Krugman writes the same (good) column!

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2014

We have the same (key) reaction: Paul Krugman has written the very same column again.

That said, it’s a very good column. It starts out with an accurate claim about the so-called “death tax:”

KRUGMAN (2/24/14): Health Care Horror Hooey

Remember the “death tax”? The estate tax is quite literally a millionaire’s tax—a tax that affects only a tiny minority of the population, and is mostly paid by a handful of very wealthy heirs. Nonetheless, right-wingers have successfully convinced many voters that the tax is a cruel burden on ordinary Americans—that all across the nation small businesses and family farms are being broken up to pay crushing estate tax liabilities.

You might think that such heart-wrenching cases are actually quite rare, but you’d be wrong: they aren’t rare; they’re nonexistent. In particular, nobody has ever come up with a real modern example of a family farm sold to meet estate taxes. The whole “death tax” campaign has rested on eliciting human sympathy for purely imaginary victims.

Krugman has started a hundred columns in similar ways. As usual, we had the same reaction:

Why is this information found in an “opinion column” on page A17? Why isn’t such information found on the New York Times’ front page, reported as actual news?

We’ll grant you this—the disinformation campaign about the estate tax dates back many years. Krugman cites it as a type of practice which is being extended as disinformation is now being spread concerning Obamacare.

That said, has the New York Times ever reported the disinformation campaign about the estate tax as front-page news? It’s possible that the paper has, although we found no example in a quick check of the Nexis archive over the past five years.

More generally, this simply isn’t the type of thing our big newspapers treat as news.

In his column, Krugman goes on to discuss, again, the misleading examples now being churned concerning Obamacare. Will the Times treat this new disinformation campaign as front-page news?

We’ll guess the answer is no.

In one policy area after another, disinformation has driven the discourse over the past forty years. Big newspapers ignore this phenomenon. It’s treated as a force of nature barely worth discussing.

In today’s column, Krugman discusses some very basic news. In a standard bit of irony, you have to read an “opinion column” to learn it.

The best we could find (which isn’t dispositive): Early in 2001, the New York Times published a front-page news report concerning President Bush’s proposal to phase out the estate tax.

The report focused on wealthy Americans who thought this was a bad idea.

The front-page report did not discuss the long disinformation campaign to which Krugman refers today. Disinformation campaigns are news, except in our biggest newspapers.

WHO IS RACHEL MADDOW: A hint of Pyongyang!

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2014

Part 1—Bold leader since earliest youth: As a young person, did Rachel Maddow think she might be on her way to the Olympics?

We’ve semi-wondered about that question for some time now. After a fact check last week, it seems our curiosity may trace to Newsweek’s profile of Maddow in December 2008.

Maddow started her nightly cable program in September of that year. As Newsweek’s Jessica Baird profiled the emerging star, she recalled her teenage years:

BAIRD (12/1/08): As a teenager, her dreams revolved around basketball, swimming and volleyball—she wanted to be an Olympic athlete until a serious injury dashed her hopes. She was a fierce performer who insisted on playing through injuries and amassed a collection of crutches of varying heights.

Other profiles say this injury occurred when Maddow was a senior in high school.

Did Maddow tell Baird that she had Olympic dreams even as a senior in high school? We’ll guess that she did not.

We find no reference to the Olympics in other profiles of Maddow. Concerning Baird’s construction, journalists often misreport things they’ve been told when they compose a profile.

In a matter such as this, the subject may make a joking remark, then see it reported straight. Someone else may have said something that was wrong or misunderstood.

That said, we’ve occasionally wondered about that alleged Olympic dream. We’ve wondered about it for a reason.

It concerns a question we’ll ponder all week:

Who is Rachel Maddow?

We’ll assume that Maddow didn’t tell Baird that she had Olympic dreams. That said, it’s easy to see how Baird could have developed inflated ideas about Maddow in the course of composing her profile.

All through her Newsweek piece, Baird quotes Maddow, along with her family and friends, making grandiose claims about the subject of her profile. These claims seem to be torn from the pages of a North Korean leadership bio.

The brilliance began at an early age, according to Maddow’s mother. Rachel never spoke baby talk, and things just developed from there:

BAIRD: Maddow was, according to her parents, a curious, serious child who never spoke baby talk. When her mother, Elaine, would walk into the kitchen to prepare breakfast, the 4-year-old Rachel would be perched on a stool, with her nightgown and bed socks on, reading the newspaper.

That may be exactly how it went down. But could Kim Il-Sung have done better?

As the profile proceeds, so do the marvelous claims. By her own admission, Maddow was a political seer by the time she was 7. Around that time, her father was struck by her athletic prowess and her determination:

BAIRD: Maddow remembers when she was 7, standing in front of their black-and-white television during the 1980 election and loathing Ronald Reagan, although she is not sure why now: "All I remember is the feeling of dislike," she says, laughing. "Maybe I have reverse-engineered it into my memory."...When she wanted to learn to ride a bicycle without training wheels, she circled the streets day and night. Her father, Bob, says it took one weekend.

To judge from Baird’s profile, few things happen to Maddow that aren’t extraordinary in some way—elevated as compared to the things which happen to mortals. Examples:

Later in the profile, Maddow describes the extraordinary way she fell in love with her partner, Susan Mikula.

It happened instantly, on first sight, with Maddow’s entire life instantly changed. In turn, Mikula describes the amazing events which took place on their somewhat peculiar first date:

BAIRD: Their first date was at a shooting range—they fired muskets, pistols and rifles and threw tomahawks. Mikula says Maddow was so “unbelievable” with the AR-15 that people stopped to watch.

Did Maddow swim the Connecticut River during a storm later on that evening? Perhaps she did, but Baird left it out of her profile.

Maddow is different in every way. Here’s the way she was feeding herself at the time of the Newsweek profile:

BAIRD: For Maddow, the job never really stops. She regularly works 16-hour days, only eating once she has finished. She often has just one large meal at 2 a.m., purchased from street vendors.

Presumably, she would then return to the Central Park cave where she was living with wolves.

In other profiles, some of these tales come out sounding substantially different. By 2012, here’s how that first date was being described in a profile for Rolling Stone:

WALLACE-WELLS (6/27/12): Maddow and Mikula met in 1999. On their first date, they went to an NRA event, which was only partly ironic: They both like to shoot firearms. ("Susan has the hand-eye coordination," Maddow says. "But I can't control my movements.")

What happened to the trick-shooting display which had the whole range transfixed?

Whatever! Students of the Maddow profile will recognize the familiar element in the statement Wallace-Wells quotes. In that statement, Maddow presents herself as much more helpless than you and me, a familiar trope which is often used to make us want to care for her more. The endless tales about not (quite) owning a TV set falls into this category.

(According to Wallace-Wells, here’s what happened after the visit to the shooting range, at which Maddow either amazed the elders or fired uncontrollably into the night: “Shortly thereafter, they went for a stroll in a cemetery in western Massachusetts where they were both living, and at a moment of nearly transcendent silence and beauty, while they were looking serenely at 19th-century gravestones, Maddow took a gigantic pratfall. Mikula says that was the moment when she fell in love with Maddow.” As in chronicles from Pyongyang, nothing happens to this Dear Leader which doesn’t involve “moments of nearly transcendent silence and beauty.” Such moments may be joined to the self-confessed, lovable dorkiness to which we’ve just alluded.)

The firing range happened two different ways. Then too, after having her show for three years, the daily feeding had greatly changed, according to a quote by Maddow in a profile by the Hollywood Reporter:

GUTHRIE (10/14/11): “I eat three meals a day at my desk, if I eat three meals a day. If I eat two meals a day, they're both at my desk. All of my meats are at my desk.”

Over time, people change their habits, of course. If you’re scoring these profiles at home, this description helps us see Maddow’s amazing devotion to duty, which is often described in these profiles by the corporate suits who marvel at her preparation time.

(Avert your eyes when these fellows describe the way she spends eight hours preparing for every program. In part, their horizons have been set by the habits of Chris Matthews, who seems to spend about five minutes preparing himself for each show.)

To our ear, that Newsweek profile drifts toward the unintentionally comical. This drift occurs as Maddow herself, and all around her, marvel at her Olympic-sized past deeds.

Grandiose statement is fairly common with Maddow. Six months after that Newsweek profile, she was interviewed by Charlie Rose. We don’t exactly understand the highlighted statement:

ROSE (6/19/09): What do you like about your job?

MADDOW: I love my job.

ROSE: I know. I can tell.

MADDOW: I`ve had about 150 jobs in my life, and this is by far the best.

[...]

ROSE: And how did you end up here? I mean, was it somewhere in the back of your head when you were at Stanford, when you were at Oxford, when you, you know, decided you had to get a job, was it, “Man, what I’d love to do is sit on television and engage interesting people about important subjects?”

MADDOW: Never in a million years...I thought I would be an activist.

ROSE: Really?

MADDOW: Yeah. That’s sort of what I’d done. I was an old ACT-UP kid from back in the day, had been an AIDS activist for a very long time. I was traveling around the country running campaigns to overturn some of the worst HIV policies in the country, and having a brilliant time, and I thought it would be my life’s work until there was a cure and all my friends came back. I never planned to do anything other than that. But I’m not much of a planner, It has to be said. I just thought I’d do that for a while.

Maddow was 36 when she said that to Rose. Based upon her standard bio, we have no idea when she could have spent “a very long time” at some earlier juncture “traveling around the country,” running campaigns to overturn some of the worst HIV policies in the country.

We’ve never seen a fully detailed account of this part of Maddow’s life. But given her standard bio, how long a time, back in the day, could this really have been?

