JOHN ROBERTS WAS A STEEL-DRIVIN’ MAN! We’re reading about John Roberts’ chores–because of what happened when Gore mentioned his:
THURSDAY, JULY 21, 2005
JOHN ROBERTS WAS A STEEL-DRIVIN’ MAN: John Roberts was a steel-drivin’ man—and George Bush wanted the public to know it. “When Mr. Bush presented Judge Roberts...on Tuesday night, he made special mention of the judge's having worked summers in steel mills, an apparent effort to give him some working-class cachet,” Neil Lewis wrote in the New York Times (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 7/20/05). Result?
In a well-reasoned column in today’s Post, E. J. Dionne handed Roberts his props:
[/b] More important is how he would rule on cases involving steelworkers and other working men and women.
“It's admirable that this son of a steel executive worked some summers in a steel mill,” Dionne conceded—reminding us of the way George Bush ended up in control of this process.[/ul]
Yes, the youthful John Roberts worked in a mill—but then, the youthful Al Gore had worked on a farm! But uh-oh! When Gore mentioned this fact in March 1999 (responding to idiot jibes by Bill Bradley),
no one at the Washington Post said it was “admirable that this son of a senator worked some summers on a farm.” In fact, the reaction could hardly have been more different. What happened when Gore made his accurate statement, in response to Bradley’s jibes?
Here’s what happened: The late Michael Kelly ran one of the most dishonest—and most influential—op-ed columns in recent years, a column which plainly implied that Gore was making ludicrous claims about those alleged youthful summers. Kelly, of course, knew Gore’s statements were accurate; at the Baltimore Sun, he had profiled Gore’s youthful work on the farm when Gore ran for president in 1987-88. (Kelly had described Gore’s youthful work in detail. Links below.) But so what? In March 1999, the press corps had itself in a tizzy; its shorts were clearly in a large wad. Clinton’s impeachment trial had just ended, and Gore was going out on the trail. Result?
The corps began a twenty-month War Against Gore—a war in which the furious corps would insist that Gore was a liar, just like Clinton. So
Kelly wrote his disgraceful column—a column he knew was baldly misleading—and weak-minded pundits across the country ran to follow suit. Al Gore had been “delusional” when he mentioned his farm chores, major pundits began reciting.
And so began the twenty-month war which eventually put George Bush in the White House. Because people like Kelly lied in your faces when Gore discussed his youthful farm chores, George Bush was on TV this week, talking about his nominee’s youthful work as a steel-drivin’ man. Because the press corps lied about
Gore’s chores, we now get to hear them tell the truth about the hard work of John Roberts.
Times sure-enough have changed since then, ain’t they?
Back in 1999, no one at the Washington Post said it was “admirable” that Gore had worked some long, hard summers on a farm in Tennessee. And no one stood up and spoke back to Kelly, although everyone—surely including Dionne—knew that his piece was pure bullnuts. How did they know this? We ourselves conducted a three-day exchange with Kelly that April, in the pages of the
Hotline. And the Post was good enough to publish a letter in which we quoted Kelly’s previous work about Gore—work in which he explicitly described the chores which somehow became a “delusion” when the press corps got mad at Bill Clinton.
Everyone—everyone—knew Kelly was lying. But no one stood up and explained what was happening as Gore was trashed for being “delusional” in the bald-faced start to the twenty-month war which eventually put George Bush in the White House. Let’s say it again: A different tone obtained in March 1999, in the wake of the Clinton impeachment. The press corps had its shorts in a knot because Wild Bill had got those ten blow jobs. [That’s not why-- Kelly and the rest knew and had signed onto the Bush plan for the middle east, and the Bush plan for the US to put a cabal in charge, a cabal of which the Post owner and friends are a member] And they quickly took it out on Clinton’s VP—through lying, like that of Michael Kelly. The war began with Gore’s farm chores—and extended right through the election.
So that’s why you’re reading about the fact that John Roberts was a steel-drivin’ man. In fact,
everything you now lament resulted from that War Against Gore—the war that began with Kelly’s blatant dissembling about Gore’s work on the farm.
Why did Bush get the chance to go into Iraq? Because of the press corps’ War Against Gore. [Do you think he is beginning to catch on, here?] Why was Bush there to nominate Roberts? Because of the press corps’ War Against Gore. And why are we reading about Karl Rove? Because
folks like Dionne didn’t say squat when Kelly played the nation for fools, right on their own op-ed pages! [The Washington Post Writer’s Group is nothing but a ring operating for special interests, and playing their assigned demographic] Today, we’re reading about King Karl because of that twenty-month War Against Gore. Rove, the Boy Genius, couldn’t have won without the lies of Michael Kelly.
But this is not about Dionne, whose column today is squarely on-target.
Back in 1999 and 2000, many people didn’t say squat—including some of your most heroic and favorite career liberal writers. They kept their mouths shut while the war unfolded, because this war was being run by the Washington Post and the New York Times, not by easy conservative targets. [Yes, they are running a war, alright-- the War for the Greater Middle East, and the phoney “War on Terrorism” and all the fascist policy measures that so helpfully have been put in place with their hand-picked committees, which feed the editorials, and vice verse]
They’re very good at playing you now about how horrible Rove has been. They’re eager to pander and overstate, showing you how bravely they’ll fight for your important interests. (And oh yes, please send them twenty dollars.)
But in 1999 and 2000, these fiery fellows knew to keep quiet as the mainstream press corps’ War Against Gore changed your nation’s political history. And in the five years that have followed, they have continued to keep their mouths shut about what happened in that election. (As late as 2002, they were still typing ridiculous, press-scripted claims like this: “When Al Gore kicked off his presidential campaign in 1999...[t]he only problem appeared to be the voters, who didn’t seem to have particularly strong feelings about Gore one way or another.” See
THE DAILY HOWLER, 8/12/02. [Josh Marshall, Howie Kurtz, Dana Milbank, Roger Simon -- all war hawks, when it comes to the middle east]) In most cases,
they’re covering up for the powerful orgs which form the horizons of their own career interests. Refusing to discuss the way you lost the White House, they’ve played you and yours for blooming fools every day of the past five years.
What would have happened had the roles been reversed—if the press had started a War Against Bush in 3/99, a war which helped put Gore in the White House? We suspect you know what would have happened. In fact, as we have often noted, Joe Scarborough explained what would have happened when he played Hardball in November 02. Does anyone doubt a single word of what the gentleman told us?
[/b]
Do you doubt a word of what Joe said? (Fuller transcript below.) The media were “brutal” to Gore, he said. And if the media had done that to Bush, “I'd be going on your show saying, you know, they were being biased.” Does anyone doubt that this statement is true? In fact, if the press had waged that twenty-month war against Bush, you’d have heard that war discussed, in detail, every day for the past five years! But instead, they waged an astonishing War Against Gore—and your great liberals heroes have kept quiet about it, from that day right on up to this.[/ul]
This week, you’re reading about John Roberts’ chores because of what happened when Gore mentioned his. And
on the web, liberal heroes who have played you for fools about Gore are throwing you sweet, pleasing feed about Rove. But why is King Karl in the White House at all? Why does he have that security clearance? For the same reason Roberts is now in the news—because these cowards rolled over and died in the War Against Gore, a war which they still won’t discuss.Don’t you ever get tired of these cheap, phony posers? Their silence put George Bush in the White Bush—and now put a steel-drivin’ man in the news. But my, how they pander to you about Rove! Don’t you
ever get sick of their fake, phony fervor?
Will you ever insist that they stand up and speak about your country’s recent history? [Yes, yes, and YES!]
