SATURDAY, MAY 18, 2013
And looking ahead to next week: Below, we’ll offer three major takeaways from this past week of bullroar concerning Benghazi.
At the risk of repetition, our first takeaway will be this:
Your press corps simply cannt reed reel gudd: Eight days ago, ABC News released twelve versions of the now-famous “talking points” concerning Benghazi. To read that report, just click here.
Among the discoveries: In its first proposed version of this white paper, the CIA had included this paragraph: “Initial press reporting linked the attack to Ansar al-Sharia. The group has since released a statement that its leadership did not order the attacks, but it did not deny that some of its members were involved.”
In fact, Ansar al-Sharia had made a formal statement saying that none of its members were involved in the attack. We have no idea if that claim was accurate.
Much more obviously, “initial press reporting” simply isn’t a valid source for something this important. That said, this blindingly obvious fact hasn’t been obvious to the press corps over the past eight days.
Among the screeching hyenas at Fox, the scrubbing of that reference to Ansar al-Sharia has been treated like one of the cornerstones of the alleged White House/State Department “cover-up.” As we've seen this screeching continue, we’ve seen no journalist note an obvious fact—it would have been completely crazy to leave that passage in!
You can’t make such an important claim based on something you read in newspapers. Crazily, the mainstream press has completely failed to note this.
We’ve told you this for a very long time—your major journalists don’t know how to read. The lunacy of that attribution leaps out from that first CIA proposal. But no one in the press corps saw it, even though this lunacy undermines one of the major complaints against Susan Rice and the administration.
In the most major ways, your “press corps” simply can’t function. This brings us to our second takeaway:
Jonathan Karl made a howling error in that key ABC report: When Jonathan Karl released The Twelve Versions, he made some howling errors concerning a couple of e-mails.
In all honesty, these errors weren’t hugely important. Reaction to The Twelve Versions would have been the same if Karl hadn’t made these errors.
But Karl did make gigantic errors—and when his errors came to light, his response was stunningly evasive. We haven’t discussed this topic yet. We will next week.
The big TV stars of the liberal press corps have egregiously failed you: As Susan Rice was thrown down the stairs last fall, the mainstream press corps egregiously failed to challenge the claims being made against her.
That said, so did the big TV stars of the emerging liberal world! Sadly, their egregious failures to cope continued this past week.
Yesterday, we noted the way Chris Hayes bought the Benghazi con last fall. Everybody makes mistakes at some point—but in that case, Brother Hayes got massively conned.
That said, the whole range of stars on MSNBC ran and hid from this gong-show scandal all through the fall of last year. To the extent that they tried to address the “scandal” last week, they once again massively failed.
On Monday, we will start with Rachel Maddow’s attempts to discuss what Karl did while trying to avoid naming his name. On balance, Maddow doesn’t have the juice. In our view, she has demonstrated this problem again in the past two nights.
When you tune to MSNBC, you may think you see an array of bright young liberal stars who are there to defend your interests and your positions. Why, one is even a professor! They constantly say that they’re nerds!
We will suggest that you look again. That channel has egregiously failed in the nine months since Rice’s crucifixion began. First, they all ran off and hid in the woods, refusing to speak on Rice’s behalf. When they finally tried to respond, they showed the world that they didn’t know how.
That channel continued to fail you this week. On balance, do these heavily-marketed liberal children actually have the juice?
Coming Monday: Maddow smacks [name withheld]
Chris Hayes enjoyed watching Wednesday’s Hardball!
FRIDAY, MAY 17, 2013
We had a different reaction: We were struck by several things Chris Hayes said on last night's All In.
For starters, we were struck by this:
Everybody makes mistakes. Hayes’ mistake concerning Benghazi came with the cheese and the onions:
One week later, he took it all back. But good lord! Before seeing this as a nothing-burger, Hayes got massively conned. Fox served him his burger with fries.
Everybody makes mistakes! That said, we were even less impressed by the next part of Hayes’ statement last night:
Simply put, Matthews was off his meds Wednesday night. One hundred pages of e-mails had just been released, and Christopher Matthews was badly in need of a calming injection.
Like his pal Maureen Dowd before him, Matthews seemed to have reverted to the bad old days of the Clinton Rules, in which he spent many years attacking both Clintons, then Gore.
As he started Wednesday’s program, Matthews seemed to see acts of deception under every bed. In his program’s opening minutes, he threw this pile of paranoia at poor Alex Wagner:
No tape of this segment is available. To read the full transcript, click here.
In recent years, it seemed that Matthews had been repurposed through trips to re-education camp. But on Wednesday night, an earlier version of the man seemed to be on the air.
Matthews seemed full of paranoia. As usual, he also seemed to be light on his basic facts. Later in the 5 PM hour, the unprepared fellow asked this:
The previous Friday, that question had been answered. As usual, Matthews showed no sign of knowing this.
Why did Rice say a spontaneous demonstration occurred in reaction to the protest in Cairo? Duh! Because that’s what the CIA said it believed, right from its first proposed talking points forward.
Five days after that fact became clear, Matthews still didn’t seem to know it. And we’ll have to say that his younger sidekicks didn’t rush to tell him.
Being “in the business” and all, Hayes enjoyed that program. We didn’t enjoy the return of the ranting Matthew from the very bad old days when a whole lot people like Hayes purchased a whole string of burgers.
But then, we’ve told you the truth about Matthews’ work since Day One. On The One True Liberal Channel, the young TV stars never will.
In search of the missing tapes: Tapes of Hardball’s 5 PM hour are largely AWOL at the show’s site. To watch Matthews rant at Peter Alexander about the scrubbing of Ansar al-Sharia, just click here.
Matthews didn’t know that the original cite of Ansar al-Sharia was sourced to “initial press reporting.” In typical fashion, Alexander didn’t tell him.
Gaze on the miracle of your press corps! Five days later, no one had noticed how crazy that sourcing was.
To read the full transcript, click this. Not being in the business ourselves, we’d call this program very bad—a nasty reminder of the years that were governed by Clinton Rules.
We had a different reaction: We were struck by several things Chris Hayes said on last night's All In.
For starters, we were struck by this:
HAYES (5/16/13): Let’s talk about Benghazi first. Here is my take on Benghazi. It is what we like to call in the business a nothing-burger. There is nothing there.We were struck by this airy dismissal because we remembered Hayes’ original take on this topic. Last October, he wolfed that nothing-burger down, complete with all the condiments.
Everybody makes mistakes. Hayes’ mistake concerning Benghazi came with the cheese and the onions:
HAYES (10/13/12): The attack continues to be a political issue because it is now clear to just about everyone that the story that we heard, the American people, in wake of the attack, was simply not accurate.One month after the killing attack, Hayes had completely purchased the Fox line on the topic.
