Supplemental: Marshall discusses the Times’ latest mess!

TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2015

But first, you snark at the Clintons:
Late last week, the New York Times ran an exciting front-page story which it had to correct two times.

For our previous post, click here.

The exciting, dramatic front-page story initially said that a criminal referral had been directed at Candidate Clinton. That was a fairly serious claim, presidential campaign-wise.

That was a fairly serious claim. But uh-oh:

In its first correction, the Times said the criminal referral in question wasn’t directed at Candidate Clinton.

In its second correction, the Times said the criminal referral in question wasn’t a criminal referral at all!

To us, that seemed like a fairly gigantic pair of mistakes, especially with the White House at stake. For that reason, we had to chuckle at Josh Marshall’s initial reaction to the Times’ latest disaster.

Marshall’s post appeared late Friday night. The scope of the problem had been apparent for at least ten hours.

The New York Times had done it again—to a Democratic front-runner named “Clinton.” This was a very serious, very familiar occurrence.

The Times had made a gigantic mistake. For whatever reason, here’s how Marshall started his post, headline included:
MARSHALL (7/24/15): How Did This Happen Exactly?

I’ve [sic] watching this New York Times blockbuster about the now non-existent criminal referral about Hillary Clinton's emails. And it is one of these stories that didn’t just come apart in one big way. It fell apart in several different big ways over the course of the day. Former Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald has a good dissection of how it all unfolded that makes a pretty good case that even now—post corrections and sorta retractions—the piece still contains major omissions and distortions.

One thing worth noting is that if you’re going to publish a piece that really lands a big blow on the Clintons, you really need to be a totally certain it’s not entirely wrong. Because, man, they will never let you hear the end of it!

But as I said in the title, how did this happen exactly?
Please note: Before he starts trying to figure how the Times managed to do this again, Marshall takes a gratuitous shot at the Clintons.

People, don’t slander the Clintons on your front page during a presidential campaign! They’ll never let you hear the end of it! You know what those Clintons are like!

This was an amazing reaction. What makes people do that?

In the current case, we have no idea. As we’ve often noted in the past, that’s the way the career players tend to play it when the powerful Times is involved.

On Sunday’s Reliable Sources, CNN media reporter Brian Stelter played it much the same way. Stelter jumped to CNN from the Times. He interviewed Michael Oreskes, another former Timesman who’s now at NPR.

This is the way their discussion began. Could these guys rent a room?
STELTER (7/26/15): So what is the lesson we should learn from this Times screw-up?

Mike Oreskes is one of the country's top news editors. He used to be a deputy managing editor at The Times. He’s now the head of news at NPR.

Mike, I used to work at the Times as well. So we both know how the newsroom works. This story went online late in the evening. Presumably, the Clinton campaign started complaining about it. And then these changes were made in the middle of the night, without a correction.

What's your reaction to this dust-up?


ORESKES: Well, one thing. First of all, Brian, it’s important to put on the record what’s right here before we get into all the things that went wrong. The democracy must have journalism organizations that are aggressive about trying to hold public officials to account. I’m convinced the editors and reporters at the Times were honestly trying to do that. And it’s very important.

So it’s very important, in the process of fixing what went wrong here, we not defang journalists who want to hold public officials to account. That needs to be said because we don’t want to throw away what’s important here as we try to understand what’s wrong.
Could these guys possibly rent a room and share it with the Times?

According to Stelter, the Clinton campaign began complaining, thus producing a “dust-up.” According to Oreskes, it’s very important to say how great the New York Times is before we say anything else.

Oreskes went on to offer a stunningly soft appraisal of what the Times had done wrong—an appraisal that was flatly inaccurate in one major respect.

In his own post, Marshall went on to say that something peculiar had happened here, though “not something nefarious, I don’t think.” He drew that conclusion after saying this:
MARSHALL: As I noted this afternoon, a lot of this has a disturbing similarity to the Times Whitewater coverage, which dominated much of the Clinton presidency and turned out to be either vastly over-hyped or in numerous cases simply false. And this is the Times! What's supposedly [sic] to be the best paper in the country.
(For clarity, we’ve edited one error by Marshall. We’ve left one error in.)

