rss‘How the Left Swiftboated America’
Friday, December 11, 2009 at 12:47 pm
- 14 Comments
Before there was Glenn Beck, there was John Gibson, a dyspeptic Fox News host who anchored the network’s 5 p.m. block and steadily upped his outrage against liberals and Democrats. His shining moment at the network was probably the “war on Christmas” coverage of the late Bush era, culminating in his 2005 book “The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought.”
Gibson, who now hosts a radio show for Fox, is back on bookshelves with some serious heavy lifting: “How the Left Swiftboated America: The Liberal Media Conspiracy to Make You Think George Bush Was the Worst President in History.” How “swiftboating” makes any sense in this context, I don’t know. Suffice to say that the book is pretty terrible.
It begins with a recap of the 2000 Florida recount that’s riddled with errors. An example: “It was Gore who took the case to the Supreme Court.” That’s exactly the opposite of what happened. The Bush campaign appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking it to overturn the judgment of the Florida Supreme Court, which it did. That’s why the case was titled “Bush v. Gore” and not “Gore v. Bush” — Bush sued first. That’s the level of fact-checking you get in this book. You also get convincing “rebuttals” like this:
Indeed, Bush’s “smartest move” was … wait, what?
Gibson’s on the same slippery soil when he goes after the agents of “swiftboating” by name. In a chapter titled “The Echo Chamber: Dailykos and the Left-Wing Noise Machine,” Gibson fingers dailykos.com as an all-powerful source of lies and conspiracy theories.
That section represents a little bit of mission creep: The real problem with the blog, and with all of the liberal blogosphere, is that it refuses to acknowledge that George W. Bush was right about everything.
It’s an awful but fascinating little train wreck of a book.
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14 Comments
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Comment posted December 11, 2009 @ 4:58 pm
if this book is so egregiously wrong on facts, how did it get published? and why? aren't publishers supposed to provide editors who correct these things? sad state of affairs for the literate world.
Comment posted December 11, 2009 @ 6:01 pm
The title itself, invoking “swiftboating”, uses the term as the manufacturing of lies to disparage a person or ideology. This belies the right wing smear of John Kerry. Gibson is whining about the left supposedly using similar malevolent techniques that he himself used in the 2004 campaign. In effect, Gibson is saying what the rest of us knew at the time, namely, the “Swiftboating” of a war hero was nothing but immoral and unjust propaganda.
That's all I need to know. I'm sure his book is just a huge steaming pile of stupid.
Comment posted December 11, 2009 @ 7:34 pm
I think we all need to realize that publishers, just like everyone else can have a point of view that they want to expose. Sad, but true.
Comment posted December 11, 2009 @ 7:45 pm
Another work of fiction from the whitest man in America.
Comment posted December 11, 2009 @ 7:54 pm
Santa Claus usually does the editing and fact checking on the 364 nights he isn't working, unless the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy think he has a conflict of interest or Perry Mason finds some potentially actionable material that must be taken out for possible libel charges.
The unicorns often set up the press junkets with Strawberry Shortcake and the Cabbage Patch kids.
Comment posted December 11, 2009 @ 10:34 pm
Should it be pointed out that the Palin baby story, mostly pushed by a Kos diarist (as opposed to the site in general) and a handful of other bloggers, was precisely the opposite of what is desribed in the quoted bit? Or ought we to just take it as a given that any declarative statement in Gibson's book is a likely 180 from the real world?
Comment posted December 12, 2009 @ 10:31 am
2 points:
1) John Gibson's evaluation is founded on a belief that 'swiftboating' is a technique of political theater, whose closest relative is 'The Big Lie'. I welcome his evaluation of an effective dirty trick.
2) [For Sam] How did this get published? The intended audience does not value truth, but does value confirmation of their feelings. Fact checking will kill this process. Which is more important – facts or theater?
Comment posted December 12, 2009 @ 12:59 pm
Hmmm. Interesting.
Bush is the worst President in American history because a pundit says so? He didn't need anyone to present that truth.
He left Afghanistan unfinished because of the Bush/Bin Laden oil holdings. One family will not send their favorite son to kill the favorite son of the other family.
Iraq? That was all about saving face. Nothing more. Oh, maybe lining the pockets of the Bush cronies with billions of our tax dollars, meanwhile, handing out a pittance in the form of a tax “rebate” to the rest of us to keep us quiet.
As for Palin, She's getting ready to auger-in…….her instruments are getting ready to fail……just a matter of time.
“Train wreck” of a book, indeed.
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