Dean supporters: Your guy is getting smeared [View All]

[kiahzero]

http://www.spinsanity.org/

On July 22, Dean, who opposed military intervention in Iraq, commented at a New Hampshire campaign stop that the deaths of Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay were "a victory for the Iraqi people ... but it doesn't have any effect on whether we should or shouldn't have had a war. I think in general the ends do not justify the means."

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An Associated Press story published on the 22nd, however, midwifed the birth of a media myth. The lead paragraph stripped Dean's quote of any context, making it appear as though he was referring directly to the deaths of Saddam's sons. The story began, "Presidential candidate Howard Dean, a staunch opponent of the U.S.-led war against Iraq, shrugged off the deaths of Saddam Hussein's two sons Tuesday, saying 'the ends do not justify the means.' He scolded Democratic rivals for backing the conflict." Only at the very end of the piece does it report Dean's full remarks. The article was picked up in the Boston Globe, among other outlets.

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Despite a few more repetitions, including another page one story by Lakely on August 5, the myth appears to have vanished from the radar screen until earlier this month. Then, in an October 8 story about McCain in the New York Times, reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg repeated the out-of-context snippet, writing that "Mr. McCain cited Dr. Dean's remark that 'the ends do not justify the means,' in reference to the death of Saddam Hussein's sons."

Safire ratched up the spin yesterday, reporting that Dean criticized Stolberg at a New York Times-sponsored lunch last week for reprinting the out-of-context quotation. Safire then cites the full quotation, but suggests that Dean's attempt to correct the record is somehow disingenuous, writing that "Dean spinmeisters will abandon their candidate's untenable 'never said any such thing' and argue that the words 'in general' remove the quoted sentence from an answer to the specific question about killing Saddam's sons. They will blow smoke about Dean offering a philosophical observation entirely detached from the rapists who were the subject of the question." Safire concludes, "By repeatedly denying the words ever came out of his mouth — thereby imputing inaccuracy to the A.P. reporter and blatant dishonesty to McCain — he compounds the original blunder that all too tellingly revealed his mindset."

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This is getting ridiculous. How scared are the right-wingers, when all they can do is make up crap to smear our candidates with?

Disclaimer: I like Clark, but Dean's up there on my list too.

On Edit: Thought it'd be helpful to post some snips... D'oh. Gotta stop posting so fast.