R. Parry "The U.S.News Media's 'War on Gore' - NEVER Forget, make them pay

[autorank]

ConsortiumNews.Com

U.S. News Media's 'War on Gore'

By Robert Parry (A Special Report)
March 22, 2007

When historians sort out what happened to the United States at the start of the 21st Century, one of the mysteries may be why the national press corps ganged up like school-yard bullies against a well-qualified Democratic presidential candidate while giving his dimwitted Republican opponent virtually a free pass.

How could major news organizations, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, have behaved so irresponsibly as to spread falsehoods and exaggerations to tear down then-Vice President Al Gore – ironically while the newspapers were berating him for supposedly lying and exaggerating?

In a modern information age, these historians might ask, how could an apocryphal quote like Gore claiming to have “invented the Internet” been allowed to define a leading political figure much as the made-up quote “let them eat cake” was exploited by French propagandists to undermine Marie Antoinette two centuries earlier?

Why did the U.S. news media continue ridiculing Gore in 2002 when he was one of the most prominent Americans to warn that George W. Bush’s radical policy of preemptive war was leading the nation into a disaster in Iraq?

This is a great article. Parry nails it reminding us of the dreadful behavior in 2000 which helped give us Bush and everything he's done. He points out that they're gearing up again. This is a serious time for us to think about a Democratic boycott of all media in the same spirit that the Democrats boycotted Fox in Nevada. Let them know we're doing it, get the party behind it, and make the point. I'm not a big Corporate Media consumer but I interact enough to make a difference if it is part of a collective action. Never, ever forget the rotten fraud the media pulled in 2000 and lets make them pay.

[annabanana]

1. OH yeah!

Very much K'nR!

If we ever get to the bottom of this disgraceful display, we will have revealed one of the greatest crimes of this, or any other Century.

[autorank]

2. You remember too!

2000 media coverage was a "mock-a-thon" and they know it. There should be coverage of that but better yet, we should make a point and get as many people as possible to ignore them during sweeps week;)

[blm]

22. No, no - - it was all Gore's own fault - - Terry McAuliffe sez so.

And it was all the 2002 candidates' faults. And it was all Kerry's own fault in 2004. And Carville sez the Dems' 2006 victory was DESPITE Dean's work at DNC.

Our Dem power elite who kisses corporate ass is complicit with the media takedowns, too. They FURTHER the lies against good Dems.

[loudsue]

45. Wow! You're on a roll today! You nailed it!

That's exactly what's been going down, and I think it's time to press the Dem congress to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine.

:kick::kick::kick:

[blm]

56. Exactly - the Dem elite use the media to push Dem party further right, too.

And McAuliffe helps them do it every time he blames a good Dem instead of holding the media and election fraud accountable.

[Toots]

3. All I can say is thank Spaghetti Monster for Gore's Internets

:shrug:

[autorank]

20. Have a blessed gravy!

[Me.]

4. Link Challeneged Person Here

Don't even see it. :-)

[autorank]

7. Good morning and thank you!

It's embedeed and now active. Enjoy!

[Me.]

8. Multi Grazie

and buon journo to you

[NastyDiaper]

10. link: (fixed now ic)

http://www.consortiumnews.com
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/032107.html

[SpiralHawk]

5. Because corrupt republicon cronies own the media

And corporate GE-Disney-etc. media is on Bended Knee for the republicon cronies. It's simple, it's plain, and it is pathetic and un-American.

[autorank]

14. And think of the irony...

...they guy they worked so hard to elect and maintain is ruining their "assets."

You can have all the tax breaks you can get but if your revenue is down and your assets
are devalued, what's the point. The board of directors for the parent companies of the
media nihilists should be held accountable.

[blm]

21. Hate to say it, but some DUers even fall for corpmedia takedowns of really good Dems, too.

The corpmedia can edit out the best of a leader and twist and exaggerate and lie about them, and many on the left will even repeat those lies and spin against our own.

