:: SillyGlobe ::

:: Thursday, August 26, 2004 ::

MAD MAX

Why is it that none of these Kerry campaign articles in the Globe involving Max Cleland ever mention his current job: Director of the Export-Import Bank?

Why is it that none of these Globe articles mention who appointed Cleland to his cushy $100K-plus sinecure: President George W. Bush?

Why is it that reporters like the Globe’s Patrick Healy don’t have the wit to ask Cleland:

“Ah, say, Max – if you think President Bush is a contemptible, dishonorable, terrible President, why don’t you do the right thing and resign in protest from your cushy, no-heavy-lifting, $100K-plus sinecure to which this contemptible, dishonorable, terrible President appointed you just last November?”




:: Terry Catchpole 9:09 AM [+] ::
...

OUT, OUT DAMN SPOT

Just when we thought that SillyGlobe could leave the whole swift boat vet subject behind and move on to a whole new panoply of silliness that greets us in the Globe each morning, comes this ridiculous editorial in this morning’s paper.

But before we get to that, some context….Way back on January 22, 2004, the Globe endorsed Kerry for the New Hampshire primary with words that we thought were the most succinct encapsulation of the Globe’s delusional self-image that we have ever read in the paper. That would be when Globe melded itself as one with the candidate, and wrote: “We share John Kerry’s values and vision for America as a confident, tolerant, enlightened nation.”

Got that? Confident. Tolerant. Enlightened. Now see if any of those adjectives apply to today’s anti-Bush editorial. The swift boat veterans’ ads are described as “odious” and a “smear,” not to mention “an ugly, distracting campaign fueled by bitter men.” Bob Dole’s critique of Kerry’s anti-Vietnam role is “inane.” The best way to deal with the ads, says the Globe, is for President Bush to “call his friends who are bankrolling the swift boat ads and ask them to stop.”

Isn’t the essence of that Globe quality of tolerance the willingness to hear all sides of an issue? Well, here the Globe forcefully endorses Kerry’s anti-Vietnam comments of 1971, which is fine with us, but as to the opposing view – that Kerry may have been wrong to trash the US military effort while soldiers were still fighting in the field – that should not be entertained, but “stopped.” And another veteran-legislator who challenges the Kerry Vietnam view? Inane.

Isn’t the essence of that second Globe quality of confidence the understanding that, if presented with all sides of an issue, the people will chose the right answer and eschew the wrong? And that, if you are confident in your argument, they will side with you on the issue? How much confidence, then, is the Globe demonstrating by not wanting the SBV’s views aired whatsoever -in fact wanting them “stopped”? How about “zilch.”

And as to the third Globe quality, enlightenment, our pal Mr. Webster says that one who is “enlightened” – as the Globe says both it and the Senator are – is “freed from ignorance and misinformation; based on full comprehension of the problems involved.” Whoa. Not at 135 Morrisey Boulevard! Let ignorance and misinformation rule the electorate! Keep all dissenting views – odious, inane, and otherwise – well out of public hearing! And let’s limit a “comprehension of the problems involved” to Kerry campaign press releases (and the Globe’s rehash of them, of course)!

SillyGlobe wrote in response to the original January 22nd editorial that, rather than being confident, tolerant, and enlightened, we viewed the Globe as being underhanded, hateful, and culturally backward. Haven’t read anything since – including today’s editorial – to change that view a bit.

MORE: Gotta love the Globe’s weasel in the first paragraph of today’s editorial. Even after dismissing the swift boat veterans ads as being “odious,” the Globe can manage only to say that “many of its claims have been discredited.” Many? Okay, we’ll buy “many.” But doesn’t that leave, like – others? What about them? If the swifties drop their beastly ads, does the Globe promise to press Kerry on the viable claims against his veracity that remain? We’d advise the swifties to hold off withdrawing their ads until they have that in writing from Mr. Baron hisself.

MORE #2: If anyone suffers more than the Globe in this episode, it is the supposedly tolerant, supposedly confident, supposed enlightened junior Senator from Massachusetts. Hasn’t the guy ever heard the phrase, “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”? Doesn’t he realize his attempts to dismiss the criticisms as “petty” only diminish his own stature, draw even more public attention to the claims against him, and make him appear anything but confident in letting his war record speak for itself?

MORE #3: And how out of the loop is Globe columnist Robert Kuttner? On page A11 of today’s paper he dismisses the swifties as “right-wing vets.” Meanwhile, seven pages previous, Globe reporter Anne Kornblut is profiling swift boat ad organizer John E. O’Neill, including his claim to have voted for that rabid right-winger Al Gore in 2000 and was hoping to vote for bedrock conservative John Edwards this year.