[...]
We were told, we all read the reports and the government was saying this was in response to the video and now, it’s just clear that it wasn’t in response to the video. In fact, it was a pretty well premeditated plan. I’ve read some reports that say 100 men overran the embassy with guns. I mean, this was a militarized attack.
The question is, why the gap? Why did the people who should have known not know?
One week later, he took it all back. But good lord! Before seeing this as a nothing-burger, Hayes got massively conned. Fox served him his burger with fries.
Everybody makes mistakes! That said, we were even less impressed by the next part of Hayes’ statement last night:
HAYES (5/16/13): Let’s talk about Benghazi first. Here is my take on Benghazi. It is what we like to call in the business a nothing-burger. There is nothing there. And I think the—We’re glad that Hayes enjoyed Wednesday night’s Hardball. We had a very different reaction to that horrible program.
Well OK, here’s 91 percent of very conservative self-identified Americans say it is worse than Watergate.
Howard, you were sitting at Chris Matthews’ table yesterday in what was my favorite, probably my favorite ten minutes of television all week, and I’m not saying that facetiously, which was you and David Corn and Michael Isikoff and Chris with papers spread out before you reading e-mails, looking for nuggets. But do you agree there is nothing here?
Simply put, Matthews was off his meds Wednesday night. One hundred pages of e-mails had just been released, and Christopher Matthews was badly in need of a calming injection.
Like his pal Maureen Dowd before him, Matthews seemed to have reverted to the bad old days of the Clinton Rules, in which he spent many years attacking both Clintons, then Gore.
As he started Wednesday’s program, Matthews seemed to see acts of deception under every bed. In his program’s opening minutes, he threw this pile of paranoia at poor Alex Wagner:
MATTHEWS (5/15/13): The weird thing here, Alex—and I know you look at politics the way I look at it—the weird thing is the absence of the main players. Where was the president when Susan Rice went on Meet the Press? Did he call her up afterwards and say, “Good work, you covered my butt, you did a great job today?” Did he talk to her before the performance?This was the same under-medicated fellow who spent twenty months smut-talking Candidate Gore, then smut-talked Hillary Clinton right through the spring of 2008.
This was her audition to be secretary of state—of course, with Valerie helping her and Michelle Obama rooting for her and everybody rooting for her on that side of the White House. And they act like they had nothing to do with it!
Where was Hillary Clinton in prepping her for that? What is this "the leadership," this weird, spooky language about who approved or didn’t approve the talking points, the leadership in the building, the “building leadership.” What kind of talk is that? Why don’t they say “the secretary of state” if they mean that? If not, why didn’t they use a term to suggest that?
And also, what role did Hillary Clinton play in all this? We found out she was on the phone to Benghazi hours after the attack, and she never said so. It’s all this stepping back. Where was Tom Donilon, the national security adviser? All these principals have stepped into the darkness, and that’s why we’re reaching around like blind people trying to find out what happened with all these nobody staffers that nobody cares about being brought. Now we’re looking at their e-mails! How about bringing the bosses in?
This president has faded into the woodwork, along with his top people, it looks to me, for their convenience.
No tape of this segment is available. To read the full transcript, click here.
In recent years, it seemed that Matthews had been repurposed through trips to re-education camp. But on Wednesday night, an earlier version of the man seemed to be on the air.
Matthews seemed full of paranoia. As usual, he also seemed to be light on his basic facts. Later in the 5 PM hour, the unprepared fellow asked this:
MATTHEWS (5/15/13): OK, let’s take a middle case. They didn’t want to mention al Qaeda. They didn’t want to mention the previous attacks. But why did they continue to say through the mouth of Susan Rice on Meet the Press that it was basically a demonstration that evolved into a terrorist attack, or into an attack? Why are they still trying to play down it was terrorism?Matthews still seemed to think that Rice had only appeared on Meet the Press. Beyond that, he didn’t know why “they” had continued to say, through her mouth, “that it was basically a demonstration that evolved into an attack.”
The previous Friday, that question had been answered. As usual, Matthews showed no sign of knowing this.
Why did Rice say a spontaneous demonstration occurred in reaction to the protest in Cairo? Duh! Because that’s what the CIA said it believed, right from its first proposed talking points forward.
Five days after that fact became clear, Matthews still didn’t seem to know it. And we’ll have to say that his younger sidekicks didn’t rush to tell him.
Being “in the business” and all, Hayes enjoyed that program. We didn’t enjoy the return of the ranting Matthew from the very bad old days when a whole lot people like Hayes purchased a whole string of burgers.
But then, we’ve told you the truth about Matthews’ work since Day One. On The One True Liberal Channel, the young TV stars never will.
In search of the missing tapes: Tapes of Hardball’s 5 PM hour are largely AWOL at the show’s site. To watch Matthews rant at Peter Alexander about the scrubbing of Ansar al-Sharia, just click here.
Matthews didn’t know that the original cite of Ansar al-Sharia was sourced to “initial press reporting.” In typical fashion, Alexander didn’t tell him.
Gaze on the miracle of your press corps! Five days later, no one had noticed how crazy that sourcing was.
To read the full transcript, click this. Not being in the business ourselves, we’d call this program very bad—a nasty reminder of the years that were governed by Clinton Rules.
BULLROAR OVER BENGHAZI: Return of the famous old Clinton Rules!
FRIDAY, MAY 17, 2013
Part 5—The ultimate insult revealed: An eight-month insult to your intelligence will be revealed in Sunday’s Washington Post.
No one will notice that this has occurred. But still!
The deconstruction will be performed by Michael Hirsh. He will be identified as “the National Journal’s chief correspondent.”
In the paper’s Outlook section, Hirsh will publish a piece bearing this headline: “Five Myths About Benghazi.” This highly instructive piece has already been posted on-line.
As he examines the first of those five myths, Hirsh will tell Post readers what follows. He refers to Susan Rice’s appearances on the now-famous September 16 Sunday programs, at least some of which were taped:
Ambassador Rice “did allow...that ‘extremist elements’ might have taken part in the attack?”
Hirsh makes it sound like Rice said that in passing, or like it was somehow forced from her lips. In fact, on all four shows where Rice was asked about Benghazi, that was her principal explanation of who had staged the attack.
“Extremists armed with heavy weapons” arrived at the scene and “hijacked events!” Rice offered some version of that statement on all four programs that day. It was her principal explanation of who had staged the attack.
That was Rice’s principal statement, offered on all four programs. But Hirsh is playing that statement down in accord with the famous old Clinton Rules, in which good boys and girls in the mainstream press corps must defer, in all major ways, to whatever crazy attacks are coming from the likes of Dan Burton. Or maybe from Saint John McCain!
