NOTE to Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mekong Delta): Those who say you must define yourself before Bush defines you are WRONG. It won't be allowed. You must define Bush as a failure before he defines you, and in doing so, you will define yourself -- as a warrior, a prosecutor, and a vessel of hope and restoration. Attack, attack, attack on Iraq (a foolish military adventure), the Economy (i.e., hundreds of billions of dollars in Federal Deficit, trillions of dollars in National Debt, millions of jobs lost), Medifraud, the Environment and yes, 9/11. This election is a national referendum on the _resident's fitness to lead this nation. He has failed on every count: CREDIBILITY, COMPETENCE and CHARACTER. Define yourself, John, by defining him relentlessly, bravely and adroitly...
It's the Media, Stupid.
Daily Howler: A script can be totally trivial:
Clarke’s book concerns matters of life and death—the
sorts of things your “press corps” avoids. Your press
corps adores the Totally Trivial, and Rice-knew-al-Qaeda clearly qualifies. Clarke devotes one sentence to the matter. Absolutely nothing turns
on it. Despite that, a long string of “journalists” have flogged the topic. Pointlessness can’t stop a script.
A script can be totally wrong: Plainly, Rice’s
interview doesn’t show that she knew the term “al
Qaeda.” A schoolchild could see that quite well.
Despite this, a string of scribes have stood in line
to pretend that the interview does show such
knowledge. As far as we know, no one has yet turned up
a case in which Rice did use the term “al Qaeda.” But
so what? The Washington press corps’ greatest scripts are almost always factually bogus! The concept of accuracy is no longer part of your press corps’ dysfunctional culture.
Everybody has to say it: A script can be trivial—and a
script can be wrong. But everybody has to recite it!
In the case of Rice-knew-al-Qaeda, the script began
with hapless Sean Hannity, a pundit for whom no claim
is too stupid. But Hannity was only the first of many
to voice this inaccurate script. Comically, Myers
included the script in a “Truth Squad” segment. Evan
Thomas put the script right at the top of his Newsweek
report. Michiko Kakutani repeated the tale in a New
York Times book review. What’s the sign that everyone
said it? Bill Kristol even voiced the script, on last
weekend’s Fox News Sunday. Kristol always thinks for
himself. Just how vital was this script? Even Kristol
was willing to mouth it.
Break the Bush Cabal Stranglehold on the "US Mainstream News Media," Show Up for Democracy in 2004: Defeat Bush (again!)
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh040204.shtml
SCRIPT WITHOUT END, AMEN! What do we mean when we talk about scripts? This week, the “press corps” showed you:
FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 2004
SCRIPT WITHOUT END, AMEN: For years, we’ve said that
the press corps works from “scripts.” There has never
been a better time to nail down this seminal concept.
We refer to this week’s most widely-typed tale—the
script about Condi Rice and al Qaeda. In his book,
Against All Enemies, Richard Clarke makes a naughty
suggestion. He describes the briefing given to Rice in
January 2001. “As I briefed Rice on al Qaeda,” he
writes, “her facial expression gave me the impression
that she had never heard the term before.” Result? A
string of scribes have stood in line to insist that
Clarke’s impression was wrong. Their evidence? An
October 2000 radio interview in which Rice mentioned
Osama bin Laden, but didn’t use the term “al Qaeda.”
For the record, Clarke says it wasn’t just Condi.
“Most senior officials in the administration did not
know the term when we briefed them,” he writes in his
book.
Did Condi know the term “al Qaeda?” Here at THE
HOWLER, we don’t have a clue. But this utterly trivial
topic has produced the press corps’
script-of-the-week. Eager scribes have stood in line
to recite the refutation-of-Clarke. To see Lisa Myers
recite the script, see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/31/04.
But what exactly is a “script?” Rice-knew-al-Qaeda
helps explain it. Let’s nail three crucial points:
A script can be totally trivial: Clarke’s book
concerns matters of life and death—the sorts of things
your “press corps” avoids. Your press corps adores the
Totally Trivial, and Rice-knew-al-Qaeda clearly
qualifies. Clarke devotes one sentence to the matter.
