Frank Rich is a Big Fat Liar, Part 2
by Larry O'ConnorHollywood loves a sequel, and so does Big Hollywood. My post about Frank Rich and his penchant for repeating left-wing urban legends as fact garnered many comments from both sides of the issue asking for the post to be longer or to add more examples. I admit that calling Rich a “Big Fat Liar” with only one example may have been a bit thin. So here is another quick example, and I’ll keep bringing them if Theatre-boy Frank keeps writing them.
Big Lie: “Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies”
In his October 11th column, Theatre-boy Frank cites, “At McCain-Palin rallies, the raucous and insistent cries of “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” and “Kill him!” and “Off with his head!” as well as the uninhibited slinging of racial epithets…”. I’ve included all of his links so you can hunt them down yourself. I find it interesting that his three sources are Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, MSNBC and The Huffington Post. What happened to the paper of record as a source for news? Are you really citing another opinion columnist, a left-wing blog and MSNBC as your news sources?
The great John Leo unmasks the lie behind these statements and then concludes: (by the way, I get the irony of linking to his post at the HuffPo considering I just lambasted Rich for sourcing HuffPo, but it’s John Leo for crying out loud, and I’m not the NY Times!)
By the time the outrage on the left reached Frank Rich’s Sunday column, the narrative line about two-person abusive crowd was set in cement. At Rich’s hand, the one racial remark in Clearwater became “the uninhibited slinging of racial epithets.” The one shout of “Kill Him!” aimed at Ayers after Palin’s description of his bombing career became “raucous and insistent cries of “terrorist’ and “Kill Him!” All untrue. This is a classic example of awful journalism. Adam Clymer, the former New York Times reporter and Congressman John Lewis both issued statements alleging that the Palin crowd in Clearwater reminded them of George Wallace. Lewis, who also accused McCain, pointed out that Wallace never killed anyone; he just set the stage for the Birmingham bomb that killed three black children.
But don’t take his word or mine, the Secret Service investigated the “Kill him” remark and concluded:
The agent in charge of the Secret Service field office in Scranton said allegations that someone yelled “kill him” when presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s name was mentioned during Tuesday’s Sarah Palin rally are unfounded.
See what they did there? It says “when presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s name was mentioned,” but reread Dana Milbank’s description of what happened:
“One of his earliest supporters is a man named Billayers,” she said. (“Boooo!” said the crowd.) “And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,’ ” she continued. (“Boooo!” the crowd repeated.)
“Kill him!” proposed one man in the audience.
Clearly, even if you take the report from Milbank as fact, the “Kill him” remark was directed at William Ayers. But by the time Theatre-boy Frank “reported” it, it was right out of Nazi Germany.
Please take a look at the pattern here. Left-wing blogs misunderstand or, in some cases, purposely misrepresent a comment or event and start to spin a tale that paints Republicans in the standard, racist, bigoted, sexist, fascist, homophobic way. It spins on the web for a week or so, and then Theatre-boy Frank puts it in the paper of record and it becomes mainstream media Gospel.
But, at the heart of it is a half-truth and in some cases a lie. And when a voice as powerful as Frank Rich’s in a paper as influential as the NY Times repeats lefty BS from the Huffington Post, it’s worse than sloppy journalism, it’s a Big Fat Lie.
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34 Comments
I guess its not surprising that Rich would consider the folks at MSNBC to be a more credible source of info than the folks at the Secret Service. If there was any truth that the “kill him” statement was directed at Obama wouldn’t it have been investigated a little bit more then?
If Republican Racism did not exist It would have to be invented.
“Every day I come here for my daily jolt of comedy”
Right… is that before or after mommy runs the washing machine down in the basement by your cot?
Not wanting to throw some water on this party. But if you go to youtube and search for Palin Rallies, one will find that Frank Rich’s columns are accurate.
If you don’t believe the reporter, the video proves it. Over and over again.