Does Maddow tend to embellish her stories, perhaps in slightly peculiar ways? We would say she possibly does.

To the extent that she was doing good work on the air, this wouldn’t matter a lot, if at all. But her work, especially her scandal work, has been increasingly awful.

Often, her work is extremely dumb; it’s sure to make viewers much dumber. All too often, her work looks dishonest. Increasingly, her work looks morally objectionable in ways which go beyond that.

Technically, Maddow is very bright. She has superlative manners on the air. When she isn’t trying to get people thrown into jail on the flimsiest possible basis, she focuses on a set of very significant topics.

Presumably, Maddow could be a superlative journalist if she had competent supervision. But she seems to have no journalistic supervision at all.

Quite literally, the people above her at MSNBC have no background in news. To our eye, it shows.

It’s hard to know why someone like Maddow is doing so much terrible work. But much of her work is dumb and dishonest. It’s time for serious liberals to insist that it stop.

Who is Rachel Maddow? Given her basic ability and her massive pay, why is she doing so much horrible work?

We’ll be exploring those questions all week. Forced to don our shrinking caps, we’ll suggest that some of the answer might be found in other parts of that Newsweek profile.

Parts of that profile read like something that came to us by way of Pyongyang. Combined with other parts of the piece, could that explain Maddow’s horrible work—horrible work the liberal world keeps refusing to notice?

Tomorrow: Recurrent horrible work

THE PRESS CORPS [HEART] ACCUSERS: Rachel toys with her Chip Michaels doll!

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2014

Epilogue—Matthews’ spawn: In the past week, we’ve reviewed an astonishing bit of conduct by Chris Matthews, a remarkable false accusation.

For yesterday's post, click here.

Matthews’ conduct occurred in May 1999; it could have gotten somebody killed. Our review triggers a basic question:

Fifteen years later, how can an unbalanced person like Matthews possibly be on the air?

It isn’t just the false accusation, which involved heinous misconduct. We also recalled the ridiculous way Matthews proceeded from there.

He consulted by phone with Gennifer Flowers, who swore by Kathleen Willey’s greatness. He interviewed “body language expert” Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, his personal version of Sybil the Soothsayer.

She told Matthews that his favorite accuser seemed to be telling the truth!

We recalled Matthews’ half hour session with Flowers that August, during which he praised her astonishing hotness as she rattled on about the Clintons’ various murders. We recalled his lunatic session with Dimitrius that November, in which the pair tried to discern the sexual meaning of Candidate Gore’s troubling three-button suits.

We briefly recalled the endless insults he aimed at Candidate Gore for the two years of Campaign 2000. We discussed the dozens of times he called Gore “the bathtub ring.” We spared you Matthews’ repeated statement that Gore “would lick the bathroom floor” in order to reach the White House.

(By mid-September 2000, Gore had shot into a ten-point lead over Bush; official Washington largely believed that the election was over. As a result, Matthews apologized on the air for the serial “bathroom floor” insult. As it turned out, his apology was premature. Later that month, his colleagues invented two new “lies” by Gore, whose lead in the polls disappeared.)

We could have gone on and on from there. There’s really no end to the gruesome misconduct by this unbalanced man through the years.

Even by Matthews’ own standards, his false accusation in May 1999 was as astonishing act of misconduct—and it could have gotten somebody killed. But Matthews’ conduct was astonishing all through 1999 and 2000. How was it possible that any of this ludicrous was accepted? How was it even remotely possible that a man of this low caliber could have remained on the air?

More strikingly, how is it possible that you’ve never read about this misconduct in the mainstream press? In the work of your favorite career liberals?

By normal journalistic standards, Matthews’ false accusation was an astonishing act. That said, such standards were long gone by the time of his false accusation. Let’s recall one part of the lonely column by Lars-Erik Nelson in response to Matthews’ misconduct:

NELSON (5/21/99): Hank Buchanan has an excuse. He is a manic depressive. Matthews has none...

[Matthews] had never bothered to check his story before blurting it out, never bothered to call Shearer. In the new world of talk-show TV there is no need to be accurate, only to make money.

"The past year has been, I think, the worst year for American journalism since I entered the profession 44 years ago," David Halberstam writes in the preface to "Warped Speed," a Century Foundation study of current reporting standards. "The standards for verification, so critical to serious and fair reporting, have fallen dramatically."

Matthews is a central figure in this book, a screaming, manic TV opinion-monger who poses as a journalist...

Talk-show TV was still a “new world” when Nelson wrote this lonely column. That said, Matthews was already “a screaming, manic TV opinion-monger who poses as a journalist.”

Matthews is still a manic clown who poses as a journalist. But very few people other than Nelson batted an eye at his false accusation. Three months later, no press critic in the nation said a word about his ludicrous session with Flowers.

By now, “cable news” is known to be a cancer on the nation. Matthews is still a manic screamer. Rachel Maddow isn’t.

Maddow’s persona differs from that of her beloved colleague, but she plays similar games on the TV machine. Consider the slimy accusation/insinuation she floated this Wednesday, providing the latest scandal thrill to her partisan viewers.

In fairness, Wednesday’s program had it all from the scandal thrill perspective. She devoted her first two segments of the program to the Fort Lee matter. These segments totaled more than 26 minutes of broadcast time, about 60 percent of her program’s total.

Those segments had it all! We even thought we might have spotted one of Maddow’s trademark “smuggled corrections,” in which she changes her account of some matter without saying she’s done so.

Whatever! For today, let’s consider the slimy accusation she lodged. It isn’t as bad as what Matthews did in May 1999. But if you favor decent behavior and intelligent journalism, we’d have to say it came close.

For the record, Maddow’s scandal pimping is often extremely dumb. As we’ve noted, she isn’t obsessively honest. This was the latest example of these holes in her game.

Toward the end of Wednesday’s first segment, Maddow floated her latest insinuation/accusation against one of The Others. In the main, this latest pleasing insinuation was aimed at a Port Authority police officer, Chip Michaels.

All in all, Maddow’s accusation didn’t even make much sense. She pimped it all the same.

As Maddow played with her dolls that night, this is what she imagined:

On the first day of the lane closings, Michaels drove David Wildstein around to view the effects on traffic. With the use of a newly released text message, Maddow now suggested that Michaels was looking for ways to make traffic worse that morning.

“Yes, we’re going to stick it to Fort Lee. But how can we really stick it to Fort Lee?”

So said Maddow, suggesting that this may have been Michaels’ goal.

In the passage which follows, Maddow starts to outline the shape of the scheme she imagined. Michaels and Wildstein drive around together. Roughly an hour later, Michaels sends Wildstein a text:

MADDOW (2/19/14): “Yes, we’re going to stick it to Fort Lee. But how can we really stick it to Fort Lee?”

Look at the timing here...It was 7:28 AM when David Wildstein said he was going to go take a ride with Chip and see how it looks. It’s roughly 7:30 in the morning.

Now he gets in the car with the Port Authority police lieutenant to go take a look at the traffic that has ensued from what he’s done. 7:30.

A little bit more than an hour later, it appears that that police officer, that Port Authority police lieutenant and David Wildstein are no longer together...We know that because there’s no reason for two people in a car together to text each other if they’re in the car together.

So we can assume that the ride-around has ended when that Port Authority police lieutenant sends another text, a follow-up text, to David Wildstein.

Michaels and Wildstein have surveyed the state of the traffic. Now, Michaels sends Wildstein a text. Then he texts someone else.

Playing the role of Nancy Drew, Maddow laid out more facts:

MADDOW (continuing directly): Remember they went on the ride-around at 7:30. At 8:46, the Port Authority police lieutenant, Chip, says, “I may have an idea to make this better.” That’s 8:46 AM.

Well, now, as of today, we know that 45 minutes after that, the same police lieutenant who’d been riding around with David Wildstein, who had an idea “to make this better,” sends another text message to the Fort Lee police chief, and that is him making a suggestion about how to deal with these traffic problems that were so bad this morning.

Exciting! At 8:46, Michaels texted Wildstein, saying this: “I may have an idea to make this better.” Forty-five minutes later, he sent a text to the Fort Lee police chief with a suggestion for dealing with the traffic problems.

As of Wednesday, that text message to the Fort Lee police chief was new—it had just been released. Maddow’s slimy accusation would be based on its contents.

Please note—the email in question was sent by Michaels to the chief of police in Fort Lee. The fact that it went to the Fort Lee chief will help us see how unlikely Maddow’s new accusation seems to be.

As Maddow continued, she quoted Michaels’ message to the Fort Lee chief. After that, she blatantly misrepresented a news report in Wednesday’s Bergen Record.

This is unfortunate conduct by Maddow, conduct worthy of Matthews:

MADDOW (continuing directly): Quote, "Suggest we send westbound traffic from Hudson Terrace to Center Avenue entrance." So if you want to know where that is, he’s suggesting sending the traffic coming from Hudson Terrace to Center Avenue instead. Remember this whole area is gridlocked. The source of the gridlock is those access lanes to the George Washington Bridge.

Well, the Bergen Record reporting on that text message today—the Bergen Record is Bergen County, which is where physically this all happened, so they can report the actual local, on-the-ground truth of this stuff. In reporting on that message today, the Bergen Record notes that what that police officer was proposing [shouting] would have made everything way worse! It would have rerouted local traffic toward the closed lanes.

Quote, “That move would have forced traffic to pass the lane closures.” So that Port Authority police lieutenant says to David Wildstein, “Hey, I have an idea of how to make this better.” They’ve been driving around looking at how bad it is, because David Wildstein wants to see how bad he’s been able to make those traffic problems for Fort Lee.

