What It's All About (Sex? No . . .) War Against Gore (How Bush Stole 2000 Election & Press Corps) & Chris Matthews Revealed in His Psycho Lying Glory

(EXTRA: If anyone could make a contribution to my PayPal account (or otherwise - contact me for further info), it would be sincerely appreciated as I've just gone off the cliff financially. I really appreciate everything that my kind readers have done for me in the past financially and otherwise. Now . . . back to your regular viewing.) Hey babeez,

Sorry for the brief absence but financial worries have driven me into such a deep well lately, that just the whisper of a job possibility drove me off the proverbial deep end (how's that for mixing metaphors to show the confusion into which one can be driven by despair?). Not to worry though, as after several phone calls promising riches (or at least short-term contract employment), it's all in my past (as usual) and I can get back to the much more interesting business of informing you about the latest newsy tidbits (and starving).

First off (NEWS FLASH) that "liberal" rag, The Wall Street Journal, reported on Saturday with a straight face (and with no discernible apologies or excuses available (yet) for why they happily led us here) that we just suffered "DOW's Worst May Since '40." Oooh. I'm sure recovery is still right around the corner, aren't you?

And we also learned that "Top Kill," the much-touted cure for the oil leak that ails us all has really been "Complete Kill" for the Gulf area.

At this point no one is certain how much oil is pouring from the well into the surrounding ocean. BP, adopting an early government estimate, has claimed that it amounts to a mere 5,000 barrels a day, but some scientists say the amount is closer to 60,000 or 70,000 barrels. Taking the lesser of these estimates, that would translate into the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez spill every four days. Given that this has been going on for five weeks at the time of this writing, the gulf has by now absorbed nine such spill equivalents, with more to come. But picturing the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill—until now the largest in US waters—and multiplying by nine does not begin to convey the scale of the disaster. For the first time in history, oil is pouring into the deep currents of a semi-enclosed sea, poisoning the water and depriving it of oxygen so that entire classes of marine species are at risk of annihilation. It is as if an underwater neutron bomb has struck the Gulf of Mexico, causing little apparent damage on the surface but destroying the living creatures below.

And now for just a little bit of insight about how we got to where we are, and no, it certainly didn't start out of whole cloth then (but who would believe that today anyhow?). (Emphasis marks added - Ed.)

How did George W. Bush reach the White House?

How in the world did he get there? More specifically, How He Got There will explore the mainstream press corps' poisonous coverage of this history-changing campaign. This book thus discusses a remarkable episode in modern press history – an episode the liberal world has generally failed to explore.

Until now, me hearties, until now. So listen and hear the new cry of Paul Revere.

. . . I began discussing this topic in real time, in March 1999, at my web site, The Daily Howler. At the time, I had no idea how remarkable the press corps' performance during Campaign 2000 would be. On the other hand: By that time, the press corps' peculiar relations with President Clinton had led to one important book – Gene Lyons' Fools for Scandal: How the Media Invented Whitewater (1996). Before Campaign 2000 was finished, Lyons would team with Joe Conason for a second book, The Hunting of the President (2000). Here too, Lyons and Conason discussed the press corps' decade-long, pseudoscandal-driven pursuit of Bill Clinton.

In March 1999, Clinton's vice president began his own run for the White House. With remarkable speed, the press corps' pursuit of President Clinton was seamlessly transferred to Candidate Gore. Given the narrow way Campaign 2000 was decided, the press corps' twenty-month war against Gore almost surely decided its outcome. How He Got There will describe these history-changing events.

We need a history of the era:

As such, this book adds to a limited body of work – work which describes the political and journalistic history of the Clinton/Gore era. To date, the liberal world has made little attempt to explore the history of that period – an era when rising conservative power in Establishment Washington stifled Democratic Party and progressive interests. Why have liberals been so timid concerning the events of this period? I'll offer some thoughts at the end of this book. First, the history itself should be told.

How did George W. Bush get to the White House?

Liberal explanations often begin with the vote recount in Florida. In this way, we liberals announce our ongoing refusal to explore the full history of the Clinton/Gore years–an era in which conservative power was increasingly expressed in the work of the mainstream press corps.

So how in the world did he get there?