Absolutely nothing turns on it. Despite that, a long
string of “journalists” have flogged the topic.
Pointlessness can’t stop a script.
A script can be totally wrong: Plainly, Rice’s
interview doesn’t show that she knew the term “al
Qaeda.” A schoolchild could see that quite well.
Despite this, a string of scribes have stood in line
to pretend that the interview does show such
knowledge. As far as we know, no one has yet turned up
a case in which Rice did use the term “al Qaeda.” But
so what? The Washington press corps’ greatest scripts
are almost always factually bogus! The concept of
accuracy is no longer part of your press corps’
dysfunctional culture.
Everybody has to say it: A script can be trivial—and a
script can be wrong. But everybody has to recite it!
In the case of Rice-knew-al-Qaeda, the script began
with hapless Sean Hannity, a pundit for whom no claim
is too stupid. But Hannity was only the first of many
to voice this inaccurate script. Comically, Myers
included the script in a “Truth Squad” segment. Evan
Thomas put the script right at the top of his Newsweek
report. Michiko Kakutani repeated the tale in a New
York Times book review. What’s the sign that everyone
said it? Bill Kristol even voiced the script, on last
weekend’s Fox News Sunday. Kristol always thinks for
himself. Just how vital was this script? Even Kristol
was willing to mouth it.
The topic was trivial. The claim was wrong. Despite
that, everyone lined up to say it! The script
expressed Conventional Wisdom—Darling Condi can’t be
wrong. The press reached this judgment a long time
ago, and they have no current plan to rethink it. So
this week, they insulted your intelligence, again and
again, reciting a tale that is patently bogus. We’ve
tried to tell you, for many years, about your press
corps’ blatant dysfunction. This week, they had a
better idea. They decided to show you themselves.
File under:
Al Gore said he invented the Internet
Al Gore said he discovered Love Canal
Al Gore said he inspired Love Story
Al Gore lied about doing farm chores
Al Gore grew up in a fancy hotel
Al Gore said his mom sang him union lullabies
Al Gore lied about doggy-pills
And, of course, with no hint of irony:
Al Gore will do and say anything!!
SCRIPTS EVERLASTING, AMEN: Everybody had to recite it!
Indeed, how ubiquitous was the al Qaeda script? On
Tuesday night, Chris Matthews featured Myers on
Hardball. And, as we noted in Wednesday’s HOWLER, he
seemed to mock her recitation of this fatuous script.
Flawlessly, Myers played the pointless-but-mandated
tape. Then Matthews offered this comment:
MATTHEWS (3/30/04): Well, it’s clear [Rice] knew what
the basic substance was. I guess the only question,
Lisa, is, Was she familiar with the term, al
Qaeda—“the base” in Arabic?
To all appearances, Matthews knew that the tape didn’t
speak to the actual question at hand. But so what? The
next night, Clarke played a bit of Hardball himself.
And Matthews pimped the very script he seemed to mock
one night earlier:
MATTHEWS (3/31/04): Let’s talk about something very
critical. You said in your book that “as I briefed
Condoleezza Rice on al Qaeda”—this is in January of
2001, a month, almost a year before 9/11—“her facial
expression gave me the impression that she had never
heard the term before.”
Subsequent to that, your book coming out, NBC’s Lisa
Myers has gone back and found a radio interview where
Rice gave the year before, and here’s what she said on
the radio. This is the year before that conversation.
Let’s listen.
RICE (on audiotape): We don’t want to wake up one day
and find out that Osama bin Laden has been successful
on our own territory.
MATTHEWS: That’s a contradiction. You said she wasn’t
familiar with al Qaeda, and here she is the year
before talking about bin Laden’s operation maybe
hitting us here in America.
Seeing is almost believing. On Tuesday, Matthews
seemed to mock Myers for her clowning. But by
Wednesday, her script was “very critical,” involving a
troubling “contradiction.” Remember this very crucial
point: When the press corps settles on a script,
everybody has to recite it! Even scribes who know it’s
false will line up to vote with the guild.