Hirsh is deferring to the right in that peculiar phrasing. But even as he underplays what Rice said on those Sunday programs, he authors a truly remarkable statement. Here it is, standing alone:
“Even now, the FBI and other agencies are not certain who the culprits were.”
That is an astonishing statement, even though Hirsh breezes past it. That statement pulls back the curtain on an eight-month insult to your intelligence.
Here’s how:
Over the past eight months, crackpots of the pseudo-right have made several major charges concerning the perfidy of Rice and Clinton and Obama and the administration in general. Here are the two most common claims, each of which has been widely bruited just in the past week:
That’s what we learned last Friday. This coming Sunday morning, Hirsh will state an amazing fact, although he will hide its vast implications:
Even today, the FBI and the CIA don’t know who staged this attack!
Is Hirsh right in that assertion? As far as we know, he is. In the past week, have you seen any major newspaper or news broadcast explain who is being pursued for staging this attack?
Even today, eight months later, there have been no real arrests or apprehensions. Meanwhile, as for Ansar al-Sharia, everyone knows where they can be found! In February, the Washington Post, and other newspapers, described the group’s ongoing role in Benghazi’s public affairs:
But so what? All through the past week, crackpots of the pseudo-right have been screeching and wailing about the way the CIA’s original talking points got scrubbed of its claim that Ansar al-Sharia staged the attack. Just to refresh you, this is the clownish first proposal which ended up getting scrubbed:
Here comes that insult to your intelligence, based upon what Hirsh is writing:
Even today, eight months later, the U.S. government doesn’t know if Ansar al-Sharia staged the attack! And yet, crackpots have complained all week about the way that highlighted claim got scrubbed from the talking points—a passage which assigned blame to Ansar al-Sharia based on initial press reporting!
As we have noted all week, you’d have to be crazy to leave that claim in an official set of talking points—in an official white paper. If American journalists knew how to read, they would have mocked that proposed talking point when it was first made public last Friday.
But American journalists rarely show signs of knowing how to read. They do know how to make up novels, in which they have deferred to the right in matters like this ever since the 1990s, when the Clinton Rules first took effect.
When we started our five-part report this week, we started with Maureen Dowd. Over the past three decades, Dowd has been one of the craziest people in the press corps—and one of the most influential.
Last Sunday, Dowd wrote a typically clueless column about Benghazi. At one point, she dumbly wondered why Susan Rice would have mentioned the spontaneous protest. At another point, she very dumbly typed the passage which follows.
As is often the case when Dowd types, the logic was very much lacking. But the mind-reader was IN:
Dearest darlings! Why ever not? People like Dowd build their novels that way. Why shouldn't the American government?
In that passage, Dowd got herself in line with the latest attacks from the crackpot right. In the process, she reverted to one of her favorite old themes, the lying of Hillary Clinton.
Even after those proposed talking-points had been published for all to see, it didn’t occur to this dumbest of humans that the Ansar al-Sharia reference may have been struck because it didn’t make sense. Because it doesn’t make sense to base such a claim on “initial press reporting.”
Instead, the doctor was IN—and the doctor was reading minds.
According to Dowd, that reference to Ansar was struck because of Hillary’s political needs! But then, Dowd has been typing this novel forever. She can type that novel in her sleep, perhaps even when she’s drunk.
In Sunday morning’s Washington Post, Michael Hirsh is going to say that the FBI and the CIA still don’t know who staged the attack. But he isn’t going to make an obvious connection:
He isn’t going to connect that statement to the claim which has flown around all week, in which Ansar al-Sharia should have been named as the culprit. Based on press reports!
If Hirsh is right in what he says, that repeated complaint has been crazy this week. If Hirsh is right in what he says, it would have been crazy to publish the claims which were correctly scrubbed.
But no one has told you that this week, and Hirsh is failing to make the connection. In our view, Dowd may have explained why this has occurred right at the start of her column:
The Clinton Rules gave us a decade of loud inane pseudo-scandals. When they were applied to Candidate Gore, they gave us twenty months of ginned-up claims, producing eight years of George Bush.
As of Sunday, our very dumbest pseudo-journalist felt that the Clinton Rules were back. Lying face down on Dear Jack’s shag, she wondered why the perfidious Rice had cited that spontaneous protest. And she said that Hillary lied when that claim about Ansar al-Sharia got scrubbed from the talking points.
These ideas have been everywhere this week, even though they don’t make sense. But have you noticed something this week? No one has explained the fact that these claims don't make any sense! Even the children on The One Channel can’t seem to tell you that.
Even last night, the children clowned. Why do you think that is?
Next post: The children clown on All In
Part 5—The ultimate insult revealed: An eight-month insult to your intelligence will be revealed in Sunday’s Washington Post.
No one will notice that this has occurred. But still!
The deconstruction will be performed by Michael Hirsh. He will be identified as “the National Journal’s chief correspondent.”
In the paper’s Outlook section, Hirsh will publish a piece bearing this headline: “Five Myths About Benghazi.” This highly instructive piece has already been posted on-line.
As he examines the first of those five myths, Hirsh will tell Post readers what follows. He refers to Susan Rice’s appearances on the now-famous September 16 Sunday programs, at least some of which were taped:
HIRSH (5/19/13): [T]here is little doubt that Rice’s taped remarks reflected the best intelligence assessment of the attacks at the time. As more information came in, intelligence officials changed that assessment publicly. If the talking points were extensively edited after an interagency consultation, that was fairly normal procedure, especially when it came to deleting classified portions referring to specific groups. Rice did allow, in her comments on TV, that “extremist elements” might have taken part in the attack.As has been the norm since the rise of the Clinton Rules, Hirsh is pulling his punches here, deferring to crackpot allegations from the pseudo-conservative world.
Even now, the FBI and other agencies are not certain who the culprits were. In that light, the administration’s efforts to remove references to specific groups look more judicious than nefarious.
Ambassador Rice “did allow...that ‘extremist elements’ might have taken part in the attack?”
Hirsh makes it sound like Rice said that in passing, or like it was somehow forced from her lips. In fact, on all four shows where Rice was asked about Benghazi, that was her principal explanation of who had staged the attack.
“Extremists armed with heavy weapons” arrived at the scene and “hijacked events!” Rice offered some version of that statement on all four programs that day. It was her principal explanation of who had staged the attack.
That was Rice’s principal statement, offered on all four programs. But Hirsh is playing that statement down in accord with the famous old Clinton Rules, in which good boys and girls in the mainstream press corps must defer, in all major ways, to whatever crazy attacks are coming from the likes of Dan Burton. Or maybe from Saint John McCain!