MORE #4: And finally (we promise!), note the Globe's backhand to the Federal Election Commission for not having "lifted a paw to do anything about [the 527 ads] despite several formal complaints." And now hear what FEC Chairman Bradley Smith, a Republican appointed by Democrat Bill Clinton, said today in response to Kerry's complaint about the swift boat ad:

"I think it's great we live in a country where 260 average guys can go out and put their point of view out there before the public and influence a major presidential race. I am not one who agrees it is illegitimate for citizens to take a stand on these kind of issues and only the politicians should be able to say what they want about the issues they want to talk about."

Golly. A man who really believes in freedom of expression. How quaint. We say, we're real glad this Mr. Smith went to Washington. His remarks are so...so...confident...so tolerant...so enlightened.




:: Terry Catchpole 5:27 PM [+] ::
...

LIES OF THE LAND, CONTINUED

It’s pretty clear by now that had the Globe done a better job of thoroughly researching and reporting on its state’s junior US Senator over the past 20 years, that same Senator would not now be thrown off his game by questions raised about his Vietnam history. If the Globe had challenged him then; maybe he would have answers now. Instead our local newspaper of record is forced into shameful Kerry defense contortions like its Sunday editorial, inelegantly titled “Big Lies For Bush,” in which it falls into the very same pattern of serial untruths for which it accusing the President. Examples:

* In their lede, Globe editorialists draw a comparison between attacks on Kerry’s war record and the supposed absence of same during Bob Dole’s presidential campaign in 1996 (“no one questioned that record”). But it turns out, Dole’s record was questioned – and attacked. And it would seem that a little industrious googling by the Globe would have uncovered this fact.

* The Globe cites last week’s Washington Post report on the Bronze Star awarded to Swift Boat vet Larry Thurlow to refute Thurlow’s anti-Kerry charges, saying that Thurlow’s own citation contradicts his assertion. But what Thurlow said in the Post piece, which was also printed in the Globe, was that he was unaware of the language used in that Bronze Star citation; that he disagreed with its embellishments; and that if these embellishments were the reason for his award, he would proudly renounce it. Important caveats, here omitted.

There are more (Max Cleland was defeated because he was an ineffective Senator), but enough is enough. This is not honorable stuff for a newspaper that supposedly values First Amendment rights and the value of full and expressive public debate. We well remember the Globe’s editorial tribute to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 911, a piece of agitprop with more lies and distortions than you can shake a Swift Boat at. But that’s what being silly is all about.

:: Terry Catchpole 5:20 PM [+] ::
...

DOWN & OUT

the bottom of the writing barrell at the Globe can be dependably found each week in the Saturday feature laughingly called "In & Out," a sliver of ephemera that impresses us as the dreaded assignment that the most underachieving Globe intern must complete before being allowed to leave work each Friday.

This past Saturday's edition, for example, contained this entry in the "Out" list: "Paris Hilton's dog. Can someone explain to us why a mssing dog was national news? On second thought, don't."

Yeah, that media overkill on trivial people (and their dogs) is a disgrace. Like putting them on a section front in a major metropolitan daily. Terrible.

Or this: "Are we the only ones who are sort of enjoying watching small-time countries beat up on Allen Iverson?"

Is SillyGlobe the only one that thinks the Boston Globe shouldn't be describing anything as "small time"?

:: Terry Catchpole 2:41 PM [+] ::
...

WE, THE PEOPLE – THE VERY SPECIAL PEOPLE

Two items from today’s Globe that indicate it may not be quite the voice of the people that its editorialists and columnists would like us to think:

First, this lede-in to an item in today’s wretched “Names” column: “You just never know who you might spy while on Nantucket….” (Actually, most people in the greater Boston area never even spy Nantucket!)

And then this item from today’s TV Critic’s Corner: “Tonight on ‘Amish in the City,’ the kids struggle with profound guilt after enjoying large burret crunch ice-cream cones with chocolate sprinkles.” (Gee, imagine that – people with solid core beliefs that are not fungible, negotiable, or otherwise nuanced. Who woulda thought????)

Or, as SillyGlobe likes to say: The trouble with diversity is you can't control it.

:: Terry Catchpole 2:26 PM [+] ::
...

