The things we liberals aren't told: Yesterday, Kevin Drum wrote about the widely-discussed new book about Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford. His post appeared beneath this headline:
New Kavanaugh Book Is a Gift for ConservativesUnfortunately, that headline may well be right. We say that because the book includes new information—new information which we liberals pretty much aren't being told.
Conservatives are being given the new information, on Fox and at conservative sites. But we aren't being told Over Here, and we haven't been told to date by the New York Times.
In short, we're being propagandized. Here's the part of Drum's post which we principally have in mind:
DRUM (9/17/19): Back during Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, Chistine Blasey Ford accused Kavanaugh of pinning her on a bed and covering her mouth—before eventually letting her go—at a small house party when he was 17. In the book, we learn that Leland Keyser, a friend of Ford’s who was at the party, now says that she doesn’t remember the event and that “it just didn’t make sense.” And: “It would be impossible for me to be the only girl at a get-together with three guys, have her leave, and then not figure out how she’s getting home. I just really didn’t have confidence in the story.” Keyser says that her original equivocal testimony had been delivered under duress.That's right! According to Blasey Ford, Leland Keyser, a high school friend, was the only other girl at the gathering where the alleged attack occurred. But here's what Keyser told the two Times reporters concerning Blasey Ford's account:
“I don’t have any confidence in the story.” (We're taking our quote from the work of the Times reporters in this Atlantic essay.)
There's an uglier part of what Keyser told the Times reporters. As Drum notes, she told them that she was pressured by supporters of Blasey Ford to get in line with Blasey Ford's story.
More accurately, Keyser seems to have said that she was threatened by Blasey Ford's supporters. “I was told behind the scenes that certain things could be spread about me if I didn’t comply,” she told the Times reporters.
The fact that Keyser has said these things doesn't mean that they're true. The fact that liberals haven't been told these things is part of the way our liberal orgs subject us to propaganda—keep us barefoot and clueless.
The fact that Keyser has said these things doesn't mean that Blasey Ford's account is false. The fact that you haven't heard these things means that you're being played. Propaganda isn't just for The Others any more!
The New York Times didn't include this information in the multiply-bungled excerpt of the new book which it published on Sunday. It did feature a grossly misleading account of another claimed assault, but only after editors removed the part of the piece which explained that the woman who was allegedly mistreated has refused to make any such claim and has apparently told friends that she recalls no such incident.
(Long after Sunday's report was published, the Times reinserted that basic information in its published account.)
If you were watching Fox last night, you were told about these facts and about these major journalistic bungles. You were told, not unreasonably, that this information helps you see how fake the New York Times is.
If you get your news from liberal sources, you probably haven't heard these things. If you want to read a bit more, we'll link you to two sources:
At this link, you'll see a report about these matters by the Washington Post's Aaron Blake. The report appeared on-line at 9:30 yesterday morning. It didn't appear in today's hard-copy Post.
At this second link, you'll find a report by Mollie Hemingway, who published a book in July about these same events. Hemingway apparently reports the same things in her book, but she seems to say that Keyser spoke with her off the record. She's quite sardonic in her appraisal of the Times reporters, possibly with reason.
Did Kavanaugh assault Blasey Ford? We have no way of knowing.
Is information being kept from us liberals? Dearest darlings, use your heads! Did you have to ask?
"In short, we're being propagandized."
ReplyDeleteMeh. You're being zombified, dear Bob.
In fact, you've been zombified for a long time now. Anyone who's not a zombie could tell that the anti-Kavanaugh dembot campaign was a total zombie-cult fraud.
And please note that it was perfectly clear from the first moment it started, and without any revelations from Mrs Keyser...
Dembot zombie says, "I can't believe Republicans put another sexual predator on the Supreme Court."
DeleteNon-dembot zombie says, "Republicans put another sexual predator on the Supreme Court."
Are we now taking observation clues from someone who sees Trump side with the Establishment every single day since January 20, 2017, and still pretends Trump is for the underclass?
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Hemingway can't get arrested in the MSM with her best-selling book.
ReplyDeletePutin won't allow them to cover it.
CBS News gave a report of the facts, but if you follow a diverse crowd on Twitter, you'll get all sides.
