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Matthew Yglesias Tells a Whopper about Sen. Sanders?
Last edited Mon Nov 2, 2015, 07:09 PM - Edit history (1)
Here is the link to the story in question: http://www.vox.com/2015/10/31/9650030/denmark-prime-minister-bernie-sanders
Here is the headline, aka the Head Whopper:
Denmark's prime minister says Bernie Sanders is wrong to call his country socialist
Updated by Matthew Yglesias on October 31, 2015, 10:30 a.m. ET @mattyglesias matt@vox.com*
So, we would expect a quote of some kind from the Prime Minister of Denmark, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, naming Bernie Sanders, right? Does the story contain any such quote, though? You guessed it: no.
Mind you, the Prime Minister of Denmark,was speaking at Harvard. The tape of his talk is embedded in the story linked above. It is almost one hour ten minutes long. Of that, Rasmussen's speech was about 26 minutes. The balance of the time was taken by a Q and A, with students asking the questions. It was a wide ranging discussion: a lot about Denmark, the UN, the influx of immigrants into Europe in general and Denmark in particular.
As part of a longer introduction of the Prime Minister, the Acting Dean mentioned that one Presidential candidate had said favorable things about Denmark, while the other had said the United States is not Denmark. That was it. Even he did not name the candidates.
Some minutes into his speech, the Prime Minister said that, of course, he had no desire to interfere in our Presidential process. (Duh.) However, he loved to share about things close to heart, and Denmark was close to his heart. Then, he began speaking about Denmark and many other things as they related to Denmark. While Yglesias' story makes it seem that the Prime Minister referenced our Presidential debates then immediately set people straight about socialism, that did not happen either. There were unrelated comments in between. So, that is another misleading aspect of this story.
Then the quote that supposedly (snort) "calls out Bernie Sanders" for allegedly mischaracterizing Denmark:
I know that some people in the US associate the Nordic model with some sort of socialism," he said, "therefore I would like to make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.
That is it, folks. That's all he said on the subject about which this story supposedly is written. No mention whatever of Bernie Sanders. BUT:
The Prime Minister went on to say that Denmark is a welfare state (a description of Denmark he repeated several times throughout the speech) and to detail the many, many benefits Denmark offers its citizens, how prosperous Denmark is, how socially secure its citizens are, etc. He cited a number of ways in which Denmark compared very favorably to the US (much as Sanders often has).
AFAIK, Sanders has never said that Denmark is a socialist planned economy or said that Denmark is not a market economy. He has said we could be more like Denmark or we could learn some things from Denmark. And, very obviously, the Prime Minister never mentioned Sanders's name. (The only mention of Sanders's name on the entire tape comes near the end, as part of a comment a student made.) Further, as the story itself notes, Rasmussen's own description of Denmark's economy matches what Sanders has said about Denmark's economy!
Assuming that the Prime Minister was replying to things said in the Presidential debates at all, instead of simply educating the Harvard students about Denmark, how is he not agreeing with Sanders--that the US could learn a few things from Denmark? Indeed, if the Prime Minister was rebuking anything from the Presidential debates, it was Hillary's summary dismissal of Sanders' compliments to Denmark, suggesting the US was somehow above all that. Very worst case for Sanders, one could say the Prime Minister rebuked both candidates.
So, why did Yglesias assume that the Prime Minister was rebuking Sanders and only Sanders? No clue. None.
Cast of Characters (if you're interested. It's quite telling, IMO).
Author of the misleading story: Matthew Yglesias. Yglesias attended The Dalton School in NY (a private school) and Harvard U, being graduated magna cum laude from the latter. Aka someone who should know better. While still in college, he began blogging, supporting the Iraq War. He also voted for Romney as Governor (2002).
After graduation, he worked for American Prospect, then the Atlantic Monthly. In July of 2008, he left the Atlantic Monthly to work for Center for American Progress, blogging for ThinkProgress. In November, 2011, Yglesias left ThinkProgress for Slate. In 2014, he left Slate to work on Vox.com (owned by Vox Media, which Jim Bankoff heads) with Ezra Klein.** (CAP, of course, was founded by John Podesta who worked for Bill Clinton and Obama and who currently chairs the Presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Yglesias
Publisher of the misleading story: Vox Media. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_Media
Chair and CEO of Vox Media: Jim Bankoff. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Bankoff
Yglesias colleague at Vox Media: Ezra Klein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ezra_Klein
Denmark's Prime Minister, Lars Lokke Rasmussen, is the head of Denmark's Venstre Party. Wiki lists ten Danish political parties that are in the European Parliament and, as best I can tell, Venstre is about the third or fourth most conservative of the ten. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_Denmark
Rasmussen has been the center of some controversies involving finances, which apparently have cost his party at the polls. He has instituted budget cuts. In 2011, he was defeated by a--wait for it--Social Democrat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_L%C3%B8kke_Rasmussen
*Please note Yglesias's contact info and also note that Vox requests feedback at the end of the story.
**Ezra Klein interviewed Bernie Sanders for Vox, July 28, 2015. At the very beginning of that interview, Klein invited Sanders to say what it meant to him to be a socialist. Sanders immediately corrected Klein, saying "Democratic Socialist." Then Sanders went on to tell Klein what being a Democratic Socialist meant to him (Sanders). Yet the Yglesias's story says:
Bernie Sanders has long referred to himself as a socialist rather than a member of the Democratic Party, which has naturally lead to a lot of questions about what socialism means to him.
Hmm. Yglesias is not familiar with the work of Vox, even though he works for Vox with Klein? He didn't even check the first minute of Klein's interview of Sanders before writing this piece that is allegedly about Sanders?
37 replies
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and pretending it's some sort of takeover of the means of production. He's calling out that lie the same way we call it out when we see it here.
No surprise the other side is lying about it. It's all they have 
The M$M at it again. 
That's so freakin' despicable! The MSM/THIRD WAY/DNC are doing everything in their power to bring down Bernie, but it's not going to work! He's already too big to Fail! 
PEACE
LOVE
BERNIE
Off to write some emails! Thanks SuperMerrily!
Do I get super powers? 
Frankly, Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who should, I believe, rule the world.
Dr. William Moulton Marston, original creator of the Wonder Woman character.
Et viola!
