hypocrisy makes it all the more notable.
DeleteKZ
KZ,
DeleteI know you're from out of town. Way out of town. So I try to be patient.
The tale of the little blog that couldn't isn't "BOB's"; it's straight out of his commentariat. You know, "Bob's" a loser, No one reads "Bob's" blog anymore, "Bob's" bitter about his failure in life.
You seem to understand that the analysts and the sprawling campus are fictional. If you get that with your lack of shall we say acculturation? do you suppose there's anybody out there who reads the blog and thinks, "Wow! Bob must be important to have all those analysts working for him. I wonder what university he works for. I'll bet it's a really prestigious school because he's always getting results from his demands."
Now, you may regard this device as tired and unamusing, but it's not part of the ongoing indictment of Darlin' Rachel. That's because no one really believes that TDH has unleashed a team of analysts on her every transcript. Novelization has to incorporate that colorful, apparently relevant detail: "It's the busiest bridge in the world!" Is it a slippery slope from the busiest bridge in the world to the story that the Clintons were involved in the suicide of Vince Foster and multiple murders in Arkansas? How about to making up quotes to attribute to Al Gore or pretending that a lame joke of his was serious or that he claimed to have written the backbone interface code for the internet? Hard to say. But you sure don't want to end up like mm, thinking, "Once upon the best of times and the worst of times, it was a dark and stormy night on the busiest bridge in the world, and under that bridge lived the biggest troll in the world, Chris Christie."
I understand the impulse to novelize. Life may be stranger than fiction at times, but mostly it's more boring, has gaps, and doesn't proceed at the right pace for a news cycle. What's Darlin' Rachel gonna tease with? "Coming up next, we still don't know. Stay tuned"?
Well, to me, the only "novelization" going on is the pretense that "we don't know everything yet, ergo we know nothing. And if the vile, evil Rachel Maddow reports anything, well that's just more proof that she's vile and evil."
DeleteI don't know where you get your energy, Deadrat, but I know it's wasted upon someone who equates the obvious humor of referring to a nonexistent team of blogboard analysts, to rhetorically beefing-up your own narrative of culpability in a story involving an investigation.
DeletePeople's lives are ruined with such glib self-serving devices.
The fact that this critique garnered an "I know you are, Bob, but what am I" response, tells you all you need to know about troll operatives.
"Novelization" is the process of enhancing news reporting to make it seem better -- more exciting, more cogent, more in line with favored ideology, etc. TDH does not take the stance that we know nothing unless we know everything; he just says we don't know some things you'd like to be true and that there's no cure for that but actually finding out. The policy you describe would be silly because we'll never know everything, but it wouldn't be novelization as it refuses to lay out a story at all even when the outlines at least are discernible.
DeleteA classic ad hominem attack on Darlin' Rachel -- what she reports is bad because she's who she is (i.e., "evil") isn't novelization either. It would simply be a logical fallacy. A novelization would be, say, inventing some damning dialog between Darlin' Rachel and her staff as they deliberately sensationalize Bridgegate to enhance ratings.
"As far as we know, the GW is the world’s busiest bridge. But on a journalistic basis, that fact has nothing to do with this story. Would this problem be less significant if this was the world’s third busiest bridge? Obviously not. That phrase is endlessly used by Maddow for novelistic effect."
ReplyDeleteAny more questions about the nits Somerby will pick to press his War on Maddow?
"That phrase is endlessly used by Maddow for novelistic effect."
DeleteOr for demonstrating why some "inconvenience" is being treated as a serious matter.
"As she pretends to cover the Fort Lee case, her behavior borders on disturbed."
ReplyDeleteOh, the irony.
Apparently blogger is able to carry on with his sorry excuse for a life while harboring such all-consuming hate and can keep this up indefinitely.
And the clock trolls @9:37A! "The blogger" has a sorry life; he's not just consumed, he's all-consumed by hate, But he's got stamina. Well played!
DeleteAt 4:45 am you suggested your strength was lacking, deadrat. Yet you, like BOB, carry on.
DeletePerhaps stamina is a poor choice of words, since 9:37 did not use it and you demonstrate it is not a necessary in order to carry on. Or perhaps it is wrong to use strength and stamina together.
Sure thing, Anonymous @3:32P, your pal @9:37A didn't actually use the word "stamina." He just wrote "can keep this up indefinitely." What a bad choice of words I made.
DeleteMea culpa.
OMB (Lets Take BOB One Step at a Time)
ReplyDeleteStep 3..."Blatant Misstatements & Slippery Selections" From the Book Of BOB.
We begin paraphrasing the words of the OTB: Readers, can we talk? If you’d played a drinking game based on BOB making accurate statements in the rest of this post you would have been stone cold sober by the time this segment it was over. Let’s get clear on the extent to which BOB is willing to play you rube/loser/readers.