Wow DRG, it’s amazing how you can pat yourself on the back and believe that it is someone else doing it. I think you should stop talking to your mirror, it’s not a real person.
Hey Franky-Boy…From Joseph Goebbels thought’s to your lips. The ‘Big Lie’ theory is alive & well inside your debased & wretched mind. Yes, I readly use shuch harsh terms because you, Reichmarshal Rich. You are fully aware yet press foward with the slanders, perhaps in your tainted mind to achieve a ‘greater good’
A-Pox on your dysfunctional neurons…
Hey Franky-Boy…From Joseph Goebbels thought’s to your lips. The ‘Big Lie’ theory is alive & well inside your debased & wretched mind. Yes, I readly use shuch harsh terms because you, Reichmarshal Rich. You are fully aware yet press foward with the slanders, perhaps in your tainted mind to achieve a ‘greater good’
A-Pox on your dysfunctional neurons…
drg and ed – more of the LIBERAL VITRIOL AND HATE to go along with their talking points in defense of their – prez corruption.
In fairness, here’s a link to a youtube video of a palin supporter with an obama monkey. Once there, you can see other links far too numerous too mention.
So, please you brain dead conservative kool aid drinkers please admit that there was an underlying racist tone to some of the rallies.
As for the New Deal not curing the depression, but rather WW2 did…this is a perfect example of the right wing propaganda that we liberals have to fight through.
So, for example Lt. Biff, what you are saying is that WW2 with rationing, wage and price controls, government spending which accounted for 77% of the GNP, a 90% tax on millionaires, “cured” the depression…yeah you are right you brain dead GOP goof ball.
So what you are really arguing is that a command economy did what the private sector could not do. Namely, stop the depression
A great argument for us liberals who are arguing for more government stimulus, but you weak minded fools just regurgitate the lies spewed by right wing columns such as this and other moronic left wing pundits.
Look, we just destroyed the whole false argument of this writers anti Rich diatribe, by showing just how many palin rally vids there are that corroborate the substance of what Rich is saying.
Please, third reichers, quit burying you heads and the sand and realize that your leaders are tricking you the Goebbels lies which we libs in vain try to point out to you without any success because of your insane desire to deny anything that doesn’t fit into your flawed world view.
You guys remind me of Hugo chavez orAhmadinejad who debunk the holocaust and are just as loony in their viewpoints as you right wing fools are.
Sorry, here is the youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bky2SGrmC8g
The Q – There’s no link. But I have seen the “Obama Monkey.” It is bad, but hardly as representative of the vast majority of conservatives as people like Rich fatuously like to claim. By citing a single example as monolithic you undermine your own point of view. A left turn here and another one there, pretty soon you’re referring to blog commenters as “Third Reichers.” God forbid anyone who disagrees with you is Jewish.
DRG – Here’s another one for you: “PATHETICAL” IS A WORD COMMONLY USED BY PEOPLE TRYING TO SOUND SMARTER THAN THEY BELIEVE THEMSELVES TO BE say Third Reichers.
Blue Jade.
So I guess the people alive at the time (we call them the greatest generation by the way) where all brain dead idiots that elected FDR president 4 times in land slides because he made the depression worse and the Republicans at the time were too stupid to capitalize on the campaign slogan “are you better off under FDR than Herbert Hoover?.
I guess the greatest generation was too stupid too see unemployment drop by over half in FDR’s first admin. or watch as their bank deposits were guaranteed so bank failures dropped by 90%.
No, its your baby boom Bezerkley roommated who’s smarter than the Noble Prize winning economists such as Krugman or Samuelson who have written extensively on this subject or those that were actually alive during the hopelessness of the Hoover years and were crazy enough to elect FDR president 4 times.
For all you brain dead GOPers, how do you get around these facts:
In Hoover’s last three years as President, GDP growth was -12%, -16.1%, -23.2%.
FDR was elected and started passing his New Deal legislation right away.
