Free Republic

AMBUSH JOURNALISM...OR MY EVENING WITH CAVEMAN CHRIS MATTHEWS
By Michelle Malkin · August 20, 2004 02:34 AM

Here's a peek behind the cable TV curtain. It's not pretty.

So, my publicist arranges for me to go on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews on Thursday night to talk about my recent columns on the FBI and national security profiling and my new book. Despite the show's basement ratings, we figure it's a good opportunity to reach out to a new audience. FOX News, with whom I have a contract, has generously allowed me to appear on some competing networks to talk about the book. Thursday was the second to the last day that I could make such appearances.

A few hours before the show, a producer calls to tell me I will be on for two segments--the first topic will be the Swift Boat Veterans, the second topic will be related to the book. Fine. This is the news business. I understand the need to go with the flow and cover the hot issues of the day. I am prepared to discuss both topics.

In a pre-interview, the producer goes over general questions about Kerry's response to the Swift Boat vets, whether the charges will be an issue in the presidential debates, and the basic themes of my book and its implications for the current War on Terror. I am originally scheduled to be on with the Washington Post's Dana Milbank. This was scratched and I am informed at the last minute that the other guest will be former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown.

As I am seated at the table with Matthews, who I am meeting for the first time, he cracks a joke--and not in a well-meaning way--about how I look. (There are quite a few people who are hung up on this.) "Are you sure you are old enough to be on the show? What are you? 28?" I grit my teeth. He badgers me again with the same question. I politely answer his question and supply my age.

(I wonder how Matthews' wife, the respected TV journalist Kathleen Matthews, who hosts a show about working women, would react if informed about her husband's treatment of a fellow female journalist. I've been in the business a dozen years and would be happy to talk to Mrs. Matthews about my firsthand experience with Neanderthal chauvinism in the workplace.)

Needless to say, things went downhill, fast and loud, from there.

1) Matthews introduces me, says we'll get to the subject of my book "in a minute," and launches into a spiel about how Bush should order the Swift Boat Vets to stop running their ads. Matthews intentionally mischaracterizes me as "speaking on behalf of the Bush campaign," when he knew full well I was there (with special permission from FOX News) to talk about my book, which he had sitting right next to him on the table and which he had chatted with me briefly about before the start of the segment. I correct him. He does not acknowledge his error.

2) When I tried to make a point about how the mainstream media ought to subject John Kerry to as much skull-pounding interrogation as private citizens such as Swift Boat Vet Larry Thurlow had endured from Matthews and the Washington Post, Matthews cut me off and snorted that he had never been thought of as "mainstream." Yeah, keep snorting.

3) In response to Matthews' claim that the Swift Boat Vets campaign was orchestrated by the White House, I noted that the Boston Globe--hardly a hothouse of GOP operatives--had raised many of the same questions about Kerry's war record as the Swift Boat Vets had. No response from Matthews.

4) Willie Brown expresses exasperation over Swift Boat Vets' questions about Kerry's wounds. He says: "There are questions about the shrapnel wounds. So what else is there? How much he got shot? How deep? How much shrapnel does he have?

Note that I didn't bring the subject of shrapnel. (Got that, Keith Olbermann?) Willie Brown raised the issue.

Here is how I responded verbatim:

"Well yeah. Why don't people ask him more specific questions about the shrapnel in his leg? There are legitimate questions about whether or not it was a self-inflicted wound."

Matthews frantically stuffed words down my mouth when I raised these allegations made in Unfit for Command that Kerry's wounds might have been self-inflicted. In his ill-informed and ideologically warped mind, this transmogrified into me accusing Kerry of "shooting himself on purpose" to get an award.

I repeated that the allegations involved whether the injuries were "self inflicted wounds." I DID NOT SAY HE SHOT HIMSELF ON PURPOSE and Chris Matthews knows it.