Marshall specifically noted the “disturbing similarity to the Times Whitewater coverage, which dominated much of the Clinton presidency and turned out to be...in numerous cases simply false.” Despite that track record, he started with that weird remark about the way the Clintons complain so much, then included the mandatory reference to the Times’ presumed greatness.

Marshall didn’t mention another recent matter. We refer to the weirdest “news report” of the current campaign, the New York Times’ sprawling, 4500-word report about the scary uranium deal, in which the paper basically had Clinton and Clinton nailed on treason charges.

It would be hard to imagine a phonier, higher-profile example of bogus campaign reporting. Back in April, well-mannered liberals let it go without a word of complaint. Chris Hayes even vouched for the giant piece, which he twice described as a “blockbuster report.” Our fiery leaders seem to have a hard time telling the truth about the relentlessly awful work of the gruesome New York Times.

The Times has done this again and again. You have to be deeply in the bag to feel you have to keep making remarks about the way the New York Times is “supposedly to be the best paper in the country” (sic).

How did the Times manage to bungle so thoroughly again? We don’t know, but the New York Times bungles all the time, often spectacularly, often about the Clintons.

Marshall’s subsequent posts on this subject are perhaps worth reading. We thought it was worth recording that peculiar first reaction.

Why do the Clintons sometimes complain so loudly? Because people like Hayes and Marshall won’t! (Rachel is playing her toy xylophone and buying new URLs.) In March 1999, the jihad was transferred to Candidate Gore, producing a similar silent reaction from our fiery career brigade. Historically speaking, that didn’t work out real well.

Was there something “nefarious” about the Times’ latest mega-blunder? We can’t answer that question. But the paper has long since passed the point where it deserves a presumption of basic competence, basic innocence and/or basic good faith.

Because we’re discussing the New York Times, career players don’t seem eager to make such unseemly comments.

Tomorrow: Back to statistics v. anecdotes

80 comments:

  1. There were so many things wrong with that segment on Reliable Sources, it is a challenge to list them all.

    Neither one of those two clowns even understood what the real underlying story was. In the entire segment neither one of these two clowns ever used the word FOIA. That's just for starters.

    Stelter then tries to defend the Times by guessing why they made the corrections in such a sneaky manner.


    STELTER: -- and it was all over the place. That's why we're talking about it, because it happened -- they tried to do it in a quiet way.

    And I think "The Times" response would be we're trying to make sure we had all the facts before we write the correction. The worst things in the world is having to write a correction to your correction, right, Mike?

    ORESKES: Right.

    Hey Stelter, don't you think "The Times" should have made sure they had all the facts before they wrote the story in the first place.

    Then Stelter ends the segment with a complete pile of bull,

    STELTER: Obviously, we wouldn't be talking about this at all if Hillary Clinton hasn't had a private e-mail server in a very unusual way, which has now become an ongoing controversy and will continue to be.


    Wrong, Stelter, the fact that she used the private email server had jack squat to do with this story.

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    1. Let's face it, they're all jackasses.

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  2. "Why do the Clintons sometimes complain so loudly?"

    Because, suggests Somerby once more as he has since time and/or his blog began, it is the job of others in the media to police the New York Times and others doing the same job they do, covering the news. And they are not doing it when it concerns the Clintons (or GORE!).

    Of course Somerby did a fairly poor job of policing the poor media policemen on this particular story himself, relying on Kevin Drum to do most of his work last Friday, taking the weekend off, then ignoring the story entirely on Monday and Tuesday morning.

    He finally interrupted his valuable work on Rachel Maddow and proving black anger over police issues is largely just a lazy liberal tribal invention.

    Now that Bob is back to policing the should-be-media police, where does he point the first finger? Why at a liberal blogger of course!

    "For that reason, we had to chuckle at Josh Marshall’s initial reaction to the Times’ latest disaster.

    Marshall’s post appeared late Friday night. The scope of the problem had been apparent for at least ten hours."

    Bob starts his readers with a factual error. Marshall's first reaction was at 2:36 PM in the afternoon when he wrote:

    "I would really hate to think The New York Times is dusting off the old 90s-era, Whitewater-style reporting for its coverage of Hillary this year. But, damn, it's starting to seem that way." He linked to one of his own reporter's coverage that began to debunk the story at 1:00 PM.

    Again, Marshall's first personal post was at 2:36 PM. Do you know when Somerby's first post was made? Did you guess 2:36 PM? If so you win a Texas Longhorn Dog Pee storage cup from Rachel Maddow, or some other item which may have been covered twice in between Somerby's first post on the Time's story and his second.

