Frank Rich and John Ashcroft on Olbermann tonight.

[Berry Cool]

Should be interesting...

[babylonsister]

1. Rich on TDS also tonight. Thanks, BB! nt

[Gabi Hayes]

2. will he ask Asscroft about the briefing Condi did/didn't give him?

you know, the one just before he quite flying commercial?

I sure hope so, but somehow I don't think he will

[Gabi Hayes]

3. Rich asks, where were Kerry and Clinton BEFORE this?

as if the strong words they showed in clips were uncharacteristic

well, Frank, you porcine johnny come lately, where the fuck were YOU?

oh...here he was, braying along with the herd....just one example of many:

CBS employees lost their jobs; is Judith Miller next?

CBS released a report this week on its controversial use of four disputed documents about Bush's National Guard record, announcing that they had fired or asked for the resignations of four staffers. As Media Matters has noted, the report did not in any way exonerate Bush; nor does it contradict the documented evidence that Bush skipped a required physical; was grounded from flying; and received a questionable honorable discharge that he may not have earned.

The firestorm over the CBS report illustrates a double standard regarding media mistakes. CBS has been roundly criticized, and employees have lost their jobs, over a report that used documents that may not have been real. Last year, The New York Times ran at least five articles and columns that used a "quote" from Senator John Kerry that was definitely not real. Nobody lost their job -- or even, so far as we know, was even reprimanded.

As Somerby has explained:

We finally have the full information. Yes, Maureen Dowd invented that fake NASCAR quote-the comical "quote" from pretentious old Kerry (see The Daily Howler, 9/21/04).

And once Dowd invented the phony quotation, it spread through the great New York Times. It was repeated by John Tierney; repeated by Sheryl Gay Stolberg; repeated by Timothy Egan; repeated by {Frank} Rich-and Kerry was mocked for his pompous (fake) statement every single time that they did it. Five separate times in the past several months, Kerry was mocked in the Times for his comment. And oh yes, let's repeat this-the "quotation" in question was phony. Kerry never made the statement in question. Maureen Dowd simply made the "quote" up.


http://mediamatters.org/items/200501140006

[bobbie]

5. What do you mean? Frank Rich has been speaking truth to power for years

Years.

He's one of the few good columnists.

[Gabi Hayes]

6. do a little checking..... he's trashed both Gore and Kerry MANY times

I dunno if the link I just put up was there for you to read, but it's instructive to see how easily he falls for egregious lies

he reminds me of Mo Dowd...not as bad, but a hypocrite, nonetheless

[Gabi Hayes]

7. first one is free:

THAT’S RICH: Normal people have a word for it: Lying. We refer to Frank Rich’s inexcusable column in Saturday’s New York Times. Rich—the self-admiring incompetent who, along with Maureen Dowd, ginned up that fateful Love Story nonsense—doesn’t believe you should vote for Al Gore. But instead of trying to argue his case, he quickly started spinning you blue:

RICH: The books celebrate The Family, the one cause every Democrat feels compelled to embrace after Monicagate. The reviews for the author are thumbs up…
Rich—who, incredibly, can’t stop talking about Monica Lewinsky!—implies that Gore is “embracing” the family due to Lewinsky concerns. But of course, the Gores have staged a Nashville “Family Reunion”—a forum on issues facing the family—every year since the early 90s (see below). Like all pundits, Rich knows this fact; he simply doesn’t want you to know it. So he dumps the fact from his piece. Prepare yourself for a dark, mordant chuckle: In this baldly dissembling way, Rich warns you about Al Gore’s character!
But this was just the great scribe’s warm-up. His nugget deception begins soon after. “The new, spontaneous post-wooden Gore is determined to be spontaneous if it kills him,” Rich says. Then the brilliant, far-seeing scribe presents this rank piece of deception:

RICH (pgh 3): But it took Katie Couric all of three minutes to uncover the old Al Gore lurking inside the latest model. When he protested that he wouldn’t really, really decide whether to run for president until after the holidays, she spoke for many viewers by responding, “Why am I having a hard time believing that wholeheartedly?” Then came the Gore equivocation and hair-splitting that he perfected in the 2000 debates. Ms. Couric had to ask seven questions to pin him down on how he would “handle Saddam” if he were president. The answer? He said that President Bush was taking “the right course of action” by winning a unanimous Security Council vote. And now what? “I don’t know where this goes from here,” said Mr. Gore.

Rich is appalled by Gore’s equivocation. “f Mr. Gore…is going to be taken seriously by voters, ‘I don’t know where this goes from here’ will hardly do,” he thunders.
But did Gore “equivocate” or “split hairs” with Couric? Why don’t we report, letting you decide? Below, we present the official NBC transcript of the exchange Rich describes. For clarity, we have numbered Couric and Gore’s Q-and-A’s. Was Rich right? Did it take seven questions to get Gore to speak? Normal people have a word for such a claim. That word is a simple one: Lying.
.......
more
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh112502.shtml

[bobbie]

16. Thanks for the link Gabi Hayes

I'm reading it...

I do respect that website.

[bobbie]

15. ...Rich did sorta sponsor Mo Dowd at the NY Times didn't he?

And she has no soul, none (damn the woman can turn a phrase though).

Hm, I'm not gonna give up on Rich easily, but anyone allied with Dowd is suspect.

[bobbie]

4. Wow, that's an understatement

Thanks for the tip.

My god it's like star wars...

[Gabi Hayes]

8. he's asking Ashcroft about Rice's briefing as I type

he muddies the waters, saying they got LOTS of briefings, conflating domestic with overseas threats, gibberjabbering away

''there was no evidence of domestic threat''

parsing it to distinguish domestic from overseas

Olbermann lets it GO without followup!

damn!

[Tin Man]

10. Damn it, Keith! Why didn't you follow-up? Why did Ashcroft stop flying...

Why did Ashcroft stop flying commercial carriers in July of 2001?

[Roland99]

13. Then why did that sniveling piece of shit, cowardly bastard fly CHARTER???

[texasleo]

9. eek! Ashcroft on teh hot seat.

[CatWoman]

12. he completely creeps me out

:puke:

[spanone]

11. Ashcroft makes no sense whatsoever. Gibberish.

[rzemanfl]

14. Non-answers to everything Keith asked about. Wouldn't buy

his book if it was a choice between that and corn cobs to wipe my ass with.