Only someone who had not read Unfit for Command would interpret what I was saying the way Matthews did. The book raises questions by vets, many of whom were with Kerry, about whether there was or wasn't enemy fire during the Dec. 1968 incident that led to his first Purple Heart (Patrick Runyon is quoted in a Boston Globe account on p. 35 saying "I can't say for sure that we got return fire or how [Kerry] got nicked. I couldn't say one way or the other. I know he did get nicked, a scrape on the arm.") and whether the injury came from a self-inflicted wound after he caught a tiny piece of shrapnel when he fired a grenade from his M-79 grenade launcher too close (p. 36); whether or not there was "intense rocket and rifle fire" during the Feb. 1969 incident that led to his second Purple Heart (Rocky Hildreth, officer of an accompanying boat on Dam Doi Canal that day, says there was no "intense rocket and rifle fire" on p. 78); and whether the shrapnel wound in his buttocks, which Kerry says he sustained in March 1969 and led to the awarding of his third Purple Heart, was the result of a mine explosion while on a mission or from a wound from his own grenade that he set off too close to a stock of rice he was trying to destroy (p. 87). See also pages 30-31. I was trying to get to these points, but Matthews would not let me finish a sentence.

Well, guess what? This foaming jerk Matthews, who called me irresponsible and kicked me off the show admitted that a) he himself had not read the damned book, b) he was not interested in asking Kerry about the specific doubts raised by vets about his wounds, and c) he had not and would not question Kerry about these specific allegations.

"Are you saying he shot himself on purpose?" Matthews hammered. I repeated myself again clearly that I was referring to the allegations about self-inflicted wounds in the book. When I tried to explain that the vets who were with Kerry had cast a lot of doubt on whether enemy fire occurred during the first two incidents, Matthews cut me off again. "Why did you say that?" he badgered. Because, I said, I was talking about what was in the book, which he had admitted he hadn't read.

"Don't you wonder?" I asked.

"No, I don't," he bellowed. "It's never occurred to me."

With that, I was kicked off the second segment.

As the show broke for commercials, Matthews scrambled for his producers to see if what he said was true. And I'm irresponsible? One staffer ran to the office where I had left my copy of the book, and handed it to Matthews, who--for the first time, apparently--started flipping through it. I asked for my book back and politely said thank you. After I left, he trashed me again on the air and his scurrilous charges were repeated by his MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann, who called me an "idiot."

I am used to playing hardball. I expect it. I am used to ad hominem attacks. I get more in a day than most of these wussies have received in their lifetimes. But what happened last night was pure slimeball and the unfair, unbalanced, and unhinged purveyors of journalism, or whatever it is they call what they do at MSNBC, should be ashamed.

What I take away from all this is that the Democrat Party waterboys in the media are in full desperation mode. I have now witnessed firsthand and up close (Matthews' spittle nearly hit me in the face) how the pressure from alternative media sources--the blogosphere, conservative Internet forums, talk radio, Regnery Publishing, FOX News, etc. --is driving these people absolutely batty.

Keep bringing it on.

***

By the way, the full MSNBC Hardball transcript is here. Matthews and Olbermann's blog bloviations are here. Olbermann expresses incredulity that I was simply reporting what the Swift Boat Vets' book says, rather than spouting off in a half-baked manner:

Ms. Malkin wouldn’t even go so far as to attribute the suspicion to herself. It was in the book.

Olbermann, alleged journalist, is smearing me because I agreed to discuss and analyze claims made by the authors of Unfit for Command and actually referred to what was in the book--rather than cluelessly spew uninformed opinions about the book a la Chris Matthews (of whom Olbermann drools, "never prouder of you, Chris.") Parroting Matthews' conspiratorial line, Olbermann ignorantly suggests that I am following orders from the Swift Boat Vets to "steer the Kerry-Shot-Himself flotsam into the mainstream media." I suggest he talk to the producer, Dominic Bellone, who booked me about the circumstances of my appearance on the show and ask whether I was dispatched by the Bush campaign or Swift Boat Vets operatives or anyone else associated with the vets' book.

The feedback e-mail for Hardball is hardball@msnbc.com.

Chris Matthews' phone number is listed in the Spring 2004 News Media Yellow Book as 202-885-4600.

