www.dailyhowler.com/dh072904.shtml
And it's easy to explain that weird vote: THURSDAY, JULY 29, 2004 NOT THAT LIBERAL: Do pundits ever tell the truth? When Kerry picked Edwards to be his VP, the RNC pimped a pleasing tale--Kerry and Edwards were the first- and fourth-most liberal members of the Senate. Mainstream pundits--always pleased to showcase their skills at recitation--have endlessly passed on the claim. Tuesday morning, on C-SPAN's Washington Journal, Jonah Goldberg joined the crowd. A caller insisted that Kerry was not the Senate's most liberal member. Goldberg praised the National Journal, which he correctly cited as the source of the claim: GOLDBERG: Oh, I didn't know that your judgment of who's a liberal was the standard by which the entire media establishment should then hew. The fact is, is that we rely on certain nonpartisan sources--and partisan sources--to determine these sorts of things.
If Goldberg is so impressed by the Journal, maybe he ought to try reading it. On July 10, the Journal's Richard E Cohen (not the Post columnist) tried to explain the pleasing facts which so many scribes have been peddling. Are Kerry and Edwards really first and fourth most liberal? That rating is based on calendar year 2003, when both senators--campaigning for the White House--missed large numbers of the 62 votes the Journal used for its tabulations. Since joining the Senate in 1985, Kerry has compiled a "lifetime average" composite liberal score of 857 in NJ's vote ratings. Ten other current senators have a lifetime composite liberal score that is higher than Kerry'S. Richard E Cohen, repeat after us: In fact, the bigger picture shows that Kerry and Edwards are not first and fourth most liberal! In fact, ten current senators have more liberal lifetime voting records than Kerry. Here are the Journal's annual rankings since he arrived in the Senate: John Edwards: 1999: 31st most liberal senator 2000: 19th most liberal senator 2001: 35th most liberal senator 2002: 40th most liberal senator 2003: 4th most liberal senator When pundits call Edwards the "fourth most liberal," they are cherry-picking his rank from one year--a year in which he missed more than a third of the votes used to make the tabulations. But none of this will stop mainstream pundits from reciting the RNC's treasured tale. Pundits like to be good little boys, and they especially like to recite.
James Carville dozed and snored as the propaganda was pimped once again: NOVAK: Senator Pryor, you're a moderate, just about in the middle of the Senate ideologically. Your ticket is the most liberal member of the Senate, Kerry, the fourth most liberal, Edwards. Do you check your principles at the door when you support a ticket like that? Civics books tell your children that the press exists to keep them informed. So where can American children go to learn the truth about their "press corps?" And where can American voters go for real facts about Kerry/Edwards? SPINNING THAT VOTE: Then there's the reigning star of the Boston Convention--Kerry's vote on that $87 billion to fund the troops in Iraq.
Joe Klein, writing a pseudo-psychiatric profile of Kerry in this week's Time. He "has a theory" about Kerry's personality--in his piece, the doctor is very much IN--but he still can't figure out that vote on the $87 billion. Here's the first of several references to the troubling vote: KLEIN: Kerry is an oddly elusive character for a national politician. There are nagging questions about his steadiness, especially on issues located at the jittery intersection of politics and policy. His contradictory votes on Iraq--giving the President the authority to go to war, then voting against the $87 billion supplemental appropriation to pay for the occupation--have been at the heart of the Republican attacks against him this year. But if that's true, what can we say about President Bush? After all, Bush decided to go to war in Iraq, then threatened to veto the $87 billion bill to funds the troops, helping bring it down to defeat the first time the Senate voted on it. This must be the most obvious question on earth, but typists like Klein aren't going to raise it. Lazy, inept and deeply programmed, Manchurian typists--typists like Klein--only produce Approved Press Corps Scripts. When Kerry votes against one form of the $87 billion bill, that is puzzling, disturbing, "contradictory." When Bush helps defeat another form of the bill, that is ignored, never mentioned, quite acceptable. Readers, it's all about typing up Approved Scripts, then heading off to swish cocktail parties where other flunkies tell Joe Klein how brilliant and savvy he is. Yes, President Bush initiated a war, then worked to defeat the spending bill that would have supported the troops! Bush favored a different form of the bill, and he was working to pass it. Kerry also favored certain forms of the bill, and if the Senate had voted with him on his "no" vote, they would have been forced to craft a new bill that might have been more to his liking. There was never a chance--never a chance--that the troops weren't going to be funded. Like the rest of his hapless cohort, he bows to the great God of Scripts. And yes, let's face it, all over the press, your Pundit Corps works off hard scripts. Once a Press Corps Script is approved, they'll recite that script to the death. Which leads us to Chris Matthews' simpering gang on MSNBC last night.
Laughing hard and misserving the public, they happily rattled the script: JOE SCARBOROUGH: That's John Kerry's big weakness. We're going to see the clip time and again where he--they're going to show that clip time and again where he said, "I voted for it the first time, before I voted against it." "I voted for the money to support the troops before I voted against it?"
was trying actually to be mordantly funny and comment on the process, but it's impossible to explain it away. But of course, it isn't impossible to explain Kerry's vote; Here we go: There were two different bills to fund the troops, and John Kerry--just like George Bush--supported one bill and opposed the other! But Matthews' panel raucously laughed as they enjoyed their pleasing script. Scarborough said to hapless, inept Willie Brown, former San Francisco mayor. Brown was there as a Democrat pol, but he gave a ridiculous, uninformed "explanation," further misleading MSNBC viewers. And all the panel continued to laugh as Matthews went to a break. Readers, have you ever seen a panel on ESPN treat a football game with such disrespect? Sports writers take their subject seriously, but your national national "press corps" clowns and laughs as they make a joke of another White House election, the thing they seem to do best.
How does an earth-born human being manage to get this inept? APPLE: Mr Kerry's Vietnam heroism may be a much easier sell than his views on the war in Iraq, if only because it is more clear-cut. Having cast several votes on several aspects of the current conflict, he is easy to portray as a straddler, a flip-flopper or a hair-splitter. Having said he would have taken a more international approach to the Iraqi problem, he finds Mr Bush moving the same way. According to Apple, Bush is moving in Kerry's direction--but Kerry is somehow the flipper, the straddler! SEQUEL--EXPLAINING SUCH VOTES CAN BE EASY: It's easy to explain votes like Kerry's--as long as it's in an Official Press Script. Later last night, after Edwards spoke, Tom Brokaw was talking about former Georgia senator Max Cleland. In 2002, Cleland was defeated for re-election, in part because of a vote he cast against creation of the Homeland Security Department. Of course, Cleland favored creation of such a department--but he favored one form of the bill to create the department, and he opposed another. Did he lie, as Matthews did, saying, "I don't know what that means?" The corps is Officially Sympathetic to Cleland, so here's the script Brokaw rattled off as he spoke with Senator Zell Miller: BROKAW: Tomorrow night, John Kerry will be introduced by one of your former colleagues, Max Cleland, who was the senator from Georgia with you when you were both in that chamber. Republicans ran ads against ...
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