Hirsh is deferring to the right in that peculiar phrasing. But even as he underplays what Rice said on those Sunday programs, he authors a truly remarkable statement. Here it is, standing alone:
“Even now, the FBI and other agencies are not certain who the culprits were.”
That is an astonishing statement, even though Hirsh breezes past it. That statement pulls back the curtain on an eight-month insult to your intelligence.
Here’s how:
Over the past eight months, crackpots of the pseudo-right have made several major charges concerning the perfidy of Rice and Clinton and Obama and the administration in general. Here are the two most common claims, each of which has been widely bruited just in the past week:
The two major claims from the right RE Benghazi:Last Friday, we learned that the claim about the spontaneous demonstration came straight from the CIA itself—even though the children on MSNBC still can’t manage to say this. (See our next post.)
Susan Rice lied when she said there had been a spontaneous demonstration in reaction to the protest in Cairo.
The administration lied when it scrubbed the talking points of all references to Ansar al-Sharia and al Qaeda.
That’s what we learned last Friday. This coming Sunday morning, Hirsh will state an amazing fact, although he will hide its vast implications:
Even today, the FBI and the CIA don’t know who staged this attack!
Is Hirsh right in that assertion? As far as we know, he is. In the past week, have you seen any major newspaper or news broadcast explain who is being pursued for staging this attack?
Even today, eight months later, there have been no real arrests or apprehensions. Meanwhile, as for Ansar al-Sharia, everyone knows where they can be found! In February, the Washington Post, and other newspapers, described the group’s ongoing role in Benghazi’s public affairs:
HAUSLOHNER (2/17/13): After the attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission last fall that left the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans dead, the Islamist militia widely accused of leading the assault all but disappeared amid a popular backlash.Is it true? Did Ansar al-Sharia stage the attack? For ourselves, we have no way of knowing. By implication, Hirsh is saying that the government still isn’t sure.
But Ansar al-Sharia is edging back into society, and many of Benghazi's residents now say they want it here.
The militia tentatively resumed its role as guardian of Benghazi's two main hospitals last week. Its fighters have staked out positions at the western entrance to the city. They have also moved back onto their base, and residents say the group has been participating in community cleanup and charity work.
Its resurgence—and that of Rafallah al-Sahati, another Islamist militia—underscores the city's reckoning with a harsh reality, residents said. No one else is capable of securing volatile Benghazi.
But so what? All through the past week, crackpots of the pseudo-right have been screeching and wailing about the way the CIA’s original talking points got scrubbed of its claim that Ansar al-Sharia staged the attack. Just to refresh you, this is the clownish first proposal which ended up getting scrubbed:
ORIGINAL CIA TALKING POINTS (9/14/12): We believe based on currently available information that the attacks in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex.In fact, the group had made a formal statement saying that none of its members were involved. We have no idea if that’s true, but Hirsh is now saying that the CIA still doesn’t know.
The crowd almost certainly was a mix of individuals from across many sectors of Libyan society. That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa’ida participated in the attack.
Initial press reporting linked the attack to Ansar al-Sharia. The group has since released a statement that its leadership did not order the attacks, but it did not deny that some of its members were involved.
Here comes that insult to your intelligence, based upon what Hirsh is writing:
Even today, eight months later, the U.S. government doesn’t know if Ansar al-Sharia staged the attack! And yet, crackpots have complained all week about the way that highlighted claim got scrubbed from the talking points—a passage which assigned blame to Ansar al-Sharia based on initial press reporting!
As we have noted all week, you’d have to be crazy to leave that claim in an official set of talking points—in an official white paper. If American journalists knew how to read, they would have mocked that proposed talking point when it was first made public last Friday.
But American journalists rarely show signs of knowing how to read. They do know how to make up novels, in which they have deferred to the right in matters like this ever since the 1990s, when the Clinton Rules first took effect.
When we started our five-part report this week, we started with Maureen Dowd. Over the past three decades, Dowd has been one of the craziest people in the press corps—and one of the most influential.
Last Sunday, Dowd wrote a typically clueless column about Benghazi. At one point, she dumbly wondered why Susan Rice would have mentioned the spontaneous protest. At another point, she very dumbly typed the passage which follows.
As is often the case when Dowd types, the logic was very much lacking. But the mind-reader was IN:
DOWD (5/12/13): Looking ahead to 2016, Hillaryland needed to shore up the mythology that Clinton was a stellar secretary of state. Prepared talking points about the attack included mentions of Al Qaeda and Ansar al-Sharia, a Libyan militant group, but the State Department got those references struck.Like the rest of the world’s biggest crackpots, Dowd was upset that the reference to Ansar al-Sharia was struck. In the world of this very dumb person, official white papers should base extremely serious claims on “initial press reporting.”
Dearest darlings! Why ever not? People like Dowd build their novels that way. Why shouldn't the American government?
In that passage, Dowd got herself in line with the latest attacks from the crackpot right. In the process, she reverted to one of her favorite old themes, the lying of Hillary Clinton.
Even after those proposed talking-points had been published for all to see, it didn’t occur to this dumbest of humans that the Ansar al-Sharia reference may have been struck because it didn’t make sense. Because it doesn’t make sense to base such a claim on “initial press reporting.”
Instead, the doctor was IN—and the doctor was reading minds.
According to Dowd, that reference to Ansar was struck because of Hillary’s political needs! But then, Dowd has been typing this novel forever. She can type that novel in her sleep, perhaps even when she’s drunk.
In Sunday morning’s Washington Post, Michael Hirsh is going to say that the FBI and the CIA still don’t know who staged the attack. But he isn’t going to make an obvious connection:
He isn’t going to connect that statement to the claim which has flown around all week, in which Ansar al-Sharia should have been named as the culprit. Based on press reports!
If Hirsh is right in what he says, that repeated complaint has been crazy this week. If Hirsh is right in what he says, it would have been crazy to publish the claims which were correctly scrubbed.
But no one has told you that this week, and Hirsh is failing to make the connection. In our view, Dowd may have explained why this has occurred right at the start of her column:
DOWD: The capital is in the throes of déjà vu and preview as it plunges back into Clinton Rules, defined by a presidential aide on the hit ABC show “Scandal” as damage control that goes like this: “It’s not true, it’s not true, it’s not true, it’s old news.”In Dowd’s warped brain, the Clinton Rules involve Hillary’s ubiquitous spinning. In truth, the Clinton Rules were something different. They were the agreement by the mainstream press that any claim, no matter how crazy, would be treated like a serious claim—would be covered for, enabled, assisted, given full journalistic respect.
The Clinton Rules gave us a decade of loud inane pseudo-scandals. When they were applied to Candidate Gore, they gave us twenty months of ginned-up claims, producing eight years of George Bush.