AMBUSH JOURNALISM...OR MY EVENING WITH CAVEMAN CHRIS MATTHEWS
By Michelle Malkin · August 20, 2004 02:34 AM

Here's a peek behind the cable TV curtain. It's not pretty.

So, my publicist arranges for me to go on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews on Thursday night to talk about my recent columns on the FBI and national security profiling and my new book. Despite the show's basement ratings, we figure it's a good opportunity to reach out to a new audience. FOX News, with whom I have a contract, has generously allowed me to appear on some competing networks to talk about the book. Thursday was the second to the last day that I could make such appearances.

A few hours before the show, a producer calls to tell me I will be on for two segments--the first topic will be the Swift Boat Veterans, the second topic will be related to the book. Fine. This is the news business. I understand the need to go with the flow and cover the hot issues of the day. I am prepared to discuss both topics.

In a pre-interview, the producer goes over general questions about Kerry's response to the Swift Boat vets, whether the charges will be an issue in the presidential debates, and the basic themes of my book and its implications for the current War on Terror. I am originally scheduled to be on with the Washington Post's Dana Milbank. This was scratched and I am informed at the last minute that the other guest will be former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown.

As I am seated at the table with Matthews, who I am meeting for the first time, he cracks a joke--and not in a well-meaning way--about how I look. (There are quite a few people who are hung up on this.) "Are you sure you are old enough to be on the show? What are you? 28?" I grit my teeth. He badgers me again with the same question. I politely answer his question and supply my age.

(I wonder how Matthews' wife, the respected TV journalist Kathleen Matthews, who hosts a show about working women, would react if informed about her husband's treatment of a fellow female journalist. I've been in the business a dozen years and would be happy to talk to Mrs. Matthews about my firsthand experience with Neanderthal chauvinism in the workplace.)

Needless to say, things went downhill, fast and loud, from there.

1) Matthews introduces me, says we'll get to the subject of my book "in a minute," and launches into a spiel about how Bush should order the Swift Boat Vets to stop running their ads. Matthews intentionally mischaracterizes me as "speaking on behalf of the Bush campaign," when he knew full well I was there (with special permission from FOX News) to talk about my book, which he had sitting right next to him on the table and which he had chatted with me briefly about before the start of the segment. I correct him. He does not acknowledge his error.

2) When I tried to make a point about how the mainstream media ought to subject John Kerry to as much skull-pounding interrogation as private citizens such as Swift Boat Vet Larry Thurlow had endured from Matthews and the Washington Post, Matthews cut me off and snorted that he had never been thought of as "mainstream." Yeah, keep snorting.

3) In response to Matthews' claim that the Swift Boat Vets campaign was orchestrated by the White House, I noted that the Boston Globe--hardly a hothouse of GOP operatives--had raised many of the same questions about Kerry's war record as the Swift Boat Vets had. No response from Matthews.

4) Willie Brown expresses exasperation over Swift Boat Vets' questions about Kerry's wounds. He says: "There are questions about the shrapnel wounds. So what else is there? How much he got shot? How deep? How much shrapnel does he have?

Note that I didn't bring the subject of shrapnel. (Got that, Keith Olbermann?) Willie Brown raised the issue.

Here is how I responded verbatim:

"Well yeah. Why don't people ask him more specific questions about the shrapnel in his leg? There are legitimate questions about whether or not it was a self-inflicted wound."

Matthews frantically stuffed words down my mouth when I raised these allegations made in Unfit for Command that Kerry's wounds might have been self-inflicted. In his ill-informed and ideologically warped mind, this transmogrified into me accusing Kerry of "shooting himself on purpose" to get an award.

I repeated that the allegations involved whether the injuries were "self inflicted wounds." I DID NOT SAY HE SHOT HIMSELF ON PURPOSE and Chris Matthews knows it.

