The Great Sock Puppet doesn’t like Brit Hume, but loves Murtha
Posted by Lance on 21 Feb 2007 at 5:30 am | Tagged as: Media, Lance's Page, Foreign affairs, Domestic Politics
This statement has really gotten Glenn “the Puppet Master” Greenwald’s goat:
HUME: That sound bite from John Murtha suggests that it’s time a few things be said about him. Even the “Washington Post†noted he didn’t seem particularly well informed about what’s going on over there, to say the least. Look, this man has tremendous cache’ among House Democrats, but he is not — this guy is long past the day when he had anything but the foggiest awareness of what the heck is going on in the world.
And that sound bite is naivete writ large, and the man is an absolute fountain of such talk, and the fact that he has ascended to the position he has in the eyes of the Democrats in the House and perhaps Democrats around the country tells you a lot about how much they know or care about what’s really going on over there.
I put this part in because the talking footwear leaves out the full context of what Hume is saying about Murtha, as is his manipulative tendency. Next is the part that “attacks” the Democratic party, which Greenwald does bother to include. Listen to the sock puppet screech:
Hume also unleashed a deeply angry and purely personal attack on Murtha, all but calling him senile. But he then went further and attacked the entire Democratic Party this way:
And think of the Democrats in the middle of this. They know these facts. They can see them. They know that Iran is up to no good. And what are they worried about? Are they worried about Iran? Not so as you’d notice.
What they’re worried about is that the president might do something to Iran without clearing it with them. Wonderful. I mean, think — I mean, this is why the Democratic Party has had this reputation, going back decades, of really not being very serious about national defense. It’s because they aren’t.
As usual the Puppet Master cannot leave it at the truth. He can’t even just misrepresent, he has to make things up, because as you see, Hume never called him senile, heh, he called him dotty:^)
WILLIAMS: Well, but he’s chairman of the subcommittee of House Appropriations, so he’ll have a lot to say about what Mara was just discussing, which is appropriations…
HUME: And lot of it will be dotty.
The talking sock then goes after Hume on the “facts”:
Hume is not only a partisan advocate, but he is a dishonest one. What Hume said — that the Democratic Party is perceived as “not being very serious about national defense” — is not only nakedly partisan, but also factually false.
Whereupon we get a whole bunch of polling data which shows that at this point the Democrats are favored on defense. Which goes to show that being a cloth with eyes doesn’t mean you can comprehend arguments based on history. He said “decades” my cotton blend friend, and his argument is correct. National defense has been a club the Republicans have taken upside the head of Democrats since the days of McGovern to great effect. Of course we all know that, and so does he. If he wishes to argue that it is undeserved that is a matter of opinion, but we’ll have to get to that. He needs to get out his darning needles though, because this sock’s entire screed has holes in it. Here is the comment that Brit was responding to which the silly piece of footwear seems to think is irrelevant to the discussion. It is pretty key in understanding Brit’s opinion if you ask me:
People tend to say well, if we leave, there’s going to be chaos. I don’t believe that. Seventy- eight percent of the Iraqis say that’s not going to happen. Seventy- eight percent of the Iraqis say it will be — we’re the ones that are causing this, and Al Qaida is going to be — Al Qaida’s going to disappear.
First, Murtha is being dotty if he wants to argue that it is obvious our leaving would decrease the violence. Maybe, but few believe so, certainly not the Iraqis, and for someone who complains we ignored intelligence in getting into this war maybe he should read what our intelligence services have to say about this argument.
Hume mentions the Washington Post, here is what they have to say:
Mr. Murtha’s cynicism is matched by an alarming ignorance about conditions in Iraq. He continues to insist that Iraq “would be more stable with us out of there,” in spite of the consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies that early withdrawal would produce “massive civilian casualties.” He says he wants to force the administration to “bulldoze” the Abu Ghraib prison, even though it was emptied of prisoners and turned over to the Iraqi government last year. He wants to “get our troops out of the Green Zone” because “they are living in Saddam Hussein’s palace”; could he be unaware that the zone’s primary occupants are the Iraqi government and the U.S. Embassy?It would be nice to believe that Mr. Murtha does not represent the mainstream of the Democratic Party or the thinking of its leadership. Yet when asked about Mr. Murtha’s remarks Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) offered her support. Does Ms. Pelosi really believe that the debate she orchestrated this week was not “the real vote”? If the answer is yes, she is maneuvering her party in a way that can only do it harm.