As of Sunday, our very dumbest pseudo-journalist felt that the Clinton Rules were back. Lying face down on Dear Jack’s shag, she wondered why the perfidious Rice had cited that spontaneous protest. And she said that Hillary lied when that claim about Ansar al-Sharia got scrubbed from the talking points.
These ideas have been everywhere this week, even though they don’t make sense. But have you noticed something this week? No one has explained the fact that these claims don't make any sense! Even the children on The One Channel can’t seem to tell you that.
Even last night, the children clowned. Why do you think that is?
Next post: The children clown on All In
Scott and Zelda and Edith and us!
THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013
Not far from our own sprawling campus: With all the excitement about The Great Gatsby, we decided to take a break from the action.
We walked over to Park Avenue to brush up on Scott and Zelda.
That’s right! Just a little more than a block from the northeastern corner of our campus, an historical marker tells the world that Scott and Zelda once lived there.
And not only that! Directly across the street from that spot, a second historical marker remembers part resident Edith Hamilton. In 1930, she wrote The Greek Way, in which she praised "the calm lucidity of the Greek mind."
It’s one of the questions we get most often. When we started the project Socrates Reads, did we have Hamilton in mind?
We get that all the time.
Truly, it’s a good question. But as you may already have guessed, we never discuss our personal thoughts concerning Edith Hamilton.
In our plot for Socrates Reads, the greatest of Greeks returned to earth to examine the work of America’s press corps. What might he have thought of last evening’s Hardball?
You don’t have to be a world-famous scholar to offer a pretty good guess.
Not far from our own sprawling campus: With all the excitement about The Great Gatsby, we decided to take a break from the action.
We walked over to Park Avenue to brush up on Scott and Zelda.
That’s right! Just a little more than a block from the northeastern corner of our campus, an historical marker tells the world that Scott and Zelda once lived there.
And not only that! Directly across the street from that spot, a second historical marker remembers part resident Edith Hamilton. In 1930, she wrote The Greek Way, in which she praised "the calm lucidity of the Greek mind."
It’s one of the questions we get most often. When we started the project Socrates Reads, did we have Hamilton in mind?
We get that all the time.
Truly, it’s a good question. But as you may already have guessed, we never discuss our personal thoughts concerning Edith Hamilton.
In our plot for Socrates Reads, the greatest of Greeks returned to earth to examine the work of America’s press corps. What might he have thought of last evening’s Hardball?
You don’t have to be a world-famous scholar to offer a pretty good guess.
Tommy Vietor gets it right on the Benghazi attack!
THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013
With just one basic correction: Yesterday, the White House released a pile of the e-mails which created the talking-points on Benghazi.
Also yesterday, Tommy Vietor published his thoughts about the whole talking points flap. Until recently, Vietor was spokesman for the National Security Council.
While in that position, he helped create the now famous talking points.
It seems to us that yesterday’s events have made a few blindingly obvious points just that much more clear.
Comprehension often involves repetition. With that in mind, let’s briefly return to a few basic points about those talking points.
Once again, this is the way the CIA’s original proposal began. If we have eyes to see, two obvious facts will leap out at us from this document:
Susan Rice has been crucified for reporting this “current best assessment.” Endless suggestions have been made that she or somebody else made this up.
In fact, this claim came straight from the CIA. It seems to be what they thought at the time.
This fact has been clear since last Friday, when the original version of the talking points was released. But even last night, a gang of star liberals couldn’t manage to state this fact on Hardball. (More on that gong-show tomorrow.)
Wagner, Fineman, Corn and the rest? It’s time for this whole gang to go.
Second important fact: As of September 16, the U.S. government didn’t know who had staged this attack.
The most remarkable part of those proposed talking points was the attribution of that claim about Ansar al-Sharia to “initial press reporting.” Who could have read that document without being struck by the oddness of this statement:
“Initial press reporting linked the attack to Ansar al-Sharia!” Who wouldn’t see the obvious oddness of that statement by the CIA?
Answer: The entire American pundit corps! The entire press corps managed to miss the implication of that statement:
As of September 14-16, the CIA didn’t really know who had staged the attack!
For the record, there’s no reason why they should have known on that early date. When an event of this type takes place, Moses doesn’t descend from a mountain with tablets explaining what happened.
With that in mind, we recommend two chunks from Vietor’s presentation:
Only a child would assume that the CIA—or Rice, or Obama, or Hillary Clinton—would magically know what had happened as of September 15. Unfortunately, the upper-class “press corps” routinely betrays an unfortunate fact:
They actually do have the minds of children. It’s their most obvious trait.
Last night’s 5 PM hour on Hardball was an egregious example of this problem. We’ll discuss that horrible hour tomorrow. For today, let us say this:
In an event like the Benghazi attack, it’s hard to figure out what happened! Why do “journalists” have so much trouble understanding this obvious fact?
Perhaps the answer is this: Our modern journalists rarely try to figure anything out. More often, they simply invent pleasing stories, complete with invented quotes or embellished paraphrase.
We've told you this since the late 1990s: Our “news” is more often a novel. Silly children invent simple-minded tales which satisfy their need for drama while fitting their dim-witted view of the world. Perhaps because they function this way, they don’t seem to know that it takes a lot of work to assemble real information about an event like Benghazi.
They think Daddy should know right now! On those Sunday programs, Rice kept saying that she was giving a preliminary assessment.
Silly Rice! Being children, the nation’s “journalists” don’t comprehend statements like that.
Vietor made one other remark which we will strongly emphasize. It concerns the disgraceful attacks against Rice:
Liberals should be disgusted with the conduct of everyone at MSNBC, from the horrible showboat Matthews over to the horrible Maddow. That said, the career liberal world has behaved this way for at least the last twenty years.
This conduct has been profoundly immoral. This conduct produced a string of disasters, with deaths all over the world.
If you’ve watched The One True Channel this week, you’ve seen this conduct continue.
With just one basic correction: Yesterday, the White House released a pile of the e-mails which created the talking-points on Benghazi.
Also yesterday, Tommy Vietor published his thoughts about the whole talking points flap. Until recently, Vietor was spokesman for the National Security Council.
While in that position, he helped create the now famous talking points.
It seems to us that yesterday’s events have made a few blindingly obvious points just that much more clear.
Comprehension often involves repetition. With that in mind, let’s briefly return to a few basic points about those talking points.
Once again, this is the way the CIA’s original proposal began. If we have eyes to see, two obvious facts will leap out at us from this document:
ORIGINAL CIA TALKING POINTS (9/14/12): We believe based on currently available information that the attacks in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex.First important fact: The CIA was the source for the claim that the Benghazi attack was “spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.”
The crowd almost certainly was a mix of individuals from across many sectors of Libyan society. That being said, we do know that Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qa’ida participated in the attack.
