The "Missing" or how Bush came to power

[Uncle Joe]

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http://dailyhowler.com/

PART 5—BY THE END, FULLY DISAPPEARED: Yep! When forced to explain their cohort’s misconduct, reporters can really come up with some doozies (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/25/05). We first noted this trait in the fall of 1999, when Howard Kurtz, to his vast credit, tried to make reporters explain the ongoing trashing of Candidate Gore—the “harsh coverage and punditry” that had begun that March, and would eventually send Bush to the White House (links below). To his vast credit, Kurtz raised this issue three times that year—once in a Washington Post report, and two more times on Reliable Sources. But when he asked high-ranking reporters to explain the odd treatment of Gore, his panelists were completely befuddled. No one could really think of a reason for the hopeful’s obvious trashing. Finally, the New York Times’ Melinda Henneberger had an idea. “There's no question that Gore has gotten much rougher treatment than Bradley,” she said. Then, she “explained” why that was:
HENNEBERGER (11/27/99): I don't know if it's a pro-Bradley media but, you know, he—it's a new story. I mean Al Gore, people here have been covering him, you know—yes, Bradley was in the Senate, but this is a whole new thing. I think many reporters are charmed by his history as a basketball hero and—

<snip>

But that’s what reporters constantly do when forced to discuss their own conduct. Understandably, therefore, reporters prefer a different approach. They prefer to avoid discussing their cohort; they prefer to pretend that their cohort’s misconduct never occurred in the first place. To John Harris’ credit, he acknowledges, at the start of The Surivivor, that the Washington press took a weird approach to the newly-installed President Clinton. But uh-oh! By the time he tries to explain Whitewater, the role of the press corps has been disappeared—a strategy he adopts in full by the end of his book, when he devotes an entire chapter to explaining Campaign 2000. (Chapter 38, pages 384-390.)
To his vast credit, Kurtz acknowledged, three separate times, that Gore was receiving weird coverage. But Kurtz did this in 1999, and the trashing of Gore continued. Indeed, the press corps’ conduct became so strange that only one approach is now possible; the corps’ conduct turned out to be so extreme that it has to be completely disappeared. And so, in Harris’ chapter about Campaign 2000, the corps is simply never mentioned. All the fake tales they invented about Gore? All those fake tales have been disappeared. Instead, Harris follows the established press script—the script to which all pundits adhere. He presents a tale of how Gore blew the election through his odd and puzzling judgments—a tale in which the press corps’ misconduct is, for all time, disappeared.
How did Gore manage to blow the election? According to Harris, Gore came up with a puzzling notion; weirdly, Gore thought that Clinton’s impeachment scandals might have an effect on his chances. Quickly, Harris lets us know how silly this notion really was:
HARRIS (page 385): There was an irony in Gore’s predicament, though he was in no mood to appreciate it. By the spring of 1999, polls showed that a majority of the public, and certainly most Democrats, were eager to move on from the Lewinsky obsession—if not necessarily to forgive, certainly to forget, and to accept Clinton for what he was; an imperfect but talented man. Gore was more judgmental, and more mired in the past, than the voters he brooded over.
Before discussing the major problem with this presentation, let’s note the simple flaw with Harris’ logic as he rolls his eyes at “brooding” Gore’s “moods.” Were “most Democrats” eager to move on from the Lewinsky obsession? That may have been true, but a Democrat can’t win an election by appealing to “most Democrats;” he has to appeal to almost all Dems, and to millions of centrists besides. Indeed, as he continues, Harris admits that there was an actual problem with the voters’ outlooks:
HARRIS (continuing directly): This is not to say that the vice president was imagining the Clinton problem. A critical portion of culturally conservative independent voters, people any national Democrat needed to win election, were indeed angry with Clinton and inclined to take it out on Gore. It was a genuine problem, but one a politician like Clinton could have dispatched easily. For a less nimble politician like Gore, the problem was almost paralyzing. It should not have been so hard for him to declare that he was running on the policy record of the previous eight years and his own platform for the next four, while inviting voters to judge his own character on its own, not in the shadow of Clinton. But Gore oddly came to believe that to embrace any part of the Clinton record was to embrace all of it.
