![]() FOX NATION 2! Responding to Maddows latest cant, our own ditto-heads emerged: // link // print // previous // next //
FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 2011 It never dies/Lawrence ODonnell edition: Mike Huckabee is playing an ugly game concerning mau-maus and madrassas. (Is he possibly thinking of muumus, which do come from Hawaii?) On Wednesday, Huckabee offered a clownish pensee: Due to Obama's father and grandfather, it could be that his version and view of the Mau Mau Revolution was very different than most of the people who perhaps would grow up in the United States. Really? Have you ever met anyone in the U.S. with a view of the Mau Mau Uprising? Chris Matthews has been pushing back hard at Huckabees bald demonology. Its quite a thing to see this occur, since Matthews was the principal source for not one of us demonology aimed at the Clintons and Gore. Corporate millionaires do get repurposed. But this week, one such machine held firm. The house boy in question was Lawrence ODonnell, pounding away on Tuesday night. As he finished wailing on Huck, an old script popped from his head:
The pool boy just couldnt help himself! A tired old hatred popped out! Can we talk? Matthews has thoroughly reinvented himself. When he served at the knee of Jack Welch, he performed as a virulent hater of Clinton and Clinton, and as cables leading savage concerning Candidate Gore. Today, he openly fawns around both Clintons. But Lawrence just cant reform. This empty suit hated the Clintons too, as all the Kool Fellows did. That explains why he was still pimping Gore as the worlds biggest liar as late as October 2000, doing so from a liberal chair on the McLaughlin Group. Something has always been wrong in this silly boys soul. A jones there just wont let him go. Matthews has reinvented himself. ODonnell, one of the worlds worst persons, has only made it so far. He helped send George W. Bush to the White House. His small brain still cant quite reform. Illinois is for dodgers: Does masking tape really do damage to marble? Thats what Monica Davey reports in todays New York Times. The problem is found in Wisconsins state Capitol. According to Davey: Officials said damage inside the Capitol, in part from hundreds of anti-Walker signs now taped all over the marble, was expected to be in the millions of dollars. Damn that double-stick tape! That to the side, we were greatly puzzled again by Daveys intrepid reporting. Right at the start of todays news report, she says that Wisconsins Republicans have passed a tough new provision:
Could AWOL Democrats be detained if theyre spotted in Wisconsin? Davey treats this like something new. This provision has significantly raised the stakes in the budget fight, she says. It now appeared possible that the Democrats could arriv[e] at the Capitol in handcuffs. We have no earthly idea why Davey treats this as something new. Nor does she ever try to explain her claim that something has changed. People! Right from the start, we were told that the Democrats had left the state because they could be forced to vote if they stayed in Wisconsin. On February 24, state police went to several of their homes. This was widely discussed and reported. Does the new provision allow law enforcement officers to detain the missing Democratic senators if theyre seen anywhere in Wisconsin? Maybe so. But thats why theyre all in Illinois! And theyve been there for several weeks. (Isnt that why Indiana Dems are in Illinois too? Isnt that why Texas Dems fled the state just a few years ago?) Weve nexised around and done some reading on this general topic today. But restrict yourselves to one basic question: From reading Daveys intrepid report, do you have any idea why this provision would be something new? The solons have been out-of-state for weeks. Why did Davey think they were there?
Remember this, then watch Idiocracy: This news report is from the Times, our most famous, smartest newspaper. EPILOGUEFOX NATION 2 (permalink): A lot of bad info was going around as Wisconsins budget battle got started. On February 18, Politifact corrected two widespread mistakes in its review of Maddows reporta review in which Politifact made a mistake of its own. Politifact made these corrections: No, Wisconsin wasnt boasting a projected budget surplus when Governor Walker took office in January. And no, Walkers tax cuts didnt create, or help create, the current budget shortfall. The three tax cuts dont take effect until the new fiscal year starts in July. You may think the cuts were a bad idea. But they didnt create the current shortfall. You may not like Walkers various proposals. You may support the public workers in their attempt to keep bargaining rights. But when Politifact researched this tale, a widely-told story turned out to be false. This may explain why you arent hearing those claims any morenot even on liberal cable, not on the liberal web. You arent hearing that story any morebut many people made those errors in the first week of the budget fight. As the truth began to emerge, some of these people self-corrected. Other people did not. Ezra Klein self-corrected at the Washington Post. So did Andrew Leonard, at Salon. Kevin Drum adjusted an error, linking to Politifacts post as he did. But others let bygones be bygones: At MSNBC, Big Ed Schultz didnt self-correct, although he got the whole thing wrong on February 16. At TPM, Josh Marshall didnt correct this erroneous post:
On TPMs front page, Josh linked to this report by Brian Beutler, a report which also went uncorrected. To the extent that there is an emergency, Walker essentially created it, Beutler wrote, telling the standard story. Beutler sourced his report to Pat Kreitlow, a former Democratic senator in Wisconsin, who helped pass the state's current budget. Beutlers report turned out to be wrong (with some accurate elements). But it remains uncorrected. Of course, our favorite refusal to self-correct belongs to Rachel Maddow. In effusive detail, she praised the way she self-corrects even as she refused to do so (more below). But then, our second-favorite refusal has a comical element too. That failure to self-correct came from Steve Benen. Understandably, Benen seemed to believe the standard story, which was being widely recited. On February 18, he laid out the whole sordid tale. As he did, he linked to Ezra Kleins (inaccurate) blog at the Post:
At this point, Benen posted three paragraphs from Kleins initial post on this subjectfrom the post Klein would soon correct. The governor signed two business tax breaks and a conservative health-care policy experiment that lowers overall tax revenues, Klein had written. The new legislation was not offset, and it turned a surplus into a deficit. Its understandable that Benen believed that; this claim was being made quite widely. (He also linked to John Nichols editorial in the Madison Capital Timesthe erroneous piece which may have started this whole fact-challenged mess.) But uh-oh! Sometime that very same day, Klein added an update to his own postan update in which he said that his initial account had been wrong. The next day, Klein posted a full self-correction, laying out the actual story about the budget shortfall. He noted that Walker didnt create this shortfall. But wouldnt you know it? Benen never cited this second post by Kleinthe post which showed that his own work had been big-time wrong. We rubes stayed barefoot and clueless. For whatever reason, Benen featured Kleins mistaken postbut he left the correction alone. In this type of conduct, you see the rise of a sorry new nation. You might call it Fox Nation 2. Can someone tell us how this differs from what weve always seen at Fox? From the conduct we have pretended to hate? You might say our nation is better in one respectwhen we learn that our tales are wrong, at least we stop repeating them! That said, the liberal worlds failure to self-correct hit rock bottom last Thursday night, when Maddow went on the air to savage Politifact for the vile things they had said. Good lord! In the course of a rambling, twelve-minute segment, Maddow never told viewers that she had made specific misstatements about Wisconsin. (The month that the new Republican governor of Wisconsin was sworn in, last month, the state was on track to have a $120 million budget surplus this year.) She never explained what she meant when she seemed to link the size of the tax cuts to the size of the shortfall. (Even though the state had started the year on track to have a budget surplusnow, there is, in fact, a $137 million budget shortfall. Republican Governor Scott Walker, coincidentally, has given away $140 million worth of business tax breaks since he came into office. Hey, wait! Thats about exactly the size of the shortfall!) Most oddly, Maddow never told viewers about the statement Politifact had featured, right in the headline of its report. (Maddows statement: Despite what you may have heard about Wisconsins finances, Wisconsin is on track to have a budget surplus this year.) Politifact scored that statement false. Wed score it incoherent/misleading: Right in its headline, in big giant print, Politifact scored that statement false. But as she raged against the machine, Maddow never mentioned this statement. Nor did she mention her longer, weird opening statement, in which she said the following, sounding a bit like Sybil the Soothsayer: Im here to report that there is nothing wrong in the state of Wisconsin. Wisconsin is fine. Wisconsin is great, actually. What in the world had she meant by that? Maddow didnt explain. Can we talk? Maddow disappeared the bulk of her hapless and bungled report. She failed to correct or explain a single statementeven as she went on and on about the marvelous way she self-corrects, unlike so many others. If Hannity did that, wed call him a liar. But as weve noted in the past several years, Maddow often seems to have a large problem with the truth. Among the various players at Fox, she most reminds us of Sean. Each broadcaster smiles, provides tribal assurance. And without double-checking for yourself, you cant believe the things either one says. In our view, Maddow behaved quite strangely when she challenged Politifacts (imperfect) report. But out in the country, in Fox Nation 2, a growing gang of ditto-heads were swinging into action. Its sad to see the way some liberals rushed to praise Maddow in comment sectionsfor example, in this early comment to a piece in the Huffington Post:
Oof. Even after Maddows second report, this commenter was still repeating the erroneous story. He still thought the bungled story was true. He still thought hed seen Rachel say it! Like Politifact, this commenter thought Maddow attributed the budget shortfall to Walkers fiendish tax cuts. Maddow didnt make that explicit claim, and she says that isnt what she meant. But thats what this commenter thought he heard. He praised Maddow for getting it right, as he kept getting it wrong. Thats the way the world works at Fox. And increasingly, in Fox Nation 2. Comments like that can be seen all over the liberal web. (Go ahead, google around.) In such comments, you see the rise of True Belief within the liberal world. You cant necessarily blame Maddow, of course, if people misunderstand the things she says, though shes rather long on snark and rather short on clarity. But our intellectual leaders can be blamed for their failure to lead. And sure enough! One of our leading keister-kissers rose to Maddows defense:
Good grief! That guy never quits! Not long ago, liberals would laugh at conduct like this, conduct which swirled around Rush, around Fox. Liberals laughed at the ditto-heads, at the other tribes True Believers. In our view, its a very bad thing to see this culture spreading through the liberal world. But in all this hubbub and error, no ones conduct was worse than Maddows. We refer to her second report. She went on, and on, and on and on, about the way she self-corrects. Others dont do it, but she does, she said. She said she finds the practice cleansing, not unlike a good strong colonic. In truth, she was playing the rubes for fools, in much the way Sean does. Go aheadwatch the tape of Maddows second report! Its funny to see her praise her own love for the truthas she buries the facts. Another chance to showcase that greatness: Over and over, Maddow repeated one of her favorite self-glorying stories: No one self-corrects like I do. In comments sections, you can see the droogs reciting this talking-point for her. In fact, Maddow seems to hate the very idea of self-correction. She avoids the practice like the plague. But if she likes the practice so much, she can treat herself in the near future. She can correct this part of her original report, in which she repeated another familiar tale which turned out to be wrong:
These were the three exact unions that supported Walker, she said. This claim was being widely advanced in the early days of the budget battle. But uh-oh! Politifact fact-checked that story too! They worked from a statement by Donna Brazile, a statement which closely tracked Maddows. Based on the passage below, they scored Braziles claim half true:
According to Politifact, some unions backed Walker, some backed his opponent. But Walker was backed by several locals. Two statewide unions backed his opponentand they were much larger. (Politifact didnt give membership numbers for the Wisconsin Troopers Association, and we couldnt find one.) How good a job did Politifact do? Were not sure. But it seems that the original tale was a serious overstatement. This may explain why this story has seemed to fade from view.
Maddow hasnt corrected or explained her very strong assertion. Based on history, the chances are strong that she never will.
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