Initial press reporting linked the attack to Ansar al-Sharia. The group has since released a statement that its leadership did not order the attacks, but it did not deny that some of its members were involved.
Susan Rice has been crucified for reporting this “current best assessment.” Endless suggestions have been made that she or somebody else made this up.
In fact, this claim came straight from the CIA. It seems to be what they thought at the time.
This fact has been clear since last Friday, when the original version of the talking points was released. But even last night, a gang of star liberals couldn’t manage to state this fact on Hardball. (More on that gong-show tomorrow.)
Wagner, Fineman, Corn and the rest? It’s time for this whole gang to go.
Second important fact: As of September 16, the U.S. government didn’t know who had staged this attack.
The most remarkable part of those proposed talking points was the attribution of that claim about Ansar al-Sharia to “initial press reporting.” Who could have read that document without being struck by the oddness of this statement:
“Initial press reporting linked the attack to Ansar al-Sharia!” Who wouldn’t see the obvious oddness of that statement by the CIA?
Answer: The entire American pundit corps! The entire press corps managed to miss the implication of that statement:
As of September 14-16, the CIA didn’t really know who had staged the attack!
For the record, there’s no reason why they should have known on that early date. When an event of this type takes place, Moses doesn’t descend from a mountain with tablets explaining what happened.
With that in mind, we recommend two chunks from Vietor’s presentation:
VIETOR (5/14/13): Regarding the talking points, it’s not surprising that the entire government would want the chance to look at and edit that language. This was a dynamic situation and new information was constantly flowing in, and different agencies had important concerns that had to be addressed—the State Department had security concerns, the FBI was worried about its investigation, and the CIA had a major, yet still undisclosed, role.Duh. “This was a dynamic situation and new information was constantly flowing in,” Vietor writes. Regarding the alleged demonstration, “there were many different strands of information indicating there was a protest...In fact, a number of news outlets reported there were protests.”
[...]
Some people have understandably asked how we were so wrong about there being a protest. I don’t know. When I was in government, I asked some intelligence officials how it happened. They told me that there were many different strands of information indicating there was a protest, both open source and intelligence based. In fact, a number of news outlets reported there were protests.
Only a child would assume that the CIA—or Rice, or Obama, or Hillary Clinton—would magically know what had happened as of September 15. Unfortunately, the upper-class “press corps” routinely betrays an unfortunate fact:
They actually do have the minds of children. It’s their most obvious trait.
Last night’s 5 PM hour on Hardball was an egregious example of this problem. We’ll discuss that horrible hour tomorrow. For today, let us say this:
In an event like the Benghazi attack, it’s hard to figure out what happened! Why do “journalists” have so much trouble understanding this obvious fact?
Perhaps the answer is this: Our modern journalists rarely try to figure anything out. More often, they simply invent pleasing stories, complete with invented quotes or embellished paraphrase.
We've told you this since the late 1990s: Our “news” is more often a novel. Silly children invent simple-minded tales which satisfy their need for drama while fitting their dim-witted view of the world. Perhaps because they function this way, they don’t seem to know that it takes a lot of work to assemble real information about an event like Benghazi.
They think Daddy should know right now! On those Sunday programs, Rice kept saying that she was giving a preliminary assessment.
Silly Rice! Being children, the nation’s “journalists” don’t comprehend statements like that.
Vietor made one other remark which we will strongly emphasize. It concerns the disgraceful attacks against Rice:
VIETOR: Looking back, maybe there was a time when tragedies like Benghazi brought our country together, but here we’ve seen the opposite. Susan Rice went on TV and offered the consensus US government view of what we thought happened at that time. For that, she was viciously attacked in deeply personal ways. Members of the Senate called her “incompetent” and suggested she was a liar. That’s outrageous.We’ll only disagree with one point. The “time we start saying as much” arrived a very long time ago. But Lawrence and Rachel and all the ass clowns ran off and hid in the woods.
Imagine if Susan had gone on TV and offered some personal view of what happened or contradicted the intelligence community? She would’ve been charged with manipulating intelligence. The attacks on her have been gratuitous and unfair, and it’s time we start saying as much.
Liberals should be disgusted with the conduct of everyone at MSNBC, from the horrible showboat Matthews over to the horrible Maddow. That said, the career liberal world has behaved this way for at least the last twenty years.
This conduct has been profoundly immoral. This conduct produced a string of disasters, with deaths all over the world.
If you’ve watched The One True Channel this week, you’ve seen this conduct continue.
BULLROAR OVER BENGHAZI: Matthews and Lawrence and Sharpton all fail!
THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013
Part 4—Some things never change: An especially ridiculous moment occurred on Monday evening’s Hardball.
Chris Matthews had been condemned to discuss Benghazi with Rep. Mike Turner, an utterly hapless Republican congressman from the state of Ohio.
Turner has served in the Congress ten years, but his skills, and his knowledge of Benghazi, seem extremely limited. Again and again and again and again, he repeated a limited mantra:
The White House deceived the public about Benghazi through its agent, Susan Rice!
Turner said it again and again and again. But in his opening statement to Matthews, he made an especially ridiculous comment:
That said, the truly ridiculous part of that statement is the part we’ve highlighted: Susan Rice didn’t speak to Gregory Hicks before she went on TV!
The sheer stupidity of that complaint would be hard to surpass. And yet, that complaint has been common in the last week as Benghazi returned center stage. According to Turner, Rice should have conducted her own investigation before she did those Sunday shows—and she certainly should have interviewed the brilliant, inerrant Hicks!
This is an utterly stupid notion. But Matthews showed no sign of knowing that—that, or anything else.
Turner behaved like a cipher all through this pitiful interview. He repeated a narrow set of claims again and again and again. To watch a really bad TV performance, punish yourself—just click here.
And yet, if you watch that woeful segment, you’ll see a second horrendous performance. You will see the performance by Matthews, who kept agreeing with Turner: Susan Rice misled the public on those Sunday programs!
Turner was utterly clueless this day. If anything, Matthews was worse. Again and again, he agreed with Turner’s basic claim. Here you see one gruesome example, ending with a confession:
All through his ludicrous session with Turner, Matthews kept agreeing with his Republican guest—what Susan Rice said that day wasn’t true. Here we see another exchange in which Matthews threw Rice down the stairs:
All through this gruesome segment, Matthews kept throwing Rice down the stairs as he tried to establish a limited claim: Susan Rice told a fiction, but Obama didn’t tell her to say it! In the course of advancing this narrow defense, Matthews kept throwing Rice under a very large bus—and he kept displaying the full-blown ignorance that has long been his trademark on Hardball.
