ruminator
An unusual mind
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2003
- Posts
- 20,828
eh,....he forgets the past so quickly....
snowball's chance in hell Joe?
Bush was losing in the exit polls.
What is it with this group that feels the need for total domination instead of a democratic process.
Revisionistic history limps on.
Word to the media.......
snowball's chance in hell Joe?
Bush was losing in the exit polls.
What is it with this group that feels the need for total domination instead of a democratic process.
Revisionistic history limps on.
Word to the media.......
http://www.moderateindependent.com/v2i24scarbook.htm
As He Cried And Hinted At A Lawsuit In Day Two Of His Debate With M/I, We Took Him Up On His Suggestion That We Read His Book, And What We Found Was A Study In Lying Propaganda
by
Thomas J. Bico, editor-in-chief
DECEMBER 15, 2004 – As the Joe Scarborough vs. The Moderate Independent skirmish continued into day two, Joe launched into desperation and whining.
But, unfortunately for Joe, he has run into the wrong match. We at The Moderate Independent are true moderates and independents who care only about the actual truth and what is best for America. Joe – and many of his right-wing liar buddies – is playing a game of pretending to be an independent while spinning the same dishonest, one-side promoting propaganda these right-wing liars have been pushing all along.
After an entire day of back and forth with the MSNBC-TV host (see: www.moderateindependent.com/v2i23scarborough2.htm ,) we were ready to move on. Scarborough was not.
The next morning as I opened my e-mail, there was not one but two more e-mails from Joe. And at this point, Joe had gone over the edge into threatening desperation.
You keep obsessing over the fact that I didn’t use the words Bush or Republican in my column (no, it was that your column was a fraud that tried to pin the Bush/GOP-created mess on the Democrats as equal partners.) If that’s all you have to respond to after all the factual errors in your column (Note: no factual errors in our column) and the childish name calling (which Joe uses constantly,) so be it. It seems that you are the one engaged in a whitewash.
I have very educated readers looking at my blog daily. They watch the news, they read the papers, they know Bush proposed the plan. They also know where I come from. A Republican who attacks Republicans when it is in the best interest of America (a claim he uses to excuse his partisan lying, as I explain in a minute.)
My readers and viewers also know that Democrats will whine and complain and then probably support the bill (more lying, detailed in a moment.) That’s what they do (another lie.) And if all you can hide behind is the fact that they will make some lame counterproposal that will fail before voting for the final bill, I pity the fact that is all you have to look forward to.
It is obvious from the column that you all don’t watch the show, don’t know my history as a commentator, and don’t know my history in Congress. So I wouldn’t expect you to understand that background when reading my columns. Instead, I am subject to middle school insults by your website.
Looking over your site and your emails makes it obvious that you all are very partisan Democrats. Nothing wrong with that. There are very partisan Republican websites. But I call BS on them also when they claim to be down the middle.
Unlike myself, you all seem to refuse to make your party better by criticizing them when they deserve it. The stories on voter fraud and other fringe issues leads me to conclude that your website is neither moderate nor independent.
Try to see both sides and for the sake of everybody, don’t give in to hate. It only hurts public discourse and your cause. And I would also suggest that your writers try to avoid using middle school profanities when making their case against someone. Don’t think resorting to personal attacks helps your cause. Just an unsolicited bit of advice.
Good luck on your site.
Sounds good, huh? I left that last part without correcting the lies and misinformation. I wanted you all to see clearly the real danger of what these lying right-wing propagandists are up to. What Joe says sounds really wonderful, and it would be, if all of it weren’t just one string of lie after lie after lie.
A second e-mail sat waiting even before I read that first one. This one was more whiny and included the threat, “The tone and the lies open you up to a libel lawsuit. Several of his statements are clearly false and his diatribe calling me a liar, rat, pussy, etc., clearly shows malice.”
Ok, Joe, you asked for it. You want us to prove what we said was true? Ok, here are the facts.