How did George W. Bush reach the White House? Americans can't understand our society's developing power relations until this question, and others like it, are answered. The liberal world, like the mainstream press, has long avoided these topics. At this site, a deeply consequential part of this story will at last be told.

But not here, babeez, no, not here. I'd like to see each and every media "personality" have their source(s) of initial wealth exposed - and no, I do not believe any of them were self made. (See Pat Robertson's and Jesse Helms' political origins (CIA funding when he was a "simple newscaster" newly revealed) for a start.) And, of course, on the day I choose to comment on the above critical essay, Al and Tipper decide to separate. I gotta admit I've got some timing.

Speaking of one of my real favorites (no, not really, just making with the continued hilarity to be found here at the Pottersville digs) - the aging (badly) boy puppet, Chris Matthews, a study in low-class striver mediocrity (made much wealthier by further enriching self-aggrandizing corporate/media tycoons like Jack Welch (and his trophy wife) on his "comedy" show), has been hilariously revealed in his full nakedness of purpose at The Daily Howler who h/t's Digby for some of the information. I remember also retching at seeing and hearing his description of Bush's "manhood" in his flight suit (parachute harness) on the flight deck of the Abraham Lincoln at that perfectly planned spurious "news" event. (And I thought it was a "pack" job already.) And about halfway through their love talk, I thought they might lower their trousers and start comparing. I know. You wouldn't have believed it either if you hadn't been there.

The dishonesty in Matthews’ recent commentary is simply staggering. This raises a much larger problem.

Matthews did tremendous harm to his country during the Clinton-Gore era, when he was working for Jack Welch, his ultimate mentor. (It was Welch’s sponsorship which made Matthews a multimillionaire.) Presumably at the behest of Welch, Chris worked his keister off, for twenty months, to get George Bush elected. No one worked harder to shape the lunatic commentary used to take out Gore.

. . . Liberals ought to be revolted to see this broken-souled hustler pimping his scams on our side now — and to see Joan Walsh parading around on his show saying how brilliant and great he is. The last time we saw Joan do it, we retched about it for the last time. This type of alliance will never be a good thing for progressive causes, no matter how hard Chris fakes it on our behalf — no matter how many greenbacks Joan’s blatant pandering deposits in Salon’s purse.

To all intents and purpose, your entire celebrity press corps works by the broken standards displayed in Matthews’ recent commentary. Today, many liberal “journalists” are adopting the practices of this sad bunch as they pander to us. This will never serve the national interest. This will never work out well for progressive interests.

Go back and reread those two Digby posts. Having done so, be prepared to get sick to your stomach the next time you see Walsh parade out onto Matthews’ show and tell him how great he is — how much his deeply seminal thinking resembles that of Joan herself.

This sort of thing will never work, except in service to Salon’s bank account. In this third post, Digby roasts Mary Landrieu, quite hard, for perceived financial conflict of interest.

There’s nothing wrong with that sort of analysis. But when will we “liberals” be honest enough to apply it to “our own?”

Chris and Gordon, sittin’ in a tree: From the mid-1990s on, one obvious sign of the press corps’ profound dysfunction has been the blatant psychosexual disorder of its leading players. Below, we give you Chris Matthews and Gordon Liddy, in 2003, talking about Bush’s manly parts in the wake of his “Mission Accomplished” visit to the USS Abraham Lincoln.

As he starts, Chris is complaining about some Democrats who called Bush’s tail-hook landing a stunt. You’ll note that even here, some four years after the fact, Liddy turns straight to a potent old psychosexual theme from November 1999, the “month of Wolf:” Al Gore hired a woman to teach him how to be a man!

MATTHEWS (5/8/03): What do you make of this broadside against the USS Abraham Lincoln and its chief visitor last week?

LIDDY: Well, I — in the first place, I think it's envy. I mean, after all, Al Gore had to go get some woman to tell him how to be a man. And here comes George Bush. You know, he's in his flight suit, he's striding across the deck, and he's wearing his parachute harness, you know — and I've worn those because I parachute — and it makes the best of his manly characteristic.

You go run those — run that stuff again of him walking across there with the parachute. He has just won every woman's vote in the United States of America. You know, all those women who say size doesn't count — they're all liars. Check that out. I hope the Democrats keep ratting on him and all of this stuff so that they keep showing that tape.

