Entries categorized as ‘smear’
This apparently isn’t the first time a Bush WH has pressured a US Attorney to step-up a half-baked “criminal investigation” for purely political purposes. Seems that Daddy Bush’s WH wasn’t above putting the hammer on Charles Banks, the Republican-appointed U.S. attorney in Little Rock back in 1992 – just in time for the presidential election. See this piece by Mollie Dickenson writing in The Consortium:
“But Banks had already concluded — and the FBI in Little Rock had agreed — that “no action should be taken on the referral at that time.” Banks had prosecuted Jim McDougal in 1990 for alleged bank crimes and lost.
Banks said further that he believed “no prosecutable case existed against any of the witnesses,” most notably the Clintons.
In a report to the Justice Department dated Oct. 16, 1992, Banks indicated that Barr’s desire to expedite the Whitewater investigation smacked of improper political use of the federal judicial system.
“I know in investigations of this type,” wrote Banks, “the first steps, such as issuance of … subpoenas … will lead to media and public inquiries of matters that are subject to absolute privacy. Even media questions about such an investigation all too often publicly purport to ‘legitimize what can’t be proven.’
“I must opine that after such a lapse of time, the insistence for urgency in this case appears to suggest an intentional or unintentional attempt to intervene into the political process of the upcoming presidential election. …
“For me personally to participate in an investigation that I know will or could easily lead to the above scenario and to the possible denial of rights due to the targets, subjects, witnesses or defendants is inappropriate.
“I believe it amounts to prosecutorial misconduct and violates the most basic fundamental rule of Department of Justice policy. I cannot be a party to such actions and believe that such would be detrimental to the Department of Justice, FBI, this office and to the President of the United States,” George Bush.”
The acorn didn’t fall too far from the tree, eh?
Categories: US Attorneys · smear
This apparently isn’t the first time a Bush WH has pressured a US Attorney to step-up a half-baked “criminal investigation” for purely political purposes. Seems that Daddy Bush’s WH wasn’t above putting the hammer on Charles Banks, the Republican-appointed U.S. attorney in Little Rock back in 1992 – just in time for the presidential election. See this piece by Mollie Dickenson writing in The Consortium:
“But Banks had already concluded — and the FBI in Little Rock had agreed — that “no action should be taken on the referral at that time.” Banks had prosecuted Jim McDougal in 1990 for alleged bank crimes and lost.
Banks said further that he believed “no prosecutable case existed against any of the witnesses,” most notably the Clintons.
In a report to the Justice Department dated Oct. 16, 1992, Banks indicated that Barr’s desire to expedite the Whitewater investigation smacked of improper political use of the federal judicial system.
“I know in investigations of this type,” wrote Banks, “the first steps, such as issuance of … subpoenas … will lead to media and public inquiries of matters that are subject to absolute privacy. Even media questions about such an investigation all too often publicly purport to ‘legitimize what can’t be proven.’
“I must opine that after such a lapse of time, the insistence for urgency in this case appears to suggest an intentional or unintentional attempt to intervene into the political process of the upcoming presidential election. …
“For me personally to participate in an investigation that I know will or could easily lead to the above scenario and to the possible denial of rights due to the targets, subjects, witnesses or defendants is inappropriate.
“I believe it amounts to prosecutorial misconduct and violates the most basic fundamental rule of Department of Justice policy. I cannot be a party to such actions and believe that such would be detrimental to the Department of Justice, FBI, this office and to the President of the United States,” George Bush.”
The acorn didn’t fall too far from the tree, eh?
Categories: US Attorneys · smear
Jamison Foser, of Media Matters writes a compelling piece on the nastiness we’re seeing from Coulter, Down, Mattews, & gang:
“The MSM’s failure to properly convey the extent of Ann Coulter’s bigotry, nastiness, and irresponsibility hasn’t resulted in her being ‘marginalized’ — it has helped her become an icon of the right without any accountability for the conservative movement that embraces her. Coulter’s column, receptacle of much of her hate speech, appears in numerous newspapers across the country. Media Matters, outraged emailers — 834 by one editor’s count — and others have begun to put a real dent in her reach. Yesterday, we posted a list of papers running her column, as well as their email addresses, and the parade of op-ed pages announcing that they are dropping her is growing almost by the hour.”
Let’s hope in 2008 we have an election on the issues and not a rehash of the vile rightwing smears we’ve seen since seeminly forever.