They’ve been riding around looking at it. After he drops David Wildstein off, he goes, “Hey, I got an idea to make this better.” And less than an hour later, his idea is an idea to actually make this way worse for Fort Lee.

As anyone can see, this is a nasty insinuation about Michaels’ intentions that day. But the insinuation doesn’t make much sense—and it’s based on a blatant misrepresentation of what the Bergen Record reported.

No, Virginia! In the news report in question, the Bergen Record didn’t say that Michaels’ suggestion would have made everything “way worse.”

Maddow used that thrilling phrase twice, but she herself had dreamed it up. It made her speculation more thrilling.

It just wasn’t accurate.

In the news report in question, the Bergen Record did report that the Fort Lee chief rejected Michaels' suggestion in a return text message. But the paper didn’t say that the suggestion would have made things “way worse,” or that the chief said that.

Maddow vastly embellished the Record’s report. That made her accusation sound better, but it wasn’t true.

Here’s why Maddow’s insinuation doesn’t even seem to make much sense:

Essentially, Maddow is suggesting the possibility that Michaels was proposing a Nixonian “rat fuck.” In the guise of trying to make things better, he was actually trying to make things “way worse.”

If Michaels had sent some proposal to Wildstein, you could imagine such a scheme—although you’d still be engaged in rank speculation. But if he was proposing a rat fuck, why would he send his idea to the Fort Lee chief?

According to the standard account of this matter, Team Christie was working hard that day to avoid contact with Fort Lee authorities. When Michaels texted the Fort Lee chief, he stepped outside this stream.

Question: Why would Michaels want to send an absurd idea to the Fort Lee chief? Presumably, the Fort Lee chief would simply reject such a plan.

In this case, the chief did reject Michaels’ proposal. But if the proposal was a rat fuck, why would Michaels have sent it to him?

As Maddow continued, she offered her one disclaimer concerning Michaels’ intentions. But she went on to weave a thrilling tale about what might have occurred.

Warning! It isn’t just the Bergen Record! In what follows, Maddow mischaracterized what the police chief said too:

MADDOW (continuing directly): We don’t know if that was the police lieutenant’s intention. We know from the records released today that the Fort Lee police chief responded to the Port Authority policeman by essentially saying, “Are you crazy? That cannot happen, there’s already gridlock there.” [Chuckles]

But was there an effort underway? Not just in designing the bridge shutdown ahead of time, but, once it was underway, to crank it down further and try to make it even worse for Fort Lee than it already was? When the kids weren’t getting to school, when the ambulances weren’t getting to people, when the police were not able to respond to people, when people were stuck for hours in what ought to be a minutes-long commute, was there an effort underway during the bridge shutdown to make it even worse because it wasn’t bad enough yet?

And did that effort extend beyond Chris Christie’s allies at the Port Authority, who were doing the whole thing, to also include a law enforcement agency? When that bridge was used as a weapon to try to hurt that town for reasons that still haven’t been explained. We have that newly today because Fort Lee just released this [big stack of documents] on top of the legislative committee releasing this [other big stack of documents]. It has been a really bad day for trees, but it has been a big day for this story.

Stay with us.

Maddow offered one brief disclaimer, then wove an elaborate speculation. As always, you have to watch the tape to appreciate the effect of her histrionics.

To watch the full segment, click here.

In that passage, Maddow offered her sole disclaimer concerning Michaels’ possible motives. But uh-oh! She quickly undermined her disclaimer with another embellishment.

Sorry! The police chief didn’t say, “Are you crazy?” in response to Michaels’ text message. He didn’t say that literally, and he didn’t say it “essentially.”

Maddow invented that colorful statement. Once again, she embellished what somebody said to make her tale more thrilling.

As she closed her program's opening segment, Maddow was engaged in a long speculation. The possibility she imagined was this:

Michaels was trying to make the traffic jams even worse that day. He was trying to make the situation even more dangerous.

Toward that end, he sent a text to the Fort Lee police chief designed to make things “way worse.” To state the obvious, Maddow was imagining some very ugly behavior.

Everything is possible! Michaels may be revealed as the head of al Qaeda by the time the Fort Lee probes are done. And Rachel may be the head of the mob! That is possible too!

That said, journalists aren’t supposed to play with dolls on the air, as this extremely willful person increasingly seems to be doing. Journalists aren’t supposed to drag people’s names through the mud on the basis of very slender speculations—in this case, a speculation which is supported by embellished accounts of a news report and a police chief’s statement.

Sorry, Rachel! The Fort Lee police chief didn’t say that Michaels’ proposal was “crazy.” And the Bergen Record didn’t say that it would have made matters “way worse.” Those embellishments came from Maddow, who was playing with dolls that night, just as her beloved colleague was doing when he almost got somebody killed.

Maddow’s thrilling speculation was extremely tenuous. It advanced an ugly suggestion on the basis of doctored evidence.

That’s a very bad thing to do. But willful cable TV stars rarely care about that.

Matthews didn’t give a rat’s ass when he almost got somebody killed. Maddow didn’t give a good goddamn when she took out her Chip Michaels doll and began telling us stories.

As is often the case, Maddow’s work this night wasn’t obsessively honest. Since Michaels’ proposal went to the chief of the Fort Lee police, it also tended toward dumb.

In fairness, she gave her viewers a new scandal thrill, as she tries to do each night. As she did, she made her viewers dumber—and she dragged someone’s name through some very deep mud on a very slender basis.

Decent people don’t do things like that. Rachel Maddow does this shit all the goddamn time.

All next week, we’ll ask a question: Who is Rachel Maddow? Whoever she is, she has grown to resemble her beloved colleague.

Matthews shouts, while Maddow snarks. Otherwise, what’s the difference?

Coming tomorrow: Maddow’s program this past Wednesday night!

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2014

Meanwhile, Salon—good God: Rachel Maddow made an unfortunate accusation/insinuation on Wednesday evening’s program.

Truth to tell, her accusation/insinuation doesn’t make seem to any sense. But she slimed it out there anyway. When scandal culture takes control, you need a new claim every night!

Long ago, Chris Matthews almost got somebody killed this way. Tomorrow, we’ll run through this latest piece of slime from his highly self-indulgent, not especially honest colleague.

In the meantime, Salon: Good God!

We refer to this pitiful piece by young Nico Lang. For once, Salon’s headlines provide a reasonably accurate synopsis:

Our figure-skating obsession: Why America loves watching women fall
American media culture loves watching women torn apart, and figure skating is no exception

That’s right! America, or its media culture, loves seeing women fall and get torn apart! This is the passage where Lang voices his daring theory:

LANG (2/20/14): At the Winter Olympics, figure skaters rule the games, dominating press coverage and media attention. Female figure skaters become household names, whether due to victory, as in the case of the aforementioned Lipinski, or infamy, like Tonya Harding, whose scandal proved irresistible tabloid fodder, dominating gossip rags for years. The details are Olympic legend: The 24-year-old Olympic hopeful allegedly hired her ex-boyfriend and bodyguard to attack competitor Nancy Kerrigan, bruising her leg with a baton. After healing from the injury, Kerrigan would go on to place second, while Harding finished in eighth. Despite not actually winning the event, both women are more widely remembered than Kristi Yamaguchi, who actually won gold in 1992. The two short program broadcasts in 1994 pulled in Super Bowl-size viewership, averaging over 70 million viewers.

Harding and Kerrigan were the perfect example of our national obsession with watching pretty young women fall from grace. Figure skaters are so mesmerizing to American audiences in part because they’re consummate athletes whose sport also performs traditional femininity. A skater is everything a woman is taught to be, graceful and elegant, an ethereal figure reduced to the very fact of her body. She can seem more than human, almost angelic, until the moment she is brought down to earth. Ashley Wagner’s “bullshit” reaction to her lower-than-expected score last week perfectly broke that fourth wall. In that moment, she became human again. The result lives on in GIF form for all eternity.

You’re right. It’s hard to tease an argument out of that Salonistic mess. But Lang does manage to say that we have “a national obsession with watching pretty young women fall from grace.”

Do we have such an obsession? In Salonistic fashion, Lang makes no attempt to present any evidence in support of his daring claim. He simply made his daring assertion and Salon let his foofaw flag fly.

The interesting part of this piece is found in its comments. It’s almost like Salon is inventing a new literary form.

We don’t think we’ve ever seen an article where virtually every comment notes how amazingly dumb the article is, often doing so in very articulate fashion. It's like Salon is teaching people how to read by challenging them, again and again, with world-class examples of groaning illogic or unsupported claims.

They’ve almost created a new literary form, the scathing pushback comment. (We refer to the first several dozen comments.)

It’s stunning—and disorienting—to see the unrelenting dumbness of the work at the new Salon. Lang graduated from DePaul in 2011. Reading Salon, we see the strange truth again and again:

The kids are not all right.

Meanwhile, coming tomorrow: Maddow’s latest rather unholy con.

THE PRESS CORPS [HEART] ACCUSERS: What Chris Matthews did next!

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2014

Part 4—After the gunman appeared: On Tuesday, May 11, 1999, Chris Matthews engaged in heinous misconduct on his cable “news” program.

In a truly ridiculous bit of behavior, he put a false accusation into the mouth of Kathleen Willey, one of his most beloved accusers. By the end of the week, he had almost gotten someone killed.

(For background, see part 3 in this series.)

Matthews’ conduct that night was astounding, though it presaged much that would follow over the next several years. Indeed, over the next several nights, the clownish cable news hit-man just kept pouring it on.

On Wednesday, May 12, Matthews spent the bulk of the hour reviewing his interview from the night before. As part of his ongoing misconduct, he continued making the false accusation which would almost get somebody killed.