LIES OF THE LAND

We suppose Globe readers should be thankful for any small favors when it comes to responsible coverage of the Kerry campaign, and in that spirit we say hats off to the formidable op-ed presence of Joan Vennochi and her willingness to at least acknowledge that Kerry has something of a credibility problem with at least one of his Vietnam war stories – namely his Christmas in Cambodia tale.

Why is this important? It wouldn’t be, if Kerry was just guilty of the boastful braggadocio that most soldiers and politicians are prone to; if it were just an off-hand case of I-invented-the-Internet hyperbole better suited to late night TV comics than the op-ed pages of one of the nation’s leading newspaper. But no. Kerry is using his Vietnam experience as a cornerstone – if not the cornerstone – of his campaign for the US presidency, so presumably anything that demands factual examination is fair game for the press. It would be approximately the same if George Bush were using his Texas Air National Guard experience as a cornerstone of his re-election campaign. But despite the fact that Bush is plainly not doing this, the Globe gave far more coverage to the controversy over Bush’s Guard attendance record than they have to Kerry’s fib.

But now here comes Vennochi with her call on Kerry not to “leave his defense to surrogates.” Noble though it is for Vennochi to at least address the Cambodia issue, unlike any other Globe reporters or columnists, even she lets the Senator off with the lightest of wrist-slaps in recounting the story and does her best to muddy the Mekong-like waters surrounding it. First off, she tosses the Cambodia issue in with the charges by other Vietnam vets that Kerry somehow does not deserve his medals. The difference is, while the latter is a campaign-fueled personal attack, the Cambodian episode – which did not originate with any of the Swift boat naysayers – is purely a matter of empirical fact, one which the Kerry campaign itself now acknowledges the Senator got wrong.

The further point is that Kerry not only got Cambodia wrong on a single isolated occurrence, as Vennochi intimates, but on three separate occasions, in three separate decades, and each time to make a personal political point: in a 1979 interview, to denounce Richard Nixon (even though Lyndon Johnson was president when Kerry maintains he was in Cambodia on Christmas 1968); in a 1986 Senate floor speech denouncing Ronald Reagan’s Nicaraguan policy; and in a 1992 interview when he was testing the presidential waters and burnishing his veteran credentials. This is not idle boasting; this is manipulating the truth to advance your personal political agenda – much as Kerry and his supporters now say that a certain sitting US President has done.

Vennochi is right in highlighting the question of whether or not this incident paints Kerry as being as much of a "liar" as she (certainly not alone) maintains Bush to be. Bush, she writes, “is the known purveyor of false information,” the one who “invaded another country on the basis of bad intelligence or bad faith – it doesn’t really matter which.”

But hold on here. Forget Cambodia. Kerry was among the members of the US Senate who voted to give Bush the authority to invade that country. Presumably their votes were cast, at least in part, on the basis of their individual and collective belief in the same “false information” – the Senate, after all, has complete and independent oversight of the US intelligence apparatus (thanks to the Church committee) and certainly had multiple avenues of access to the best intel on Iraq that was then available. Did Kerry, with his vote, in effect “lie” as much as Bush; were Kerry and his aye-voting colleagues as guilty of wrongly accepting “bad intelligence,” or acting on “bad faith”?

Wouldn’t it be terrific to have a newspaper that really cared about such things.

:: Terry Catchpole 5:29 PM [+] ::
...

SOCIAL NOTES FOR SHUT-INS

Well, the Globe still calls it “Names,” but we prefer our nyah-nyah alt-title up above. Take today for example, where we learn that Nicky Hilton’s new SO is an “unknown.” Sure, he is, if you never read anything or go anywhere. “Names” can’t even spare the ink to tell its closeted readers the guy’s name, which is Todd Meister, that he’s the son of AON VP Rob Meister, and a Harvard grad. The least “Names” could do is pay attention to invaluable journalistic resources like www.newyorksocialdiary.com. Is that asking too much, for gosh sakes?


:: Terry Catchpole 3:01 PM [+] ::
...

AND THE GOLD MEDAL FOR GRATUITOUS GOVERNOR BASHING GOES TO....

Not even close. Runaway victory for the Globe's Brian MacQauarrie and his front page report on Romney in Athens highlighted by this fourth-paragraph slap upside the gubernatorial noggin: "Romney is still finding ways to capitalize on his Olympic connections, especially as he takes steps to raise his profile for a possible bid for national office."

Geez. Yeah. Terrible. It's almost as bad as if he were running a campaign for president based entirely on a four-month tour in Vietnam.

:: Terry Catchpole 4:54 PM [+] ::
...