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Smear Without Fear (NY Slimes/Krugman Hit Piece on President Bush)
NY Times ^ | 4/2/04 | Paul Krugman

Posted on 04/03/2004 7:22:33 PM PST by NYC Republican

A funny thing happened to David Letterman this week. Actually, it only started out funny. And the unfunny ending fits into a disturbing pattern.

On Monday, Mr. Letterman ran a video clip of a boy yawning and fidgeting during a speech by George Bush. It was harmless stuff; a White House that thinks it's cute to have Mr. Bush make jokes about missing W.M.D. should be able to handle a little ribbing about boring speeches.

CNN ran the Letterman clip on Tuesday, just before a commercial. Then the CNN anchor Daryn Kagan came back to inform viewers that the clip was a fake: "We're being told by the White House that the kid, as funny as he was, was edited into that video." Later in the day, another anchor amended that: the boy was at the rally, but not where he was shown in the video.

On his Tuesday night show, Mr. Letterman was not amused: "That is an out and out 100 percent absolute lie. The kid absolutely was there, and he absolutely was doing everything we pictured via the videotape."

But here's the really interesting part: CNN backed down, but it told Mr. Letterman that Ms. Kagan "misspoke," that the White House was not the source of the false claim. (So who was? And if the claim didn't come from the White House, why did CNN run with it without checking?)

In short, CNN passed along a smear that it attributed to the White House. When the smear backfired, it declared its previous statements inoperative and said the White House wasn't responsible. Sound familiar?

On Tuesday, I mentioned remarks by CNN's Wolf Blitzer; here's a fuller quote, just to remove any ambiguity: "What administration officials have been saying since the weekend, basically, that Richard Clarke from their vantage point was a disgruntled former government official, angry because he didn't get a certain promotion. He's got a hot new book out now that he wants to promote. He wants to make a few bucks, and that his own personal life, they're also suggesting there are some weird aspects in his life."

Stung by my column, Mr. Blitzer sought to justify his words, saying that his statement was actually a question, and also saying that "I was not referring to anything charged by so-called unnamed White House officials as alleged today." Silly me: I "alleged" that Mr. Blitzer said something because he actually said it, and described "so-called unnamed" officials as unnamed because he didn't name them.

Mr. Blitzer now says he was talking about remarks made on his own program by a National Security Council spokesman, Jim Wilkinson. But Mr. Wilkinson's remarks are hard to construe as raising questions about Mr. Clarke's personal life.

Instead, Mr. Wilkinson seems to have questioned Mr. Clarke's sanity, saying: "He sits back and visualizes chanting by bin Laden, and bin Laden has a mystical mind control over U.S. officials. This is sort of `X-Files' stuff." Really?

On Page 246 of "Against All Enemies," Mr. Clarke bemoans the way the invasion of Iraq, in his view, played right into the hands of Al Qaeda: "Bush handed that enemy precisely what it wanted and needed. . . . It was as if Usama bin Laden, hidden in some high mountain redoubt, were engaging in long-range mind control of George Bush." That's not " `X-Files' stuff": it's a literary device, meant to emphasize just how ill conceived our policy is. Mr. Blitzer should be telling Mr. Wilkinson to apologize, not rerunning those comments in his own defense.

Look, I understand why major news organizations must act respectfully toward government officials. But officials shouldn't be sure — as Mr. Wilkinson obviously was — that they can make wild accusations without any fear that they will be challenged on the spot or held accountable later.

And administration officials shouldn't be able to spread stories without making themselves accountable. If an administration official is willing to say something on the record, that's a story, because he pays a price if his claims are false. But if unnamed "administration officials" spread rumors about administration critics, reporters have an obligation to check the facts before giving those rumors national exposure. And there's no excuse for disseminating unchecked rumors because they come from "the White House," then denying the White House connection when the rumors prove false. That's simply giving the administration a license to smear with impunity.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: cnn; davidletterman; nytimes; whitehouse; wolfblitzer
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To: Utah Girl
Wow, thanks for that!
Surprise, surprise - - Krugman is another NY Times liar.
41 posted on 04/03/2004 11:05:23 PM PST by Lancey Howard
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To: Spotsy
Thank you. I found the reading rather pointless, too.
42 posted on 04/03/2004 11:24:50 PM PST by Ruth A.
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To: Spotsy
Or are the Dems and their media handmaidens disappointed that the White House hasn't touched Clarke's "personal life?" So Krugman is trying to do it for the WH.