“It wasn’t a traffic study,” Maddow then said, feeling no need to explain what she meant or how she knew it. And uh-oh! As she continued, she quickly began to deal in blatant misstatements of fact," writes BOB.
Two problems here: She does explain it, "quickly" according to BOB. And to prove Maddow is inaccurate in her quick explanation he has to use many a trick of bad journalism he has accused others of making plus issue misstatements of his own. Ironically the only time he credits Maddow with truth he himself commits an error worthy of his own brand of nitpickery.
The source Maddow uses for early debunking of the traffic study cover story is the e-mail sent by Patrick Foye on September 13 which ordered the end to the lane closure event. Both Maddow and BOB rely on the Wall Street Journal's first coverage of this e-mail October 1 from sources who leaked it. Maddow does so to show how soon the debunking occurred. BOB does so to needlessly pick nits and set Maddow up for an error the WSJ commits. The e-mail is available online, BOB knows that, but never refers to it here.
"The Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed sources saying, bluntly, there was no study." Maddow said. Says BOB "In fact, the Journal quoted only one unnamed source." Why might Maddow make it plural? To mislead? Well look what both disappear from the WSJ:
"The authority's public response has described the lane closures as part of "a week of study at the George Washington Bridge of traffic safety patterns."
People familiar with the matter disputed that. "There was no study," one of them said." Wall Street Journal October 1, 2013
Maddow didn't need to include it. It supports the use of plural sources but it proves BOB right that only one source made the quote. Why does BOB need to exclude it? Is it because it proves he is a nitpicker over plural usage? We think not. We would argue that including it points to the early "smoking gun" in Baroni's participation in this whole affair, the famous "traffic safety pattern" press statement. Baroni personally approved this September 13. It was a false statement, even if you still hold the hope of a fantasy there was a good faith effort to study improvements to the flow of I-95 traffic across the GWB. BOB has previously repeatedly attacked Maddow for stating Baroni knew about the cover up before he testified in November. Have you ever seen a reference to this false PA press statement in TDH before? Only in our comments. Nary a peep about it from BOB as he poured through papers in pursuit of piddle and pap.
KZ
OMB (Lets Take BOB One Step at a Time)
ReplyDeleteStep 3..."Blatant Misstatements & Slippery Selections" From the Book Of BOB. (Continued)
When last we left BOB he was using the Wall Street Journal's coverage of the Patrick Foye memo calling a halt to the lane closures in Ft. Lee instead of ever referring to the real document itself, which is available online in many places. Let's pick up from there, truth testing BOB or applying "journalistic standards" to BOB.
BOB: Did the head of the agency say the things Maddow described? Pretty much, yes—he did.
KZ: No, in fact he said very few of the things Maddow described him as being quoted as saying.
BOB: Meanwhile, was Port Authority head Patrick Foye actually quoted saying the things Maddow describes in that passage? Actually, yes—he was!
KZ: Actually, no--- he wasn't! Bob posted part of the article and linked to the original. None of those things are quoted from Foye.
BOB: Assuming Mann’s report is correct, Foye said those things in that email. But here’s the problem: Long before Wednesday night, Maddow knew that several of his statements were wrong.
KZ: Here's another problem; who made wrong statments, what was wrong with them, and which ones did Maddow know about? BOB never says.
BOB: In fact, the Port Authority police were consulted, as Maddow plainly knows. The traffic engineers had also been informed, as Maddow recently stated in detail.
KZ: In fact, Maddow never said Port Authority police were not consulted. In fact, Maddow never said engineers were not informed. In fact, Maddow, in what BOB has quoted from the show before this statement, never mentions the Port Authority Police or engineers at all. That's a problem. But it's BOB's.
BOB: If Foye said those things in that early email, he made some early misstatements. (It happens.) But please! As of Wednesday night, Maddow plainly knew—had known for months—that those statements were false.
KZ: But it didn't happen. False statments from Foye, that is. His e-mail has been online for about two months at sources BOB has used to supply material for previous posts so we have to say, using BOB standards, BOB knew it was wrong to imply, even if excused ("It happens!") misstatements came from him. And once again, BOB fails to detail what statements are false.
BOB: She also knew it was wrong to say that no one had heard about a traffic study.
KZ: BOB also knows what hyperbole is we suspect. Anyone who describes drivers approaching the GWB seeing 10 million cars entering from Ft. Lee must know what hyperbole is. Especially when
that statement is immediately qualified by who is meant by nobody, specifically..."no one else had either. Not local officials. Not local police." Was it wrong to say it? Yes. Why? Because someone like BOB can do with that type of statement the same thing someone like BOB did with "I took the initiative to create the Internet."
BOB: In that early email, Foye mistakenly said that the Port Authority police and traffic engineers hadn’t been informed. Maddow was willing to use those claims to “prove” a peculiar assertion.