    Could Bob have missed Marshall's "initial" reaction posted at the same time as his? We are not sure how. In quoting Marshall's second post,
    Bob has highlighted Marshall's reference to his post earlier in the day.

    I am sure Bob will quickly correct this error. Then I'll chuckle at some other fun things Officer Bob, head of Internal Affairs for the Should-Be-Media Police Department does in this post.



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    1. Thanks for the demonstration: Trolls don't do substance.

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    2. Thanks for your rebuke. Neither do you.

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    3. Bob's readers applaud his mistakes!

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  3. To date the best coverage of the Times initial debacle was in Newsweek. Josh Marshall linked to it Friday night in the post Somerby decries here in his post.

    It has been linked here at TDH a few times as well. By commenters, not Somerby.

    It was written by Kurt Eichenwald, himself a former Times reporter.
    I recall mm calling it "brilliant."

    http://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-new-york-times-emails-357246

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    1. Are the specific things Somerby "decries" not actually problems with Marshall's response, not actually noteworthy?

      No, actually, they are.

      The Eichenwald piece is important -- probably the most significant factor in the Time's deserved humiliation.

      But the deference to power (power that can further, or break, careers) toward the Times from Marshall and others definitely merits attention.

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    2. Get a life. Everyone plays favorites, even your boy Bob.

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    3. Yes, you are correct.

      Eichenwald demonstrated very capably and professionally how it should be done. And indeed you will notice it is possible to write a critique of the press and it's unfair coverage of candidate Clinton without the obligatory snark and snide remarks about the Clintons (Joshua) or the obligatory stroll down memory lane to make it seem like the Clinton's are somehow responsible (Drum).

      Witness the latest from Chris Hayes last night on his MSNBC show. I give Hayes a lot of credit for inviting Eric Boehlert on to talk about the controversy, but even before he asks his first question he has to literally vouch for the excellence of the two reporters in question. Then he conducts the entire interview wearing a smirk and a grin. Finally, he offers a bizarre personal "theory" trying to propose an innocent explanation for why these things keep happening at the NY Times.

      I think this is what TDH is talking about.

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    4. And Josh Marshall linked to the capable and professional Eichenwald. So did the screechers over at Crooks and Liars.

      Somerby chose not to. Instead he cuffed the guy who did.

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    5. Yes, he linked to Eichenwald. give him a cookie.

      The point is even in this instance where there is absolutely no doubt who did wrong, Marshall feels compelled to add in his gratuitous little snark at the Clintons.. It adds nothing to the story, and is really just a little "wink wink" to his friends in the Village.

      This is what Marshall says;

      "One thing worth noting is that if you're going to publish a piece that really lands a big blow on the Clintons, you really need to be a totally certain it's not entirely wrong."

      Why is that "worth noting"? Isn't it manifestly self-evident that the NY Times should not be putting anything on their front page that isn't "entirely wrong"? Are the Clintons somehow uniquely oversensitive? I'm sure the Bush's would react so much more magnanimously to a front page story in the NY Times that calls JEB(!) a potential criminal but was completely wrong in every respect.

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    6. It might be snark if he said

      "One thing worth noting is that if you're going to publish a piece that really lands a big blow on the Clintons, you really need to be a totally certain it's entirely correct.One mistake and man, they will never let you hear the end of it."

      I could have written Marshall's words more concisely.

      "If you publish a hit piece on the Clintons don't get everything totally wrong because they will put your head up your ass and you won't have anything to hang it on."

      That is not snark. It's sage advice. Josh just put it too nicely. But he was right.

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    7. I will ask the question again. Perhaps you missed it.

      "One thing worth noting is that if you're going to publish a piece that really lands a big blow on the Clintons, you really need to be a totally certain it's not entirely wrong."

      Why is that "worth noting"? Isn't it manifestly self-evident that the NY Times should not be putting anything on their front page that isn't "entirely wrong"? Are the Clintons somehow uniquely oversensitive? I'm sure the Bush's would react so much more magnanimously to a front page story in the NY Times that calls JEB(!) a potential criminal but was completely wrong in every respect.