Very possible.

Prairie

43 posted on 04/04/2004 5:03:02 AM PDT by prairiebreeze (Brought to you by The American Democrat Party, also known as Al Qaeda, Western Division.)
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To: Utah Girl; Mo1
Excellent find! Thanks.

Prairie
44 posted on 04/04/2004 5:14:09 AM PDT by prairiebreeze (Brought to you by The American Democrat Party, also known as Al Qaeda, Western Division.)
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To: Lancey Howard
Thanks for expressing the 'boss;black woman' angle. Another opinion could be that a predator priest 'comforted' him in his time of grief. I'm assuming that he, (Clarke),lived in a Boston neighborhood and he does have a possible Irish surname.Let the Lib meltdown continue.....fenway
45 posted on 04/04/2004 5:27:34 AM PDT by fenway
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To: M Kehoe
Yup, in wholesale panic, RATS are running around, biting themselves in the arse.
46 posted on 04/04/2004 5:57:37 AM PDT by hershey
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To: NYC Republican
I read somewhere else on the Web that it's always hard to decide whether Krugman is merely seditious, or overtly treasonous.
47 posted on 04/04/2004 9:35:04 AM PDT by an amused spectator (FR: Leaving the burning dog poop bag of Truth on the front door step of the liberal media since 1996)
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To: NYC Republican
Krugman actually thinks CNN would defer and cater to the WH?

LOL



48 posted on 04/04/2004 9:39:08 AM PDT by cyncooper ("The 'War on Terror ' is not a figure of speech")
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To: Spotsy
The whole NY Times staff has evidently gone simultaneously insane.

There was some piece I read this morning from them (the weekend magazine?) saying what a vicious campaign this was turning out to be and the one and only example they went on and on and on about was calling Kerry "French"!

I'm literally LOL at their idiotic ways.
49 posted on 04/04/2004 9:40:57 AM PDT by cyncooper ("The 'War on Terror ' is not a figure of speech")
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To: Saints fan
I haven't read much of Maureen Dowd and don't remember if she has ever had a good word for Bush about anything, but her juvenile high-school sort of cleverness just comes across as silly, whereas Krugman always seems deadly serious. I read somewhere that he has never said anything positive about Bush in any of his columns...not even the "Mussolini made the trains run on time" sort of trivial praise. This latest example of conjuring up a White House "smear" out of thin air sounds typical of him.
50 posted on 04/04/2004 9:45:39 AM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Lancey Howard
I mean, he generally laid off Clinton, who saw several serious terrorist attacks and had eight years to engage the enemy, but went after Bush who was in office barely eight months when 9/11 struck.

He's done more than that. I've pointed out on several threads the following:

Richard Miniter and Laurie Mylroie have written recent columns pointing out the factual errors in Clarke's book. Both pointed out a mighty peculiar one that has caught my eye and raised the alarm bells:

One of the '93 WTC bombers was an Iraqi and fled back to Iraq where he received a monthly stipend and a house. Clarke claims in his book that the Hussein regime jailed this guy.

Now, I am wondering why Clarke decided to paint Saddam Hussein as tough on crime here when the exact opposite was true--that he rewarded this terrorist.

As I said in my first comment on this, it appears Clarke is interested in polishing up the legacies of both Clinton AND Hussein.

BTW, this "error" alone ought to have raised the credibility issue big time with Clarke's book. But we know there is a mountain of other examples that also demonstrate the point.

51 posted on 04/04/2004 9:52:03 AM PDT by cyncooper ("The 'War on Terror ' is not a figure of speech")
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To: Lancey Howard
I think he (Clarke) simply couldn't stand that his boss was a black woman.

Bullseye. That was the very thing that streaked through my thoughts when it was revealed Clarke was demoted during the Bush Administration's first six months.

52 posted on 04/04/2004 1:22:17 PM PDT by Edit35
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To: cyncooper
Your observation serves to strengthen my concerns that Bubba and his wife were on the UN Food for Oil merrygoround....and that he was giving Saddam the same quid pro quo's that France and Germany were....would explain an awful lot IMHO
53 posted on 04/04/2004 1:38:20 PM PDT by mo
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