’)It could be expected that the GOP and their stooges in talk radio and the blogosphere would react to the McCain/Iseman story in the way that they have: blame the New York Times. But the way they’re doing so is hilarious. The talking point being used by McCain is that this is a tabloid story. Yet, this is a story happening in the media environment they created. They bullied and browbeat the mainstream media in the 1990s to broadcast the most thinly sourced innuendo against the Clintons, and the pattern continued against Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barack Obama.
This is the world you guys created. This is the media environment that Rush Limbaugh designed. And now that one of yours gets caught with their pants down, you reach for the fainting couch.
Again, with Clinton there was evidence (the blue dress.) If there’s no EVIDENCE, then there’s no story.
By the way, remember all the times your side of the aisle made the case that George W. Bush was History’s Greatest Monster? And one of the supporting pieces of evidence was his supposed black baby “smear” of McCain in South Carolina? Well, the NYT (and you) doing the EXACT SAME THING now. What does that make you?
Really, and there was evidence Bill Clinton was a rapist? That Hillary Clinton had Vince Foster killed?
Suddenly the bar for evidence swings mysteriously out of reach.
Don’t be naive, OW. We know Bill was running cocaine out of the Mena airport and had, like, 79,000 people murdered. Oh and he killed Katherine Willey’s cat too.
Before long, the right wing will be so desperate to try to smear Obama that they’ll stoop to anything: saying that he’s secret, madrassah-trained Muslim terrorist; that he’s a secret black nationalist Farrakhan stooge; that he and Michelle hate America; that he was a coke dealer; that he’s a communist. It’ll be one year-long Macaca moment for the GOP.
By November, McAncient will be lucky to get 35%, thanks to the extremist psychos who comprise the Malkin/Freeper/Glenn Reynolds wing of the right.
Kathleen Willey’s on-the-record accusation. If those alleging McCain had the affair go ON RECORD, it’s a whole different ballgame.
I swear I only hit submit once. Sorry about that.
Anyway, Marc Ambinder highlighted a great quote from McCain’s autobiography, Worth the Fighting:
“I have refrained from ever intervening in the regulatory decisions of the federal government if such intervention could be construed, rightly or wrongly, as done solely or primarily for the benefit of a major financial supporter of my campaign.”
Turns out Mr. Straight Talk is actually a flat-out liar. Don’t let St. McCain off the hook for this one.
And now that one of yours gets caught with their pants down, you reach for the fainting couch.
One? I count at least a dozen.
“Kathleen Willey’s on-the-record accusation. If those alleging McCain had the affair go ON RECORD, it’s a whole different ballgame.”
So you agree that Joe Wilson’s claims were truthful? After all, he was on the record.
Kathleen Willey’s on-the-record accusation.
Wait. Farris you’re saying that the fact Willey is on the record with her “Bill-Clinton-killed-my-cat” accusation makes it credible?
That’s funny.
The story only covers that McCranky’s staff thought he might be having an affair. McCain’s favors he did for the woman are a matter of record. Happy?
EL & QiaB,
Both Wilson’s and Willey’s decision to put a name and face on the acusations gave their respective stories enough heft to warrant full above-the-fold coverage. Giving your name doesn’t constitute “proof” persay, but it makes it more than just a rumor off a crackpot website that doesn’t deserve to see the light of coverage (like L. Bush’s abortion and the Clinton Airport Massacres). Until there’s actual EVIDENCE in this case (a dress, an email, an on-the-record allegation), it doesn’t belong on the front page of the “Paper of Record”.
PS: If this is the dirt you’re slinging now, I can’t WAIT to see what type of “fake but accurate” stuff you guys are holding onto for October.
Please peddle the bullshit to people who don’t know how to use Google.
“Beginning in late 1993, Nichols and three other individuals who received payments from Citizens told the press that Clinton, while governor of Arkansas, ordered state law enforcement officials to turn a blind eye to a cocaine trafficking ring operating out of Mena, a small Arkansas airport 120 miles west of Little Rock. Nichols and the group’s other paid “witnesses” alleged that Clinton protected the cocaine operation because one of the ring’s backers was a Clinton campaign contributor. They also alleged the drug smuggling ring was connected to a covert U.S. intelligence operation in Central America.
The allegations quickly found their way to talk radio programs and onto the Internet and began moving into the mainstream via articles in the American Spectator and the conservative Washington Times.
But what ultimately legitimized the allegations was a series of editorials and articles on the subject that appeared in 1994 on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal.
Rep. Jim Leach, (R-Iowa), chairman of the House Banking Committee, acknowledged in an interview in the fall of l996 that he had directed his committee staff to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the Mena allegations after first reading about them in the Wall Street Journal.
“I read the Journal editorial page with great interest,” Leach told Salon. “They raised some very serious and interesting issues. And I made the decision that it should be an appropriate subject of a committee investigation.”"
Farris, thank you for your thoughts, but I don’t understand what Bill Clinton has to do with St. McCain repeatedly lying to the American people about St. McCain’s influence-for-campaign-money scheme. Perhaps you can explain why McCain sees fit to repeatedly and blatantly lie to us.
Farris, thank you for your thoughts, but I don’t understand what Bill Clinton has to do with St. McCain repeatedly lying to the American people about St. McCain’s influence-for-campaign-money scheme. Perhaps you can explain why McCain sees fit to repeatedly and blatantly lie to us.
Both Wilson’s and Willey’s decision to put a name and face on the acusations gave their respective stories enough heft to warrant full above-the-fold coverage.
Accusations that the President of the U.S. ordered a hit on a cat?!?!
Heavens, man. Get a hold of yourself!