WIDOW-BREAKER: The Washington Post—and op-ed chief
Fred Hiatt—should be ashamed of Charles Krauthammer’s
column this morning. The sliming of Richard Clarke
continues, with Krauthammer reciting a Standard
Script—Clarke made a phony apology. Remember the key
idea in this: We must never respond to Clarke’s claims
on the merits. We must always misdirect the public—to
his motives, his profiteering, his alleged sordid
character, and of course, to his weird private life.
How nasty is Krauthammer’s column? Today, the snarling
scribe extends his pique to the wives of those who
died on 9/11. Let’s face it: There is nothing so nasty
that this fellow won’t say it. Go ahead and read this
piece to see where his small mind has been.
So yes, Charles Krauthammer’s column is nasty, but
readers can easily see that. Unfortunately, readers
can’t see the way the scribe misleads them about basic
facts. After saying how fake Richard Clarke really
is—and just before stooping to trash those fake
widows—Krauthammer baldly spins the facts. “The most
telling remark Clarke made in the entire [9/11]
hearing was one that did not make the cover of
Newsweek,” he whines. Then he quotes from Clarke’s
appearance. Try to believe this got printed:
KRAUTHAMMER: Former senator Slade Gorton: “Assuming
that the recommendations that you made on January 25th
of 2001…had all been adopted say on January 26th, year
2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have
prevented 9/11?”
Clarke: “No.”
Thus, doing everything demanded by the most hawkish,
most prescient, most brilliant, most heroic, most
swaggering anti-terrorism chief in American
history—i.e. Clarke, in his own mind—would not have
prevented Sept. 11. Why, then, should the
administration apologize?
What exactly was the failure? What was Bush supposed
to do to prevent Sept. 11?
What was Bush supposed to do? Obviously, Krauthammer
and Hiatt know what Clarke has said; they know that
Clarke has repeatedly said that something might have
stopped 9/11. Consider his session on 60 Minutes, a
program the pair surely watched. By July 2001, George
Tenet was telling George Bush that “a major al-Qaeda
attack is going to happen against the United States
somewhere in the world in the weeks and months ahead,”
Clarke said. But Bush “never thought it was important
enough for him to hold a meeting on the subject,” he
continued, “or for him to order his national security
advisor to hold a cabinet-level meeting.” (In 1999,
Clinton conducted such meetings for weeks when a
similar threat-level existed, Clarke said.) Might such
meetings have made a difference? In a voice-over,
Lesley Stahl noted that “the FBI and the CIA knew that
two al-Qaeda operatives, both among the 9/11
hijackers, had been living in the United States since
2000, yet neither agency [had] passed that information
up the chain of command.” According to Clarke, if Bush
had convened daily meetings of his principals, they
might have shaken this information loose from the
bureaucracy’s lower levels. Could that have stopped
9/11? We don’t have the slightest idea. But here was
Clarke’s assessment:
CLARKE: Lesley, if we had put their picture on the CBS
Evening News, if we had put their picture on Dan
Rather, on USA Today, we could have caught those guys,
and then we might have been able to pull that thread
and—and get more of the conspiracy. I’m not saying we
could have stopped 9/11, but we could have at least
had a chance.
What was Bush supposed to do? Clarke has answered that
again and again. But Krauthammer pretends he doesn’t
know, and Hiatt lets him fool the Post’s readers. Do
we ever get tired of men like this making such a joke
of our lives?
According to Clarke, his plan could not have stopped
9/11—but tree-shaking meetings that summer just might
have. But Charles didn’t want you to know about that.
So Fred Hiatt said, “Trash the wives.”
WHEN PUNDITS APOLOGIZE: Of course, if Krauthammer
wanted to take on “phony apologies,” we know of two
real ones he could have selected. How bizarre has
CNN’s conduct been? Read Paul Krugman’s column to see.
On Tuesday, Wolf Blitzer offered a puzzling “apology”
in which he plainly slimed Krugman himself (see THE
DAILY HOWLER, 4/1/04). And then there was Daryn
Kagan’s “apology,” served up yesterday morning. Kagan
tried to explain why CNN accused David Letterman of
doctoring videotape—tape which poked some fun at Bush.