Exactly what should Brit Hume say about Murtha’s ignorance and destructively cynical plan? Is this the courageous leadership against the war the ponderously verbose puppet expects:
Mr. Murtha has a different idea. He would stop the surge by crudely hamstringing the ability of military commanders to deploy troops. In an interview carried Thursday by the Web site MoveCongress.org, Mr. Murtha said he would attach language to a war funding bill that would prohibit the redeployment of units that have been at home for less than a year, stop the extension of tours beyond 12 months, and prohibit units from shipping out if they do not train with all of their equipment. His aim, he made clear, is not to improve readiness but to “stop the surge.” So why not straightforwardly strip the money out of the appropriations bill — an action Congress is clearly empowered to take — rather than try to micromanage the Army in a way that may be unconstitutional? Because, Mr. Murtha said, it will deflect accusations that he is trying to do what he is trying to do. “What we are saying will be very hard to find fault with,” he said.
Not only is this cynical plan a travesty, and one which will likely lead to the death of some of our troops needlessly (and please do not tell me those who support this plan “support the troops.” There has to be some limit even to those arguments, I think this reaches them) it is a betrayal of what he claims the American people want, to end the war now.
The chief puppet doesn’t seem to notice this rather basic point, if Murtha fears the political consequences of a straightforward vote on defunding the war, then he and Murtha’s whole argument that it is unambiguously what the people really want has to be false. I have argued that point here, the feelings about the war are far more complex than that, and the latest polls and our argument are updated quite well at QandO today.
As for the substance of Hume’s point about the Democratic party, as the Washington Post says, it seems to be true. The Murtha approach seems to be fine with a large portion of the party, and it is a profoundly unserious and cynical ploy. I don’t agree with ending our involvement in Iraq, but obviously it has to end sometime. If you believe this is the time then stand up and vote for that. Don’t undermine the effort, which is what Murtha himself says he will do, and endanger our troops. The sock puppets defense of this man, a man who shouldn’t even be in Congress given his ethical transgressions, is pathetic.
Of course Greenwald thinks he has a deeper point, so let us show him where he needs to patch the next hole:
Brit Hume is held out as a news person, as a journalist — comparable to, say, Brian Williams or Charles Gibson rather than Hannity and Kristol.
……..Real journalists are not even permitted to publicly voice their political opinions. As but one example, The New York Times recently chastised its reporter, Michael Gordon, merely for going on the Charlie Rose Show and indicating that he supports the “surge.” Yet every week, Hume transgresses that limit by many magnitudes greater than Gordon did, and yet the media and political figures still treat him like an actual news anchor.
………While everyone acknowledges that Hume routinely defends Republicans, he is still spoken of in journalistic and political circles as though he is a real journalist — as though there is a meaningful difference between him and Fred Barnes or Tony Snow. There simply isn’t.
………This is the point: Hume is continuously treated as though he is a news journalist rather than an opinion journalist, even though he abides by none of the rules of objectivity required of news journalists. Hume, like Fox News itself, is a full-fledged Republican Party advocate, which is fine — except for the fact that Hume is so widely held out and treated as though he is something different (and except for the fact that he spews factually false claims, such as this weekend’s assertion that Democrats are perceived as unserious on national security).
First of all, Hume does not act as an “anchor” when the panel meets. He is a moderator, but also a participant. He is supposed to give his opinions. It is an opinion segment. Greenwald knows that, but as usual the talking sock can’t stand letting the truth stand in the way of making his disagreement be with the mere opinion itself, he has to misrepresent what is happening.
It is even more dishonest in this particular piece. In this panel discussion Brit isn’t even the moderator, he is a panel member. He is being asked for his opinion by the moderator. The Sock Puppet knows that as well, but he, and a huge number of sites, have spread this falsehood far and wide.