One can only chuckle at this “analysis,” which is, of course, the Standard Press Script about Campaign 2000. In this passage, Harris praises the political skill of Clinton—a man who had managed to get himself impeached, only the second president in history to do so—while mocking the ham-handed bungling of Gore, who had “oddly” come to believe that there might be a problem for him in the aftermath of Clinton’s impeachment. According to Harris, it would have been easy for a nimble pol to deal with the political problems that lingered. Indeed, Harris adopts this general frame all through his chapter on Campaign 2000. Repeatedly, he shows us Clinton expressing amazement at Gore’s inability to deal with this problem—a mess which Clinton created, of course, for all of his vaunted abilities. Here, for example, is what Harris sees when Gore makes his formal announcement speech in June 1999:
HARRIS (continuing directly): Clinton was in Europe at the time Gore officially launched his presidential campaign with an announcement in his hometown of Carthage, Tennessee. The speech was lacked with references to personal values that seemed by implication an indictment of Clinton...If his subtlety was lost on anyone, Gore made it explicit in an interview with Tennessee reporters in which he recalled “that awful year we went through...I felt what the president did, especially as a parent, was inexcusable.”
In his Paris hotel suite, Clinton had gotten word of Gore’s comments from his traveling staff. He was angry—and incredulous. “What is this about?” he boomed. He calmed down a few minutes later and placed a call to Gore. Making no mention of his irritations, Clinton said he had watched a replay of the announcement speech. “Nice job!” he said.
Then, putting down the phone, he returned to his mystification at Gore’s efforts to put distance between them. “I don’t get it,” Clinton said. “Is this some kind of strategy? What the hell is this about?”
For the record, this passage is sourced to a “Clinton adviser present in the room.” Was this really Clinton’s reaction? Was he really “mystified” by Gore’s statements this day? We have no actual way of knowing. But if this was Clinton’s real reaction, then he was utterly clueless by now, despite Harris’ fawning praise of his massive political skills. Indeed, the only thing dumber than Clinton’s (alleged) “mystification” is Harris’ devotion to a tired old script, in which Gore’s “odd” conduct doomed his campaign—freeing the press corps from any blame for their own key role in this disaster.
What is odd about this anecdote? Let’s start again with the simplest problem: In this speech, Gore did exactly what Harris says he should have done; he “declare that he was running on the policy record of the previous eight years and his own platform for the next four, while inviting voters to judge his own character on its own, not in the shadow of Clinton.” Harris knows that he mustn’t tell you, of course, but at the very outset of the speech, Gore praised the Clinton policy record. Here is what Gore actually said, two minutes into this speech:
GORE (6/16/99): Under the policies President Clinton and I have proposed, instead of the biggest deficits in history, we now have the biggest surpluses in history.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of quadrupling our national debt, we've seen the creation of almost 19 million new jobs.
(APPLAUSE)
Instead of a deep recession and high unemployment, America now has our strongest economy in the history of the United States.
(APPLAUSE)
We remember what it was like seven years ago, and I never, ever want to go back!
(APPLAUSE)
Duh! That is what Gore actually said—although Harris knew he mustn’t tell you. Before Gore said a word about “personal values,” he did exactly what Harris proposes—he wrapped himself in Clinton’s policy record. And then, he did the second thing Harris prescribed—he “invit voters to judge his own character on its own, not in the shadow of Clinton.” Harris builds his case against Gore’s “odd” judgment by refusing to tell you what Gore really said. “Gore oddly came to believe that to embrace any part of the Clinton record was to embrace all of it,” Harris writes—baldly lying about Gore’s approach. But so it goes when the Washington press corps fights to retain Crucial Scripts.

[wli]

1. just goes to show the MSM's the reich wing's propaganda mouthpiece n/t