      "They will never let you hear the end of it." Joshua Marshall

      What is the implication here? What is the connotation of that statement? When I use that expression I am saying that the person's reaction is overdone and annoying. How sad for the NY Times that they are now forced to endure the Clinton's overreaction.

      The article that Marshall links to is headlined:

      "Hillary's Team Piles On The New York Times ..."

      Once again, "piles on" has a very negative connotation to me. It implies an unnecessary and excessive overreaction.

      You're free to disagree. It makes not difference to me. I never read Marshall without a reason anyway.


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    8. **************
      Anonymous July 29, 2015 at 1:54 AM
      I could have written Marshall's words more concisely.

      "If you publish a hit piece on the Clintons don't get everything totally wrong because they will put your head up your ass and you won't have anything to hang it on."
      ************

      Marshall is a professional writer. He does this for a living I understand. I imagine that the words he chose best communicate what he wanted to say.

      Your version on the other hand is a vision conjured from your fevered brain that has no basis in reality.

      Who paid any price for this fiasco at the NY Times? No one. The editor said he wouldn't have done anything different. They circled the wagons around the same reporter who made previous grievous errors in his candidate Clinton reporting. Even now, the Editors' note begins with a completely false and misleading statement:

      ***************
      The Times’s coverage last week of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s use of a personal email account as secretary of state involved several corrections and changes that may have left readers with a confused picture.
      ***********

      The article in question had nothing to do with HRC's "
      use of a personal email account", it had to do with a turf war between the SD and the IC IG over what should be classified in response to FOIA requests for her emails. Are they complete idiots?

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  4. Having read Josh Marshal for longer than I'd like to remember, my guess would be that he was deploying, you know, sarcasm, when he made that particular remark.

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    1. Except he, you know, doesn't like the Clintons much.

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    2. If so there are a number of Democrats just like him. Myself included. And I voted for him. Twice. And I'll vote for his wife.

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    3. "sarcasm"

      No, not quite.

      The part from Marshall's post that TDH highlights,

      "Because, man, they will never let you hear the end of it!"

      is actually a link to another story on TPM entitled,

      "Hillary's Team Piles On The New York Times For Its Mistaken Email Story" by Catherine Thompson

      which begins,

      "Hillary Clinton's campaign team and her allies came out swinging Friday against the New York Times....."

      once again reinforcing the Clinton war machine meme so popular amongst the Villagers.

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    4. "So popular amongst the Villagers" because of the title of the documentary film "The War Room" which highlighted the genius of Carville, Stephanopoulos & Co. in reacting swiftly to dispose of negatives against their candidate, a reputation those two cultivated then translated into stardom?.

      Now, mm. How would you characterize the reaction of Team Clinton to the story on Friday other than that "they came out swinging"?

      It is true they did not call anyone horse's ass or jackass.
      But they sure did pile on a mistaken story.

      And you know what. Not one of them mentioned FOIA. Not one of them suggested the story wasn't about Clinton's use of a private Email server.

      "We all have a responsibility to get this right. I have released 55,000 pages of e-mails. I have said repeatedly that I will answer questions before the House committee." HRC

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    5. "Now, mm. How would you characterize the reaction of Team Clinton to the story on Friday other than that "they came out swinging"?"

      I would characterize it as absolutely normal and unremarkable. Thank you for asking.

      To be quite honest with you, I have not seen a single person from her campaign given any opportunity on any of the cable shows to make their case. The Morning Joke spent hours hammering candidate Clinton, but never extended an invitation to anybody on her team to balance the discussion. It was typical dominating Joe bully performance.

      I don't know what you think you prove by including the quote from HRC. What was the reporter's question she was responding to? Don't you think that would help put it in context?

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    6. The world according to mm (in which the story isn't about Clinton or her Email:

      Shoulda Been Headline:

      "CANDIDATE'S STAFF, FRIENDS MAKE UNREMARKABLE NORMAL RESPONSE TO TIMES ARTICLE ALLEGING CRIMINAL PROBE"

      You asked for context of Clinton's remark? Based on a comment below @ 9:34 you know now it was not a response to a reporter's question, but her own opening remarks. And what was the topic of her opening statement? Her private Email account? Which, according to mm, is not what this story is about.

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    7. If you bothered to read the Eichenwald piece in Newsweek, you would understand what I mean when I declare that the story is not about her email account.

