Maybe conservatives have been watching too many cheesy detective movies where someone edits bits and pieces of conversation together and always gets caught in their oh so clever black-mail scheme, Jonah Goldberg picks out bits of a Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in an New York Times Magazine piece to prove the Ginsburg is pro eugenics. Goldberg has displayed similar respect for the truth and nothing but the truth in his garbled history of fascism, a book in which the history of fascism in Spain, among other inconvenient facts ruined his narrative, so he left them out. This is not a new tactic on the conservative side of the spectrum. Its the guiding principle behind the vast majority of conservative web sites. It has moved to become a major attack technique among republican media. Sean Hannity cannot seem to make a an argument against President Obama without resorting to highly edited portions of video, Hannity again crops Obama’s comments abroad in order to smear him. Hannity’s audience is not exactly going to trouble themselves with fact checking. Hannity doles out what they want to hear. As a propaganda tactic how effective can that be. He’s convincing people that would hate Obama and Democrats regardless of showing the full video or quoting full comments within context. So Hannity cannot be interested in winning over more moderate and fair minded Americans. He seems to think there is enough of a rabid far Right base remaining, that given the proper motivation will return the country to the good old days of Bush.
Sarah Palin is trying her hand at punditry courtesy the Washington Post. One assumes this is the first step in becoming a powerful voice on national, rather then just Alaskan issues. That being the case wouldn’t it behoove her to learn something about energy policy, cap and trade and at least a layman’s knowledge of climate science. Energy Non-Savant Palin Blasts Obama Plan in Op-Ed
Still, for Palin ignorance remains no barrier when it comes to the search for ersatz gravitas. Decrying as usual “the personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of these challenges,” Palin’s op-ed never once mentions terms like “global”, “warming” and “climate” at the center of the cap-and-trade debate. Conveniently ignoring studies detailing the minimal costs to American consumers and viewing the same kinds of employment transition provisions as typically found in trade deals as some kind of smoking gun…
Climate Progress notes that experience and facts are both wasted on Palin,
In fact, Palin is so ignorant of energy, so practiced at repeating falsehoods, that in September, during the campaign, the Washington Post itself gave her its highest (which is to say lowest) rating of “Four Pinocchios” for continuing to “to peddle bogus [energy] statistics three days after the original error was pointed out by independent fact-checkers.”
Palin and McCain seem to be out to undermine the old bromide that wisdom comes with age.
Committee for Justice : Obama Is Putting a Terrorist On The Bench! or is the Right remotely capable of making a point without sounding like shrill little mice,
Now they’re out with an over-the-top and nonsensical new TV ad that equates her with William Ayers and claims that she supported terrorism by serving on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF):
But as the Hispanic National Bar Association – which is mainstream by any standard – wrote last week on behalf of 26 prominent national Hispanic groups: “PRLDEF is a mainstream and respected civil rights organization that serves not only the Latino community, but the nation as a whole.”
Since Sotomayor is certainly going to be confirmed its good to see that the Right still knows how to waste money. Those ads will be a little less money used in another campaign against another decent mainstream American.
Glenn Greenwald is right about CNN’s incredibly sloppy journalism, CNN’s journalism on the Cheney story
Is any of that true? CNN has no idea and doesn’t care. Finding out what is and is not true is not the role of the establishment journalist. They’re there simply to lay out the terms of the debate by writing down what other people say. And what motives might these “two former officials” have to defend Cheney? Are they blind Cheney loyalists such as Michael Hayden? People who have a vested interest in shielding these activities from investigations?
True enough, but Glenn might be asking too much for CIA officials to go on record and allow use of their names. We’re probably not going to see that happen even in the very unlikely event of a Congressional investigation. Its CNN’s failure to question such a crazy narrative. Cheney’s program was important enough for the VP to tell the CIA to keep it off the record, but not important enough to inform the gang of eight in Congress. We also have another CIA source claiming the program was active and resulted in at least one assassination. professionalism and ethics should have compelled the Conservative News Network to provide a more balanced version of events.
The Long Goodbye 