An even more important point, who says “real journalists” are not allowed to give their opinion? He mentions the case of Michael Gordon, who as we discussed here and here, was rather unfairly singled out. That however is the New York Times. Other journalists and anchors, including ones that the Unraveling Sock himself likes to use as grist for his mill, give their opinions on a regular basis. They do this all the time, but the most famous anchor of them all, Walter Cronkite, did it and Michael has the video here. Dan Rather did it on a regular basis as well. Do they not make their opinions known on “60 Minutes.” I say, so what? The real problem of bias isn’t the clearly marked commentary of Cronkite, Rather, Brit Hume or the investigative advocacy of “60 Minutes,” it is the bias hidden within supposedly objective reporting. It is the actual manufacturing of stories and evidence. Rather’s career was ended by his willingness to play with falsified evidence.
Finally, who says that the Sock Puppet’s notion of what makes a reporter or journalist a real one carries any weight? Fox and every other station can mix and match the ways they deliver the news in any way they want. Some of our greatest journalists have had strong opinions and expressed them as opinion and analysis on a regular basis. Investigative journalism has always been strong on opinion, but it is still journalism. There are no rule books and the Sock has a lot of knitting to do to patch all the holes in his argument.
Brit’s opinion was right on, and it should have nothing to do with whether one supports the war or not. Murtha has shown himself to be ignorant and unprincipled. The Democrats, to the extent that they indulge his plan, have shown themselves to be unserious and unprincipled. Hopefully that will turn out to not be as true as I fear, but so far the evidence points the other way. Pointing that out should be the duty of war supporters and war opponents just as the pork barrel politics of Ted Stevens and Robert Byrd deserve condemnation whether one is a Democrat or a Republican. Brit Hume should have done no less than he did.
Brit giving his opinion, which was clearly expressed as opinion and had nothing to do with his duties as an anchor, was entirely appropriate, end of story.
Edited for clarity. Thanks to TS for pointing out the issue with energetic mongoloids posting late;^)
Technorati Tags: Fox news, Iraq, Brit Hume, Sock Puppet, Glenn Greenwald, John Murtha, Republican’s, Democrat’s, Iraq, War, Media
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27 Responses to “The Great Sock Puppet doesn’t like Brit Hume, but loves Murtha”
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good post.
heh, you’re really not going to let go of this metaphor. Well, at least you’re coming up with new and funny ways of using it. Nothing worse than stale socks.
Let’s see…Tris raised you from mongoloid, so let’s see if we can lift you further from acephelation:
HUME: That sound bite from John Murtha suggests that it’s time a few things be said about him. Even the “Washington Post†noted he didn’t seem particularly well informed about what’s going on over there, to say the least. Look, this man has tremendous cache’ among House Democrats, but he is not — this guy is long past the day when he had anything but the foggiest awareness of what the heck is going on in the world.
+
HUME: And lot of it will be dotty.
=
HUME: Murtha is senile.
Capisci? Really, a fairly simple logical construct, but I realize that, coming several minutes after the first comment, you might not have retained the small-yet-thorough commentary about being “old”.
We on the left DO make allowances for you products of the Reagan Department of Education era….
Stale Socks! I hadn’t thought of that one. I’ll need to force myself to read him again just to find a way to use that one.
Well, maybe not a “logical construct” but at least a fair inference. It’s a bit further of a stretch to say that Hume called Murtha “insane”.
Moreover, how is calling one’s comments “dotty” the same as calling that person “senile” or “insane”?
Around here, we have a way of differentiating between the soundness of one’s words and the soundness of one’s mind. At least when warranted ;)
heh,
Well, the little winking smiley face at the end of my comment was supposed to imply I was being purposely dense actor212, but I do accept your logic.
Mike,
Reda Hume’s comments again. I realize that bringing them closer together should, under normal circumstances, have driven the point home, but I see now you need him to say the exact words in order.
Let’s parse them for you as you re-read them:
HUME: this guy is long past the day when he had anything but the foggiest awareness of what the heck is going on in the world.
OK, right there, he’s calling him senile, but let’s give Hume the benefit of the doubt, and say that he’s merely commenting on Murtha’s age, shall we? After all, one can be old and wise, but merely out of touch.
Now…
HUME: And lot of it will be dotty
Now, he’s sayng Murtha is…to be polite, “eccentric”.
Now he’s claiming that Murtha is losing his mental faculties. Along with his age, Hume is making the clear diagnosis of senility.
See how that works? You take his precise words and without any warping or amending, you find that indeed, he’s doing exactly what he’s claimed to have done.
So Greenwald speaks the truth, and you sir, do not.