Joe asked us to read his book. I suppose he thought either we would be too lazy to do it or too stupid to see through the propagandist game he plays.
Scarborough’s book is a study in one-side supporting propaganda, lying, and grade school-level name calling – yes, exactly what he tries to accuse us of.
It is nice for him to claim something, but it is useful to back it up with facts. That is what us true Moderate Independents do.
Scarborough, on the other hand, makes clear from the beginning of his book that he is not big on providing facts to back up anything he writes. In fact, there is not a single footnoted reference in the entire book, and only a handful of attributions of any kind throughout the 192 pages. The vast majority is Joe simply saying things without providing any concrete evidence or references to back up his dishonest claims.
And dishonest they are.
Remember this claim Joe made to us in one of his e-mails: “Democrats vote for the President's tax cuts without finding offsetting cuts, and old bulls in both parties work together to spend more money and pass the debt on to our children," or from the first e-mail above, "My readers and viewers also know that Democrats will whine and complain and then probably support the bill. That’s what they do." He also claimed, "I detail this at length in my book and one cannot read it without coming away with the feeling that I am tougher on my own than Democrats.”
Well sorry, Joe. Here is reality:
2001 tax bill – The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001
House vote:
Yay – 211 Republicans, 28 Dems, 1 Independent
Nay – 0 Republicans, 153 Dems, 1 Independent
Senate vote:
Yay – 46 Republicans, 12 Dems
Nay - 2 Republicans, 31 Dems
Wait, it gets even better with the next round of tax cuts, which were the truly insane ones passed after the surplus was already gone and the nation was at war.
2003 tax bill – Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003
House vote:
Yay – 281 Republicans, 4 Dems
Nay – 3 Republicans, 199 Dems, 1 Indy
Senate vote:
Yay – 48 Republicans, 2 Dems (including Zell Miller as a Dem)
Nay – 3 Republicans, 46 Democrats, 1 Independent
Now let’s take a look at Joe’s claim again: ““Democrats vote for the President's tax cuts… That's what they do.”
Maybe in the dishonest, propagandist lala land known as Scaroborough Country, but, sorry Joe, not in reality.
And just to show Joe what people who aren’t lying do, here I provide something called references so people can verify the facts I am providing for themselves. Here are the actual records of the voting from the US Government’s website:
Senate 2003 vote: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/L...ote_cfm.cfm?congress=108&session=1&vote=00196
Congress 2003 vote:
http://clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.asp?year=2003&rollnumber=182
Senate 2001 vote:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/L...ote_cfm.cfm?congress=107&session=1&vote=00170
Congress 2001 vote:
http://clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.asp?year=2001&rollnumber=149
Yeah, Zell Miller, who has left the party, and couple of other Democrats voted for these bills. But the truth is that the irresponsible, excessive tax cuts, even in the middle of growing debt and war, were passed almost entirely by the Republicans and opposed by the Democrats.
Pretending the opposite is the case is called a lie. And it is a central part of the game Scarborough and other right-wing propagandists are now using to try and blame Democrats for the mess President Bush and his new breed of borrow-and-spend Republicans have saddled the nation with.
Let’s look at the other claim Joe makes in the e-mail above: “…one cannot read (my book) without coming away with the feeling that I am tougher on my own than Democrats.”
This is the other central tenet to the game Scarborough and other faux independents, such as O’Reilly, are playing. They allow themselves to actually criticize President Bush and the GOP some and then claim that that shows that they are fair and balanced; in fact, as Joe claims, tougher on his own party than on the Democratic Party.
The reality is, one cannot read Scarborough’s book without realizing that this claim is just another flat-out lie and fraud.
The two most striking things about Joe’s book are: 1) the massive lack of references and footnotes to support his claims; 2) the complete lack of a single positive comment about a single Democrat, never mind Democrats in general.
In fact, Scarborough’s central premise is that all Democrats and every policy they espouse are entirely, inherently wrong, and that they have always been wrong and never have any chance of improving.