In his first term, GDP growth was -4%, +17%, +11.1%, & +14.3%.
Can you please get your collective heads out of your a453es?
Why do we libs even bother with you Hugo Chavez Ahmadinejad deniers of reality?
Reed Right,
Thank you for your insightful, intelligent debunking of my points regarding the subtle racism of the GOP and the insane arguments on the right that FDR made the Depression WORSE.
Your thoughtful screed and germane points were well articulated and as anyone thinking person can see, you are an idiot.
Ok, thank you folks for defending your honor.
Conservative arguments are like cockroaches, when you shed a little light on them they scatter for the dark.
Can you people honestly believe that FDR made the depression worse?
The silence proves my point. Once challenged you guys fold faster than the French army.
Over and over, Frank Rich and his legion of MSN colleages prove the validity of my proposition that hate makes you stupid.
The desire to attack the object of hatred causes one to focus down and screen out any and all data that doesn’t fit the desired template. The inbred nature of the MSM pool of opinion shrinks by the minute.
I speak from some degree of personal experience–during the Clinton years, it became easy to believe just about anything about the Clintons, and the blogosphere started to fill up with lots of black helicopter junk in addition to the stacks of verifiable dirt on Bill & Hill. My personal opinion is that Carville & co. were circulating some of the more fantastic rumors, which could be easily refuted. That way, legitimate charges could be swept out with the same outraged denial of the obviously faked ones.
As BH continues its quest to keep the record straight during Obama’s tenure in the White House, it is important to keep this in mind.
As per THE Q: The same applies. Piling invective on top of your argument doesn’t make it more convincing. It allows those who might otherwise engage your opinion to dismiss you as an idiot.
Great post. Just more stupid made up stuff from the socialists. Obama’s tenure in the white house is nearly a scandal-a-day now. He’s been in office just 20 days and has 42 scandals on the Official Obama Administration Scandals list! Hard to believe.
http://conservativeamerican.org/dems-libs-socialists/obama/obama-administration-scandals-list/
Stergeye,
Perhaps you are right, if one is debating a moderate.
However, I believe that unless you hit these diehard kool aid drinkers over the head with a baseball bat they will forever cling to the shibboleths and myths of the right wing, to wit:
Repubs care more about the middle class than libs, that Reagan single handedly won the cold war, that bush has “kept us safe”, that dems are socialist terror loving dupes who are incompetent when it comes to handling the economy, and of course FDR made the Depression worse and there are only a “few” racists in the GOP.
Pleasant discourse with these rubes is impossible.
Just as Ike had to get the townsfolk of Dachau to personally go in to the death camp and smell the stench and bury the rotting corpses. Until then, the germans believed it was Allied propaganda about the camps.
Peter Andrew,
Yeah you’re right about Obama.
And I guess you were also right when you vociferously attacked VP Cheney when he uttered at the VFW convention in 2003:
“Simply stated, there is NO DOUBT, Saddam has weapons of mass destruction”.
Keep up the good work hypocritical ahole. I guess spending a trillion dollars and attacking the wrong country is a blip on your radar compared to the atrocities committed by BH in the last 20 days.
[...] Big Hollywood » Blog Archive » Frank bRich/b is a Big Fat Liar, Part 2 [...]
Frank Rich is one of those that actually thinks he has no prejudice yet everytime he opens his mouth it’s the same old thing. I heard him speak on Saturday morning where he was responding to Robert Gibbs’ lack of ability he said well look who (yes, he did say ‘who’) did this same job under 43… Perhaps I’m wrong, but Tony Snow & Ari Fleischer were pretty strong – even ol’ Scottie wasn’t too bad… all three are signifcantly better than Gibbs.
Anyway – Frankie boy is a dolt.
DRG and the other FasciSSocialist Psychosis sufferers who use these threads to give the world the horror of a look into the black holes that do them all for “characters” by psychopathologically projecting here, chucks in a bonus by also revealing a sub-room-temperature IQ.