That is something you never see from the Republicans. Republicans showed more loyalty and discretion for Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich and even Mark Foley than Democrats would show for honest, serious leaders like Gore after 2000 or for Kerry after 2004.

[Kolesar]

54. The "take away lesson" from Vietnam &Watergate was to coopt the media

CBS was its own broadcasting company with a successful record company and the wealthy Americans bought it out and turned it into a lapdog "Viacom Corporation". General Electric bought out NBC and what was left of RCA. ABC was subsumed by Disney Corporation--I really cannot figure out why Disney is such corporate f-heads. It is not like they build ships and missiles. Remember, ABC is the creeps who produced that 9/11 propaganda program before the November 2006 election.

[ms liberty]

6. Yes - they have a measure of responsibility for this train wreck called "the Bush Administration"

Their abrogation of their duty to inform and educate the populace is one of the first crimes committed; the crime that led to election theft, and all the crimes committed since.

K&R

[autorank]

9. Excellent point -

They helped initiate * and company through their derisive treatment of Gore in 2000.

Once the * cabal assumed office and started destroying the country, they failed to cover that
with the same consistency that they insulted Gore.

Dreadful bunch of folks, I'd say.

[blm]

18. They are completely responsible - completely COMPLICIT - every step of the way.

.

[SammyWinstonJack]

23. It's ALL their fault! The whole past six years is ALL their fault! They own it ALL!

They willingly went along with all of the lies, every single lie! They pushed and peddled ALL of the lies while willfully ignoring the TRUTHS!

[hatrack]

11. K&R

Reminded yet again yesterday as to what might have been.

Instead, we got saddled for eight years with the fake cowboy whom people would "prefer to have a beer with" . . .

Setting aside, of course, the facts that the odds of them having a beer with the fake cowboy are less than those of them getting hit by a meteorite, and that the fake cowboy isn't allowed to drink (at least not in public).

[gatorboy]

12. Tweety was at it last night calling him a bathtub ring.

And going further by saying he was the loser of 2000 even though, technically, he was the winner.

[autorank]

15. Another guy to put on trial in the court of public opinion.

They all need to be held accountable.

I would really love to see someone do a documentary on Gore's media treatment in 2000...identify
the enemies and shame them.

[raccoon]

13. K&R. nt

[blm]

16. If ANYTHING needs investigation, it's corpmedia's slavish actions for BushInc the last 10yrs.

Thankyou for calling the media out, Mr. Parry, and long live consortiumnews.

DUers, please help keep Robert Parry's site alive. Donate to REAL investigative reporting and intelligent analysis.

[hvn_nbr_2]

17. Yellow skunk journalism

That's what we've had for years now. That's yellow journalism, but much more noxious than plain old-fashioned yellow journalism.

The "yellow skunk press"--that's my new name for them.

[autorank]

19. Parry was on this in 2000 "Al Gore Versus the Media"

And look what Parry was saying in 2000...

Al Gore Versus the Media

By Robert Parry

To read the major newspapers and to watch the TV pundit shows, one can't avoid the impression that many in the national press corps have decided that Vice President Al Gore is unfit to be elected the next president of the United States.

Across the board -- from The Washington Post to The Washington Times, from The New York Times to the New York Post, from NBC's cable networks to the traveling campaign press corps -- journalists don't even bother to disguise their contempt for Gore anymore.

At one early Democratic debate, a gathering of about 300 reporters in a nearby press room hissed and hooted at Gore's answers. Meanwhile, every perceived Gore misstep, including his choice of clothing, is treated as a new excuse to put him on a psychiatrist's couch and find him wanting.

Journalists freely call him "delusional," "a liar" and "Zelig." Yet, to back up these sweeping denunciations, the media has relied on a series of distorted quotes and tendentious interpretations of his words, at times following scripts written by the national Republican leadership.