As he states on page 97 of his book Rome Wasn’t Burnt In A Day, after spending some time criticizing the GOP, “If it makes GOP party leaders or the White House sycophants feel any better, no one is suggesting that John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, or any other elected Democrat short of Georgia Senator Zell Miller would spend your tax dollars more wisely.” He adds, “This is because such a suggestion is laughable.”
Sound like he is being easier on the Democrats? Of course not. Again and again throughout the book Scarborough hammers away at this theme, that all Democrats by nature are entirely wrong on every issue. And, in fact, he frequently, throughout the book, blames Democrats for how the Republicans are acting today.
On page two of his book he lays out how he will actually blame the Democrats for how the GOP and Bush have been acting, saying it is, “Democrats and their new ideological allies on Capitol Hill,” who are responsible for the massive deficits. This is his argument again and again throughout the book, that all Democrats are horrible, and that the only thing the GOP is currently doing wrong is acting too much like Democrats.
Yes, he spends more time talking about Republicans than Democrats, but that is because he gives them a fair shake, his premise being Republicans are good and right by nature but only, as he says again and again, acting like those horrible Democrats at the moment. Democrats get much less coverage because they are entirely dismissed from the get go, and because Scarborough again and again refuses to acknowledge their 1990’s shift to the middle and the more fiscally responsible platforms they have run on in the last three elections.
And what evidence does Scarborough use to support his claim that Democrats are just as much to blame for the fiscal mess we are in as the GOP and White House that promoted the bankrupting policies? Does he use their voting records? Specific policies they pushed?
Of course not - because their policies and voting records, as shown above, would make clear that they fought against many of the policies that have led to our fiscal disaster.
Instead, what Scarborough relies on to make his case against all Democrats is one out-of-context quote from one Hillary Clinton speech in which he claims she told voters in California that, “she wanted to raise taxes 'for the common good.'”
Notice the quotes within the quotes. He is not even quoting a single sentence of the one speech from the one Democrat he uses to represent the entire Democratic Party. He is only showing us that, in July 2004, Hillary Clinton said, “for the common good.” He claims she was saying that she wanted to raise taxes “for the common good,” but he provides no reference so we don’t know if he is making it up or not. All we do know is that we have one contextless quote from one speech by one Democratic Senator from New York used as justification for trashing and dismissing the entire Democratic Party and blaming them just as fully as the GOP and Bush for the fiscal mess the nation is now in.
In fact, Scarborough is so excited about this one out of context excerpt that he mentions it not just on page 1 but again on page 97. He has to, as it is all he apparently has to make his entire case that the Democrats are just as much to blame for the nation’s fiscal woes as Bush and the GOP.
What about all the speeches by Kerry and the Democrats saying we shouldn’t run an absurd privatization scheme for Social Security that would cause us to borrow $2 trillion while the GOP argued for it? What about all the speeches by Democrats and votes against the absurd tax cuts that have caused the deficits we now face while the GOP and President Bush, even needing to bring Cheney in as a tie-breaker, rammed them full-steam ahead upon the nation?
Not mentioned in Joe’s distorted, dishonest world. No, Joe simply claims in his e-mails to us, “Democrats vote for the President's tax cuts.” That’s his lie and he’s sticking to it.
The New York Times review of Joe’s book says, “He is honest enough to recognize the problem, but can't quite bring himself to the solution: since Republican-controlled government can't produce the spending cuts he wants, and he hates deficits, shouldn't he favor raising taxes?”
And right they are. Striking throughout the book is Scarborough’s absolute refusal to acknowledge that it was the massive, bankrupting Bush/GOP tax cuts that directly have led to the deficits the nation now faces. At no point does he address this, at no point does he give the Democrats credit for being on the right side of this one.
Instead, Joe spends a lot of time criticizing spending in a pretty general way. He throws around some numbers meant to shock, some subsidies that may or may not be excessive – it is hard to tell, as he gives little to no detail about how the funds he calls out, such as "$631,000 to figure out new and imaginative ways to use salmon by developing “alternative salmon products,” or money for beef and dairy research, will be used. And of course he provides no references. The spending may be wasteful, may not be. But Scarborough doesn’t bother with things like details.