MATTHEWS: You know, it's funny. I shouldn't talk about ratings. I don't always pay attention to them, but last night was a riot because, at the very time Henry Waxman was on — and I do respect him on legislative issues — he was on blasting away, and these pictures were showing last night, and everybody's tuning in to see these pictures again.

LIDDY: That's right.

MATTHEWS: And I've got to say why do the Democrats, as you say, want to keep advertising this guy's greatest moment?

LIDDY: Look, he's, he's coming across as a — well, as women would call in on my show saying, what a stud, you know? And then guys — they're seeing him out there with his flight suit, and he's, and they know he's an F-105 fighter jock. I mean it's just great. [...]

MATTHEWS: You know what struck me about that? The part that couldn't have been faked, which is the faces of the troops . . . They just love him.

LIDDY: They're loving him.

MATTHEWS: I think that's a bonding that we're seeing right there. We're watching it now, Gordon. It's pretty impressive bonding between him and these guys. I mean they did win the war together, and he was their commander in chief. Why not have a — We don't have an Arc de Triumph in this country like the French do. Isn't it OK to—

LIDDY: Please don’t mention the French!

Two of the biggest nuts in the jar. By 2003, even some of us liberals were able to see how strange this conversation was; our long hibernation was over. That said, these two crackpots had staged a similar psychosexual rant, this time about Gore’s masculinity problems, back in November 1999, when Matthews spent the bulk of the month sexually trashing Wolf, and through her Candidate Gore.

Matthews’ commentary this week co-exists with his earlier, real-time fawning about Bush’s magnificent “Mission Accomplished” moment. As always, his dishonesty is simply staggering; we’d have to judge that it’s even larger than Bush’s manly characteristic. But the cosmic damage Matthews did to this country, and to the world, occurred in 1999 and 2000 — in November 1999, for example.

. . . In the meantime, every liberal in this country should retch when liberal editors go on Hardball and fawn to this truly horrid, horribly dishonest man, in exactly the way he fawned to Bush as Bush took our country apart. Our “liberal journals” have always played us for fools concerning the work of big career-makers like Matthews. They have refused to tell us the truth about these people. Now, Walsh takes the insult further, praising this manifest crackpot on the air. And sure enough! We “liberals” just sit there and take it!

We took it from Matthews back in real time. We take it from Walsh today.

And if you want to know about how splitting hairs over who/what caused the oil leak is the latest corporate game in town (to cheat you out of any real compensation or punishment for these villains), please read here. You're bound to react in dismay and then admiration for the chutzpah that now passes as serious argument in these post-Bush/Cheney times.

There’s some fancy footwork going on, but the New York Times doesn’t seem willing to deal with it head on. Let’s consider a short section of an article on the New York Times’ website, headlined U.S. Plans ‘for Worst’ in Gulf, Seeing Risk in Leak Strategy. The section deals with BP’s culpability:

Mr. Dudley denied that BP, the British oil company, had cut corners in drilling the original well. He shrugged off a report Sunday in The New York Times that said that as far back as last June BP engineers expressed concern that the metal casing the company wanted to use might collapse under pressure.

“The casing designs that are used in the Gulf of Mexico, we’ve used those in other places,” he said. “I think those are statements that an investigation needs to go through and look at. Cutting corners is not the way I describe how we do our business.”

Right on its face, several questions (and answers) present themselves:

(1) Did BP’s managing director, Robert Dudley, as the Times summarizes, “den[y] that BP..had cut corners”? Actually not. What he said was that “cutting corners is not the way I describe how we do business.” That might sound like splitting hairs, but with liability like BP faces, splitting hairs is about everything. He didn’t actually deny that the company had cut corners. He simply said that he doesn’t describe that as a company policy. But then, what company actually announces that it cuts corners? So, what he said was technically true, while meaning nothing.

(2) Did Dudley directly dispute the claim, paraphrased by the Times, that “as far back as last June BP engineers expressed concern that the metal casing….might collapse under pressure?” Nope. He simply noted that the company had used the same casing designs elsewhere. But that in no way disputes that the engineers registered their doubts  —  about using that casing in that particular location at that depth.

The very nature of his statements is misleading. And that needs to be pointed out, explicitly, to the public.

Oh yeah. Suzan ___________