      "Potential Issues Identified by the Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community Concerning the Department of State's Process for the Review of Former Secretary Clinton's Emails under the Freedom of Information Act (ESP-15-05)."

      That is the title of the memo sent by the ICIG to the DOJ.

      Here's just a little excerpt from Eichenwald's piece:

      "And again, what those memos are actually discussing is the way that the FOIA office is handling review of the former secretary of state's emails for public release. They in no way discuss Clinton, her handling of emails or anything approaching those topics."

      You want to continue to pretend differently, that's your choice. The Times is trying to hang Clinton again for the "original sin" (Andrea Mitchell's exact words) of using a private email account, but in fact it is entirely irrelevant to this routine review by different agencies of documents before release under FOIA to the public.

      Just to be clear. Classified material can not be sent via email, even if Clinton had used the .gov account. The fact that she received these emails which are in dispute between SD and ICIG over whether there is classified material in them is totally irrelevant and was added gratuitously by the NY Times for no good reason.

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    8. The memo wasn't about Clinton's Email. The story was.

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    9. Yes, the NY Times twisted this totally routine, everyday, unremarkable PROCESS memo, into an excuse to once again fan the flames of faux outrage over the fact that she used private email.

      And as I wrote earlier, even now, to this day, the Editor's note supposedly examining what the Times did wrong is completely false and misleading in its opening sentence.

      ***************
      The Times’s coverage last week of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s use of a personal email account as secretary of state involved several corrections and changes that may have left readers with a confused picture.
      ***********
      They are either complete idiots or are deliberately trying to confuse their readers again about what the real story was about.

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    10. So the story WAS about Clinton's Email.

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    11. What story was that?

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    12. No, it wasn't.

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  5. Today Digby suggests that Sanders will be more viable than Clinton in the general election because some Republicans might vote for him, plus he is getting more Obama donors. This sounds more like wishful thinking than actual political analysis.

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    1. Digby is nuts. We respect Sanders, but we believe, like Bob, that Sanders would probably get one state (possibly two) and lose the rest.

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    2. Today a highly placed Howler source continued to demonstrate the difficulty that blog's readers have in distinguishing between Hullabaloo, a blog, and digby, the nom de plume of the blog's founder Heather Parton. Once again the source confused a post by another writer at Hullabaloo with the work of digby.

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    3. Make that two sources.

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    4. Fine. I admit I can't be bothered to go to Hullaballoo now (used to read it religiously) so replace "Digby" with "Digby proxy."

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    5. Today at Hullabaloo [LINK]:

      Obama's Donors Flocking To Sanders, Romney's Going To Rubio

      by Gaius Publius

      (A comment with no link by an anonymous poster, no surprises here.)

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    6. Digby is ultimately responsible for whatever appears because it is her blog.

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    7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    8. Gaius publius isn't a person -- it is a screen name, just like digby and tristero. No accountability there.

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    9. Gaius Publius is a pseudonym which identifies a particular writer on the internet allowing those who have read him for a while to come to conclusions about his reliability and the value of his perspective. Digby is a different writer, one who earned a large audience for herself while using that pseudonym and now there's a large audience for anyone who posts at her site.

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    10. Gaius and digby are as much people as cmike. Using a consistent screen name doesn't provide accountability. Digby is a fiction of Heather Parton. Perhaps the other names are too. We would have no way of knowing. But pretending that a different name is automatically a different person is just naive. Digby let tristero do her dirty work in 2008 but seems to be letting her animosity toward Clinton show this time around.

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    11. @ 12:18 is KZ.

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    12. I don't know if 12:18 is KZ.

      12:18 isn't a person according to 11:23.

      11:23, like 12:18 calls him/herself Anonymous.

      It is possible 12:18 is also 9:10, who started this thread attacking "digby."

      9:10 then became 11:07 who admitted they don't read Hullabaloo, even though he/she had just attacked that blog for something posted there.

      Welcome to Bobland, where Maddowsketeers are held accountable through revelations provided to very intelligent reader/commenters who are smarter than your average lazy liberal.

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    13. @12:18 says:

      Digby is a fiction of Heather Parton. Perhaps the other names are too. We would have no way of knowing. But pretending that a different name is automatically a different person is just naive.

      If Digby has been pulling some sort of a Phil Hendrie off [LINK], I'm super impressed [LINK].

