![]() ALL TAPPED OUT! A remarkable story has been playing out—unless youre a reader of Tapped: // link // print // previous // next //
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2008 THE BUTCHERS TALES: The invective in Frank Richs Sunday column was really quite startling—except from this bloody old hit man. After all, this brilliant Butcher of Broadway had spent a decade telling the world that Al Gore was a hopeless phony and fake; amazingly, Rich was still peddling this tale to racial healer Don Imus after Gores film, An Inconvenient Truth, began to change the worlds understanding. (Too many minorities in the crowd shots! And also: They laughed at Gores jokes!) And sure enough: On Sunday, the butcher had his newest fine message: The Clintons are the worlds biggest racists. Just as the butcher had struggled and strained to tell the world that Gore was a fake, now he turned to startling invective to drive home his newest vast insight. Wow! The butcher had watched Hillary Clintons cable town meeting the night before Super Tuesdays voting. And we should all thank God he did! It had been a Bush-style pseudo-event, the insightful Gore-trasher said as he started. (Thats funny! He had said that Gore was just like Bush when he reviewed Gores film!) But the butcher praised himself for watching. I'm glad I watched every minute, he said; according to Rich, the Hallmark special offered a naked preview of how nastily the Clintons will fight, whatever the collateral damage to the Democratic Party, in the [campaign] endgame to come. Just as Gore had been the worlds biggest fake, the Clintons were now the worlds nastiest people. And their nastiness took a particular form. According to the butcher of Broadway, the Clintons are nasty on race. The campaign's other most potent form of currency remains its thick deck of race cards, Don Imus buddy now said. This was all too apparent in the Hallmark show. Yes, the program had featured an African-American moderator—but to the butchers eagle eye, that only heightened the racial offense! That moderator, Carole Simpson, had been cast in a servile role, the butcher said, reinventing Simpson as Aunt Jemima. Outraged by the way the Clintons would degrade a woman like Simpson, the butcher went on to churn his view of the Clintons' own recent misadventures in racial politics. Richs invective was remarkably harsh, as it often had been when he demonized Gore. The Clintons had ghettoized Barack Obama in a succession of incidents, we were told. Meanwhile, Hillary Clintons pursuit of the Latino vote involved a creepy racial back story; a Clinton pollster had pitted the two groups [Latinos and blacks] against each other, Rich explained. (And Hillary Clinton had seconded the motion. This involved the promulgation of a bigoted lie—a bigoted lie that branded Hispanics, a group as heterogeneous as any other, as monolithic racists.) Yes, thats pretty startling stuff. By now, the invective was flying around—and the butcher was just getting started. Yep! According to Rich, the Clinton campaign has made an attempt to drive white voters away from Mr. Obama by playing the race card. Not only that: The question now is how much more racial friction the Clinton campaign will gin up if its Hispanic support starts to erode in Texas. (Clearly, it will stop at little, he said.) Rich then cited a warning to Howard Dean from two eminent African-American historians who have served in government (Mary Frances Berry and Roger Wilkins), a warning about a credentials fight at the Dem convention—while failing to note that their warning to Dean had no explicit racial content at all. But that credentials fight will surely come, Rich opined. After all: [D]oes anyone seriously believe that Howard Dean can deter a Clinton combine so ruthless that it risked shredding three decades of mutual affection with black America to win a primary? As he closed, the butcher lovingly looked ahead to the race-tinged brawl to come:
Lets say there is a credentials fight; why would it be a race-tinged brawl? Rich, screaming race/race/race throughout, absent-mindedly forgot to explain. For a decade, Rich kept insisting that Gore was a fake, even boo-hooing about this in 2006, to well-known racial healer Don Imus. Now, he uses his insight to tell the world that the Clintons are among the nastiest racial players ever seen in their party. His invective is startling, from beginning to end. Surely, when someone makes such startling claims about the most serious part of our politics, he will want to be very careful about the evidence he cites—about his facts and his logic. But as with his eight-year assault on Gore, Richs evidence is that of a butcher. With Gore, every incident was twisted