[Rydz777]

24. Yesterday

Throughout Gore's testimony yesterday I could only think that if this good man had been in the White House during the last six years we would have been spared the disaster we now face. The media in this country are ignorant, lazy, arrogant, puerile, overpaid, sold-out, and a burden on the truth.

[ProSense]

25. More from Media Matters

The New York Times continues its War on Gore

by Eric Boehlert

<...>

Busy orchestrating their attacks, Gore's political foes received a gift last week from The New York Times in the form of a front-page Science section http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13gore.html">article alleging that scientists were raising concerns about Gore's global warming facts. Dredging up the media's 2000 campaign meme about Gore being loose with the truth, the Times resurrected the premise that Gore's an exaggerator who cannot be trusted.

The misleading hit piece was a godsend for Republican partisans. CNN right-wing talker and global warming skeptic Glenn Beck was euphoric the day of the Times report. "Al Gore is finally being slammed in the face for his distortion of science and the facts, and it's being done by The New York Times," Beck told his CNN Headline News viewers. "Some days it just doesn't get any better." And a Rightpundits.com headline http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=560">cheered, "New York Times SLAMS Global Warming Zealots." The post insisted, "We've always known that Al Gore is a serial exaggerator. Say, remind me who invented the internet?"

Indeed, it's hard to overstate just how closely the Times article echoed conservative talking points about global warming (i.e. alarmists are driving the debate) and about Al Gore (his exaggerations cannot be trusted).

Yet for close readers of the Times, last week's attack came as no surprise. The newspaper's coverage of Gore for years has dripped with an odd disdain; a completely out-of-context contempt for the former vice president. Note that four days prior to its attempted take-down of An Inconvenient Truth, the Times published an http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=FA0A14F939550C7A8CDDAA0894DF404482">op-ed (subscription required) that ridiculed Gore's personal "energy lust" and mocked him as a hypocrite because his utility bills for his home in Tennessee were deemed to be excessive.

more...

[autorank]

26. "Management" is terrified by Gore...he may impose regulations, pro enviroinment, ya know...

The NYT barely apologizes for facilitating a war through the horrid Judith Miller, now this.

Driving the franchise into the ground...nice work Sulzberger.

[blm]

27. Sulzberger turned neo-con - another one of Bebe's Boys. Netanyahu fostered a network

of influential voices in the 90s, and sadly, even some of our Democratic bignames have become part of that network.

[autorank]

28. Makes you wonder...

Is there some "re-education" facility that these people have gone to?

The times covered up for * mid October 2004 on a key issue, wire tapping citizens, that would have blown away the campaign. They helped give us the war in Iraq and gave us Bush, with this little move.

Pathetic excuse for journalism. The paper has some great stuff but it's run by idiots.

[blm]

30. They have some real wingers for reporters. too. Adam Nagourney is a Rove waterboy.

And THAT is who Dem nominees get stuck with on the trail courtesy of NYT.

[AikidoSoul]

42. More N.Y. Times snarky, crappy descriptions of Al Gore from 03/20

from the March 20, 2007 article:

Star in New Role, Gore Revisits Old Stage

By MARK LEIBOVICH and PATRICK HEALY

"For Mr. Gore, who calls himself a “recovering politician,” returning to Capitol Hill is akin to a recovering alcoholic returning to a neighborhood bar. He will, in all likelihood, deliver his favorite refrain about how “political will is a renewable resource” and how combating global warming is the “greatest challenge in the history of mankind.” He will confront one of his fervent detractors, Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, who derides Mr. Gore as an alarmist."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/us/politics/21gore.html

These shitheads used a pejorative tone saying his return to Congress was "... akin to a recovering alcoholic returning to a neighborhood bar."

You'll be happy to know that a very high number of the 508 reader's comments on that article said they wanted Al Gore to run for president and said they would vote for him with no hesitation. And, many of they were FURIOUS at the snarky tone of the article.

One wrote, "The article by Leibovitch and Healy (March 21) is unnecessarily snide; rhetorically vicious, even, in places. Just the facts, please, without the slanted innuendo."

