There's little gravy in attacking Joe McCarth in 2005, and that's only a small part of what Clooney is up to. His real intention appears to be to deliver a blow to the patella of a conglomerate-controlled press corps that, until recently, has indulged the Bush Administration's most extravagant smears and lies. He has completely succeeded.
Which boot-licking, Bush-loving, conglomerate-controlled press corps would that be, David? The one that ran the forged memos attacking the president's National Guard service? The one that endlessly repeats the charges of Joe Wilson, even though they've been thoroughly debunked? The one that ran 21 straight days of editorial endorsements for John Kerry before the 2004 election?
For someone so ignorant of politics to be injecting the political into a movie review is unfortunate. Being Tony Lane's back-up might not be much fun, but surely Denby should try to make the most of his garbage time.
9 comments:
"the patella of a conglomerate-controlled press corps that, until recently, has indulged the Bush Administration's most extravagant smears and lies."
It is conceeded that they live in a fantasy land. But Wowo.
You know, there are more than three media outlets in the world. In fact, I think this idea of "the media" doing any one thing is hopelessly outdated. In fact, many newspapers have more than one employee writing and compiling content.
pa·tel·la (pə-tĕl'ə) pronunciation
n., pl. -tel·lae (-tĕl'ē).
1. A flat triangular bone located at the front of the knee joint.
I'm hopelessly confused now. I have no idea if I'm agreeing with you and/or/nor defending him.
Of course patella also means "dish" so he could be referring to a big one that you could put a thanksgiving turkey on, or a little one with a few gherkins.
SO is there a kneecap or a dish of newspapers and/or televisions that will make excuses for Bush no matter how far he goes? I'll just say that I have never served any of the latter things on any of the former things, because I don't cook or do knee surgery.
In short, I think this discussion is ridiculous.
How far-out, whacked-out, hyper-ultra-super left-wing does one have to be to think the American media has been easy on GWB? Are there, really, any words to describe how far-out, whacked-out, hyper-ultra-super left-wing one would have to be? As you can see, I'm having trouble coming up with them. :-)
We're still angry at CBS about being fooled by forged documents, are we? Given the Bush administration's record of accepting obviously forged documents that just happen to support its pet theory, one would think conservatives would let the whole forged-documents thing go as evens and move on.
There are interesting parallels between the events of the film and those of today. Removing Saddam was a worthy project for the United States, yet many of the specific arguments the Bush administration advanced for doing so were factually incorrect or relied on the dishonest use of rhetorical slight-of-hand. ("We never said Saddam was an 'imminent' threat, just that he might nuke an American city at any moment.") Likewise, there really were communist agents in the Army and the State Department—but Joe McCarthy's list of communist moles was a complete fabrication. In each case, the specific public figures were in large part factually wrong, in McCarthy's case knowingly and deviously so, but in each case many of their conclusions were justified.
Also, sloppy on JVL for equating editorial endorsements with bias in news coverage. Sloppy only because it's an argument conservatives cannot win: The last Democrat to be endorsed by more American newspapers than his Republican opponent was Franklin Roosevelt. And the pro-Republican bias of American editorial pages is even larger if you weight papers by circulation. (The closest thing to an exception being 1996, when newspapers split almost evenly between Clinton and Dole, although Dole still wins handily if you weight the endorsements by circulation. Speaking of 1996, did 8 million people really vote for Ross Perot the second time around? The whole Perot thing makes '96 seem like much more than nine years ago.)
[I make the comparison not to condemn the Bush administration, but to highlight the similar moral complexity of each case. Even in regard to McCarthy and Murrow—the former as vile a villain as America has produced, the latter a remarkable study in courage and integrity—things are not as black-and-white as one might wish. Even the wretched McCarthy was on to something about communist infiltration of the government. LIkewise, no matter how factually unfounded many of its claims or slippery its language, the administration was right about the utility of removing Saddam from power.]
Ohh now I get it. I take it back, it's not bullshit.
This is a different anonymous, but I really, really hope that the anonymous above does not operate anything remotely related to aircraft, etc. There's obviously a severe malfunction in all areas in the brain which control anythng but the most basic life functions.
OK – So I have the malfunction and not arrscott? Well, let’s just make our critique a little more specifc, shall we?
No, we are no longer angry at CBS for the bogus National Guard story. In the end a lot of good came from it. Rather – gone. Hayward – gone. They had been doing this shit for a long time and got busted. We celebrate the CBS story.
Which forged documents are you referring to? Those that the estimable Joe Wilson said that he found to be forged (a forged story, as well)? These documents played no role in what the administration said or did on this topic and I defy you to find one example of when it did.
I will grant you that some of the specific arguments that the administration used were not factually correct which I think was due to poor intelligence information which is a systemic problem of the CIA’s. I happened to be alive back in 2002 and 2003 and I do not recall your characterization that the administration somehow related that Saddam was not an “iminent threat just that he might nuke an American city at any moment”. Never happened. On September 10, 2001 how many people would have characterzed Al Qada as an “imminent threat”. Heck, even the CIA (in the person of Larry Johnson) in the Summer of 2001 said that the threat from Al Qada was over rated. After September 11 and with the intelligence that we had (some of which, in hindsight, appears to be faulty) how the hell could we delay in dealing with a guy that had used chemical weapons, was seeking out uranium (we did find 1 and ½ tons of the stuff in the country, you know), consorted with terrorists (“consorted” - sounds too clean), and with whom we had been in a virtual state of war since August of 1990? The same jerks beating up on the administration for the intelligence failure would have started impeachment proceedings if Saddam had been involved in a terrorist attack before we acted.
The Joe McCarthy stuff is all so much rot that I do not have the energy to deal with it other than to say – OK, McCarthy was a bad guy and liberals are right to not like him. Zzzzzzzzzz
I think that the mention of the Inquirer is valid. Any paper that hires an editorial board that ran the series (was it in favor of Kerry or anti Bush?) to which he refers has to be so damaged that the bias seeps into its coverage. The NYT has the same affliction (and the NYT is what all the national TV news programs look to when it comes to their shows.) Who gives a fuck if the Spokane World Herald Tribune and Times editorial page endorsed Bush? These newspapers get virtually all of their national and international news from either AP or Reuters. If you think that either of these operations plays it straight then you need to check yourself into rehab since you are now in the psychotic delusions stage of your crack addiction.
Then you go back and give us the standard “the administration was right to take out Saddam catch all” – you know, you’re not some unpatriotic American like Harry Reid, Dick Durban or Ted Kennedy).
So, my comment stands: Bullshit.
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