George Will Distorts WaPo’s Own Reporting To Smear Jim Webb
By Greg Sargent | bioThis is one of the rankest displays of journalistic dishonesty I’ve seen in some time. In today’s Washington Post column, George Will assails Dem Senator-elect Jim Webb over his now-well-known confrontation with President Bush at a White House reception. To do so, Will badly distorts the reporting his own paper did on the episode, and it’s quite clear his distortions were entirely deliberate.First, let’s check out how Will recounts the episode in his column.
Will writes:
Wednesday’s Post reported that at a White House reception for newly elected members of Congress, Webb “tried to avoid President Bush,” refusing to pass through the reception line or have his picture taken with the president. When Bush asked Webb, whose son is a Marine in Iraq, “How’s your boy?” Webb replied, “I’d like to get them [sic] out of Iraq.” When the president again asked “How’s your boy?” Webb replied, “That’s between me and my boy.”
Will says the episode demonstrates Webb’s “calculated rudeness toward another human being” — i.e., the President — who “asked a civil and caring question, as one parent to another.”
But do you notice something missing from Will’s recounting of the episode?
Here’s how the Washingon Post actually reported on the episode the day before Will’s column:
At a recent White House reception for freshman members of Congress, Virginia’s newest senator tried to avoid President Bush. Democrat James Webb declined to stand in a presidential receiving line or to have his picture taken with the man he had often criticized on the stump this fall. But it wasn’t long before Bush found him.
“How’s your boy?” Bush asked, referring to Webb’s son, a Marine serving in Iraq.
“I’d like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President,” Webb responded, echoing a campaign theme.
“That’s not what I asked you,” Bush said. “How’s your boy?”
“That’s between me and my boy, Mr. President,” Webb said coldly, ending the conversation on the State Floor of the East Wing of the White House.
See what happened? Will omitted the pissy retort from the President that provoked Webb. Will cut out the line from the President where he said: “That’s not what I asked you.” In Will’s recounting, that instead became a sign of Bush’s parental solicitiousness: “The president again asked `How’s your boy?'”
Will’s change completely alters the tenor of the conversation from one in which Bush was rude first to Webb, which is what the Post’s original account suggested, to one in which Webb was inexplicably rude to the President, which is how Will wanted to represent what happened.
It’s virtually impossible to see how that could have been the result of mere incompetence on Will’s part. Rather, it’s very clear that Will cut the line because it was an inconvenient impediment to his journalistic goal, which was to portray Webb as a “boor” who was rude to the Commander in Chief, and to show that this new upstart is a threat to Washington’s alleged code of “civility and clear speaking” (his words). On that score, also note that in the original version, Webb said “Mr. President” twice — and neither appeared in Will’s version.
You’d think such an obvious misrepresentation would irritate the Post’s top brass. You’d think they would be annoyed with Will for sullying their pages with such journalistic misbehavior. Indeed, it’s kind of amusing to imagine what went through Will’s mind as he cut and pasted the Post’s original reporting and then hit the delete button to get rid of the inconvenient quote. Did he think to himself, “Yeah, this is bad, but no one will notice”? Or did he think, “What the heck — people will notice, but it won’t affect my professional or social standing, so who cares”?
Paging Howard Kurtz: Do you consider your colleague’s effort journalistically acceptable? I don’t. This was a really bad one.
Tullycast
"Are you sure about that? That's not what I hear around TIME."
Storiesfiredoglake: 12/01/2005 – 12/31/2005:
Toward the end of one of our meetings, I remember Luskin looking at me and saying something to the effect of “Karl doesn’t have a Cooper problem. He was not a source for Matt.” I responded instinctively, thinking he was trying to spin me, and said something like, “Are you sure about that? That’s not what I hear around TIME
War Criminals List: Part Two
StoriesDan Burton, Bob Dornan, John Cornyn, Tom Delay, Jean Schmidt, Rush Limbaugh, David Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Reagan, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin, John Gibson, Neil Cavuto, Sean Hannity, Oliver North, Bob Novak, Cal Thomas, Glenn Beck, Mancow, John Fund, Peggy Noonan, Larry Kudlow, Joe Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, Kate O’Beirne, Rich Lowry, Byron York, Chris Wallace, Fred Barnes, Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer…and on and on.
A New Type Of Fascism
StoriesCrooks and Liars » 2006 » December » 15
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Tuesday the world faces “a new type of fascism’’ and likened critics of the Bush administration’s war strategy to those who tried to appease the Nazis in the 1930s. In unusually explicit terms, Rumsfeld portrayed the administration’s critics as suffering from “moral or intellectual confusion’’ about what threatens the nation’s security. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a former Army officer and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in an interview Tuesday that “no one has misread history more than’’ Rumsfeld. `It’s a political rant to cover up his incompetence,’’ said Reed, a longtime critic of Rumsfeld’s handling of the war.