Early during that program, Michael Isikoff warned Matthews about his continuing conduct. Warning Matthews about such behavior is a bit like scolding an eel:

MATTHEWS (5/12/99): Last night—I will just briefly state it...[Willey] alluded to a name that she had, she had seen, which was thrown to her by an ABC reporter, Jackie Judd. And she said, “Oh, yeah, that's the guy that, that came up to me in the morning in, 6 in the morning, and scared the hell out of me and threatened me.”

She said in many ways that she was the victim of a White House scare tactic to shut her up, to kill her story and to discredit her in the public. Was that a coordinated campaign, and what do you know about it?

ISIKOFF: Well, we know some things, but, you know, we don't have the final answer and we don't have the— You know, nobody's gotten to the bottom of this, including Starr's people. Some of what you were quoting her as saying was simply what she was repeating from what has been in press stories—

She does assert that there was this guy who, posing as a jogger, who made these, what could be construed as quite intimidating statements to her, on the eve of her Paula Jones deposition. Starr's people have been investigating that now for over a year and they haven't arrested anybody. They have reason to believe that there is some aspects of the story that checks out, but they have yet to identify who this jogger is, if he indeed exists.

MATTHEWS: Was he sicced on her by the president?

ISIKOFF: Well, since we don't know who it is, Chris, we can't say whether it's sicced on by the president.

MATTHEWS: Yeah, I don't know. She, she will tell you— She will tell you off camera pretty much exactly who this person is. And that's why I threw that name out last night.

ISIKOFF: Yeah.

MATTHEWS: Cody Shearer.

Once again, Matthews’ behavior was heinous, as it often is today, when he’s paid to behave this way in the other partisan direction.

Isikoff kept warning Matthews that Willey wasn’t necessarily telling the truth. He plainly said the mysterious jogger may not even exist.

But so what? After reading a statement from Shearer’s lawyer, Matthews kept pouring it on:

MATTHEWS: All the story we know is that Kathleen Willey believes that the person who assailed her that morning is Cody Shearer, based upon a picture shown to her by Jackie Judd of ABC. That's all we know. And she has—

ISIKOFF: Right. And I—I mean, you know, let's not take it for more than it is.

MATTHEWS: Right.

ISIKOFF: Somebody, a member of the news media, thinks that for, it might have been Cody Shearer, shows a picture of somebody who Kathleen Willey had a, you know, brief encounter with over a year ago—

MATTHEWS: Right.

ISIKOFF: —and she thinks there might be a resemblance.

MATTHEWS: “Encounter” meaning that person who came up to her in the morning, right?

ISIKOFF: Right, right. Sure. And she—as far as we know—

MATTHEWS: Because when you say “encounter” in any of these conversations, it sounds like “encounter.” You gotta be careful around here.

ISIKOFF: I— Look, then, there are just two things. ABC hasn't gone with the story and, and Starr hasn't filed any charges.

MATTHEWS: Right.

ISIKOFF: So I— You know, I don't know how far we should take this. I mean, it just—

MATTHEWS: All right. Well, we'll take it as far as we have.

Matthews’ behavior was heinous and inane, and it continued all week:

Later on Wednesday night’s program, he fielded a phone call from Gennifer Flowers, who praised Willey’s obvious greatness and made some groaning misstatements.

On Thursday night, Matthews was still pimping Willey’s claims, although he had finally stopped using Shearer’s name. That may have been in response to complaints from Shearer’s lawyer.

How inane was the Hardball of this era? At one point on Thursday night, Matthews asked his own version of “Sybil the Soothsayer” to figure out what must have happened between Willey and President Clinton.

At this point in time, Matthews’ regular soothsayer was an expert on body language. On this program, she broke the news that Kathleen Willey “steeples her fingers a lot”—and of course, that she didn’t seem to be lying.

This nonsense went out on the air:

MATTHEWS (5/13/99): Well, let's go to Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, who's an expert at reading people. In fact, that's the name of her book. Jo-Ellan, read Kathleen Willey for us.

DIMITRIUS: Well, Kathleen, what we've seen demonstrated in the time that she's been on TV is, she's very consistent because she, she is very nervous when she has spoken on TV. She does a lot of things like looking down. She kind of gets her words mixed up a little bit. She steeples her fingers a lot when—

MATTHEWS: What's that mean?

DIMITRIUS: Well, generally that's, it's a form of nervousness. And then ultimately the question becomes, is she nervous because of the circumstances or is she nervous because she's lying? And I would submit to you, based on everything that I've seen, that she is nervous simply because she's nervous about, you know, all of the pressure and the, the focus that it's going to place in her life. I mean, she is taking on the entire world here—

MATTHEWS: Right.

DIMITRIUS: —and saying one more time, bringing this whole issue up in front of the country, and anybody would be nervous under those circumstances. You don't see any difference in her behavior and, and that's—

The pattern to reading somebody is, is looking at the consistency, and she is very, very consistent in each one of these matters.

Performing her assigned role in the drama, Dimitrius explained that Willey was being consistent and didn’t seem to be lying.

All through 1999, Dimitrius would appear on Hardball and offer analyses of body language which tended to agree with Matthews’ well-known perspectives. In her most embarrassing appearance, she was present in November to help Matthews worry about the troubling sexual implications of Candidate Gore’s three-button suits, one of the most ludicrous episodes in the history of “cable news.”

Presumably, Dimitrius’ clowning enhanced her bottom line as an author/jury consultant. As the career liberal world sat silent, her clowning made fools of us all.

Matthews’ behavior was heinous all week. On Friday, he began linking the Willey matter to Candidate Gore, who he would trash in remarkable ways right through the November 2000 election (and then beyond). In this brief passage, you get the flavor of the discourse maintained on Hardball over those two years:

SQUITIERI (5/14/99): Chris, I keep thinking of that cartoon, you know, Chris, where Pepe LePew, the amorous skunk, is chasing the, the dog and the cat that gets the accidental white stripe down its back. It's, it's completely two different animals. And Al Gore is never going to be Pepe LePew—

[...]

MATTHEWS: Actually, when you're with him, he'll wear his T-shirt and tell jokes and laugh at your jokes. He's kind of a normal person, like this, as hard as that is to imagine.

On television he stiffens up like Clutch Cargo or somebody. He's an amazing character. Only his mouth moves, you know, one of those characters. And yet, for some reason, he's got all the goo of the Clinton administration coming down on his head like—

I always say he's the bathtub ring. I'm sure he loves that one. And yet all the good things like the economy and international trade and expansion and high tech, and—he didn't get any credit for that. So you fix it. Tell me what the situation is.

Matthews was certainly right on one score. Repeatedly, for two solid years, he would refer to Candidate Gore as “the bathtub ring” of the Clinton scandals. He would then marvel at the fact that Gore got no credit for the accomplishments of the Clinton years.

The mocking comparison to cartoon figures would also be routine, Clutch Cargo being one favorite. Presumably, Matthews was behaving this way in service to his owner, GE CEO Jack Welsh. His conduct was relentless, inane and disgraceful. It was also completely accepted by the career liberal world.

Back to Matthews’ love for Willey, perhaps his favorite accuser:

Over that weekend, two things occurred. That Sunday, a man with a history of mental illness appeared at Cody Shearer’s home, brandishing a gun. It also became appallingly clear that Matthews had made a false accusation when he said that Shearer had threatened Willey in the incident Isikoff said may not have happened at all.

Something else happened that Sunday; Matthews actually spoke with Shearer. On Monday night, in the aftermath of the dangerous incident he had created, this unbalanced person went on the air and opened his program like this:

MATTHEWS (5/17/99): Before we get started with a favorite topic of mine, Bill Clinton and his leadership, I have to recount something that happened to me on Saturday afternoon. I had just come down the steps to the train platform at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia after spending the day with my brother, Jim. And a man approached me, shook hands and said, “I'm Cody Shearer.”

Well, after a moment of surprise, we had a heated discussion about Kathleen Willey's appearance here last week, in which I brought up his name as the person Mrs. Willey had told a reporter was the man who approached her in a suspicious manner in January of 1998. She had made this identification to me in previous conversations.

Last week on the air, she said she wouldn't divulge the name because the Office of Independent Counsel was still investigating. Mr. Shearer told me, in a very impassioned but what seems to be a very credible way, that he was 3,000 miles away during that alleged pre-dawn meeting, and he can prove it.

Last week, I read Mr. Shearer's denial from his attorney on the air. Today Mr. Shearer's attorney sent me a further letter stating that Mr. Shearer had nothing whatever to do with the events described by Ms. Willey.

He wrote, and I'm quoting here, "During the entire period that Ms. Willey identified, including the date on which she was accosted, Mr. Shearer was in California.” He says he was—he has documentary proof of that, including restaurant, ATM and other travel receipts.

Well, after my Philadelphia encounter with Mr. Shearer, which I did find credible, I now regret having spoken, having spoken about him—not spoken beforehand with him before I mentioned his name on the air. I should have never brought his name up till we had vetted it.

Do you think? Three days later, on May 20, the news of the gunman at Shearer’s home appeared in the nation’s newspapers, then quickly faded from view. Matthews never mentioned the dangerous incident he had spawned.

As far as we know, Matthews was never sanctioned by NBC News for his astonishing conduct. Very few journalists spent any time discussing the obvious lessons involved in the horrible things he had done.

A few behaved more appropriately. Joe Conason hammered Matthews for his behavior in the pages of Salon and in later columns at the New York Observer. And in the New York Daily News, the late Lars-Erik Nelson wrote the column which wasn’t written by anyone else in the guild.