and turned to show us how fake and phony he was. (He owned a rifle when he was a child!) Sadly, this screaming old crone has played the same game in his race war against the vile Clintons. Lets consider Richs deeply sensitive claim that the Clintons have ghettoized Obama. (Well talk more about that term tomorrow.) In the following passage, Rich is pimping the conventional wisdom of his insider class—but of course, he did the same thing all those years when he demonized Gore. Our question: How careful is this famous old butcher when he makes such a serious charge? He ran you like rubes when he went after Gore. Is he running us rubes once again with his startling racial invective? Ghettoized is quite a term. (As is servile.) As the butcher unpacks this term, he cites three crucial events. His claims about Gore were vile and unfair—though they pleased his high, inane class. In this passage, he gives three examples of the new ugly conduct he has spotted:
There you see the three different ways Obama was ghettoized (a remarkable term). Putting that unfortunate term to the side, how does the analysis hold up? The black candidate/AP claim is so weak and inane that we wont waste our time on it (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 1/28/08). But remember how narrative whores like Rich work. They have to give you at least three examples, so theyll scrounge around and take what they get. In similar ways, this fat, stupid butcher kept telling you that Vile Gore was a phony—even after his world-changing film had appeared. According to the butcher, Gore was fearmongering, just like George Bush, when he said Manhattan might end up under water! (And he owned a rifle when he was ten! And those Benetton audiences laughed at his jokes!) In short, narrative whores like this nasty old butcher will tell you anything, no matter how stupid, if they think they can get you to gulp it. Thats what Rich did all through his idiot column about Gores phony high school movie. And thats what he does in this example. Click that link if you doubt that. So how about the ghettoizing work of chief Clinton strategist Mark Penn? In this matter, Rich dishes the press corps conventional wisdom—as he endlessly did about Gore. But given the nasty charge he is lodging, just how fair is his assessment? Did Penn somehow ghettoize Obama as a cocaine user? Your sense of fairness and judgment is now called into play—as it was when Rich kept insisting that Gore was the worlds biggest phony. Rich refers to the December 13 Hardball, when leaders of the three Big Dem campaigns were invited to appear together. Every question by host Chris Matthews concerned the recent suggestion, by Clinton honcho Bill Shaheen, that the press corps should examine Obamas youthful drug use. After several questions on this topic to Obama honcho David Axelrod, Matthews started questioning Penn. Was Penn attempting to ghettoize Obama as a cocaine user? Here are the first three Q-and-As of the colloquy which is Richs sole evidence:
The questions which follow involve fairness and judgment. But: Does it sound like Penn was somehow trying to ghettoize Obama as a cocaine user? As Media Matters has noted before, Penn seemed to be trying to change the subject; beyond that, he seemed to be trying to criticize Obama as someone who started a wave of direct, personal negative attacks on the front page of the New York Times. If Matthews had followed his lead, the conversation might have turned to Iraq, or to health care, or to Obamas criticisms of Clinton. But every question Matthews asked this evening concerned one topic alone—youthful drug use. Theres nothing automatically wrong with that, of course. But heres the entire body of evidence supporting Richs nasty charge against Penn, a charge which he delivered with such remarkably strong invective:
There you see the total evidence for Richs remarkably aggressive claim—for the claim that Mark Penn ghettoized Obama as a cocaine user. In response to Matthews fourth question on this topic, Penn used the term cocaine use once—and again, attempted to change the subject. At this point, other honchos began to jump up and down, complaining that Penn had done it again. But lets be clear: There you see the total body of evidence supporting the claim that Penn ghettoized Obama as a cocaine user. By the way: How would such a charge have ghettoized Obama? In our view, thats a separate matter, one that might even go to the mental state of great racial healers like Rich. (More tomorrow.) In fairness, Rich was more careful than some have been with one part of his claim. As usual, Matthews has misstated this all over town, claiming that Penn raised [the issue of] drugs on the program that night. It