Another said, "The NYT should be ashamed of itself for printing this slanderous remark on its front page. With all the Bush administration lies you folks have chosen to print on your front page over the past years, you need to remove your logo, ‘all the news that’s fit to print’."

That's not all -- but you get the picture.

The saddest comment was from some hapless idiot, or maybe just a freaking freeper, repeated many of the lies and distortions promulgated by the RW during the election that will go down in history as the dirtiest, most dangerous election EVER. The good news is that many other comments called him on these lies and gave the true facts.

Here are two more "journalists" names to add to the list: MARK LEIBOVICH and PATRICK HEALY -- SHAME ON THEM!

[Kolesar]

55. I write letters to the media every week...eom

[autorank]

29. Makes you wonder...

Is there some "re-education" facility that these people have gone to?

The times covered up for * mid October 2004 on a key issue, wire tapping citizens, that would have blown away the campaign. They helped give us the war in Iraq and gave us Bush, with this little move.

Pathetic excuse for journalism. The paper has some great stuff but it's run by idiots.

[donkeyotay]

31. Now, now. Just imagine if Al Gore became president

Why gas would be $3/gal., we'd be nation building and playing policeman to the world, the government would be swollen up fatter than a tick and prying into our lives, the papers would be full of scandal, and we'd be mortgaging our grand children's futures...oh wait, never mind.:)

[AtomicKitten]

32. I actually wrote a column following the Gore campaign in 2000.

The GOP Wrecking Machine employed the trash-and-dash technique. They would fax innuendos to the MSM who were very accommodating about putting those specious accusations on the air or in print. By the time each was proven false, if it was retracted at all it was after the fact and on page 24, and by then the MSM had moved on to the new pot-shot de jour against Gore.

Disgusting. Disgraceful.

[autorank]

33. Thank you for sharing that. 2000 was a total disgrace.

I remember that guy Brian Williams being incredibly insulting about Gore. I'd remember a lot more
if I had a little refresher video.

Do you know anybody that did a collection of clips of the garbage they said or how to get scripts from
that time. If it hasn't been done, I'd at least like a crack at the scripts. Dunno if that's even
possible.

These people need to be called out and called out in a serious way in the next two or three months
and be held to account. It's the "usual cast of suspects" still around. Sunshine is the best remedy
for those people...I hear that they melt in the light of day but that's just a rumor...

[AtomicKitten]

34. here's the first salvo of the campaign fired by Bill Sammon

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/08/18/campaign.trail/index.html
http://www.dailyhowler.com/h073099_1.shtml
http://www.dailyhowler.com/h080299_1.shtml

Here's a great Rolling Stone article: The Press Vs. Al Gore
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/5920188/the_press_vs_al_gore

[autorank]

35. Thanks a lot.

I think I'll make this my hobby. I'm tired of ships in bottles anyway;)

I'll keep you posted. Gracias!

[Wednesdays]

58. Not video clips, but a lot of info on that era

in the back issues of bartcop.com. From there you can easily google up video clips of the events mentioned.

http://www.bartcop.com/back.htm

Issue 200 is May 9, 2000
Issue 323 is November 7, 2000 (Election Day)
Issue 357 is December 13, 2000 (entitled "The Day Democracy Died")

[Reterr]

36. k&r.eom

[nam78_two]

37. K&R

:grr:

[Uncle Joe]

38. Most excellent column!

Thanks for the thread autorank

Kicked and highly recommended

[AikidoSoul]

39. Autorank I apologize. I didn't see that you had already posted this thread

and I posted the same thing late this afternoon.

I don't know what's wrong with my eyeballs -- I swear I didn't see it up there at the top when I went to "General Discussions".

Sorry

:eyes:

Anyway -- I hope to God that we collect every name of every reporter and list every damn thing each ever said or wrote about Gore.