Nelson started his column like this, making many important points which remain important today:

NELSON (5/21/99): Kathleen Willey, the socialite who claims President Clinton groped her in the Oval Office, also claims that a mysterious jogger tried to intimidate her against testifying about her encounter.

The jogger has never been named. But on May 11, with Willey as a guest, CNBC's Christopher Matthews broadcast the name of Cody Shearer, a freelance writer who is the brother-in-law of Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott.

Rush Limbaugh picked up the story and repeated Shearer's name the next day. Shearer immediately began receiving death threats.

Last Sunday, an armed man broke into Shearer's garage and slashed tires on two cars. When confronted, he waved a gun and fled. The intruder has been identified by his own family as Hank Buchanan, 61, the mentally troubled older brother of Republican presidential hopeful Pat Buchanan.

Hank Buchanan has an excuse. He is a manic depressive. Matthews has none. His story was wrong. Shearer was not the mysterious jogger. He was in California when Willey says she was threatened.

When Shearer confronted Matthews with the facts, Matthews backed down. He had never bothered to check his story before blurting it out, never bothered to call Shearer. In the new world of talk-show TV there is no need to be accurate, only to make money.

"The past year has been, I think, the worst year for American journalism since I entered the profession 44 years ago," David Halberstam writes in the preface to "Warped Speed," a Century Foundation study of current reporting standards. "The standards for verification, so critical to serious and fair reporting, have fallen dramatically."

Matthews is a central figure in this book, a screaming, manic TV opinion-monger who poses as a journalist...

To this very day, of course, Matthews remains a “screaming, manic TV opinion-monger who poses as a journalist.” In an astonishing moment, another person who poses as a journalist described Matthews as her “beloved colleague” last year.

At the heart of this ugly story is the practice of casual accusation. When that gunman appeared at Shearer’s home, he embodied one of the dangers of this practice, which is still widespread on MSNBC today.

That said, very few people ever get shot because of false accusations. The larger danger involved in this practice involves the relentless dumbing-down of the national discourse—the abuse of the public trust in pursuit of partisanship and financial gain.

In his column, Nelson condemned this dumbing-down—a dumbing-down which still goes on so people like Matthews can make the big money to which Nelson alluded.

(According to press reports, Matthews’ salary went from $1 million to $5 million in the next year or so as he trademarked himself as a manic attack dog against both Clintons and Candidate Gore.)

Is Matthews mentally, emotionally or intellectually unstable? Nelson almost suggested as much at several points in his column. We’d say the possibility has often seemed brutally clear down through these many long years.

NBC News didn’t sanction Matthews, except by massively raising his salary. But the most important part of this story involves the silence of the lambs—the silence of the journalists who didn’t write the column Nelson wrote.

In a remarkably casual way, Matthews had made a heinous false accusation. As it turned out, he could have gotten somebody killed.

In the next few weeks, he began making crazed accusations against Wen Ho Lee, a Chinese-American nuclear physicist who had popped into the news. Death threats began pouring in against Lee, although Matthews was hardly alone in this bit of irresponsible conduct.

Throughout the next two years, Matthews would make wild, inaccurate accusations against Candidate Gore. More strikingly, he would maintain the level of ridicule and insult which helped cue colleagues as to where the guild’s Conventional Wisdom was running. Given the narrow way the 2000 election was decided, it’s hard to doubt that Matthews’ misconduct, all by itself, sent George W. Bush to the White House.

(Within the guild, Matthews was much more influential at that time than he is today.)

Today, Rachel Maddow refers to this “manic TV opinion-monger” as her beloved colleague. It takes a very cynical person to make such a statement. And in truth, Maddow has been quite casual with her accusations over the past several months.

She too is dumbing the nation way down as she stuffs big bucks in her pants.

For two solid years during Campaign 2000, career “liberals” tolerated Matthews’ misconduct, even though his gruesome misconduct was aimed directly at Us.

Today, the liberal world adores Maddow’s clowning, which is directed at Them.

Only in a world gone mad could a ludicrous figure like Matthews still hold the exalted position he holds. When you see Maddow clown around and mislead you each night, try to remember one basic fact—people are dead all over the world because of her beloved friend.

Rachel misleads us rubes every night. In a point of fairness, she studied under the best.

A pair of beloved accusers: On January 7, 1999, Elizabeth Holtzman appeared on Hardball and made an accurate statement. She accurately noted that Linda Tripp, in sworn testimony, had contradicted Willey’s story about the alleged assault by Bill Clinton.

(Tripp and Willey had been friendly co-workers in the White House.)

Holtzman made an accurate statement about what Tripp had said. For that reason, Matthews landed on her like a ton of bricks. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 1/8/99, with links to prior reports.

In August 1999, Matthews played softball with Gennifer Flowers for a deeply absurd half hour, praising her for her mammoth hotness as she rattled thrilling tales of the Clintons’ endless murders.

Flowers’ performance was so bizarre that Hannity & Colmes invited her to appear for the full hour. That said, the insanity had started on Hardball. See THE DAILY HOWLER, 9/26/03.

Questions:

In what world can a person like this still be a major media figure? In what world would a person like Maddow praise him as she does?

In what world could a nation of liberals still be tolerating such conduct? The answer is, this appalling conduct continues and thrives in the world where you live.

How far did we get with Hawking’s first book?

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2014

Even after all these years, we didn’t get very far: This morning, at the coffee joint, disgusted with what we’d seen on cable TV last night, we put aside current events and returned to Stephen Hawking’s first best-seller, A Brief History of Time (1988).

Our disgust with last night’s “cable news” made us think of Plato’s Seventh Letter. Plato described his reaction to the accusations against Socrates, “without question, the most upright man then living.”

For ease of comprehension, we’ll quote Plato in translation:

“When I saw all this, and others things as bad, I was disgusted and drew back from the wickedness of the times.”

For the record, Athenian society was falling apart at the time, as is happening now.

Whatever! Drawing back from the wickedness of the times, we returned to Hawking’s book this morning, asking how far a non-specialist could hope to get in the famous text.

We’d say we got maybe to page 20. And that isn’t as impressive as it might sound. The treatment of 20th century physics doesn’t start until that page.

Did any non-specialist really understand Hawking’s book? Perhaps more significantly, were people able to recognize the fact that they didn’t understand? Two weekends ago, on a mid-winter trip, we decided that this was the place where we stopped being clear on what was being said:

HAWKING (page 20): The fundamental postulate of the theory of relativity, as it was called, was that the laws of science should be the same for all freely moving observers. This was true for Newton’s laws of motion, but now the idea was extended to include Maxwell’s theory and the speed of light: all observers should measure the same speed of light, no matter how fast they are moving. This simple idea had some remarkable consequences...

We don’t understand that. Step by step, we’ll walk through our incomprehension:

First, why would anyone have supposed that the laws of science wouldn’t be the same for all freely moving observers? Why would anyone think that?

We had no idea.

Second, what “laws of science” were we discussing? We couldn’t answer that either.

Perhaps more significantly, what is a “freely moving observer?” We don’t understand that phrase. Here, we advance an incomparable point:

The term in question, “freely moving observer,” doesn’t sound like a technical term. Often, in reading science or math, a reader will encounter technical terms or mathematical symbols he clearly doesn’t understand.

That doesn’t seem to be the case here. The term “freely moving observer” sounds like everyday English.

But that term isn’t part of everyday English. To wit:

The phrase seems to imply that some observers are moving, but they aren’t moving freely. Do you understand that distinction? Can you explain the difference between moving observers and their freely moving brethren?

Frankly, we can’t! That means we’re working with technical language we don’t understand, even if its components make it seem familiar.

From there, our incomprehension grew. Consider that new idea in physics: “all observers should measure the same speed of light, no matter how fast they are moving.”

Do you have any idea what that means? Do you have any idea how an observer might go about measuring the speed of light at all, let alone how he might do so when he’s moving?

We have no idea how someone measures the speed of light. That said, we’re fairly sure of this—if we ever decide to measure the speed of light, we’ll probably try to do it while we’re sitting still.

Laughter of the gods to the side, that formulation sounds like something we regular folk understand, but it pretty much isn’t. By the way: Why should the speed of light be different if you measured it from a moving car rather than from a park bench? Why would anyone be surprised by the idea that two observers, one moving and one still, would measure the same speed of light?

At this point, do you have any real understanding of what is being discussed? We had to admit we did not.

(We assume that Hawking means this: the speed of light relative to the observer should seem the same to all observers “no matter how fast they’re moving.” If I rush toward a beam of light, it will seem to approach me at the same speed as if I remain here in my chair. We assume that’s what he means, though we aren’t sure. And that isn’t what he says.)

Once we hit that passage from page 20, we had to admit it—by this time, we didn’t really understand what Hawking was saying. It seemed that we ought to understand. But, in truth, we didn’t.

Looking back from there, we saw some stuff on page 19 we didn’t really understand either. And at that point, Hawking is still explaining 19th century physics!

We’ve been interested by these types of incomprehension for decades. In many ways, Wittgenstein’s later work was concerned with similar problems—with the failure to diagnose the incoherence in types of “philosophical” speech.

Then too, there’s the inability to see the ways we get conned by pols and by “journalists”—by various forms of journalistic speech.

Back in the 1950s, as little leaguers, we were fascinated by Al Kelly, the doubletalk comedian who often appeared on network TV shows. (Click here.) Kelly would seem to be making sense, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on what he had actually said.

As it turned out, Al Kelly was deep! It’s much as Wittgenstein is said to have said: “a serious and good philosophical work could be written that would consist entirely of jokes.”