He bares his small-mindedness boldly, saying, as a means of attacking cattle subsidies that go to Nebraska, “Alaskan workers shouldn’t be forced to pay for bovine research that will only help Nebraska corporations.” Yes, he ignores the fact that we are actually a nation, each part of which provides something for the other. Otherwise he might realize that people in Alaska eat the beef that is raised in Nebraska, and so if the subsidies help keep this beef affordable, free of Mad Cow disease, and plentiful, might not that person in Alaska also be benefiting?
But Scarborough’s goal is not to have an intelligent, useful discussion. It is to attempt to blame everything on excessive spending while denying that the voodoo economic scheme of the far right, of which Joe is a part, simply does not work. If you keep cutting and cutting taxes, you cause a debt. As our Ben Terton laid out in great detail in this article, you can not do as Joe is pretending and simply tighten America’s belt a bit, get rid of entirely unnecessary waste and solve the problem that way.
That is the lie Schwarzenegger ran on, that he could balance the more than $10 billion debt California was saddled with without raising taxes by simply eliminating unnecessary pork barrel-type spending. Since taking office, he has been shown to be, as this article article details, a complete fraud, and had to keep borrowing more and more, with $16 billion being the amount he ran up the state’s debt in the last round of bond selling. And the reality is the same with the national picture: you cannot address the situation without realizing the excessive tax cuts were a major part of the problem.
But to acknowledge that would be to acknowledge that the radical, Reagan-bred model that Joe raves about over and over in his book is a flawed one and actually central to the problem our nation faces. Reagan’s massive tax cut when he took office led to massive deficits which he blamed Democrats for. That is how the game works.
So why is Joe, while blaming Democratic spending for the mess right-wing tax cuts made, also blaming President Bush and the GOP as well, straying from the usual right-wing blame-and-lie game of pinning it all on the Democrats?
Scarborough lets us in on the real purpose of his little charade. From page 94, “Should thoughtful conservatives duct-tape their mouths and wrap their bodies in cellophane until Democrats once again take control of Congress?”
In other words, a right-wing talk show hack has to make a living somehow, and as there are no Democrats around to blame, he has no choice but to sort of lay into his own a bit – even if really just smearing all Democrats in the process and blaming them despite all reality.
I challenged Scarborough again and again in our e-mail exchange to not pull an Arnold-like snowjob and, if he really claims that it is just excessive spending responsible for the debt, provide the numbers and programs of what he would cut, as well as details about how he would cut these amounts from each program.
He replied, “Want more answers, they’re in my book.”
Well, sorry Joe, but they’re not.
All he offers are a few examples of possible pork barrel spending, but nothing near the $450 billion in cuts one would have to find to actually balance the budget, never mind pay down the debt.
And all the while Joe holds himself and conservative ideals blameless and summarily smears and discards the Democrats.
Scarborough tells how he campaigned with then-Governor Bush in 2000. From page 55, "Over the next eighteen months, I worked hard on the Bush-Cheney ticket, appearing on cable news shows more than two hundred times on behalf of the campaign. I used my time to whack supporters of John McCain, Al Sharpton, Ralph Nader, Al Gore, and a slew of Florida Democrats."
Despite the fact that he helped Bush run on the very platform of irresponsible tax cuts and excessive spending that have bankrupted the nation, Joe doesn't connect himself to the disastrous result that occurred when Bush put those policies into play. Nor does he have the integrity to admit the man on the other side, Al Gore, was right when he warned Bush's tax cuts would erase the surplus and that a lock box was a better idea.
Even more, look how Scarborough brags about how he used to "whack supporters of John McCain." He helped ensure that the fiscally responsible McCain, who we at The Moderate Independent would have preferred above either Gore or Bush, didn't get the nomination by campaigning against him, and yet throughout his book Scarborough wraps himself in the McCain mantle time and time again, pretending that he has been a responsible McCainiac all along - even as his direct account above tells the opposite story.