For a summary of this strange case, see the
aforementioned Krugman column. But to get a good look
at a “phony apology,” read what Kagan said:
KAGAN: We need to clear up something from a couple
days ago. You might recall that we had some fun with
some tape that we took from the Letterman show. It’s
of a kid who had trouble staying alert during a
presidential speech in Orlando last month.
So we aired it on this show and then after we did,
they had me come on here and tell you that the White
House called and told us it was faked.
Well, it turns out due to a, what we might say, a
misunderstanding among the folks who are usually so
fantastic behind me here in the newsrooms, it turns
out that was not true. The White House, it turns out,
I guess never did call us about the tape. The
Letterman show, if you’ve been watching at night,
strongly denies it was fake. Boy, do they strongly
deny that! And we’ve been looking through our tapes
and apparently we now see no evidence that it was
faked.
So, Dave, we apologize for the error. I hope that
makes things good with us.
Now that’s a “phony apology!” Let’s state the obvious;
like everyone else on the face of the earth, Kagan
knows the tape wasn’t fake. Despite that, she suggests
that CNN still isn’t sure; we’ve been looking through
the tape, she says, and apparently the network sees no
evidence that Letterman’s actually lying. Well—they
see no evidence now. Gee, thanks for that gracious
concession! Beyond that, Kagan plays dumb about this
whole bizarre incident. She “guesses” the White House
wasn’t involved, and says that someone referred to as
“they” told her she should say otherwise. Readers, why
in the world is this goof on the air? Oh, we
forgot—she’s good looking.
Phony apologies? CNN has ’em! They also have a growing
track record in which they seem to spread White House
smears. Richard Clarke has a strange private life!
David Letterman is faking tapes! And the “apologies”
never make sense. What on earth is going on at this
floundering network?
P.S. For the record, it’s always possible that the
White House didn’t make that call.
Annals of book learnin’
JOURNALS OF WOODWARD AND CLARKE (PART 2): Yep! When
Dick Clarke published his troubling book, the pundit
corps leapt into action. Major pundits were deeply
disturbed by Clarke’s controversial claims. Could his
troubling statements be true? Major pundits fought
back tears as they read the scribe’s strange
allegations.
But in fact, many of Clarke’s “controversial” claims
have been supported elsewhere. Kakutani noted this
obvious fact in yesterday’s Times review:
KAKUTANI: Given the howling political firestorm over
Richard A. Clarke’s new book, “Against All Enemies,”
it is surprising how familiar many of his assertions
sound, his recitation of pre-9/11 antiterrorism
missteps by the Bush and Clinton administrations
echoing earlier books and old newspaper and magazine
articles…Many of its most debated charges about the
Bush administration’s handling of the war on terrorism
have been leveled before. Some have been corroborated
or openly acknowledged by other members of the
administration.
Truer words were never spoken. Pundits who staged this
“howling storm” were dumb-or-playing-dumb again.
Indeed, many of Clarke’s “controversial” claims were
supported by a book pundits loved—Woodward’s majestic
Bush at War. But because they were
dumb-or-playing-dumb, your pundits refused to take
notice.
Here are four of Clarke’s “controversial” charges,
along with the supporting material from Woodward’s
much-loved book:
Rummy’s targets: Pundits found it hard to believe that
Rummy really said it! On September 12, Clarke alleged,
the wise old owl was prowling the White House, looking
for someone to bomb:
CLARKE (page 31): Later in the day, Secretary Rumsfeld
complained that there were no decent targets for
bombing in Afghanistan and that we should consider
bombing Iraq, which, he said, had better targets. At
first I thought Rumsfeld was joking. But he was
serious and the President did not reject out of hand
the idea of attacking Iraq.
Pundits wondered if this could be true. They should
have studied their Woodward—for example, his account
of Camp David on 9/15:
WOODWARD (page 84): When the group reconvened,
Rumsfeld asked, Is this the time to attack Iraq? He
noted that there would be a big build-up of forces in
the region, and he was still deeply worried about the
availability of good targets in Afghanistan.