Only someone who had not read Unfit for Command would interpret what I was saying the way Matthews did. The book raises questions by vets, many of whom were with Kerry, about whether there was or wasn't enemy fire during the Dec. 1968 incident that led to his first Purple Heart (Patrick Runyon is quoted in a Boston Globe account on p. 35 saying "I can't say for sure that we got return fire or how [Kerry] got nicked. I couldn't say one way or the other. I know he did get nicked, a scrape on the arm.") and whether the injury came from a self-inflicted wound after he caught a tiny piece of shrapnel when he fired a grenade from his M-79 grenade launcher too close (p. 36); whether or not there was "intense rocket and rifle fire" during the Feb. 1969 incident that led to his second Purple Heart (Rocky Hildreth, officer of an accompanying boat on Dam Doi Canal that day, says there was no "intense rocket and rifle fire" on p. 78); and whether the shrapnel wound in his buttocks, which Kerry says he sustained in March 1969 and led to the awarding of his third Purple Heart, was the result of a mine explosion while on a mission or from a wound from his own grenade that he set off too close to a stock of rice he was trying to destroy (p. 87). See also pages 30-31. I was trying to get to these points, but Matthews would not let me finish a sentence.

Well, guess what? This foaming jerk Matthews, who called me irresponsible and kicked me off the show admitted that a) he himself had not read the damned book, b) he was not interested in asking Kerry about the specific doubts raised by vets about his wounds, and c) he had not and would not question Kerry about these specific allegations.

"Are you saying he shot himself on purpose?" Matthews hammered. I repeated myself again clearly that I was referring to the allegations about self-inflicted wounds in the book. When I tried to explain that the vets who were with Kerry had cast a lot of doubt on whether enemy fire occurred during the first two incidents, Matthews cut me off again. "Why did you say that?" he badgered. Because, I said, I was talking about what was in the book, which he had admitted he hadn't read.

"Don't you wonder?" I asked.

"No, I don't," he bellowed. "It's never occurred to me."

With that, I was kicked off the second segment.

As the show broke for commercials, Matthews scrambled for his producers to see if what he said was true. And I'm irresponsible? One staffer ran to the office where I had left my copy of the book, and handed it to Matthews, who--for the first time, apparently--started flipping through it. I asked for my book back and politely said thank you. After I left, he trashed me again on the air and his scurrilous charges were repeated by his MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann, who called me an "idiot."

I am used to playing hardball. I expect it. I am used to ad hominem attacks. I get more in a day than most of these wussies have received in their lifetimes. But what happened last night was pure slimeball and the unfair, unbalanced, and unhinged purveyors of journalism, or whatever it is they call what they do at MSNBC, should be ashamed.

What I take away from all this is that the Democrat Party waterboys in the media are in full desperation mode. I have now witnessed firsthand and up close (Matthews' spittle nearly hit me in the face) how the pressure from alternative media sources--the blogosphere, conservative Internet forums, talk radio, Regnery Publishing, FOX News, etc. --is driving these people absolutely batty.

Keep bringing it on.

***

By the way, the full MSNBC Hardball transcript is here. Matthews and Olbermann's blog bloviations are here. Olbermann expresses incredulity that I was simply reporting what the Swift Boat Vets' book says, rather than spouting off in a half-baked manner:

Ms. Malkin wouldn’t even go so far as to attribute the suspicion to herself. It was in the book.

Olbermann, alleged journalist, is smearing me because I agreed to discuss and analyze claims made by the authors of Unfit for Command and actually referred to what was in the book--rather than cluelessly spew uninformed opinions about the book a la Chris Matthews (of whom Olbermann drools, "never prouder of you, Chris.") Parroting Matthews' conspiratorial line, Olbermann ignorantly suggests that I am following orders from the Swift Boat Vets to "steer the Kerry-Shot-Himself flotsam into the mainstream media." I suggest he talk to the producer, Dominic Bellone, who booked me about the circumstances of my appearance on the show and ask whether I was dispatched by the Bush campaign or Swift Boat Vets operatives or anyone else associated with the vets' book.

The feedback e-mail for Hardball is hardball@msnbc.com.

Chris Matthews' phone number is listed in the Spring 2004 News Media Yellow Book as 202-885-4600.

Lovely, lovely tribute. Thanks for sharing!

Great column by John Carlson. I was reminded of an old column by Michelle Malkin (written in December 1999). There is no question that, just under the surface, Seattle has a mean streak.

