Bless Robert Reich: Slaps Scarface About Being Partisan

[KharmaTrain]

Finally, someone has the stones to stand up and say what a sham this entire swiftfreeper crap is. And it took a man whose barely 5 foot to do it...Robert Reich!

Scarface tried to say he spent 45 minutes "going right down the middle"...and Reich slapped it back that Joey shouldn't have wasted the time in the first place. You could see Intern Boy turn beet red (from his usual beet orange...terror alert anyone?) in a vain attempt to play "I'm a journalist...I'm non-partisan". Reich called him on it.

Reich then went on to ask why Joey dosen't do 45 minutes about where Bunnypants was in 1972...and Scarface tried to say he covered the topic (of course not for 45 minutes and surely not giving any * critic all the time he's given O'Neill) and Reich laughed...said "Joe, you're a good guy, but you're also a Republican". Joey quickly decided to help Reich pitch his book and get him out of there.

We need more of these voices slapping down the spin at the source...it's getting too close to the election to play nice-nice anymore...especially when lies and their abetters are running rampant.

[stopbush]

1. Reich was great. He didn't follow the Joe script of 45 minutes of

RW lies followed by 10 minutes of a Dem on a completely different subject, all so Joe can say "I'm even handed." Right.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. I would walk into any dark alley with that man.

After all, Tatsuo Shimabuku was only 5ft tall on a good day and he pounded nails in with his hands.

Reich does the same thing with his smarts.

[oasis]

3. Yes "Killer Joe" played it straight down the middle. The problem

is, Swiftboat lying scum O'neill has had his 15 min. in the spotlight. He has nothing more than second and third hand information on events which happened 35 years ago. Some expert.

[KharmaTrain]

7. Why Not Ask The Obvious Question:

Where you there? Did you see this? Were any of your scum suckers present? Do you have anything other than second and third-hand hear-say? Where were you at the time?

A real journalist hasn't torn this guy apart yet. Lawrence O'Donnell was the closest, and the first to bring up the Texas GOOP connections...and Hurley was promised time to respond and didn't get it. He also was so amazed at the new lies he was hearing it took him a minute to get his words flowing...and still tried to be nice.

I'm hoping this story has finally run it's course, but damage was done. Kerry's war record, among those who won't take the time but go by the impressions...especially if they hang with wingnuts and freepers, is that he wasn't the war leader/hero he tauted himself to be. This smear wasn't refuted and expect this trick to come up again and these lies to now be "assumed" fact to attack Kerry if he is elected.

O'Neill represents a group that is bitter for being blamed for losing Vietnam. Many of these people are the ones whose fathers served in the glorious WWII and they came home with their heads between their legs. They didn't lose the war, but have been angry at any and all associated with it; especially the anti-war and VWAW groups that pushed to pull the troops out. These are truely sad excuses for humans. They should be grateful for Kerry's actions or they'd have been spending even more time in that stinkin' jungle.

[oasis]

9. Good post. (eom)

[Gman]

4. Who's scarface?

[barb162]

8. Joe Scarborough of Scarborough Country

I think I spelled that right, on MSNBC

He is right wing trash and often will have a liberal and conservative on. As if he has a show with good balance. But he often lets any nazi talk five times longer than the liberal. I think he loves Ann Coulter, he'll let her go on and on with her anti-liberal venom.

[KharmaTrain]

10. Yep, That's Our Joey...

He was also a Repugnican Congressman and one of Newt Gingrich's shining lights in that "Contract On America" crap 10 years ago. At one time he was all but a shoe-in for the Senate from Florida but Newt's pecker got in the way...Joey didn't play nice with Hastert & DeLay and one dead intern later is now a TV pundit.

This guy's been chaffing lately...getting pressure from his bosses to play it more down the middle (that's why that line was used tonight) and his own partisan leaning. The goon was sitting right behind Bunnypants at a campaign rally/fundraiser last week!!!

Now I can't think of any previously elected Democrat with as much media access, can you? And a majority of the viewing audience probably have no clue of his partisan past, yet alone his other hidden "secrets".

Cheers!

[barb162]

12. Oh, how interesting

I didn't know he was in with that Newt crowd back then. (Newt, now there's another case).

I noticed when Joe S. was on the Dem Convention team a few weeks ago along with Matthews, Ron Reagan, etal., he kept saying after every speech, well I heard nothing new there, aways BADMOUTHING in some fashion. He didn't say one positive thing except maybe after Reagan's thing on stem cells and that was only because (I believe) he was with a fellow newscaster.

You are right, I can't think of any Dem with this kind of access.

[SayitAintSo]

5. Reich was great wasn't he ?

That's how our Dems need to respond to this right wing spin. All the weenie dems that go unprepared on these talk shows need to take a lesson from Reich. He was superb.

[stopbush]

6. Yes! Had Reich not confronted Joe, you can bet that tomorrow night

Joe would have said "I had Robert Reich on last night and he said nothing to dispute the Swiftboat story." He was going for the tacet endorsement of the Swiftboat lies from Reich. But Reich said "wait a minute...I won't stand for that shit" and read Joe the riot act.

Priceless.

[barb162]

11. Reich is always terrific

and I think he made his point well about Clinton's job numbers (22 million) versus the Bush job (non) numbers (1 million).

But I also think the damage has been done on the swiftboat book. There are already a lot of Americans who bought that crap hook line and sinker. Kerry has got to get on top of this kind of dirt/lie campaigning.

[KharmaTrain]

13. Barb...This Smear Hurt

We knew these slime were coming last Spring and I thought this book would be blown out of the water before it'd get any credibility. I knew the media would try to play up the slime and I expected someone like Max Cleland or Wes Clark or another veteran to lead the attack on these assholes.

Instead we got a kid glove treatment in the start...almost dismissive. That was a big mistake since O'Neill took his airtime and lied like a rug over and over. Remember, we live in times where the loudest wins, not the facts. It's shameful as this was to be expected in a media loaded with Repugnicans and their proxies.

Reich and Bob Rubin are people who should be brought forward more and more in this campaign...along with Richard Holbrooke and Dennis Ross...men who represent when America was leading the world econically and morally and men set to serve again to straighten out the mess of the past 4 years.

Cheers!

[barb162]

14. yes agree on all four people you mention

but we also better get an immediate response team in there too, sort of like the Carville type or a press group who immediately calls the media when these lies are coming in. I remember Clinton had one of these and it worked really well.

Damn it! This book was or still is a big seller on Amazon. So weeks later after it is out the Dems are responding for a while now on the different shows. Why didn't Kerry and/or his team say it the day it came out. Edwards too? Why did McCain have to say it last week? Harkin today? For weeks I have been saying, every damn time I hear this book being discussed, why doesn't Kerry just do a campaign stop and bring up this book, some of the things he remembers doing in the war and then talk, just say it already, WHEN I WAS IN VIETNAM, WHERE were Bush /Cheney???? And then, say Bush was supposed to be in AL but no pilots saw him there, Cheney was busy with multiple deferments, really go into it.

"the loudest wins"