I think we should all write to the media and insist that the publicly apologize to Gore, admit the distortions publicly, and promise never to do it again.

I've already written to PBS, but I'm game to write to more of them.

[autorank]

40. I just noticed, it's all good! I'm glad you posted. Another 12-14 hours of Parry.

I'm going to go recommend it:evilgrin:

Lets keep this important truth going.

Cheers :hi:

[AikidoSoul]

43. And I recommended and kicked this thread too -- plus comments

:yourock:

Getting the message out on this is one of the most important jobs we have to do --

We have to let the press know that they have to apologize to Gore for being so unfair to him and insist that they discuss where they went wrong ---PUBLICLY -- or we will completely embargo their outlets.
I mean ... these guys LIED about him -- they can't be allowed to get away with it. If they want to recover even a shred of credibility -- they have to admit they were wrong and not a one time two sentence apology on the 32nd page of the paper.

We want Gore to run -- if the atmosphere promises to be as poisonous as it was the first go-round -- how can we expect him to want to do it?

[Raksha]

41. I want to make them pay, but more than that

I want to make sure it doesn't happen again if Al Gore should decide to run again. I believe that whether or not he decides to run is to some degree conditional on what kind of treatment he thinks he can expect from the media. I'm sure he has no desire to become a human punching bag for a bunch of superficial media whores again, and I don't blame him.

During the run-up to the 2000 election I was in the middle of a personal crisis and not able to pay much attention to the media or the election. I very much want Al Gore to run again, but I want to see him treated fairly. Furthermore, he deserves a public apology from the likes of Dowd and Matthews for what they did to him in 2000, which I was pretty much unaware of at the time but learned about later (mostly from Bob Somerby's Daily Howler blog).

If there is some way the liberal blogosphere can make a group effort to stop the War Against Gore II, and better yet set the record straight concerning the War Against Gore I, I'd be more than happen to join such an effort.

[autorank]

49. I'll bet Gore's campaign has a tracking/response group just on this issue.

This time he'll have a different campaign manager and he won't have Lieberman asleep at the switch.
I'm looking forward to 2008 because I'm sure Gore will get the nod.

I'd like to see something done well before that puts the Corporate Media on notice. Really hard hitting, threaten to go after them in whatever way it can be done through law and regulation plus a campaign at the stations. That lousy program about Kerry was really disrupted by good old net folks and there's a predicate.

I'll be watching for this too.

[FogerRox]

44. Well........

[autorank]

50. Well, well...

You are a man of rare taste, as demonstrated by your photography here and elsewhere:)

Give 'em Hell Foger!

[calmblueocean]

46. I will never forget, never forgive, and never get over what the MSM did to Gore in 2000.

I'm normally a peaceful person, but when I think about how they slandered Gore, how they lapped up Bush's country fried hick schtick, when I think about *where we could have been today* instead of where we are now, it makes me so angry my teeth hurt. I can't even write the post it deserves because I need to go to bed soon, and if I start writing it, it'll make me so mad and so sad, I won't even be able to sleep. I will never, ever forget or forgive them for what they did.

[autorank]

51. Shared sympathies. This is a tough one. It was the whole ball game

and the media treated it like a food fight where they had all the food.

What goes around, comes around...BREAK THE MEDIA TRUSTS.

[fooj]

47. 2000? Hell, they're still at it.

:grr:

[Kurovski]

48. Kick.

Previously recommended.

The new "pre-emptive" stamp-out Gore movement may be saying that Gore will be better off pursuing Global Warming initiatives in the private sector, rather than as president. Keep an ear out for it.

Will he run or not? Who knows at this point. I hope he does.

[autorank]

52. I hope so. It's his destiny.

Just like good Prince Sobieski!

:yourock:

[Bridget Burke]

57. I've already heard that one at DU....

"We need him as a private citizen!"

Yeah, Gore makes an excellent private citizen. But he would also make an excellent President.

[Taylor Mason Powell]

53. K&R

-NT-