KZ: Once again Foye did not say any such thing in his e-mail. Maddow did not use claims about the Port Authority Police or traffic engineers.
BOB spends much of the rest of his post ranting about Port Authority Police and engineer involvment in the closure events. His point is to prove Maddow knew something that is unrelated to something she said earlier, in which these people are not mentioned at all. Bob seems to have a problem understanding the difference between conculting a department in an agency and informing a few staff or ordering them to perform tasks they may not understand in relation to the plans of those giving the orders. We'll skip this and go to the money shot.
BOB: Maddow is almost pathological in her dissembling about Fort Lee.
KZ : BOB is pathological in his dissembling about Fort Lee.
KZ
To refresh the memories of those who so quickly and willfully forget, here is exactly what Foye wrote in his e-mail:
Delete"Here is what I learned: reversing over 25 years of PA GWB operations, the three lanes in Fort Lee eastbound to the GWB were reduced to one lane on Monday of this week without notifying Fort Lee, the commuting public we serve, the ED [executive director] or Media."
And later:
" . . . approval of this action will require:
1. Written sign off by TBT, Traffic Engineering and PAPD. That sign off was not sought or obtained here."
So again, who specifically does Foye say was not notified? Was it, as Bob claims, "Port Authority police and engineers" or was it, as Foye actually wrote, "Fort Lee, the commuting public we serve, the ED or the media"?
Since that doesn't fit the story Bob wants to feed to his sheep, he takes the part about "written sign off" and pretends that Foye is saying the PA cops and engineers were not notified.
Dissembling, thy name is Somerby.
The clock trolls @8:24A! "Bob" is a shepherd.
DeleteIt's fair to criticize TDH for relying on someone quoting Foye rather than Foye's email itself. Here's Darlin' Rachel: "... the head of the Port Authority was quoted in the media as saying that not only had he never heard of a traffic study, no one else had either."
TDH's complaint is that "no one else had either" isn't true. And it turns out that wasn't even Foye's claim because he lists the uninformed without including engineers.
Uhm, deadrat, watch yourself:
DeleteHere's Darlin Al: "I took the initiative to create the Internet."
We all know how quickly that became "I invented the internet."
Seems you agree at first with some of KZ's criticism.
Then you fall backwards by doing what others did to Al Gore. Doing what Somerby claims was done to Susan Rice. You leave out part of the quote and thus distort the meaning supplied by context.
"... the head of the Port Authority was quoted in the media as saying that not only had he never heard of a traffic study, no one else had either. Not local officials. Not local police."
If you don't understand that the problem was not that people inside the agency may have had some knowledge of unfolding events, but that those outside had none, then you are one unusual fellow.
You know what the irony is deadrat?
Even in full context Mr. Gore's comment was excessively self promotional and difficult to defend and cumbersome to try and prove.
In Maddow's case, using BOB's "journalistic" standard of disproof, it is easier to argue that Maddow's statement, hyperbolic though it clearly was, is more true than Gore's.
To disprove it you have to show evidence someone called it a study before the lanes were ordered to be closed. I don't think you can.
You are welcome to try. Show us anyone who said they were told a study was going to be conducted. Not that lanes would be shut, but that a study was going to be conducted.
You have failed to offer any objective criticism to a single point we have made. This time we are only asking you to disprove the truth of Maddow's hyperbolic comment that BOB found "wrong."
KZ
I agree with your criticism that TDH shouldn't rely on reports of statements when the statements themselves are available.
DeleteI'll try to pare things down even further. Darlin' Rachel says that the head of the PA hadn't heard about a study, and "no one else had either." Independent of whether Foye restricted himself to local officials and police, that emboldened statement is false. And TDH is complaining that Darlin' Rachel knew that.
I know you're from out of town, but in this part of the universe confusing the thing with its label is considered a cognitive problem. I had thought you were hung up on the fact that whatever the clowns claimed to be doing, it wasn't a real engineered study. No one claims that's what they were doing, of course. Now it appears that you think they couldn't have been studying anything unless they used the word "study." You can't define yourself right.
TDH has Darlin' Rachel saying that no one had heard about a study. And that's true if you insist that the only thing that could be a study is one set up by traffic engineers and approved up the line in the PA hierarchy. Or if you insist that no one can study anything unless he announces that what he's doing is a "study" in so many word. My objective criticism is that those two points are nonsense.
Just to be sure, let me repeat that whatever the clowns claimed to be doing, it might be a ruse or a hoax, a cover story for nefarious action.
I don't know how you measure excessive self-promotion, difficulty in defense, or cumbersomeness of proof. Gore sponsored two acts, the National High-Performance Computer Act in 1988 and the Information Infrastructure and Technology Act in 1992. The former helped link academic institutions; the latter made the networks open to commercial traffic. People involved in the early days of the internet credit Gore as a legislative champion.