Did Matthews know any facts this day? Consider this sad exchange from early in this sad segment:
Matthews showed no sign of knowing that this question had been definitively answered four days before. But then, what else is new?
Who told Rice to cite that spontaneous demonstration? Matthews kept challenging Turner to prove that Obama told her to say it. He showed no sign of knowing what was now clear: That claim came straight from the CIA, in its first proposed talking points.
Four days earlier, ABC News had released twelve versions of the talking points from which Rice worked on those Sunday programs. In the very first paragraph of its first proposed version, the CIA had said this: “We believe based on currently available information that the attacks in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex.”
That’s where Susan Rice got the claim about the spontaneous demonstration. Four days after this fact became clear, Chris Matthews—he’s paid $5 million per year—showed no sign of knowing.
Matthews kept agreeing that Rice had grossly misled the public. He simply tried to establish the fact that Obama didn’t tell her to do it. He showed no sign of knowing the most basic facts. As always, he was feckless, malfeasant—grotesquely unprepared.
In any other walk of life, a person who fails so badly and so carelessly will be quickly fired. But Matthews lives within two worlds from which it’s quite hard to get fired.
First, he’s a multimillionaire star of America’s corporate “press corps.” You can’t get fired from this group for being wrong. (On occasion, you will get fired if you dare to be right.)
Beyond that, Matthews is now a star of the corporate pseudo-liberal world, a world which has spent the past twenty years behaving in this manner.
That’s right, children! The liberal world has spent the past twenty years refusing to defend its own. In this case, Rice has been thrown down the stairs by a wide range of corporate luminaries—by Matthews, by Rachel, by Lawrence, by Al, by the younger Chris.
It has always been clear that Rice did nothing wrong when she appeared on those Sunday shows on September 16. (In two separate statements to Turner, Matthews seemed to suggest that she had done Meet the Press alone. Given his track record, it’s entirely possible that he was really that ignorant.) But last fall, as the war against Rice unfolded, the children on The One True Channel all ran off and hid.
For two solid months, as Rice was battered, her name quite literally wasn’t mentioned on The One True Liberal Channel! This Monday night, the steady malfeasance of this channel’s hosts only continued.
Matthews seemed completely ignorant of the most basic facts of the case. When Lawrence tried to discuss the case, he was equally worthless.
Lawrence spoke with the equally clueless Nia-Malika Henderson. For unknown reasons, he kept referring to the now-famous anti-Muslim video as “the movie:”
Like Chris, Lawrence failed to explain why Rice had mentioned the video on those Sunday programs. His analysis: When Fox screams and yells about the talking points, we should “let them have it!”
We won’t even tell you how useless, how ridiculous, Al Sharpton was on this point Monday night. Suffice to say that no one on The One True Channel ever explained what the world had learned four days before:
No one explained that Rice had described a spontaneous protest in reaction to Cairo because that’s what the CIA said it believed. No one bothered defending Rice. In the high-pay career liberal world, such things simply aren’t done.
Tomorrow, we will ask you why this has gone on so long—and why liberals are prepared to accept this. We’ll also briefly review the performances of Rachel, Melissa and Chris the younger.
But make no mistake: It has been like this for twenty years! Bogus attacks emerge from the right; liberal journalists run off and hide.
“Let them have it,” our corporate stars say. “Fair enough,” another will cry. Rising young players like Nia-Malika agree with every word.
George Bush got to the White House this way. Some things never change.
Take the Matthews-Turner Challenge: Go ahead! Knowing the things you do, watch that gruesome segment from Hardball.
Matthews is paid $5 million per year. But go ahead—watch! We dare you.
One more shining moment: In a tribute to Rodney King, we all got along on Monday night. We all agreed that Susan Rice deceived the American people!
In our original post, we should have included this gruesome moment, in which Matthews threw Rice down the stairs:
For twenty years, the game has been played this way. We liberals just sit there and take it.
Does anyone know why this is?
Part 4—Some things never change: An especially ridiculous moment occurred on Monday evening’s Hardball.
Chris Matthews had been condemned to discuss Benghazi with Rep. Mike Turner, an utterly hapless Republican congressman from the state of Ohio.
Turner has served in the Congress ten years, but his skills, and his knowledge of Benghazi, seem extremely limited. Again and again and again and again, he repeated a limited mantra:
The White House deceived the public about Benghazi through its agent, Susan Rice!
Turner said it again and again and again. But in his opening statement to Matthews, he made an especially ridiculous comment:
TURNER (5/13/13): What we learned in the past week with the congressional hearings is that the narrative that was coming out of the administration from these talking points has no basis in fact. It is, in fact, a fiction. Mr. Hicks, who testified before us, said that Susan Rice hadn’t even spoken to him, the lead diplomat on the ground, after the ambassador was killed.In fact, Ambassador Stevens didn’t say “that there was no demonstration, that this was a terrorist attack.” Instantly, Turner was misstating basic facts, though Matthews showed no sign of knowing.
And, you know, he clearly said that there was no demonstration, that this was a terrorist attack. They knew it was a terrorist attack. They knew who had perpetrated the terrorist attack. They’ve already claimed credit. And yet the White House and the administration chose to write a narrative that was based on fiction.
That said, the truly ridiculous part of that statement is the part we’ve highlighted: Susan Rice didn’t speak to Gregory Hicks before she went on TV!
The sheer stupidity of that complaint would be hard to surpass. And yet, that complaint has been common in the last week as Benghazi returned center stage. According to Turner, Rice should have conducted her own investigation before she did those Sunday shows—and she certainly should have interviewed the brilliant, inerrant Hicks!
This is an utterly stupid notion. But Matthews showed no sign of knowing that—that, or anything else.
Turner behaved like a cipher all through this pitiful interview. He repeated a narrow set of claims again and again and again. To watch a really bad TV performance, punish yourself—just click here.
And yet, if you watch that woeful segment, you’ll see a second horrendous performance. You will see the performance by Matthews, who kept agreeing with Turner: Susan Rice misled the public on those Sunday programs!
Turner was utterly clueless this day. If anything, Matthews was worse. Again and again, he agreed with Turner’s basic claim. Here you see one gruesome example, ending with a confession:
MATTHEWS: Let me ask you another question again. The same question again. I’ve asked you three times. What did the president know, to your knowledge, in terms of having her say what she said on Meet the Press that Sunday? I watched it. You watched it. Did the president have a role in that or not?“You don’t know any more than I do!” Have truer words ever been spoken?
TURNER: I think he has a role today. And that is, as you and I both have said, we know what she said is not true. And the administration insists—
MATTHEWS: I agree with that. The fifth time you’re saying it.
TURNER: —that it wasn`t true.
MATTHEWS: OK. So you don’t know any more than I do.