An excerpt or summary of a book cannot possibly include all of the facts. The problem is that facts important to one side are less important to the other. I disagree strongly with Somerby's assertion that we were "played" because that implies intent to deceive and I don't believe that is what happened when certain pieces of information were omitted by the media.
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DeleteIn a book review that describes the author's elucidations on the charges against Kavanaugh, it is certainly pertinent to relay the info that a purported witness and victim have no memory of the event.
DeleteThe veracity of the victim and witness can be arguable (and that too is primarily mitigating to the accuser's side), but the prime relevance of this info is not.
You don't prove allegations by bringing forward witnesses who don't remember. These people were never important. The ones who do remember are the facts. It isn't surprising that folks who have been drinking don't remember what happened, especially after a long time has gone by.
DeleteThis is not relevant info.
If the recollections of the three other people at the scene are irrelevant information in a book about the Blasey Ford-Kavanaugh ordeal, who else would be? Kavanaugh?
DeleteRelevant info would be someone who WAS there and who DOES remember what happened. Kavanaugh is not a good source because he has so much to gain from lying and because he showed himself to be a liar by lying under oath about trivial things contradicted by his own yearbook and calendar. Kavanaugh never should have been confirmed under the circumstances. A supreme court justice who lies is unacceptable.
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DeleteNo, it’s relevant when Blasey Ford designates four other people as being at a house (a locale she can’t remember, on a day and a year she can’t remember) and none of them remember being there.
It’s also relevant that the woman who Kavanaugh is being charged of attacking, doesn’t remember the attack ever happening.
This was the new ground the authors covered in the book. You know...the subject of the NYT review...
"The fact that you haven't heard these things means that you're being played."
ReplyDeleteSomerby apparently thinks liberals should be told about every piece of misinformation the conservatives decide to float in support of their nominees, candidates, appointees and favorites. That means we would have to hear every crackpot Q-Anon conspiracy theory, every Russian made-up atrocity on Facebook, every lie and denial uttered by one of Trump's cronies. No one has ever functioned that way. No newspaper, no political party, no campaign, no one.
I heard during one of the hurricanes that electrical workers were not being permitted to go to the scene of the damage because of union regulations. That story was debunked by the unions, and by the electrical companies and by several news outlets, but I went to a party and heard that story from one of my friends, repeated as if it were gospel truth. This is what happens. If the same stories were being repeated by liberals as are told by conservatives, there would be even more confusion about what is true and what is false.
In Blasey Ford's case, we don't know what happened. For all we know, the blackmail used to threaten Leland Keyser concerns her behavior at that party and is being wielded by Kavanaugh supporters. Leland Keyser never gave real support to Ford and seems to have either forgotten or wanted to forget what happened to her "friend."
But we know damned well that Kavanaugh told several lies during the hearings. That, by itself, should have disqualified him.
Somerby's call for the left to repeat all the garbage spewed by the right (and no similar claim urged upon the right) is the strangest, most outrageous nonsense to appear here since Somerby last claimed to be liberal.
Yes, liberals aren’t being told about this. Except at Kevin Drum’s blog and the Washington Post.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, Keyser said *at the time* back in 2018 that she didn’t remember being at that party and that she hadn’t known Kavanaugh. She and Ford weren’t close friends, and they had not kept in touch. She was never a corroborating witness for Blasey-Ford. And yet, at the time, she said she “believed Blasey Ford.” Based on what? And now, she says she “doesn’t believe” Blasey-Ford, (again, based on what evidence?) and that she felt “pressure” to say she believed her. What kind of pressure? Was she actually lying when she said she believed her? If you have no recollection or knowledge of an event, why wouldn’t you just say “I don’t know if it’s true.” I doubt she was facing any grave threat if she had said that.
As to the claim that this is a “gift to conservatives”: that may be true, inasmuch as almost everything is construed by the media and the GOP to be a gift to conservatives.
And I would bet that conservatives aren’t hearing this (from Drum):
“The FBI did a pretty cursory investigation of all this. This, of course, is something we’ve known and complained loudly about from the very start.”