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House Republicans blame their incompetence on Dems:
StoriesThe Carpetbagger Report » Blog Archive » House Republicans blame their incompetence on Dems:
I think we all need to be a bit more sensitive here and stop offending those who have done us no harm.
I’m talking about:
1) your lying sacks of shit,
2) your fuckwits,
3) those who are batshit crazy (an ATF for me)
4) creeps (an oldie but a goodie)
5) fuckbrains (a newbie but destined to be a classic)
6) punkasses,
7) incompetent zeros
8) clownsI’m sure there are a few that I’m forgetting but no insult is intended to them.
These people have their own problems – can’t we just leave them alone? I think calling Republicans “Republicans” is demeaning and offensive enough
Carter back in the 70s (the killer rabbit); Dukakis in the 80s (tank); Clinton in the 90s (haircut)
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Yes, and even little ole jim had it right with Carter back in the 70s (the killer rabbit); Dukakis in the 80s (tank); Clinton in the 90s (haircut).
The MSM go along for the frivolous ride sometimes. And, no, I cannot think of comparable example in their treatment of Republican nominees.
The idea to paint the opponent as someone who cannot be entirely trusted because they are rather…. odd somehow. And the oddity must be due to personal problems. This strategy works best with a relatively unknown person, somebody who is a blank slate. You get to paint them as an oddball.
Mideast allies near a state of panic:
StoriesU.S. leaders’ visits to the region reap only warnings and worry.
By Paul Richter
Times Staff WriterDecember 3, 2006
WASHINGTON — President Bush and his top advisors fanned out across the troubled Middle East over the last week to showcase their diplomatic initiatives to restore strained relationships with traditional allies and forge new ones with leaders in Iraq.
But instead of flaunting stronger ties and steadfast American influence, the president’s journey found friends both old and new near a state of panic. Mideast leaders expressed soaring concern over upheavals across the region that the United States helped ignite through its invasion of Iraq and push for democracy — and fear that the Bush administration may make things worse.
President Bush’s summit in Jordan with the Iraqi prime minister proved an awkward encounter that deepened doubts about the relationship. Vice President Dick Cheney’s stop in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, yielded a blunt warning from the kingdom’s leaders. And Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s swing through the West Bank and Israel, intended to build Arab support by showing a new U.S. push for peace, found little to work with.
In all, visits designed to show the American team in charge ended instead in diplomatic embarrassment and disappointment, with U.S. leaders rebuked and lectured by Arab counterparts. The trips demonstrated that U.S. allies in the region were struggling to understand what to make of the difficult relationship, and to figure whether, with a new Democratic majority taking over Congress, Bush even had control over his nation’s Mideast policy.
Arabs are “trying to figure out what the Americans are going to do, and trying develop their own plans,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), one of his party’s point men on Iraq. “They’re trying to figure out their Plan B.”
The allies’ predicament was described by Jordan’s King Abdullah II last week, before Bush arrived in Amman, the capital. Abdullah, one of America’s steadiest friends in the region, warned that the Mideast faced the threat of three simultaneous civil wars — in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. And he made clear that the burden of dealing with it rested largely with the United States.
“Something dramatic” needed to come out of Bush’s meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki to defuse the three-way threat, Abdullah said, because “I don’t think we’re in a position where we can come back and visit the problem in early 2007.”
The only regional leader to voice unqualified support for the Bush administration has been Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has gone so far as to say that the Iraq invasion contributed to regional stability.
To Middle East observers, Bush can no longer speak for the United States as he did before because of the domestic pressure for a change of course in Iraq, said Nathan Brown, a specialist on Arab politics at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“He can talk all he wants about ‘staying until the job is done,’ but these leaders can read about the American political scene and see that he may not be able to deliver that,” Brown said.
The Bush-Maliki meeting Thursday, closely watched around the world in anticipation of a possible change in U.S. strategy, produced no shift in declared aims. Rather, it resulted in diplomatic stumbles that seemed to belie the leaders’ claims that their relationship was intact.
On the eve of the summit, a leaked memo written by Bush’s national security advisor, Stephen Hadley, showed that U.S. officials questioned Maliki’s abilities. But the memo also was a reminder of dwindling U.S. influence over Iraq. Some of the steps that Hadley said the Iraqis should take, such as providing public services to Sunni Arabs as well as Shiites, were moves that the Americans had demanded for many months, without success.
The leak of the memo cast a shadow over the summit, and Maliki abruptly canceled the first scheduled meeting, a conversation among Bush, Maliki and Abdullah. White House aides insisted that the cancellation was not a snub.
One Middle East diplomat said later in an interview that Maliki had canceled the meeting to put distance between him and Bush at a time when Iraq’s Shiite lawmakers and Cabinet ministers with ties to militant cleric Muqtada Sadr had halted their participation in the government to protest the summit.