All through his ludicrous session with Turner, Matthews kept agreeing with his Republican guest—what Susan Rice said that day wasn’t true. Here we see another exchange in which Matthews threw Rice down the stairs:
TURNER: The administration official goes on national television and says a fiction—well, that’s what obviously we’re trying to get down to. Now, the president says he has released e-mails only because the Congress asked. He’s not stepped forward and said, “Excuse me, I’ve now learned that a lead administration official on my behalf told a fiction to the nation.” That’s what he should be focusing on. And that’s what we`re trying to find out—Ambassador Rice “told a fiction to the nation,” Turner blustered. “Fair enough,” Matthews replied.
MATTHEWS: Fair enough. In the course of your investigations, Mr. Turner, have you come up with any e-mail that suggests the president was involved?
All through this gruesome segment, Matthews kept throwing Rice down the stairs as he tried to establish a limited claim: Susan Rice told a fiction, but Obama didn’t tell her to say it! In the course of advancing this narrow defense, Matthews kept throwing Rice under a very large bus—and he kept displaying the full-blown ignorance that has long been his trademark on Hardball.
Did Matthews know any facts this day? Consider this sad exchange from early in this sad segment:
MATTHEWS: Who told Susan Rice to say what she said that day? Was that the president, personally, deputizing her to say it was a spontaneous demonstration that evolved into a terrorist attack of some form? What do you think did it? Was it the president or one of his people? What do you know?On several occasions, Matthews asked a form of this question: “Who told Susan Rice to say it was a spontaneous demonstration that evolved into a terrorist attack of some form?”
TURNER: Well, what we know is that Susan Rice—
MATTHEWS: No, do you know if the president was involved? Just tell me.
TURNER: —created this fiction. And Susan Rice went on national television and made statements that had no basis in truth.
Matthews showed no sign of knowing that this question had been definitively answered four days before. But then, what else is new?
Who told Rice to cite that spontaneous demonstration? Matthews kept challenging Turner to prove that Obama told her to say it. He showed no sign of knowing what was now clear: That claim came straight from the CIA, in its first proposed talking points.
Four days earlier, ABC News had released twelve versions of the talking points from which Rice worked on those Sunday programs. In the very first paragraph of its first proposed version, the CIA had said this: “We believe based on currently available information that the attacks in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex.”
That’s where Susan Rice got the claim about the spontaneous demonstration. Four days after this fact became clear, Chris Matthews—he’s paid $5 million per year—showed no sign of knowing.
Matthews kept agreeing that Rice had grossly misled the public. He simply tried to establish the fact that Obama didn’t tell her to do it. He showed no sign of knowing the most basic facts. As always, he was feckless, malfeasant—grotesquely unprepared.
In any other walk of life, a person who fails so badly and so carelessly will be quickly fired. But Matthews lives within two worlds from which it’s quite hard to get fired.
First, he’s a multimillionaire star of America’s corporate “press corps.” You can’t get fired from this group for being wrong. (On occasion, you will get fired if you dare to be right.)
Beyond that, Matthews is now a star of the corporate pseudo-liberal world, a world which has spent the past twenty years behaving in this manner.
That’s right, children! The liberal world has spent the past twenty years refusing to defend its own. In this case, Rice has been thrown down the stairs by a wide range of corporate luminaries—by Matthews, by Rachel, by Lawrence, by Al, by the younger Chris.
It has always been clear that Rice did nothing wrong when she appeared on those Sunday shows on September 16. (In two separate statements to Turner, Matthews seemed to suggest that she had done Meet the Press alone. Given his track record, it’s entirely possible that he was really that ignorant.) But last fall, as the war against Rice unfolded, the children on The One True Channel all ran off and hid.
For two solid months, as Rice was battered, her name quite literally wasn’t mentioned on The One True Liberal Channel! This Monday night, the steady malfeasance of this channel’s hosts only continued.
Matthews seemed completely ignorant of the most basic facts of the case. When Lawrence tried to discuss the case, he was equally worthless.
Lawrence spoke with the equally clueless Nia-Malika Henderson. For unknown reasons, he kept referring to the now-famous anti-Muslim video as “the movie:”
O’DONNELL (5/13/13): You know, the so-called talking points issue of this memo about what it was really about, I for one thought the talking points were ridiculous when I heard them.Like Chris, Lawrence seemed to have no idea what he was talking about. No one on Fox ever said that that attack in Benghazi was about “the movie.” Rice’s statements about the video were mischaracterized on Fox, then ridiculed, from the first day forward.
HENDERSON: Yeah.
O’DONNELL: I never believed the movie was the provocation for this. I never allowed it—I never said on this show the movie did this.
HENDERSON: Right.
O’DONNELL: And for the first several days, everybody on all of the shows, Fox shows were saying it is the movie, it is the movie. The movie thing never made sense to me.
So you can talk about the talking points, and that does become just, “OK, these are the people that put it together, why did they put it together?” That doesn`t seem to be worthy of this much investigation but fine, let them have it.
Like Chris, Lawrence failed to explain why Rice had mentioned the video on those Sunday programs. His analysis: When Fox screams and yells about the talking points, we should “let them have it!”
We won’t even tell you how useless, how ridiculous, Al Sharpton was on this point Monday night. Suffice to say that no one on The One True Channel ever explained what the world had learned four days before:
No one explained that Rice had described a spontaneous protest in reaction to Cairo because that’s what the CIA said it believed. No one bothered defending Rice. In the high-pay career liberal world, such things simply aren’t done.
Tomorrow, we will ask you why this has gone on so long—and why liberals are prepared to accept this. We’ll also briefly review the performances of Rachel, Melissa and Chris the younger.
But make no mistake: It has been like this for twenty years! Bogus attacks emerge from the right; liberal journalists run off and hide.
“Let them have it,” our corporate stars say. “Fair enough,” another will cry. Rising young players like Nia-Malika agree with every word.
George Bush got to the White House this way. Some things never change.
Take the Matthews-Turner Challenge: Go ahead! Knowing the things you do, watch that gruesome segment from Hardball.
Matthews is paid $5 million per year. But go ahead—watch! We dare you.
One more shining moment: In a tribute to Rodney King, we all got along on Monday night. We all agreed that Susan Rice deceived the American people!
In our original post, we should have included this gruesome moment, in which Matthews threw Rice down the stairs:
TURNER (5/13/13): Chris, you at least agree with me that what Susan Rice said was a fiction. Do we agree there? It's a fiction.Can't we all get along? For one brief shining moment, on Monday evening we did!
MATTHEWS: Yes, I've agreed with you five times and I continue to ask you the simple question, what role did the president play here? What role did he play, sir?
For twenty years, the game has been played this way. We liberals just sit there and take it.
Does anyone know why this is?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)