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  6. Sounds like Somerbob wrote some of Mickey Maddow's closing segment tonight. I think there was a Mouseketeer named Bobby. But Somerby reminds me more of Roy.

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  7. I'm surprised Josh Marshall even noticed, frankly. His site has become such crap, 90% culture-wars issues for the clicks, maybe 10% actual stories with news value.

    And I've never seen a supposedly professional site with more typos. They seem to be always hiring, but apparently have never hired a copy editor or proofreader. And their typos NEVER get corrected, even when you email about them. "I've typed out this story. Done. Will never look at it again."

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    1. His blog is amateur hour no doubt about it.

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  8. The comment by @ 10:54 complaining about typos reminds me that Somerby has had ample time to correct his glaring error about the "initial reaction" of Josh Marshall. The error was noted in my comment @ 5:30.

    There are many fun elements in Somerby's post in addition to an outright false premise. (I did not "suggest" Bob "might" have been misleading. I did not imply it. He wrote something that was false and the quote he uses from the person he attacked proves it.)

    Somerby calls something Marshall said "a gratuitous shot at the Clintons." He didn't use his usual weasel word "seemed." Was it really a shot at the Clintons? To make it one Bob immediately rephrases the quote into his own words. Then he adds a sentence he invents out of the thin air coming from his own ascot. "You know what those Clintons are like!" The snark is his own invention.

    Oh, but surely that final sentence in the quote Bob highlights is snarky, you might say. First, it follows a sentence in which he says don't hit the Clinton's with a story that is entirely wrong. It is pretty clear he is saying the Times story was exactly that.

    Examine that final sentence. "Because, man, they will never let you hear the end of it!" Who planted and cultivated that reputation for the Clinton's. Could it be the stars of Bill's 1992 "War Room", James Carville and George Stephanopoulos? What is wrong with the Clinton's reacting negatively to something totally false? Is never letting you "hear the end" of your error snark that is offensive to the Clintons? Or is it instead a description Bob Somerby finds hits too close to him, a blogger has never found even an implied insult to a Clinton or Gore he has not dredged back up and repeated for 15 years every time he mentions the name of the writer who gave him offense?

    There is one thing more about the sentence which Somerby found so "snarky" he had to append a sentence of his own invention to it. Something Bob Somerby disappears. In Marshall's post it is not just a sentence. It is a link to another article in Talking Points Memo. And what might that article linked by Marshall's snark be about? Why it is about team Clinton and their allies tearing the New York Times article to shreds.

    Somerby doesn't tell you that.

    What immediately follows is Bob returning to the "implication" game. Only this time he is not the one inventing what someone else's words imply. He implies Marshall is deferring to the New York Times like other career players he has in the past noted "tend" to do. Oh, but "we have no idea" says the guy whose past fifteen years has been spent explaining to you how others use words subtly to plant their spin in your head. Bob would never do that himself.

    Sorry Somerby readers. This post starts with a false fact to support a false premise. It then invents words to add tone, and disappears a fact to support a false spin. Marshall's post linked to the most factual take down of the New York Times article, the one written by Eichenwald at Newsweek. It also linked to work by one of his own reporters. Both pieces he linked to demonstrated why he could say the Times piece was one which "fell apart in several big ways" and which the Clinton's folks ripped apart, living up to a reputation their team proudly gloated about after the win in 1992.

    Let's hope we see more of that Team Clinton this time around.

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    1. You are truly a piece if work. And I don't mean that in a good way.

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    2. You are truly a defender of all that Bob deplores. When Bob does it.

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    3. I feel like if you’re going to publish a piece that really lands a big blow on the Clintons, you really need to be a totally certain it’s not entirely wrong regardless of anything the Clintons do or don't do afterward. That when you’re going to publish a piece that really lands a big blow on anyone, you really need to be a totally certain it’s not entirely wrong in every case, 100 % of the time. Full stop. What does a perceived reaction by Clinton have to do with being totally certain a published piece about them that really lands a big blow is not entirely wrong? Is there a circumstance you can think of where a journalist who publishes a piece that really lands a big blow doesn't need to be a totally certain it's not entirely wrong?

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    4. "Is there a circumstance you can think of where a journalist who publishes a piece that really lands a big blow doesn't need to be a totally certain it's not entirely wrong?"

      Thank you, that's what I was trying to say.