Amateur hour in Seattle
by Michelle Malkin

From http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin120699.asp

I WATCHED FIRE, tear gas, and mass chaos consume Seattle last week, one wicked little thought crossed my mind: It couldn't have happened to a more deserving city.

I lived in the now-tarnished jewel of the Pacific Northwest for three years – not long enough to grow moss on the bottom of my feet, but long enough to acclimatize to both the region's outward beauty and beastly hubris.

Not content to rest on its natural physical assets, the Emerald City launched an aggressive campaign to become a "world-class" metropolis. Public officials have gone to great lengths – plundering tax dollars, short-circuiting democracy, trampling constitutional rights – to enhance downtown and attract global attention.

Take the convention center where the World Trade Organization delegates hunkered down last week. Despite a state constitutional ban on tax subsidies to private enterprises, city officials convinced Washington's legislature to bail out the construction project twice. Low-income senior citizens were kicked out of their lifelong homes, a family barber shop was shut down, and other small-business entrepreneurs were displaced to make way for a $200 million expansion of the trade center.

Private property owners were forced to go to court when public officials refused to compensate them fairly for seizing their land. A jury awarded those owners up to $20 million more than the government had meagerly offered.

The most notorious abridgement of local voters' rights in the pursuit of world-class status was the construction of the half-billion-dollar Mariners baseball stadium. After the M's threatened to leave town unless they got a new palace, King County (which encompasses Seattle and outlying suburbs) held an election in 1995 on a sales tax to finance the new stadium. The electorate said no.

No matter. Egged on by Seattle's political and business elite, the state Legislature thumbed its nose at the vote and authorized new taxes anyway. To prevent citizens from exercising their constitutionally-guaranteed right to a referendum on the matter, the Legislature declared the baseball stadium a "public emergency." Local opponents of sports pork took another beating two years later, when the Legislature essentially sold a special election to Microsoft mogul Paul Allen – who secured another half-billion-dollar, tax-financed, world-class stadium for his Seattle Seahawks.

Gagging unruly dissenters is quintessentially Seattle. When Mayor Paul Schell declared a "demonstration-free zone" in downtown Seattle last week, it came as no surprise. The political establishment has been trying to transform downtown into a demonstration-free zone for years. It's illegal to sit or lie down on downtown and commercial-area sidewalks between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. It's illegal to put political posters on utility poles or any other city-owned surface. And it's illegal to make too much noise.



Unsatisfied with its current noise ban, one city council member attempted this year to outlaw any sounds that were "loud and raucous and frequent, repetitive or continuous which unreasonably disturb or unreasonably interfere with the peace, comfort, or repose of another." Another almost succeeded in limiting picketing and protesting to 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. on weekends.

Anti-begging laws have been used to squelch peaceful pro-life activists. Nuisance laws have been wielded against law-abiding nightclub owners in the name of public safety. Implementation of the city's so-called "civility" agenda is entrusted to law-enforcement officials whose apparent motto is: Infringe civil liberties first, infringe them selectively, and worry about the constitution later.

Journalists worldwide noted Seattle's grossly inconsistent treatment of protesters last week. Peaceful marchers were gassed; rioters were free to roam. A local newspaper reporter, Kery Murakami, was hauled off to jail despite displaying his press credentials.

Foreign dignitaries expressed surprise and dismay at the incompetence of the Seattle Police Department. Mohammed Asfour, a Jordanian minister of industry and trade who was kept away from the WTO's opening ceremonies, told the press: "People like us who came from thousands of miles and to find no organization - it's very sad." Sad, but all too typical of a scandal-plagued police department whose own rank-and-file officers lost confidence in their hapless police chief a long time ago.

Before the WTO came to town, Seattle prided itself on its cosmopolitan achievement of neatness, tact, and order through covert bully tactics and social control. The façade has been shattered. The whole world was watching. And now they know what kind of player Seattle really is on the global scene: A wannabe. A hinterland. Not ready for prime time.