Laundrywood Leftards: a couple of words that’re here to stay!
Brian Richard Allen
Los Angeles CaliFASCISSOCIALISTicated 90028 and the Far Fbroad
OK – I’m ready for Part 3 now! Keep up the great work!
I haven’t enjoyed a good laugh for a while. You all are fantastic! Thank you for making me laugh. I needed this. You can look at his picture and tell he is a looney tune.
I did’t know Sarah Palin was still running for office.
Good Bejebus these people are afraid of her!!
Can you visualize Rich and Krugman at a Bar drinking Snake Venom? Hate is like the Air they Breathe.
Frank Rich is a despicable, impotent little rodent. He feeds on hate and then dishes out in his repulsive screed in the NYSlimes. Here’s hoping he goes down in flames along with the old gray HO’.
DRG –
Ever wonder how we didn’t see the Dow Jones industrials meet their highs of 1929 until 1954??? 25 years later?????? So…FDR got us out of WHAT again?
And Obama’s trying to do what? Re-invent 1932?? I pray to my God.
Anyway, DRG, here’s how we got out of the depression. It’s the simplest history lesson you’ll ever learn:
Enter into depression from progressive policies like Smoot Hawley. (It wasn’t black Monday after all, now was it.) Raise taxes unreasonably and kill the domestic economy. Enforce Smoot Hawley while favoring union wages for votes to keep you in power, jack up prices from union wages, piss off Japs; piss off Germans.
Deceive (read Robert Stinnett “Day of Deception”) us into war.
Luck out from destruction of European production and Asian production capabilities (we working folk call those “factories,” you progressive hack)and reap the reward of a great export market as the U.S.’s didn’t get bombed by B-17s or B-29s.
Or anything else besides Japanese Zeroes at Pearl Harbor – our military, not our production capability.
You simpleton.
When I worked on films in NYC, we always had to arrange private sreenings for Frank Rich, complete with whatever food he wanted, because he refused to attend preview screenings with anyone else, including other critics. The directors and producers I worked with generally hated him, but did his bidding out of fear of getting a bad review. He was treated like a king, yet always managed to behave like an ungrateful and insufferable “Let Them Eat Cake” liberal hypocrite, which is apparently what he still is.
Don’t waste amy more space on him. He’s really not worth it.
Really, just wondering out loud… if someone yelled, “Abort Him!” would that pose a problem for the SS? After all, he is for abortions at anytime… what is waiting a few years? I am just very confused on how and where that line is drawn?
The Q wrote: [i]Just as Ike had to get the townsfolk of Dachau to personally go in to the death camp and smell the stench and bury the rotting corpses. Until then, the germans believed it was Allied propaganda about the camps.[/i]
You know, this one really just hit my “too much revisionist history to ignore button.” Is there some sort of website out there with a “Liberal History of the World” in which almost all the facts are wrong or skewed to support your fanatical worldview? Or do you just make this garbage up as you go along.
Ok, as to Dachau, to my knowledge Eisenhower never gave such an order. Sometime long after all the bodies were buried local officials were told to put up a memorial to those who had died, but the historical facts completely negate your rather ridiculous attempt at saying the people of Dachau had no knowledge of what was going on inside the camp.
For example, it might interest you to know that the people of Dachau were well aware of many of the horrors that were taking place inside the camp. Many of them risked their lives sneaking the prisoners food and blankets. Had they been caught most likely they would have been arrested and most likely executed.
Oh, and it may also interest you to know that the day before the US Army liberated the camp the citizens of Dachau tried to do it themselves. These simple townsfolk challenged the armed guards of the SS in an attempt to liberate the camp, but were unsuccesful to say the least. Dozens died in the attempt. There is a memorial plaque to there heroic efforts inside the town of Dachau itself.
So, what should you learn from this Q?
