TUESDAY, MAY 24, 2022
While you're at it, take a look at his tape: Until this week, we didn't know much about Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga).
In fact, we didn't know anything about him. Watching Rachel Maddow last night, we did learn that he has a funny name.
(For background, see this morning's report.)
After sharing that observation, Maddow treated viewers to an amazingly selective account of a recent flap involving Loudermilk. Included was a brief, selectively edited excerpt from a recent videotape by the Georgia congressman.
We don't know what the ultimate facts might turn out to be with respect to this recent flap. (To date, we've seen no evidence that he did anything wrong in the run-up to January 6.) We do know that Maddow's presentation last night struck us as an example of dissembling all the way down.
If you watched Maddow's show last night, you saw that brief excerpt from that videotaped statement. The excerpt ended with a classic "Maddow edit:"
Loudermilk's statement was abruptly cut off as he continued to speak. For her part, Maddow mugged clowned and wonderfully joked about the tiny excerpt she'd shown us.
With that in mind, go ahead—take the Loudermilk Challenge! Just click here, then watch the entire tape. This will allow you to see the various disclaimers Maddow edited out of her presentation.
We don't know what the ultimate facts will turn out to be in this contretemps. We do know dissembling and selective presentation when we see them—and given the way our "cable news" works, we see then a lot of the time.
You can't assume that the things you see on "cable news" are accurate and fair. That's plainly true of the various bogus things you see at Fox, but it's also true about the statements and entertainments issued by our tribe's stars.
As a journalistic system, partisan news has totally broken down. Especially if you watched Maddow last night, we'll suggest that you go ahead and look at that (complete) tape.
You can't assume our stars are right. Our stars are routinely wrong.
Didn't see it.
ReplyDeleteI hope she's not making it look like he isn't a supporter of treason.
"To date, we've seen no evidence that he did anything wrong in the run-up to January 6."
ReplyDeleteFor one thing, he has not told a straight story about the tour he gave on 1/5. At first he denied there was any tour, then he admitted to a tour, and now he is saying it was a family group. Republicans have issued a blanket denial of any tours. The 1/6 Commission has asked Loudermilk to voluntarily answer questions. Lying is typically evidence of some wrongdoing, if only failure to tell the truth about an event under investigation.
Somerby would have to be there are see for himself, since he never acknowledges proof of anything when it comes to someone he likes -- such as a conservative like Loudermilk. If Rachel were the one conducting tours, Somerby would be all over it.
"We do know dissembling and selective presentation when we see them"
ReplyDeleteBut apparently not when it is Loudermilk doing the dissembling...
This is the same issue as when Somerby complains that Trump gets cut off by cable news when he is in the middle of telling an obvious lie.
ReplyDeleteSomerby seems to want the audience to hear every word of the excuses and dissembling on the right, by folks such as Loudermilk, so that audience members will have every opportunity to believe the lies being told. Why else would we need to hear every weasel word and empty phrase when these guys are bullshitting in response to a question? There was nothing magical that Maddow cut off that would dig Loudermilk out of his previous untruths.
Is it fair that someone like Loudermilk should conduct a tour on 1/5 and then lie about doing it until he gets caught because his tour group was caught on video? Somerby thinks it is unfair that Loudermilk's entire excuse wasn't broadcast, but how fair is it to his constituents that he lies and then wants to tell more lies to get out of his predicament? Do we owe a liar equal time to correct his first lie with subsequent lies? How fair is it when an elected official lies to the people who elected him to do the people's business, which does not include insurrection?
ReplyDeleteSomerby thinks it is still possible that Loudermilk did nothing wrong -- but then why did he lie about it? And by lying, he made himself 100% fair game for Rachel Maddow.
"You can't assume our stars are right. Our stars are routinely wrong."
ReplyDeleteAnd yet Somerby cannot come up with a single piece of evidence that Maddow was wrong about what she said. And MSNBC has lawyers who go over their scripts, to make sure they aren't subject to slander, before airtime. Too bad Somerby's essays aren't similarly checked, given how unfair he keeps being to Maddow.
Tomorrow I will be starting a topic about how Somerby and his terrifying legion of right wing fanboys can not distinguish between the concepts of honesty and confession.
ReplyDeleteFollowing Somerby's logic, it is as if a confession, to a crime for example, is the same as someone possessing honesty as a trait. Both concepts could be technically similar but are vastly different in any kind of meaningful way.
There was another school shooting today. Digby reposted her plea to reduce gun violence through reasonable gun control. Among other things, she said:
ReplyDelete"We have all the epidemiological evidence we need to know that gun control will save lives. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, after DC banned handguns, gun homicides fell by 25 percent and gun suicides fell by 23 percent. Even more dramatically, after Australia banned automatic, semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns and initiated a buyback program to take 700,000 guns out of private hands after a horrific mass shooting nearly 20 years ago, they have not had a single mass shooting since. Gun homicides fell by 59 per cent and firearm-related suicides fell by 65 per cent with no consequential rise in homicides and suicides by other means.
They didn’t cure violence or hatred or depression or death. They just shut down the pump. We could too. It’s really not that complicated."
If Somerby cared about school children, he would have posted something like this after today's shooting. Instead he chose to hate on Rachel Maddow and defend Loudermilk from the lies he has been telling.
Good points made here today, if Loudermilk changed his story, that's a thing. If Bob could clearly illustrate that he DIDN'T change his story (but rather issued disclaimers) he could easily point to them, rather than link to them, but sometimes even Bob doesn't want to look foolish.
ReplyDeleteBob may not be all wrong here. Loudermilk being questioned does not in itself mean anything much and MSNBC does play such games. Matt Geitz is an repugnant figure, but MSNBC's long standing attempt to brand him as a sex criminal has still come to nothing.
Sadly, this is all sort of moot, because if it DOES turn
out Loudermilk was guilty of what he is only suspected of now, you can be sure that's the last Bob will ever write about him.