"Parents who don't have their children immunized for measles, mumps, and rubella are irresponsible cheats, as far as I'm concerned. They risk not only the health of their own children, but also the greater community, and especially the unborn should their infectious child come into contact with [a] pregnant woman."

Let's take this apart:

"They risk not only the health of their own children..."

Sabertooth, as I argued above, the risks of the vaccine for a given individual outweigh the benefits. If you dispute this, why do you dispute it? If you do not dispute it, then this one part of your argument is not valid.

"...but also the greater community..."

Let's be clear about this. The risk they pose to the community is extremely low, because the risk that they will get any of these three diseases is extremely low. They are about as likely to be struck by lightning. But people do get struck by lightning, and let's say an unvaccinated child does get extremely unlucky and contracts mumps, measles, or rubella. Assuming that vaccination confers immunity, the only people threatened by a child who has mumps, measles, or rubella are those WHO ARE THEMSELVES UNVACCINATED. Do you think that it is reasonable for unvaccinated people to expect to be exposed only to vaccinated people? I do not. I think that people who elect not to vaccinate themselves ought to accept the fact that they are at higher risk of these diseases,and shouldn't complain if others also opt not to get vaccinated.

"Unlike the other diseases targeted by child vaccination programs, Hep B has never been an infectious childhood disease, and I wouldn't authorize it again."

Kudos to you for challenging the medical establishment! But I am not sure I follow the logic. Hep B, it is true, is very very rare among children. But children do get it. The childhood incidence of Hep B is not very different from that of mumps, measles, or rubella. Hep B can be transmitted by biting and whatnot, so I don't understand why Hep B is fundamentally different from mumps, measles, or rubella. In short, if it is morally wrong to opt out of the MMR vaccine, surely it is also morally wrong to opt out of the Hep B vaccine.

Even if MMR does not cause autism, there are other well-established side effects: convulsions (1 in 1,000), Meningitis / encephalitis (1 in 1 million), conditions affecting clotting of the blood (1 in 24,000), and severe allergic response (1 in 100,000). These estimates are from a pro-vaccination UK web site: http://www.medinfo.co.uk/immunisations/mmr.html.

There is also a risk that the vaccine will be improperly stored or improperly administered. There are cases of infants being given the adult dose or being given the wrong vaccine. As long as humans are fallible, these risks will never be eliminated.

The benefits of the MMR vaccine to an individual in the U.S. are lower than the risks because mumps, measles and rubella are extremely uncommon (only a few hundred cases per year). Moreover, although these can be serious diseases they are rarely fatal. Yes, I know, the reason the incidence rates are so low is because of the vaccine. But that doesn't change the bottom line reality: an unvaccinated child in the U.S. is extremely unlikely to get any of these three diseases.

The same agument applies for the Hepatitis B vaccine.

Max Cleland volunteered to serve in Vietnam. For that alone, he deserves respect. Let's face it--most people who served in the Guard at that time did so to avoid seeing combat. I like Ann a lot, but this column misses the mark.

Adding our prayers for his speedy recovery...

Our deepest sympathies and prayers for your son's recovery.
May God bless you and your entire family during this difficult time.

I challenge you to point out any error in Michelle's column. For more information on this contrversy, see Tim Lambert's site, http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/guns/lott98update.html.

So Middle Easterners are sneaking across our southern border? Big deal. Everyone knows that illegal immigrants only come here to do the jobs no one else will do.

</sarcasm>

ping

'I don't know what an illegal alien is'

Who said this? George W. Bush?

they can have California.

They already have it.

If Mexico doesn't vote yes, we will see mass deportation of illegal aliens.

HA HA HA. Good one.

"France, Germany, Mexico, and Canada will pay the price for their ignorance. Do not be fooled. GWB is making a list, and WILL be checking it twice."

Do not be fooled: Mexico will pay no price.

"You too will learn that irresponsible actions do indeed have consequences."

HA HA HA. That was a good one!

Why should they fear us? They know that neither Bush nor Congress is going to do anything to shore up the border. They know that benefits to illegal aliens, such as ID cards, in-state tuition discounts, and organ transplants, are not going to be cut off. They view us as suckers, and they are right.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20030207.shtml