Apology for the slow blogging. A lot on my plate and a lot on my mind.
On Saturday, I asked, “Who Watches CNN?“, observing that I would be as familiar with the network as I am with the golf channel (I don’t play golf) if they didn’t blare it regularly on the TV monitors at my gym. Well, today, I looked up to catch Wolf Blitzer’s “Situation Room” and gained further evidence why, to paraphrase Stacey McCain, If it weren’t for the fact that it plays 24/7 in public places, no one would watch CNN.
Well, they were taking about how getting bin Laden would impact the 2012 presidential race, with the subtext that it would help Obama. Then, Paul Begala came on and immediately engaged in dishonest (or ill-informed) Bush-bashing, telling us that the immediate past president had basically stopped looking for bin Laden. (When the transcript comes up, I’ll get his exact expression.) Had I been on the program with the Democratic partisan, I would have simply asked the former Clinton aide if he had read any of the stories, including those in the New York Times, the Washington Post and on the AP about how they got bin Laden. Or if he had listened to his former Clinton administration colleague Leon Panetta talk about the operation.
Each of those left-leaning news sources as well as that leading Democrat informed us how key intelligence gathered in the Bush era was to locating the Al-Qaeda leader.
To say that that then-President George W. Bush stopped looking for Osama is at odds not just with the facts, but with what has been reported, even by officials in the incumbent Democratic administration. Begala was offering a talking point rooted not in the facts, but in his own imagination and in his animus against George W. Bush.
His commentary was so absurd and his animus so evident that my first response was just to laugh, a rich deep laugh. And I’m sure I was not the only one.
NB: Fixed a couple of typos as per Throbert’s comment #4 below. Thanks, Throbert!
UPDATE: Here are Begala’s remarks as per the CNN transcript:
OK. Now, he [OBAMA] is like — he is a tenured (ph) professor (INAUDIBLE) because he went over there and killed Osama Bin Laden as George W. Bush did not, and he did not continue the Bush policy on this. The Bush policy was to walk away from Bin Laden.
Sorry, Paul, the Bush policy was not to walk away from Bin Laden. Just because we set out to liberate Iraq doesn’t mean we no longer paid attention to Afghanistan. As the record clearly shows, during the time period Begala claims we were walking away from bin Laden, the CIA was busy tracking down leads as to where the then-terror leader might be hiding.
Since when do these inconvenient things called “facts” have anything to do with the Democrat/media narrative. This narrative, which will be accepted as history by the weakminded, (Levi, Cas, Dooms, et. al.) goes something like this.
Bush let Bin Laden escape because he really wanted to invade Iraq so Dick Cheney’s buddies at Halliburton could get rich. Also, he tortured people because he was evil and stupid. (Juan Williams {SoC} claims we pulled detainees teeth and eyeballs out.)
Also, Obama is 100% responsible for killing bin Laden, but everything that’s wrong with the economy and deficit is something he inherited from that evil idiot, George W. Bush.
Do I have that about right.
Paul Begala has been sniffing the Democrat dogma glue for so long he’s become a pimp for the party; his assertions are usually based on half-truths & outright lies. He would make the Norse God of Mischief, Loki, proud.
Well, in the Condi Rice interview, Lawrence O’Donnell plays some clips of Pres. Bush saying that he didn’t know where Osama bin Laden is and had pretty much stopped thinking about Osama.
Now, an astute listener/reader would naturally surmise that Bush was feigning a lack of interest in Osama for rhetorical purposes, in order to emphasize that OBL is merely one of the heads of a much larger terrorist network, and that the focus should be on disrupting the network as a whole.
But apparently Begala is as literal-minded as Amelia Bedelia, America’s most literal-minded maid!
P.S. Dan, in graf 3, “about how they got CNN” should be “about how they got OBL.” And in graf 5, “Blitzer was offering” should be “Begala was offering,” I think.
You say: If it weren’t for the fact that it plays 24/7 in public places, no one would watch CNN. In reality – I think it would be more accurate to say “If it weren’t for breaking news – no one would watch CNN”
CNN has never had particularly strong commentary – It has excelled in breaking news coverage. Its more comprehensive breaking news coverage than any of the other networks – and it shows. For example – during recent events, such as Libya, Japan, and OBL CNN has outperformed its competitors.
Its commentary is weak. But then again – you’re angry about commentary, by someone who has a clearly disclosed bias. I don’t think anyone, even at CNN, would argue that Begala is trying to be objective.
And – not to mention – who watches news on TV anymore?! CNN still wins out on web traffic and content.
Eric, it’s not just that he’s biased, it’s that his bias blinds him to the actual facts.
Contrast him with Donna Brazile who doesn’t show such contempt for Republicans, understands their arguments and takes issue with their points.
As far as web traffic goes, as a blogger, well, I appreciate that they do a better job of getting elections results out there than any other news source.
If Begala wants to lie he should at least remember what a past president did; and I’m not talking about Bush. If President Bush stopped looking for OBL, then what did Clinton do? He had at least two opportunities to kill OBL but was…ahem!…in “private conference.”
Sorry, Paul. No soap. Your lies no longer carry any weight. We can look up the truth on-line and no longer have to be beholden to the propaganda wing of the democrat party for [wrong] information.
The typical Democrat liberal mantra is to tell so many lies during a tv appearance that it overwhelmes the other guest (if there is one) and assumes the “journalist” on hand is typically ignorant of the facts or is in the liberal tank. One or the other. And as the leftist Democrat like Begala leaves the studio, they smile and smirk because they know most viewers have been had again.
Meh. Can’t remember what the story was, but there was some big story not too long ago that they were 3rd in “breaking”. FNC was first, and PMSNBC was second.
I remember they excelled in showing the Iraqi military where their SCUDS were hitting. I remember a rescuer at the ValuJet crash telling me that CNN was booted from the scene for (I think it was) showing the body recovery.
Yes.
Clown shoes permit the wearer to lean way forward, tilt to either side and sway far back without falling. However, clown shoes also make it extremely difficult to advance, climb higher or get out of a hole. That is why people who wear clown shoes surround themselves with other clowns who will assist them as they duck, dodge, weave and bob.
Do not underestimate the training of clowns. They are professional distractors who are skilled at deceit and minimizing both reality and logic.