In Bush at War, a string of advisers note that Iraq
would provide better targets. (Hence the word “still”
in the passage above.) Last weekend, Rumsfeld was
asked about Clarke’s troubling claim by Chris Wallace
of Fox News Sunday. Rummy gave two rambling replies;
in the course of his non-answer answers, he never
denied making the statement which Clarke records in
his book.
Rummy and Wolfie’s designs on Iraq: Say what? One of
Clarke’s controversial claims concerned alleged
designs on Iraq. Scribes were shocked by Clarke’s
account of life on September 12:
CLARKE (page 30): I expected to go back to a round of
meetings examining what the next attacks [against
America] could be, what our vulnerabilities were, what
we could do about them in the short term. Instead, I
walked into a series of discussions about Iraq. At
first I was incredulous that we were talking about
something other than getting al Qaeda. Then I realized
with almost a sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and
Wolfowitz were going to try to take advantage of this
national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq.
What a controversial statement! Unless you read
Woodward—same day:
WOODWARD (page 49): Rumsfeld raised the question of
Iraq. Why shouldn’t we go against Iraq, not just al
Qaeda? he asked. Rumsfeld was speaking not only for
himself when he raised the question. His deputy, Paul
D. Wolfowitz, was committed to a policy that would
make Iraq a principal target in the first round of the
war on terrorism.
Not that there was anything wrong with it, but that’s
what Woodward records! Indeed, Woodward shows Cheney
voicing a similar view:
WOODWARD (page 43): “To the extent we define our task
broadly,” Cheney said [at a 9/12 NSC meeting],
“including those who support terrorism, then we get at
states. And it’s easier to find them than it is to
find bin Laden.”
Again, rumination on easier targets.
Bush’s testes: Did Bush have a jones for linking
Saddam to 9/11? That was Clarke’s controversial
impression on September 12. Everyone knew how shocking
it was when the profiteer dared to say this:
CLARKE (page 32): “Look into Iraq, Saddam,” the
President said testily and left us. Lisa
Gordon-Hagerty stared after him with her mouth hanging
open.
Everyone knew it was controversial when Clarke
recorded this troubling notion—the notion that Bush
was eager to link Saddam to 9/11. Maybe they should
have read their Woodward. He records Bush’s view on
September 17:
WOODWARD (page 98): Bush said he wanted a plan to
stabilize Pakistan and protect it against the
consequences of supporting the U.S.
As for Saddam Hussein, the president ended the debate.
“I believe Iraq was involved, but I’m not going to
strike them now. I don’t have the evidence at this
point.”
In fact, he didn’t have the evidence, but according to
Woodward, he asserted belief. For the record, it’s odd
that Bush would have reached this judgment. Earlier,
Woodward records the views of Wolfowitz, the most
anti-Saddam Bush adviser:
WOODWARD (page 83): [Wolfowitz] worried about 100,000
American troops bogged down in mountain fighting in
Afghanistan six months from then. In contrast, Iraq
was a brittle, oppressive regime that might break
easily. It was doable. He estimated that there was a
10 to 50 percent chance Saddam was involved in the
September 11 terrorist attacks.
Even Wolfie was only at 10 to 50 percent. By the way,
this passage provides another bit of “easier target”
thinking.
Not that urgent: According to Clarke, the threat of
terror wasn’t “urgent” for the Bush Admin before 9/11.
In this case, Clarke himself told scribes where to go.
Yep! He sent them straight to this passage in
Woodward:
WOODWARD (page 39): [Bush] acknowledged that bin Laden
was not his focus or that of his national security
team. “There was a significant difference in my
attitude after September 11. I was not on point…I
didn’t have that sense of urgency, and my blood was
not nearly as boiling.”
Oof! The White House would love to get that one back!
Of course, the pundits would have missed it too. But
Clarke just keeps bringing it up.
Why is Krauthammer sliming Clarke’s motives? Because,
as Kakutani notes, his basic claims are widely
supported. Indeed, they’re widely supported in Bush at
War, a book your pundits simply loved. By the
way—Woodward said, when his book appeared, that it was
full of solid reporting. Pundits hailed its
Bush-loving tone. But now, the reporting has come home
to roost, and pundits have tried not to notice.