1. If your going to cite history, know something about which you speak. Otherwise you make your self look like an idiot.
2. If your honest about wishing a civil conversation, you might wish to stop calling people rubes and comparing them to NAZI’s. I think we all know you have no interest in civil discourse whatsoever. Your just here to throw bombs.
3. If you want to throw bombs, by all means, make your nasty childish quips and run away again like most the other trolls. But please stop with the psuedo intellectual nonsense. Just because you cut and paste it from some other leftwing website certainly does not make it true. Try checking your sources and your facts before spouting off. It will make you look a lot less ignorant, and save those of us who do have an inkling as to what actually transpired in history the time of typing in a rebuttal to your nonsense.
Hope that clarifies a few things for you Q. With any luck you’ll mature to the point someday where you can start looking at facts and making your own decisions rather than simply regurgitating the nonsense you find on ultra-left wing websites and then attempting to use that to slander those of us who don’t happen to agree with your worldview.
Maybe when you can at least get to the point where your mature enough to hold a civil conversation we can begin that process, but from what I’ve seen so far I’m not exactly holding my breath.
Todd,
You are an idiot.
Ike PERSONALLY escorted the germans thru dachau you conservative twit.
Read this you hopeless ahole. You spent all that time writing gibberish.
You idiots love rewriting history. Please see this below fool:
It is a matter of history that when Supreme Commander of the Allied
Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death
camps, he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the
German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the
camps and even made to bury the dead..
He did this because he said:
‘Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses -
because somewhere down the track of history some bastard will get up
and say that this never happened.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to
do nothing’.
This week, the University of Kentucky removed The Holocaust from
its school curriculum because it ‘offended’ the Muslim population
which claims it never occurred.
The Q : Interesting isn’t it, that your supposed to be the “tolerant” one, and yet the first time your facts are challenged rather than dealing with it like an adult you resort to childish insults? Sad.
Yes, it is a matter of history that Eishenhower did visit the camps and that he was so appalled by what he found there that he cabled General George C. Marshall, then head of the JCS (Joint Chiefs of Staff) with a request to bring in both members of Congress and Journalists to the camps so that the crimes committed there could be documented properly and those responsible could be held accountable. It might interest you to know that the camp he visited was Ohrdruf, not Dachau. Ohrdruf was located near Weimar, Germany and was part of the Buchenwald network of camps.
However to the best of my knowledge at no point did Eisenhower give any order to the local officials in Dachau that they be the one to bury the bodies found at the camp near Dachau, in fact I’m fairly certain that all of that was done by the U.S. Army and the only thing the local officials in Dachau were told to do was to make some sort of memorial for the bodies since the majority of the remains were buried enmass.
Now, Eisenhower may have made such an order to the locals at another camp at some point after the war, however I haven’t found mention of it yet as far as the official documentation and I’m almost positive such a thing was never done at Dachau.
You point was completely moot because your history was completely wrong. As to the University of Kentucky, they too it seem would wish to rewrite history to appease a certain segment of the population, which is shameful. I don’t think you’d find many conservatives, myself included, who would congratulate them for doing something like this, in fact I’ll be more than happy to go on the record and say that their actions are cowardly and ignorant.
Now, if you wish to speak about history, best come with a whole lot more research in your back pocket. It’s something of a favorite subject of mine, and frankly at the moment I feel a lot like the battleship Missouri lobbing 16 inch shells downrange at the Goodship Lollipop.
If you can manage to keep a civil toungue in your head you might just learn something, I might too – but if all your here to do is throw insults and start flame wars just do the rest of us a favor and leave out the part where you pretend to be an intellectual with some knowledge of what you speak – it will save us both a lot of time.
Amen!
[...] his hyperbolic prose, or his disdain for the facts. It’s not the first time Rich has dishonestly attacked the Tea Party movement and, unless a Divinely-guided meteor intervenes, it won’t be his last. I believe I gave him [...]
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