And look at this from Joe's proposed solution at the end of his book, which is extremely unspecific. On page 180, he begins to list a few general principles as an excuse to evade the reality that the central argument of his book, that there is enough wasteful spending that if cut could balance the budget, is a fraud that he can't backup with numbers and facts. Where what he would cut should be listed, he instead lists these ten general principles.
Sad enough. But take a look at number 7 of these general principles: "Create a federal rainy-day fund."
Um, sound a bit like Al Gore's "lock box?" Sure does. But of course, Joe doesn't mention that he campaigned against the candidate who would have already created such a rainy day fund, never mind that a Democrat, in particular Al Gore, had a good idea in that instance.
When Scarborough says in his earlier e-mail, "(My readers) know where I come from. A Republican who attacks Republicans when it is in the best interest of America," he is setting up his justification for lying. By saying he is "a Republican," he believes he is justifying his endless partisanship and summary dismissal of all Democrats.
Never mind his call to, "Try to see both sides," and, "don't give in to hate." Throughout the book he makes clear he refuses to even consider saying anything positive about any Democrat, and spews endless hate about all things Democratic, such as his talk on page 47 about how he, "ran on a platform against Bill Clinton," and couldn't "even look at the man's face on TV" he despised him so much.
Joe gives Gingrich credit for any good that occurred during the Clinton administration (page 74, among other places,) and blames Michael Moore for making the media conversation shrill and hostile. Rush Limbaugh he praises, the 10,000 other hateful right-wing hacks like himself he ignores. But somehow, like with the economic mess, he tries to blame a lone Democratic example for a situation the Bush/Limbaugh-right clearly created. In Scarborough Country, Moore is the problem in the media, not Rush, FOX, Elder, Hannity, O'Reilly, etc.
On page 97, he shows all of his pathetic propagandist tactics in just a couple of sentences. One sentence he is, again, blaming the Democrats for the actions of Bush and the GOP, and the next he is blaming Michael Moore for the coarse, cartoonish, lampooning political conversation that has been brought about by the thousands of right-wing talk show hosts.
"This big-government, Democratic approach should not shield Republican presidents or congressmen from criticism when they take a path that could bankrupt America. Unfortunately in Michael Moore's America, political opponents are painted as corrupt beasts that devolve into the most treacherous cartoon characters... In Michael Moore's America, there is no room for nuance, moral seriousness, or self-examination."
Excuse me, but wasn't it Kerry who was assailed for being nuanced and self-examining by the hate-spewing, cartoonish beast-creating right-wing hate-and-lie machine?
In the real world, yes, but not in Scarborough Country.
And shouldn't the actions taken by Republicans actually be labeled Republican actions and not a "Democratic approach?" After all, it was Republicans who proposed and carried out the ideas.
In the real world, yes, but not in Scarborough Country.
This book is one endless study in sickness, propaganda, and lying.
This is a man who claims to be "tougher on (his) own" party than on the Democrats, and even intimates that he will sue anyone who suggests otherwise, but then puts right in his book, as on page 103, "So what does it all mean (his criticisms about Republican's recent bad spending habits)? Are Republicans unworthy of public office? Are Democrats more responsible when it comes to managing your tax dollars? Does the mismanagement of your tax dollars by Congress mean that America would be better off with San Francisco's liberal Nancy Pelosi as our next Speaker of the House? Is George W. Bush unworthy of your vote? The answer to all of these is not only no, it's HELL NO!" (His capitals and italics, as in the book.)
So let's for a second go back to where all of this began, to the original story our John S. Ashton wrote about Scarborough's recent MSNBC column, the article that sent Scarborough into a rage, led him to cry about supposed "factual errors" and "lies" that "open you up to a libel lawsuit," and led him to claim, "Several of (Ashton's) statements are clearly false and his diatribe calling me a liar, rat, pussy, etc., clearly shows malice."
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