The truth is actually more damning, in that the White House limited the scope and the GOP Senate limited the time frame for a proper investigation. Kavanaugh wasn’t on trial in a legal proceeding; he was being confirmed to the Supreme Court. It wasn’t too much to ask for a thorough investigation.
And, as an aside, does anything ever get labeled as a “gift for Democrats/liberals?”
...
Didn’t think so.
It’s a type of media narrative.
The entire main-stream media is a gift for Democrats/liberals.
DeleteSure, 6:06. It was a gift to Democrats when the msm gave untold free coverage to Trump and his “rallies.”
DeleteIt was a gift to Democrats when the msm ran hit pieces on Hillary’s emails and a massive front page expose full of bogus allegations about Uranium One.
It was a gift to Democrats when the msm savaged Al Gore and brought about W.
It was a gift to Democrats when the msm pushed the Lewinsky nonsense.
It was a gift to Democrats when the msm aired the Swift Boat slanders against Kerry.
And on and on.
6:06,
DeleteYou don't really expect corporations (which own the mainstream media) to be on the side of Conservatives, would you? These are businesses. Why would they throw-in with a group of people proud of their ignorance of things like mathematics and economics? IOW, what kind of dembot zombie expects corporations to sign-up for a suicide pact?
The problem for Kavanaugh is that most of us went to high school. That means we all knew guys who did that kind of stuff, way beyond rape. In the OC, a Sheriff son's was caught on video raping an unconscious girl in 2002. Many of us went to keggers and frat parties and high school parties with no adult supervision. We know what happens. Kavanaugh still comes across as that guy and his denials are entirely implausible. And there are just too many witnesses coming from all different sources, for them to be dug up by the left and paid to testify against him. His own yearbook and calendar convict him of things he denied, if not Blasey Ford's assault charge. But the most damning thing is that the Republicans were so eager to get the hearing done, to railroad him onto the court. They didn't let due process take its course. It is almost as if they wanted to get it done before the real evidence came out or the public tide turned against him. That suggests that his own party thought he was guilty. And the testimony given in private has never been released either. Funny that Somerby isn't calling for that to be made public. It is what a liberal would do.
ReplyDeleteHis own party didn't "think" Kavanaugh was guilty. They KNEW he was guilty of sexual predation. That's why they put him on the Supreme Court. That, and the fact that Republicans are pieces of shit, of course.
Delete'Is information being kept from us liberals?'
ReplyDeleteWell, from Trumptards like you, certainly.
Creating an uproar over trivial omitted details is intended to draw attention away from the content of the book itself. This is a standard Trump-style distraction technique.
ReplyDeleteNotice that Somerby is participating in this distraction campaign to undermine the focus on this new book and perhaps reduce its sales/readership. That isn't very liberal of him, is it?
Trivial details such as the woman that Kavanaugh and pals purportedly forced into touching his gentiles denying that she has any awareness of that assault?
DeleteLittle stuff we don’t need to know?
Just because someone has forgotten what may have happened at a drunken party, doesn't mean nothing happened, so this info is not exoneration. That's why it is irrelevant. It doesn't bear on what happened one way or the other.
DeleteI never argued that. I have said that that in a review that delves into the book’s info about a not widely publicized accuser who says he watched a girl being attacked, it is most certainly relevant to stipulate that the object of such an attack has no recollection of being attacked. And it’s relevant to also report the book’s info that Leland Keyser has now concluded that Blasey Ford’s story couldn’t have happened though she was pressured by political operatives to suggest that it had.
DeleteI leave it to you to characterize these inconvenient women as likely being so sloshed as to be utterly insignificant...except to the authors of the reviewed book...
It's too bad the FBI didn't have time to do a complete and thorough investigation, eh, Cec?
DeleteMao,
DeleteThey do nothing when Trump screws the working class in favor of the Establishment, as well.
Bet you don't think that's a shame.
Isn't Limpdick Dittohead Mao adorable, riding to the rescue of the elite entitled preppy boy, Brett. His obsession with bestiality is a little sick though.
DeleteConservatives: They are who we thought they were.
DeleteOh? But bestiality is your favorite pastime, Hillary. Don't be coy, dear.
DeleteCheck!
DeleteSomerby countdown: how long before he calls Blasey-Ford a grifter?
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