      The point is, the damage was done. Whatever response came from the Clinton team, it was too little too late. And per the usual Clinton Rules, the LIE will live on forever and ever. The intimidating omnipotent vaunted Clinton machine seemed incapable of stopping the tidal wave of negative reporting that followed. Mission Accomplished.

      If they were so scary and intimidating, the NY Times wouldn't have pulled this shit in the first place. .

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    5. I agree with your analysis of Marshall's statement in that one sentence as it applies to journalism about any candidate or any topic in general. But that wasn't an isolated sentence, and that wasn't the focus of Somerby's complaint.

      His complaint was that it was snark aimed at the Clinton's. And his own snarky implied explanation after adding a sentence of his own was it was deference to the Times by Marshall as well.

      I think in combination with the second sentence and link to the story on refutation by Clinton's staff and her supporters
      it was snark aimed at the New York Times.

      I tried to state it in shorter form for mm. I'll do it again for you.

      "If you are going to mess with the Clinton's don't get everything wrong or, man, you will never hear the end of it. (Follow my link and see why I say that)."

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    6. This is an argument that's going nowhere.

      The story that Marshall linked to contains one single statement from Nick Merrill, a Clinton campaign spokesman, a tweet from Howard Dean who isn't even on candidate Clinton's campaign team but is a supporter, the statement from Rep. Elijah Cummings, who independently had to call the Justice Department to find out what the hell the NY Times was talking about, and finally a very brief, calm and subdued statement by candidate Clinton that doesn't even mention the NY Times directly.

      WOW, don't mess with the Clinton gang!!!!

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    7. Maybe it's snark aimed at New York Times. If so, what does the Clinton's reaction have to do with the Times' responsibility to be totally certain a published piece that really lands a big blow is not entirely wrong? Why use Clinton's perceived reaction as the basis for your snark when it's irrelevant to the issue which is: all published pieces that really land a big blow should always be not entirely wrong. Why bring in the Clinton's reactions? It's not relevant to the issue and therefore could be seen as snarky towards them.

      Delete
    8. Why wouldn't Marshall just directly snark the Times? Why bring Clinton into it? It doesn't make sense.

      Delete
    9. The statement by Marshall is false. If you’re going to publish a piece that really lands a big blow on the Clintons, you really need to be a totally certain it’s not entirely wrong regardless of any reaction.

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    10. @ 9:46. Did it ever occur to you that he did it because he wanted to call attention to the thorough trashing the Clinton team, her supporters, and she herself gave to the Times for writing a hit piece which he snarkily referred to as one they were not certain wasn't "totally wrong"?

      Look, I know Team Bob wishes the second sentence had been "Because man, when you do that you look like complete assholes." It wasn't. And now you are reacting like you think the sentence meant as an affront to Team Hillary. I don't.

      And Bob is reacting as if this sentence was the most important aspect of the whole Times affair and worthy of starting off his piece by falsely describing Marshall's coverage leading up to it.

      One thing worth noting is that if you’re going to publish a piece that really lands a big blow on Josh Marshall, you don't need to be a totally certain it’s not 100% right. Because, man, your defenders will defend you to the end of it!

      Delete
    11. If he wanted to call attention to the thorough trashing the Clinton team, her supporters and Clinton herself gave the Times for publishing a hit piece why not just do it directly? Why wrap it up in snark directed at the Times in sentence that is illogical and makes no sense? If you’re going to publish a piece that really lands a big blow on the Clintons, you really need to be a totally certain it’s not entirely wrong with no exceptions or qualifications whatsoever. The Clinton's reaction has no bearing on any journalist's need to be a totally certain what they are publishing is not entirely wrong.

      Delete
    12. Why say "During my service in the Congress I took the initiative in creating the internet"?

      And why, if you are a blogger who writes about inaccuracy in the media, start a critique of somebody with something that is inaccurate?

      Delete
    13. Context matters. Go look up the context in which that sentence was spoken. Notice how the context changes the interpretation -- making the meaning different than what was attributed to Gore when the sentence was lifted out of context.

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    14. "Why, if you are a blogger who writes about inaccuracy in the media, start a critique of somebody with something that is inaccurate?" You have only showed why you think it is inaccurate. That doesn't mean it's inaccurate. What is inaccurate though is Marshall's statement. If you’re going to publish a piece that really lands a big blow on the Clintons, you really need to be a totally certain it’s not entirely wrong because it's the ethical thing to do not for any other reason. Basta. Full stop.