was, of course, Matthews who raised the issue of drugs; throughout the segment, he asked about nothing else. There was nothing wrong with raising that issue, of course—but there was something wrong when he later implied, on several occasions, that Penn was the one who brought drugs up. Now, the question a fair person must ask: Is there something wrong with what Rich said about Penns conduct that evening? Tomorrow, well take a final look at the butchers remarkable column. But please remember one key point. Until Gore was handed the Nobel Peace Prize, the butcher had spent the prior decade convincing you that he was a phony; he offered an endless string of inane, tortured pieces of evidence to convince you of this stupid claim. Why, Gore had minorities in his audiences—and they even had laughed at his jokes! He even ran to his guru, racial healer Don Imus, to tell him how fake and phony Gore was. In this way, a sick, bloated butcher got Gores blood all over his apron. The blood of Iraq was already there from his clowning during Campaign 2000—and from the way he slashed Gore up when Gore said, Dont go to Iraq. That was nothing this butcher wouldnt say and do when he was telling you Gore is a phony. Now, hes saying the Clinton are racists. How fair have his arguments been? TOMORROW: The way butchers work. WEVE BEEN HERE BEFORE: We recommend Krugmans on-line ruminations about these matters. In one post, he correctly says this:
As Krugman notes, this has nothing to do with who you think should win the Democratic nomination. (Our reaction to the last Dem debate: Its a shame that one of these two has to lose.) This isnt about Obama or Clinton—this is about the butcher of Broadway and his loathsome media pals. For twenty straight months during Campaign 2000, these people played you about Al Gore—and Rich kept it up for years after that. But then, Rich has always been a butcher—and butchers play by bloody rules. Just ask the dead of Iraq! The butcher sent them their current war when he pimped, so hard and so dumbly, against vile Candidate Gore.
For a later post by Krugman, just click here. Krugman links to Greg Sargent, and so, we do too. We think Greg is spot-on—except for one word. Look for that one word—surprisingly.
At the very fiery Tapped, for example, things have been—and remain—very quiet. Go ahead! Enter Shuster in the sites search engine, and prepare yourself for nothing to happen. Yesterday, we enjoyed a laughable moment; we entered Shuster in Tappeds search engine, and we got exactly no hits at all, save one reference from a commenter. Believe it or not, the only reference we could find to David Shusters suspension was this post, from Sam Boyds daily digest, late on Friday afternoon:
We dont know Boyd, and we cant read his mind; at least he noticed that a sexist attack had occurred. But if we wanted to write a novel, wed laugh a bit at what Boyd wrote. He couldnt even bring himself to name Shusters name, wed incomparably novelize—or to say that hed been suspended! And he quickly suggests that we should all talk about John McCain instead! Perhaps its purely coincidental, but this looks like a good example of something weve long noted here—the abject refusal of young liberal journos to come to terms with the big mainstream news orgs from which they might seek work one day. As of noon today, no one else at Tapped has typed a word about David Shusters suspension or conduct—but then, thats hardly a surprise. According to the sites search engine, no one at Tapped said a word when Matthews was forced to apologize for his year of gender-trashing Clinton! Tappeds fiery street-fighters are sitting this out—just as our liberal journalssat out the wars the press waged against Clinton and Gore. As weve long told you! Your liberal journals deferred themselves from this sixteen-year war—and the trend continues at Tapped. Chris Matthews can talk all the trash he wants for all they seem to care in this region! But then, Matthews has long been given a very long leash in the journals which drive our liberal world. Which brings us around to this startling critter—a profile of loudmouth Chris Matthews! Amazing! The profile appeared in the New York Observer, written by that journals Felix Gillette. Gillette had been allowed to follow Matthews around on Super Tuesday, and he captured some of the bombast which makes Matthews work so god-awful. No, the profile isnt a slam—but it starts to give you a minor hint of what is so wrong with this long-time Dem-killer. But omigod! Up from below, we were astounded by some of the comments from quite a few readers! If you want the truth about the past sixteen years, its fairly clear where you must go.
TOMORROW—PART 3: Omigod! Accurate history! |