That being said, Michael is right, Murtha may be old and he may be dotty, but it isn’t the same as senile or insane. I really don’t care however, because if being ignorant of what is going on and dotty, combined with being way past the point of having a foggy notion means senile, then you said he was senile, not me or Hume. I’ll accept your formulation if you want, but he doesn’t seem senile to me.
Hope you can stick around some actor, always nice to have new commenters.
Whats with the post time though? Looks like it’s set for GMT, and the order is different. I saw Lance’s reply to my sock comment as immediately following mine, but now actor’s comment is in before that.
Yeah, I noticed that as well. I have no explanation and too busy to figure it out.
Actually I thought both TS and actor were pretty funny, and I mean that in a complementary way.
You gotta admit, that is pretty good.
I hope he sticks around as well. I like clever criticism, especially if it is reasonable and civil. Lately Pogue has been the only critic who is all three, and he agrees with me on too much anyway.
Mongoloid signing out!
Or else Murtha knows it would be an obvious failure which he doesn’t want to own.
Now, I realize you can counter with the fact that he has to own any failure he creates. But with the right “distance” and the right spin, the Dems may be able to credit others for the failure of their “plan”.
Socks sees fit not to mention another NYTimes reporter, who in a speech at Harvard, gave her opinions regarding those involved in the beat she covers. Of course, in that case the NYTimes defended her right to opine.
It appears someone is attempting to defend Greenwald… by using Greenwald’s utterly flawed methodology.
But the other point could be that Murtha doesn’t really care about what’s going on in Iraq, and is simply saying whatever he thinks will give partisan advantage. Brit is simply too kind to suggest that, and suggests a more honest ignorance instead.
We could consider that a positive spin on Murtha . . . spinning senile instead of evil.
Don,
I actually say it is a little of both. I am not sure evil is the word I would use, but lacking empathy? Uncaring, callous. It isn’t his problem so why worry? All of us do that, for there is too much evil and tragedy in the world to invest ourselves in caring about all of it. I probably invest myself in too much of it. Not “realist” enough I suppose.
However, if one is going to make policy not caring enough to have a basic understanding is a level of callousness that is beyond my ability to excuse. Murtha’s narcissistic approach to the world is well documented of course, and it possibly should have landed him in jail for Abscam at the minimum. The man is so embarrassing it makes that cretin Tom Delay look good. That takes some doing for me.
actor212’s comment got caught up in our spam filter, and when I liberated it, the comment showed up out of order.
Nothing to see here … move along.
No thanks. I understood them the first time.
Really, thanks for the “help” but it’s really not necessary.
Well, if you insist.
I can see how you might infer that, but that’s not the only way to read it, and certainly wasn’t the way that I did. Hume was calling Murtha out, as did the WaPo, on the fact that he presents himself as blissfully unaware of what’s going on. This isn’t new for Murtha, so I’m not sure why you would think that your interpretation of Hume is the most correct one, much less the only one.
Huh? Hume is saying that Murtha’s comments on appropriations will be “dotty” not that Murtha himself is. Again, you offer a fair inference, but not a logical conclusion.
No, a “clear diagnosis of senility” would be actually calling the man “senile” which Hume does not do. A more reasonable interpretation, given the context, is that Hume is calling Murtha ridiculous and foolish.
Ummm … where exactly did you do that? You took Hume’s calling Murtha out as woefully uninformed and turned that into Hume pronouncing Murtha senile, and then did the same thing with Hume’s quip about Murtha’s comments on appropriations. In neither case did you take the precise words at face value.
But, as I’ve said over and over, I don’t fault the inference, just the assertion that your conclusion is both logical and the only one permissible.
That’s a pretty strong charge. Care to back it up?
BTW: Sorry for your comments getting caught in our filter. I don’t know why it’s doing that, but I’ll keep liberating them as long as it does.
Isn’t whether Hume inferred that Murthra was senile or not really small potatoes to the larger point Greenwald leveed? I mean, actor is sort of arguing here that point B subparagraph 7 clause a, might be taken to be correct.
And while that might be true, it really doesn’t detract at all from Lance’s argument or their general disagreement with Greenwald. Say the point was conceded, what does it change? Nothing.
Exactly Chris, which is why I made a joke of it in the first place. He definitely called him foolish and uninformed. Bad enough in my book, and it changes nothing else.