      Delete
    15. You may be right about Bob being inaccurate. I don't see it. It seems hard to empirically prove. Anyway, have a good one homie.

      Delete
    16. It does seem hard to prove Marshall's initial reaction was not the post cited by Bob just because Marshall published a post 9 hours earlier. Especially when the post Bob quotes as being Marshall's initial reaction contains language referencing the actual earlier post. These things are tough to see.

      Delete
    17. Oh so you are saying Bob was inaccurate about the timing of the post? I saw someone wrote that earlier. I thought you meant Bob's claim Marshall threw snark at the Clintons was inaccurate as we have been discussing.

      Delete
    18. All These Douchebag Trolls AgainJuly 29, 2015 at 2:28 PM

      Sure, Marshall just HAS to defend the press and snark on Clinton, but the REAL problem? Somerby.

      Delete
    19. No ATDBTAgain, the REAL problem is that by snarking on Clinton on Friday, Marshall forced Somerby to point out this egregious error on Tuesday afternoon.

      This diverted attention from Part 3 in the Dog Pee story and delayed the burning question of whether Trevor Noah is a bit of a hack for a whole damn day!

      Delete
    20. As If On Cue, Another DoucheJuly 29, 2015 at 7:17 PM

      That AWFUL Somerby!

      Delete
  9. What the Clintons have always been very good at is turning any negative story about them into a negative story about the person bringing the story, or the person telling the story. I'm not saying Bob has become just another predictable cog in the Clinton Deflection machine, like James Carville or Paul Begala, because his exposure's way less.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You know what I call the Clinton Deflection Team from 1992?

      The winners.

      Delete
    2. What the Clintons have always been very good at is being innocent of the manufactured orchestrated lies, accusations and innuendos thrown at them for the last 20 or so years, then standing back and watching the clowns attacking them land on their face time after time after time after time.

      FTFY

      Delete
    3. Nothing was ever true. Except the blowjobs.

      Delete
    4. What poor benighted man has never had a blowjob?

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    5. What hardworking leader of the free world didn't deserve one?

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    6. So Mrs. Clinton WASN'T the architect of a Libya policy that resulted in a failed state exporting refugees and terror! Thank God!

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    7. No, she wasn't. All of those states are exporting refugees and terror for reasons related to longstanding problems in the area, not anything Clinton did while executing Obama's policy.

      Delete
    8. Haha, you could attribute the chaos in Iraq to "longstanding problems" but that doesn't get Bush off the hook for setting things in motion by toppling Saddam. Libya was accomplished without ground troops but the results are similar.

      Delete
  10. Today the Huffington Post says in a headline:

    "North Carolina GOP Chair Ties Hillary Clinton To The KKK"

    It turns out that the only tie is that some Republican sent out tweets with pictures of the KKK next to pictures of Hillary Clinton. There is no actual "tie" between Clinton and the KKK beyond including both side by side in those tweets.

    How's that for fair?

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    Replies
    1. @ 9:07AM you are probably @ 9:10PM from last night who wrote "Today Digby suggests...".

      When it was pointed out digby did not suggest anything of the sort you wrote at 11:07 "I admit I can't be bothered to go to Hullaballoo now" to find out if you erred.

      Now you, Bobfan and Hillary supporter that you are, think the HuffPo headline is aimed at Hillary and not the NC GOP chair.

      Or maybe just that HuffPo readers are as intelligent as you and might thus be misled.

      Our guess? Dog Pee Will Stop Clinton Supporters.

      Delete
    2. Digby is the blog. If you prefer, I will start saying "Hullabaloo says". That make you happy?

      Those Huffpo headlines are designed to make people who just skim the headlines without reading the articles think poorly about Clinton. There is another one referring to the "Times Clinton Fiasco". It is about the Times screw up, but someone reading quickly would think it is about the Times reporting on a fiasco Clinton caused. Coupled with photos that routinely show Clinton with her mouth open, frowning, or pointing a jabbing finger, these headlines are a relentless hit job against Clinton.

      That you think there is plausible deniability tells me everything I need to know about you.

      Delete
    3. You can still purchase a hand gun legally.

      Delete