On Saturday, in his regular radio address, Bush said that his relationship with Maliki was, in fact, improving.
“With each meeting, I’m coming to know him better, and I’m becoming more impressed by his desire to make the difficult choices that will put his country on a better path,” Bush said.
During the trip, Bush was unable to distance himself from the fierce debate about Iraq policy back home. The president felt the need to respond to news accounts saying that an advisory panel on Iraq would urge a gradual withdrawal of combat troops from the region. He insisted that suggestions for such a “graceful exit” were not realistic.
Despite this, Bush repeated in his radio address that he intended to look for a bipartisan solution to the war, and would listen to the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group, which is scheduled to present its findings Wednesday.
He also said that his own internal review, coming from Pentagon and White House officials, among others, was near completion, suggesting that he may be discussing the options before him over the next several days.
“I want to hear all advice before I make any decisions about adjustments to our strategy in Iraq,” Bush said.
Cheney’s trip to talk to Saudi King Abdullah was far less visible than Bush’s mission, but helped to make painfully clear the gap between U.S. goals and those of its Arab allies.
U.S. officials said Cheney initiated the trip. But foreign diplomats said that Saudi leaders sought the visit to express their concern about the region, including fears of a U.S. departure and what they see as excessive American support for the Shiite faction in Iraq.
After the meeting with Cheney, Saudi officials released an unusual statement pointedly highlighting American responsibility for deterioration of stability in the region.
The Saudi officials cited “the direct influence of … the United States on the issues of the region” and said it was important for U.S. influence “to be in accord with the region’s actual condition and its historical equilibrium,” an apparent reference to the Sunni-Shiite balance.
The Saudi statement also said the U.S. in the Middle East should “pursue equitable means that contribute to ending its conflicts,” pointing to the Israeli-Palestinian situation.
The statement “came pretty close to a rebuke, by Saudi standards,” said Charles W. Freeman Jr., a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. “It said, in effect, that the United States needs to behave responsibly.”
There have been other signals of Saudi anxiety recently.
On Wednesday, an advisor to the Saudi government wrote in the Washington Post that if the United States pulled out of Iraq, “massive Saudi intervention” would ensue to protect Sunnis from Shiite militias.
The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki al Faisal, warned in a speech in October against an American withdrawal, saying that “since the United States came into Iraq uninvited, it should not leave Iraq uninvited.”
Rice encountered the limits of U.S. influence when she visited Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Jericho last week, trying to entice Arab confidence by displaying a renewed interest in Israeli-Palestinian peace.
But Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was gloomy about the prospects for a deal between his Fatah party and the militant group Hamas that would allow formation of a nonsectarian government and open the way for increased aid and, potentially, peace talks with Israel.
Rice said afterward that the administration “cannot create the circumstances” for peace.
“This is the kind of thing that takes time,” she said. “You don’t expect great leaps forward.”
Expressing deeper unhappiness with the United States, leaders from Jordan, Egypt and Persian Gulf countries told Rice during her trip to an economic development conference in Jordan on Friday that the U.S. had a responsibility to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which they and many analysts viewed as the key to regional stability.
Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League, urged greater U.S. action, warning that the Middle East was becoming “an abyss…. The region is facing real failure.”
paul.richter@latimes.com
Times staff writers Doyle McManus and Peter Wallsten contributed to this report.
Spin
StoriesArtist Brian Springer spent a year scouring the airwaves with a satellite dish grabbing back channel news feeds not intended for public consumption. The result of his research is SPIN, one of the most insightful films ever made about the mechanics of how television is used as a tool of social control to distort and limit the American public’s perception of reality.
Will Jonah Goldberg pay up?
StoriesCrooks and Liars » 2006 » December » 15:
Will Jonah Goldberg pay up?
By: John Amato
02/05:So, I have an idea: Since he doesn’t want to debate anything except his own brilliance, let’s make a bet. I predict that Iraq won’t have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it. I’ll bet $1,000 (which I can hardly spare right now). This way neither of us can hide behind clever word play or CV reading. If there’s another reasonable wager Cole wants to offer which would measure our judgment, I’m all ears. Money where your mouth is, doc. One caveat: Because I don’t think it’s right to bet on such serious matters for personal gain, if I win, I’ll donate the money to the USO. He can give it to the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade or whatever his favorite charity is.
Cole was too smart to get sucked into a stupid bet on such an important issue and was repulsed by Jonah’s proposal.
I cannot tell you how this paragraph hit me in the gut. I was nearly immobilized by disgust and grief. This man really does see Iraqis as playthings. He is proposing a wager on the backs of Iraqis…
That being said, will Jonah pay up and donate the 1000.00 bucks for just being a complete wanker? He could always just join the military—oh wait—I forgot—he’s a coward too:
The New York Herald Sun 