Back to the world of journalism:

Book reviewers know they should say that books like A Brief History of Time are marvelously accessible to non-specialist readers. When journalists agree to say such things, you see the heart of the intellectual problem eating away at our discourse.

Still coming: Back to Professor Frenkel’s magical math. Also, Daniel Dennett!

Even this couldn’t undermine the brilliant clarity: As we read Hawking’s book two weekend ago, we were puzzled by this passage on page 18:

HAWKING: Newton was very worried by this lack of absolute position, or absolute space, as it was called, because it did not accord with his idea of an absolute God. In fact, he refused to accept absolute space, even thought it was implied by his laws...

That didn’t seem to make sense. Finally, we decided to check the revised, later version of Hawking’s book. When we did, we saw that our book had been published with a two-word omission, a typo.

In the updated version, the text says this:

HAWKING: Newton was very worried by this lack of absolute position, or absolute space, as it was called, because it did not accord with his idea of an absolute God. In fact, he refused to accept lack of absolute space, even thought it was implied by his laws...

In 1988, the book was published with an early-page typo. It was still amazingly easy to understand, or so the reviewers all said.

On once again looking at Maddow’s first segment!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2014

A heinous, clowning performance: MSNBC is slow today posting Rachel Maddow’s transcript.

We can’t say we blame them. Maddow’s opening segment last night was a heinous 21 minutes of Fort Lee fiddle. To watch the whole clown show, click here.

(A second, shorter segment about Fort Lee followed. Maddow devoted about 60 percent of last night’s program to her distortions, inventions and clowning concerning this topic.)

When people put up with a person like this, those people will get what they’ve bargained for.

We want to discuss that first segment in some detail, and the transcript still hasn’t been posted. We’ll put the topic off till tomorrow.

Coming next, back to Hawking!

Chris almost got somebody killed this way!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2014

Lawrence seems eager to top him: In fairness, Lawrence offered just one short segment concerning Fort Lee last night.

When he did, he made a remarkable statement about a person who’s much less important than he is. This passage defines the current drift of one of our highly amoral corporate cable “news channels:”

O’DONNELL (2/29/14): Joining me now is attorney Julian Epstein, a Democratic strategist and former counsel to the House Judiciary Committee.

Julian, there’s David Samson today, in his little apology note at that public hearing at the Port Authority, attributing what happened at the George Washington Bridge to the actions of “a few individuals.” That list of individuals is expanding every day. It may very well include David Samson himself, who is deeply entrenched in this whole story.

But now we’re finding out about Chip Michaels, this police officer who seems close to Camp Christie, who was driving David Wildstein around, is an additional e-mail communication coming out about him coming up with a better idea about how to make the traffic jam worse.

To say, at this date, to attribute this event that happened at the bridge at this date to, as Samson did, to the actions of a few individuals, that’s just patently false based on what we know on the record so far.

Will it turn out that Samson engaged in wrongdoing with respect to the bridge closings?

That’s certainly possible. It’s also possible that Lawrence himself was the mastermind of the affair!

Everything is possible! Then too, some claims are simply untrue. For one example, just consider what Lawrence said about Michaels.

(Epstein should have challenged what Lawrence said. Needless to say, he didn’t.)

As you can see from the videotape, Lawrence’s syntax broke apart as he tried to talk about Michaels.

Sentence construction is hard! That said, the drift of his statement was clear.

Question: In the real world, have we learned that Michaels “came up with a better idea about how to make the traffic jam worse?” Have we learned that Michaels is one of the individuals who engaged in misconduct during the Fort Lee lane closings?

Plainly, no, we haven’t learned that. That is just a howling misstatement—a groaner, an invention, a patently bogus claim.

At present, it’s a false accusation.

It’s also an ugly accusation, aimed at a person who is less important than Lawrence. At present, evidence for this accusation doesn’t exist, except in the bogus narratives of people like Lawrence and Rachel. (To review her more detailed inventions last night concerning Michaels, see our next post).

Just for the record, this is exactly the way Chris Matthews almost got somebody killed. Epstein should have challenged Lawrence. Being a hack, he didn’t.

Epstein and Lawrence are overpaid hacks, just as Samson is. Almost all major players in our political/journalistic worlds tilt in that direction.

Do we know that Michaels is one of the people who misbehaved in the case of the lane closings? Plainly, no—we don’t know that.

We do know that Lawrence has misbehaved. That fact is perfectly clear.

Chris almost got somebody killed this way. Lawrence seems eager to top him.

THE PRESS CORPS [HEART] ACCUSERS: True belief!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2014

Interlude—The children staged a swoon: As a matter of general theory, journalists are not supposed to fall in love with accusers.

Sometimes, accusations turn out to be false. Sometimes, accusers turn out to be a bit squirrely.

For these reasons among many others, journalists are supposed to approach accusers and accusations with appropriate caution. Given the modern press corps’ low caliber, that frequently doesn’t occur.

It didn’t happen in 1998, when Kathleen Willey burst on the scene in a dramatic 60 Minutes appearance. It isn’t happening today, as children on The One True Channel fashion their own accusations against everyone who happens to waddle into their limited, partisan field of view.

By now, Willey is regarded as a somewhat shaky source by a wide range of observers. The reasons for this are obvious.

In recent years, Willey has made the standard wild accusations about the murderous Clintons. Back in the day, weird events quickly turned up from her personal life. In his final report on the Clinton probe, independent counsel Robert Ray made a point of noting the fact that Willey had lied in the course of the investigation. He explicitly stated that he had agreed not to prosecute her.

That doesn’t mean that some statement by Willey is automatically false. For sensible observers, these developments may heighten the sense that we ought to be careful about accusers and their colorful claims.

Back in the day, the boys and girls of the celebrity press corps weren’t cautious about Kathleen Willey. They could tell she was telling the truth!

Willey appeared on 60 Minutes in March 1998. Few journalists had ever set eyes on her before that thrilling engagement.

They had no history with Willey. She had no public track record.

Aside from her well-chosen clothing and her good hair, there was no apparent way to judge Willey’s credibility. That didn’t stop the various children who had fallen in love with accusers, as long as their accusations were aimed at the Clintons, then at Candidate Gore.

After Willey did 60 Minutes, the stampede began. Willey was conventionally attractive. She was upper middle class manners.

Plus, she was accusing Clinton! These three factors meant that she was plainly telling the truth.

Tomorrow, we’ll return to Chris Matthews’ astounding behavior when he interviewed Willey fourteen months later, in May 1999. We’ll look at what he did in the two nights after his interview with Willey. We’ll look at what he did the next week, after his appalling conduct almost got somebody killed.

We’ll look at what NBC News didn’t do. We’ll wonder why they didn’t do it.

Today, Matthews still froths on the air every night. He still engages in the clownish conduct which is his stock in trade.

Today, though, his misconduct is aimed in a different direction in the partisan wars which define cable “news.” For that reason, Rachel Maddow has frequently praised his obvious greatness.

Matthews is her “beloved colleague,” she once jaw-droppingly said.

Back in the day, Matthews staged a love affair with Willey, perhaps his favorite accuser. But long before he displayed his fealty to his faire lady, many others had already done so.

After her 60 Minutes appearance, they stampeded off, trying to top each other in their declarations of true belief. The various pundits all could see that Willey had plainly been telling the truth. They competed to see who could vouch for her honesty in the most ridiculous fashion.

As time went by, it became clear that Willey’s a fairly shaky witness as a general matter. In real time, the children insisted she was telling the truth. To recall what some of the children said, when they had no idea who she was, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 11/2/98.

(We apologize for formatting problems, which we can’t now correct.)

In 2002, independent counsel Robert Ray cited Willey’s lies as part of his final report on the probe of President Clinton. Result? Big newspapers disappeared this part of Ray’s report, and major pundits continued to swear by Willey’s credibility.

To review that embarrassing part of the story, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 6/10/03.

Journalists shouldn’t [HEART] accusers! Beyond that, they should be careful about pimping accusations. But that’s true in the world of civics textbooks, not in the world where we live.

The press corps loved accusers back then. Chris Matthews loved one accuser so much, he almost got somebody killed.

Final point:

At the present time, we’re seeing a lot of love for accusations on our “liberal” “news channel.” The policy was bad back then. The policy’s bad today.

Tomorrow: Where Matthews went from there

One crowning example: After Willey appeared on 60 Minutes, journalists raced to vouch for her obvious credibility. They had never set eyes on her before, but they could see she was truthful.

Chuck Lane embarrassed himself in The New Republic. Wonderfully clever headline included, here’s the start of his TRB column:

LANE (4/6/98): Unslick Willey

Kathleen Willey is pretty clearly telling the truth about what happened between her and Bill Clinton on November 29, 1993. And the episode is pretty clearly a far more offensive matter than Clinton's alleged dalliance with Monica Lewinsky. With Monica, it was consensual. The president's advance toward Willey even included a modest measure of physical force. It was made to a married woman whose husband was an acquaintance of the president and the first lady. It took place as that same married woman was asking the president for a paying job so she could rescue her family from financial disaster. And it started in the Oval Office during business hours, with a Cabinet officer cooling his heels outside. Yuck!

So the president is a groper and a liar. He must be held accountable.

Lane never explained how he knew that Willey was telling the truth about these matters and that Clinton was lying. The children could tell that Willey was telling the truth!

For the record, William Safire had already played the slick/unslick Willey card. “Here was no slick Willey,” he cleverly wrote in the New York Times on March 19, as he rushed to judge the new accuser’s “gripping interview.”

Journalists should show considerable caution concerning accusations. True then, still true today.

Except on cable “news.”