Categories: journalistic integrity · smear
Jamison Foser, of Media Matters writes a compelling piece on the nastiness we’re seeing from Coulter, Down, Mattews, & gang:
“The MSM’s failure to properly convey the extent of Ann Coulter’s bigotry, nastiness, and irresponsibility hasn’t resulted in her being ‘marginalized’ — it has helped her become an icon of the right without any accountability for the conservative movement that embraces her. Coulter’s column, receptacle of much of her hate speech, appears in numerous newspapers across the country. Media Matters, outraged emailers — 834 by one editor’s count — and others have begun to put a real dent in her reach. Yesterday, we posted a list of papers running her column, as well as their email addresses, and the parade of op-ed pages announcing that they are dropping her is growing almost by the hour.”
Let’s hope in 2008 we have an election on the issues and not a rehash of the vile rightwing smears we’ve seen since seeminly forever.
Categories: journalistic integrity · smear
There is no trick so low that the Hillary-haters won’t stoop to using. In the latest version, the wingers allege that the good Senator adopted a phony southern drawl and diction for her recent visit to Alabama.
What the wingers did, of course, was lift a part of her speech where Senator Clinton was quoting the words, grammar and diction of a southern gospel hymn. The Wingers didn’t think it would be a good thing for their readers to know the context that gave rise to the piece she quoted.
Such is the way in goes in rightwingerville. Fox, Freepers, and Drudge all piling on and essentially lying to their readers and viewers.
Thanks to Greg Sargent for this tip.
Categories: Hillary · smear
There is no trick so low that the Hillary-haters won’t stoop to using. In the latest version, the wingers allege that the good Senator adopted a phony southern drawl and diction for her recent visit to Alabama.
What the wingers did, of course, was lift a part of her speech where Senator Clinton was quoting the words, grammar and diction of a southern gospel hymn. The Wingers didn’t think it would be a good thing for their readers to know the context that gave rise to the piece she quoted.
Such is the way in goes in rightwingerville. Fox, Freepers, and Drudge all piling on and essentially lying to their readers and viewers.
Thanks to Greg Sargent for this tip.
Categories: Hillary · smear
Richard Cohen writes in Tuesday’s Washington Post.
“Gore would not have taken the United States to war in Iraq. He would have finished the job in Afghanistan — it was al-Qaeda and its Taliban enablers who were responsible for the attacks on us on Sept. 11, 2001, not Saddam Hussein, no matter how vile he might have been. Gore would not have dealt with the Iranians and the North Koreans in such a juvenile fashion — axis of evil, after all — and all over the world, wherever you and I went, we would not detect such anger toward America.”
Cohen fails to mention in his laudatory piece on Gore that it was Cohen himself who back in the 2000 campaign falsely caricatured Gore as an “exaggerator.” It’s thanks to Cohen and others like him that the US is in the mess it’s in today. But Cohen will never admit that, unlike cartoonist, Tom Toles, who nails it pretty much on the head above.
Categories: Gore · journalistic integrity · smear
Richard Cohen writes in Tuesday’s Washington Post.
“Gore would not have taken the United States to war in Iraq. He would have finished the job in Afghanistan — it was al-Qaeda and its Taliban enablers who were responsible for the attacks on us on Sept. 11, 2001, not Saddam Hussein, no matter how vile he might have been. Gore would not have dealt with the Iranians and the North Koreans in such a juvenile fashion — axis of evil, after all — and all over the world, wherever you and I went, we would not detect such anger toward America.”
Cohen fails to mention in his laudatory piece on Gore that it was Cohen himself who back in the 2000 campaign falsely caricatured Gore as an “exaggerator.” It’s thanks to Cohen and others like him that the US is in the mess it’s in today. But Cohen will never admit that, unlike cartoonist, Tom Toles, who nails it pretty much on the head above.
Categories: Gore · journalistic integrity · smear
You’d have to see it to believe it, folks. There is no cheap, dishonest trick, these media types won’t use to try to smear Gore. Here,
Greg Sargent shows just how sleazy Maureen Dowd can be. Makes one wonder if she quoted Geffen correctly, eh?
Speaking of Dowd’s trickery, Sargent writes, “But wait — watch those hands…they move awful quick. Let’s go back and take a look at the full and original New York magazine passage Dowd quoted from. . . “
Categories: Dowd · Gore · journalistic integrity · smear
You’d have to see it to believe it, folks. There is no cheap, dishonest trick, these media types won’t use to try to smear Gore. Here,
Greg Sargent shows just how sleazy Maureen Dowd can be. Makes one wonder if she quoted Geffen correctly, eh?
Speaking of Dowd’s trickery, Sargent writes, “But wait — watch those hands…they move awful quick. Let’s go back and take a look at the full and original New York magazine passage Dowd quoted from. . . “
Categories: Dowd · Gore · journalistic integrity · smear