Now, that is a bit much. A little graciousness might be in order here. Michael and I have both conceded it is a reasonable inference, just that it isn’t necessarily true. Calling that lying is something Michael doesn’t deserve.
One of the things Greenwald is most infamous for is making inferences which he supports with selective quotations and then going off on some tangent only distantly related to declare that someone unequivocally wishes to commit mass murder or some other heinous act.
You seem to be doing a bit of that here.
Now, I know nothing about you, and I don’t want you to be offended by being compared to someone as disreputably dishonest as Greenwald. So I want you to know I am not doing so. It is a common thing people do, including myself, just not as often, as ridiculously or with such malice as Greenwald.
That being said, none of us know for sure what Hume meant. Even if what Hume said could be read in no other way we wouldn’t know that either, for the simple reason is he was talking. People say things all the time that imply things they didn’t mean to convey. They are not reading from a prepared script scrubbed of all ambiguity or interpretive difficulty.
Bob Sommersby at the Daily Howler spends enormous amounts of time showing how this kind of thing afflicted Al Gore when it came from the right aided by a clueless press corp. I see no reason to get bogged down in it here. Hume negatively characterized Murtha, and it was well deserved. The exact nature of the characterization is unimportant. The reasons for it are.
Michael may be wrong in his interpretation, but I see no evidence he is lying about it.
Hmmm, how could you ever tell if someone who is defending Greenwald, isn’t Greenwald himself???
Hume is allowed to have an opinion, and state it as such, as long as he’s not couching his opinion as the news.
I happened to see the exchange in question, and Greenwald is making to much of it. Hume delivered his comments with the same even, straightforward tone he always uses. I detected no anger or malice in his voice, in fact there was a bit of mirth to it.
And there you have what Greenwald so often misses, CONTEXT.
HUME: And lot of it will be dotty
Sure looks all vile and what not when it’s out there all alone, doesn’t it. But if you saw the exchange, you’d realize that the comment was off-the-cuff, and Hume was interrupting Juan Williams, and said in jest, with a smile.
Greenwald is making a mountain out of a molehill, but that doesn’t surprise me.
As a former resident of western PA, allow me to assure you that you are being too kind to Murtha.
The guy is the typical W. PA Democrat: venal, not too bright, and willing to do anything the Party handlers tell him to do.
Well, we specialize in kindness in these parts. For now a dotty man who should have gone to jail twenty years ago will have to suffice.
Brit Hume’s an ignorant asshole who can be relied upon to spout GOP propaganda upon command. It figures that you would come to his defense.
Thats an interesting and well argued rebuttal Ed. You’ve certainly convinced me.
Ed,
As Chris said, well done. So let us say that your characterization in general is true. Does that mean anything said by him is okay? Does that mean that it isn’t okay for him to say his opinions in a segment where he is supposed to say his opinion? That it is okay for Greenwald to misrepresent the segment as being a part of his duties as an anchor?
Is the “fact” that your characterization is true mean that when he says something that is true about Murtha it should be discounted? Isn’t what he said about Murtha true? Are our troops living in palaces? The post isn’t really about Brit Hume, it is about the smearing of him by Greenwald. Whatever you or I think about Hume’s opinions in general, Greenwald’s defense of Murtha and the misrepresentations of what Hume was doing when he said what he did are, as usual, reprehensible.
I also made points about the role of journalists, are they false? Greenwald himself refers to journalists who speak their mind all the time. He is not only misrepresenting how the news business operates, and how it should operate, he is being a hypocrite.
I may criticize, for example, Katie Couric’s pronouncements on politics (though I haven’t) but I would never say it is improper for her to state them, especially when her opinion is the point of her appearance. If she had said that the last Congress was a fiscal travesty I wouldn’t have criticized her for saying something true, just because I disagreed with her in general. Greenwald of course does that all the time, because he doesn’t care about the truth, just what he can do to attack and defeat his enemies.
Maybe such distinctions are too much for you, they obviously are for Greenwald, who has no scruples, but I find the “take no prisoners” approach (to quote his dear friend Mona’s characterization of themselves) destructive. We saw the damage that did under the previous administration, I see it as no more productive under this one.
It does? I don’t think I have ever mentioned Hume before. My politics don’t track with his (assuming they are what the left seems convinced they are) so what would that be based upon? Do you know anything about my politics? Are you even a reader?
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