The professors respond to Kristof’s complaint!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2014

We think about Susan Rice: On Sunday, Nicholas Kristof wrote a column which sounded familiar and accurate.

Kristof lodged a complaint against the academic world. “These professors today” just don’t get involved, the New York Times columnist said:

KRISTOF (2/16/14): Some of the smartest thinkers on problems at home and around the world are university professors, but most of them just don’t matter in today’s great debates.

The most stinging dismissal of a point is to say: “That’s academic.” In other words, to be a scholar is, often, to be irrelevant.

[...]

“All the disciplines have become more and more specialized and more and more quantitative, making them less and less accessible to the general public,” notes Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former dean of the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton and now the president of the New America Foundation.

There are plenty of exceptions, of course, including in economics, history and some sciences, in professional schools like law and business, and, above all, in schools of public policy; for that matter, we have a law professor in the White House. But, over all, there are, I think, fewer public intellectuals on American university campuses today than a generation ago.

We've often made this complaint. Our Daily Howler keeps getting results! Or so thousands of people said when they read Kristof’s column.

Today, several letter-writing professors respond to Kristof’s complaint. Two professors seem to agree with his analysis of academic isolation through hyper-specialization. Two others say it ain’t so.

We’d have to say that it’s very much so. We thought of Susan Rice as we read these letters, as we increasingly do.

Increasingly, we’ve come to see the Susan Rice episode as one of the most striking markers of our society’s ongoing intellectual breakdown. And yes, we blame the professors for this.

Here’s why:

On September 16, 2012, Rice went on five Sunday shows and gave a preliminary explanation of what occurred in Benghazi. Instantly, John McCain created an absurd paraphrase of what Rice had said.

McCain’s paraphrase was inane, absurd, straight from a Washington gong show. Needless to say, his paraphrase stuck, then became standard issue.

Simply put, the modern press corps isn’t up to the task of diagnosing and rejecting clownish paraphrase. Simply put, the task lies well beyond their intellectual horizons.

Nor are “journalists” willing to complain about foolish conventional wisdom. Once a Standard Story gains traction, it will have lifetime tenure.

Without the ability to paraphrase, you can’t conduct a public discourse. That said, did you see a single professor complain about the gong-show paraphrase built out of Rice’s remarks?

Not fair, you may insist! The professors were in the south of France! Your analysis may be correct. But isn’t that part of the problem?

McCain’s clownish paraphrase quickly went viral, as such nonsense frequently does. We’ll note three obvious problems with the way Rice’s remarks were reinvented:

Don’t bother with nuance: Rice noted, again and again, that she was giving a preliminary assessment of what had happened. Asking journalists to react to such qualified statements is, to quote from the early Maher, a bit like asking a troupe of gorillas to clean themselves with bidets.

Our journalists don’t understand the concept of a qualified statement. Presumably, professors do.

Unable to walk and chew gum at one time: Rice told a two-part story about what happened in Benghazi. According to Rice, a spontaneous protest had occurred. Then, extremists armed with heavy weapons came and did the killing.

She didn’t say that the spontaneous protestors launched the killing attacks. But two-part stories are too complex for the modern journalist. McCain collapsed her two parts down to one. Inane ridicule ensured.

Unable to reason at all: On Face the Nation, Rice was specifically asked if al Qaeda was behind the attack. She said it might have been local extremists. She also said it might have been al Qaeda affiliates, or “al Qaeda itself.”

It might have been al Qaeda itself! Despite that statement, McCainiacs swore that Rice had said it wasn’t a terrorist attack. The modern press corps lacks the skill, and the nerve, to react to such burlesques.

Intellectually and morally, the mainstream press corps wasn’t equipped to challenge McCain’s inane paraphrase. Did you see a single professor stand up to assume this task?

As time has passed, the attack on Rice has stuck in our mind as a defining cultural event. Without the ability to paraphrase sanely, you simply can’t conduct a public discourse.

That skill is well beyond the reach of our modern “press corps.” Somewhere in the south of France, our “logicians” sneer at this proletarian task, for reasons Kristof described.

In case you’re wondering: Rachel Maddow don’t mention Rice’s name all through the fall of 2012. As the attacks congealed and took their toll, neither did Lawrence O’Donnell.

On weekend duty, Chris Hayes actually mouthed the standard attack, then took it back one week later. (Everyone makes mistakes.)

MSNBC abandoned Rice completely, totally and wholly. Can you see why we suspect that the children today are just no damn good?

Rachel Maddow keeps selling the product!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2014

A day that was jam-packed with news: Why were those Fort Lee access lanes closed?

Someday, we may find out.

Last weekend, our old pal Bill Maher came around to one part of our thinking on this topic, as we knew he eventually would. He complained about the way MSNBC had been immersing itself in the topic, pushing all else to the side.

Can we talk? The Channel has been selling Fort Lee as a TV mystery drama—as a cable product. Last night, the analysts chuckled as Rachel Maddow continued the sale.

She was finishing her latest interview with her program’s co-host, Assemblyman John Wisniewski. Does Wisniewski live at 30 Rock? He sure doesn’t seem to have trouble getting over the bridge!

As she finished, she couldn’t help it. The cable star blurted this:

MADDOW (2/17/14): Assemblyman John Wisniewski, co-chair of the New Jersey Legislative Select Committee investigating the bridge scandal, thank you for your time tonight.

Lots happening, all at once. I keep thinking this is going to slow down, but it doesn’t.

WISNIEWSKI: Not yet.

MADDOW: Not yet. Thank you, sir.

Are you kidding? Was a lot happening all at once? In fact, very little has been happening in this story, as all cable viewers can see.

That is the nature of such probes. Investigations take a long time. On most days, nothing happens.

That said, people selling the probe as a mystery/drama product have to pretend that things are constantly happening. Maddow kept soldiering on last night in her two Fort Lee segments.

Very little has been happening. Consider the topic Maddow placed first above all others last night—the question of the redactions.

Behold redactions! Here's how Maddow started last night’s first segment about Fort Lee:

MADDOW: Behold redactions! [Holding up pieces of paper] These black lines were not added by me.

I’m more of a highlighter kind of gal, rather than a black magic marker person.

When you get official redactions like in a publication, like in this book, Ali Soufan’s book, The Black Banners, about interrogating al Qaeda suspects, in a book like that, publications, the redactions are nice and tidy because they do them with a machine. But when it’s some guy crossing out things by hand, it admittedly looks a little more sketchy.

And in 908 pages of documents and e-mails and text messages that were handed over by Chris Christie ally David Wildstein when the bridge lane scandal broke open in New Jersey, either Mr. Wildstein or his lawyer just marked up by hand about 45 pages of the 908 pages. What’s underneath the black marks?

Well, today, somebody appears to have finally found out. The Star-Ledger and Bergen Record reporting today the special counsel for the committee investigating the bridge scandal met with David Wildstein’s lawyer in private and looked at the un-redacted documents. At what was under the black magic marker.

So, the special counsel apparently has seen what has been blacked out in these documents. It’s not clear that anyone else has seen them, except him. But apparently he has, in private. Nobody else has seen them.

What a wonderful mystery! According to Maddow, someone had finally been able to see what’s underneath all those black marks!

Remember, this was the most important event in a day which was crammed full of action! By the way, does it sound like a lot of redacting was done? According to Maddow, it sounded like only 45 pages, out of 908, had been redacted at all.

To our admittedly unjaundiced ear, that didn’t sound like a lot.

Whatever! Maddow presented several other puddles of piddle, then took a commercial break before introducing Wisniewski. When she asked him about the redactions, he seemed to say, “Nothing to look at,” much as a bridge cop would:

MADDOW: Let me ask you about the redactions first...Reid Schar, the special counsel, has reportedly now seen what’s beneath these redactions. Why has he seen them and what does that mean about whether you’re going to see them and whether or not the public will?

WISNIEWSKI: It’s a process that counsel worked out with one another. We wanted to see them from that day. You showed the clip where he was first at the committee meeting and we wanted to see them. So, Mr. Zegas, the attorney for Mr. Wildstein, has agreed to provide them to our council who`s going to review them and they`re going to come to an agreement on what can be included.

What we’re told preliminarily is the statement that Mr. Zegas made that they were outside the timeframe or outside the subject matter, it`s pretty much on the mark. There are a couple of pages that our counsel says that probably should be included. So, we’re hoping to work that out and have them included with the record and I hope to have more to say about that in the near future.

Are we reading that correctly? Rather clearly, Wisniewski seemed to say that, preliminarily, the redactions seem to be justified. According to Wisniewski, the original statement by Wildstein’s lawyer was “pretty much on the mark.”

Wisniewski tried to cushion the blow, but this was hardly big news. But according to Maddow, this was the number one revelation in a day that was jam-packed with news!

Wisniewski broke it to her gently, then made his way back over the bridge. The analysts began to jest until we forced them to stop.

(“Lots of bullroar keeps happening, all at once,” one of the analysts said. “I keep thinking this is going to slow down, but it doesn’t,” an eye-rolling youngster replied.)

We aren’t making light of the probe, which may end up revealing criminal conduct. We are making light of the attempt to sell the probe as TV entertainment, a product.

For further exploration: Eric Wemple thinks Billmar went too far. We agree, and then too we don’t.

THE PRESS CORPS [HEART] ACCUSERS: An act of astounding misconduct!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2014

Part 3—What Chris Matthews did: As a matter of theory, journalists aren’t supposed to fall in love with accusers.

Sometimes, accusers’ claims are false, whether by design or by error. For that reason, journalists should approach their claims with appropriate caution.

When that isn’t done, the results can be quite bad. Case in point:

Back in the late 1990s, the mainstream press corps fell in love with a string of high-profile accusers. Their accusations were assumed to be true, even when they were false.

One such accuser was Kathleen Willey. In March 1998, she burst into prominence, claiming that President Clinton had groped her right in the Oval.

(The unwelcome advance was said to have occurred in 1993.)

Willey was rushed onto 60 Minutes. Following her dramatic appearance, stampeding journalists fought to see who could vouch for her honesty more, an embarrassing spectacle we will review tomorrow.

As it turned out, Willey wasn’t an especially reliable witness. In his final report on the endless probe of President Clinton, independent counsel Robert Ray said he had “agreed not to prosecute her for false statements” she had made in the course of the investigation.

As of 2007, Willey was strongly suggesting, in a book, that Clinton had been involved in the 1993 suicide death of her husband. She also claimed that Clinton’s agents had broken into her home and stolen the book’s manuscript.

In 2002, Willey even landed her own talk radio show, though it lasted less than a month. For a new overview by Media Matters, just click here.

Whatever! In May 1999, Willey made a thrilling guest appearance on Hardball. She arrived with a new accusation, involving the death of her pet cat and implied threats against her children.

Part of Willey’s new accusation, bruited in private, would turn out to be false. But before it was known to be false, it almost got a journalist killed, thanks to the astonishing conduct of Chris Matthews, who was conducting a love affair with the stories of the woman known as “Irish.”

Yesterday, we reviewed the results of this false accusation, which could have gotten the journalist killed. Today, consider the astonishing way the accusation was brought forward by a cable demon in love with a raft of accusers.

On May 11, 1999, Willey appeared on Hardball for the full hour. An excited cable host opened his program in a state of agitation:

“Kathleen Willey speaks for the first time in more than a year, for the next hour here on Hardball.”

The next night, Matthews would feature a phone call from Gennifer Flowers commenting on Willey’s greatness. On this evening, he engaged in one of the most appalling acts of anti-journalism of the whole “cable news” era.

Eventually, Willey voiced her new accusation concerning the mysterious death or disappearance of her 13-year-old cat. Shadowy agents of Clinton had done it, she said or suggested.

This is the way she could tell:

MATTHEWS (5/11/99): Talk about the thing that I really would love to hear you talk about, which is the, the attempt to cover this up, as you say. Tell about what happened when you went jogging in 1998, right before you were about to testify in the [Paula] Jones case.

[...]

WILLEY: I had—the previous month, had had surgery, neck surgery for a herniated disk, and I was in a collar and I was having a terrible time sleeping. And I got up very, very early one morning and—

MATTHEWS: Pre-dawn?

WILLEY: Yes. And I, I went out. And I live in a, what I thought was a very safe neighborhood. I went out for a walk. I had my three dogs with me, and I saw a man coming towards me.

[...]

WILLEY: And I saw this man coming towards me, and I just thought he was another neighbor. I had not met all my neighbors because I hadn't been there long. And he was coming towards me, and he called my, out my name, and he said, “Kathleen.” And I stopped and I said, “Yes?” And he said, “Did you ever find your cat?” And I said, “No.”

And I thought he was a neighbor. I'd asked a couple of neighbors to keep an eye out for this family pet, a 13-year-old cat. I'd never told anybody his name. I just described him to these neighbors, and I thought that maybe word had gotten around in the neighborhood that there's a cat missing. Just, here's who you call, if he—

MATTHEWS: Sure.

WILLEY: And so he asked me, “Did you ever find your cat?” And I said, “No, I didn't.” And I said, I said, “Not—no, I haven't, and we really miss him.” And then he said, “Did you ever get those tires fixed on your car?” And I said, “No.”

And that's when the hairs started standing up on the back of my neck.

MATTHEWS: Right.

According to Willey, the mysterious man cited the name of her missing cat. He asked if she had ever gotten her tires fixed. (Allegedly, they had been slashed.) He even inquired about her children, using their names.

“It was a very insidious thing, and it was meant to scare me,” Willey said. “We're going to come back and talk about that,” Matthews heroically vowed.

Did such an encounter actually happen? We have no way of knowing; everything is possible! That said:

Shortly after this alleged incident, Willey testified in the Paula Jones case and swore than no one had tried to influence her testimony. It must also be said that Willey has sometimes told colorful stories which turned out to be untrue.

(Example: During the probe of Clinton, she told the FBI that she had become pregnant at one point and had an abortion, later admitting that these claims had been untrue.)

Willey’s claim of an encounter isn’t in question here. At question is the identity of the man who supposedly approached her.

When Matthews came back, he encouraged his guest to name the shadowy figure who had approached her and scared her. When Willey refused to supply the name, Matthews did so himself!

Four nights later, a man with a history of mental illness showed up at the accused person’s home brandishing a gun. Making the story even worse, the accusation against this person turned out to be false.

As became clear, Matthews had named a person who could prove that he didn’t threaten Willey that morning. By his astonishing conduct, Matthews could have gotten him killed.

Below, you see the astonishing way in which Matthews aired this false accusation. As “journalism,” the conduct shown here is well beyond crazy—and it almost got someone killed.

During the course of this program, Matthews falsely accused journalist Cody Shearer as the man who threatened Willey. Below, you see Matthews’ first attempt to get him falsely accused:

MATTHEWS: When this man came up to you at dawn that morning, in Richmond five years after this incident, who was that guy? I'm gonna ask you again, because I think you know who it was.

WILLEY: I do know. I think I know.

MATTHEWS: Why don't you tell me who it was? This is an important part of the story here, why would you want to come out and, on this program tonight, on live television and not tell us who you think that person was? Do—

Let me ask you a more careful way. Were you ever led to believe who it might be, and who led you to believe it and what did they lead you to believe?

WILLEY: I was shown a picture and—

MATTHEWS: And who was in the picture?

WILLEY: I can't tell you. I'm not trying to be coy—

MATTHEWS: Would I recognize the picture?

WILLEY: Yes.

MATTHEWS: Is it someone in the president’s family, friends? Is it somebody related to Strobe Talbott? Is it a Shearer?

WILLEY: I can't say.

MATTHEWS: It's not?

WILLEY: I've been asked not to discuss—

MATTHEWS: You've been asked not to admit that?

WILLEY: Yes. By the Office of Independent Counsel, because they are investigating this.

MATTHEWS: OK.

“Is it a Shearer?” Matthews had now stated part of the accused person’s name, even as Willey refused to.

In that passage, Matthews was told that the OIC was still investigating the matter. He heard Willey say that she thought she know who the alleged person was.

Except to someone who’s badly deranged, the qualifying phrase, “I think I know,” should serve as a serious warning. That said, Matthews has been deranged for years, a problem he’s happy to put on display.

Matthews had stated part of the name. Unsatisfied, he returned to his unholy task at a later point in the program:

MATTHEWS: Let's go back to the jogger, one of the most colorful and frightening aspects of this story. You were confronted as you were out walking. You couldn't sleep, your neck was hurting, you—this guy came upon you who never met before...Tell me about that—what he said, finish up that whole story.

WILLEY: Well, he mentioned my children by name. He asked how they were and, at the, at this point, I started asking him who he was and what he wanted.

MATTHEWS: Right.

WILLEY: And he just looked me right in the eye and he said, “You're just not getting the message, are you?” And I turned around and, and ran. I had no business running, and probably ran about 100 yards, I was so frightened, and I turned around and he was gone.

MATTHEWS: Who showed you the picture of the person you think might have been him?

WILLEY: Jackie Judd.

MATTHEWS: From ABC?

WILLEY: Yes.

MATTHEWS: And did you identify it positively?

WILLEY: Yes.

MATTHEWS: So it's Cody Shearer.

WILLEY: I can't tell you.

MATTHEWS: OK. But you identified it. Let's talk about a couple of other things just to tie up the loose ends here.

As it turned out, Cody Shearer had been in California at the time of the alleged threatening incident—and he had the proof. But so what? Matthews had blurted his name on the air even as Willey refused to.

(Presumably, Willey had told Matthews the name off the air. When she wouldn’t say the name on the record, Matthews said it for her.)

As a result of this astounding misconduct, Rush Limbaugh began pimping Shearer’s name the next day. That Sunday, a man with a history of mental illness appeared at Shearer’s home, brandishing a gun.

In the normal flow of events, false accusations don’t get accused people killed. In this instance, Matthews’ astounding behavior easily could have done so.

That said, the most remarkable part of this incident is the sheer illogic of Matthews’ commentary and the recklessness of his behavior. Though this is one of Matthews’ most appalling “journalistic” episodes, he behaves in similar ways every night of the week.

He has done so for many years. He has been doing so in the past few weeks. Reckless, unfounded assertion is what Chris Matthews does.

Rachel Maddow tells the world that Matthews is her “beloved colleague.”

It’s dangerous when pseudo-journalists entertain us rubes with reckless, unfounded accusations. It’s extremely ugly behavior. It makes us all very dumb.

That said, casual, reckless accusation has been the stock in trade at The One True Channel ever since the Fort Lee debacle gave them a way to swell their ratings and please their liberal viewers.

On cable, casual, unfounded accusation is the stuff of partisan entertainment programming. It swells the hearts of true believers. TV stars’ bank accounts grow.

In the next few days, we’ll recall more of the press corps’ conduct when they fell in love with accusers during the Clinton-Gore years.

As a matter of theory, journalists aren’t supposed to fall in love with accusers. But that’s what happened in the late 1990s, and that’s what’s been happening now.

This is very bad behavior. It makes us very dumb.

Tomorrow: After her 60 Minutes appearance, who could praise Willey the most?