The movie will be called "Truth." Ironically? I doubt it. "Truth" is a shortened form of "Truth And Duty: The Press, the President, and the Privilege of Power," the memoir written by Mary Mapes, the CBS producer who lost her job over Rathergate. From the Amazon reviews of the book (to which I've added an explanatory link):
If the liars behind this failed attempt to get Kerry elected had just used an old typewriter it would have worked and the press may have been able to steal an election. Just think about that. Now there's going to be a movie based on this book?Well, now... think about it. Mapes is going to be played by a great actress, Cate Blanchette. Conceivably, the Shakespearean complexities of the role will emerge. I'm picturing a grand, slow, torturous descent. Tragedy!
A typewriter! a typewriter! my network for a typewriter!
That's unlikely. And should there be a whole big motion picture made from this story when the ultimate motion picture of Rathergate has already been made? It is the tiniest possible picture in motion:
পোস্টগুলি
৮৪টি মন্তব্য:
I'm amused that this post is akin to the previous post.
"Special software used to compare pictures" indeed!
Somehow, I doubt this will have a "what have we become???" moment where the journalists realize that despite their hatred for George Bush they have a duty to the honor of their profession to report fairly and not make stuff up.
Though it is hard to see what angle they could take. Some pro-Bush plant who conspired to bring down the network with the fake document as bait? Some time travelling troublemaker who used a 2004 computer in the early '70s to draft the very real document? I just don't see how you can justify what was done here.
I wonder how honest such a film might be, or if it will follow the "Fake but accurate" directive.
What difference at this point does it make?
Seems like a major blunder by Rather that this happened originally. What the Hell was he thinking? Fake but accurate?
But that was 10 years ago and most people have forgotten about it unless reminded.
This is a reminder.
John Henry
PB Reader said...
I wonder how honest such a film might be, or if it will follow the "Fake but accurate" directive.
It's Redford. You decide.
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Rage, rage with the dying of the light.
Charles Johnson of littlegreenfootballs made that tiny motion picture. That was when he was a right-winger, before his bizarre metamorphosis into left-winging.
I'd like to see a movie about that. Switching from left to right is not uncommon and has been documented at length (David Horowitz, for example). Switching from right to left in a big way is less common. Was it Churchill who observed that youngsters tend leftward and oldsters tend rightward? Charles Johnson made the switch in middle age, and quite suddenly, and quite publicly and extremely.
There exists a cohort out there who believe Bush stole the election, conspired to knock-down the World Trade Centers and somehow covered-up his AWOL status with the TX ANG.
They are a ready audience for this kind of bias-confirming film. It could be profitable as long as they keep productions costs under control. Did Redford get his usual salary?
"Seems like a major blunder by Rather that this happened originally. What the Hell was he thinking? Fake but accurate?"
-- It wasn't a major blunder. Blunders are usually accidents or unavoidable. This was another example of the left's lack of intellectual curiosity as it works through the echo chamber of epistemic closure.
See? I learned BUZZ WORDS.
I'll go see it only if Redford gets shot to death at the end, like in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier".
I'll join the others. Redford is a committed left winger. Wait, I mean a radical, bug-eyed lunatic left-winger. Hard to believe he's going to make a "truthful" movie about this episode. More likely they "humanize" Rather and the network as "good guys" who got carried away trying to save the country.
Isn't Redford a little old to play Hinderacker?
I knew Dan Rather, and Robert, you are no Dan Rather.
Hollywood will still make movies about events that supposedly discredit Bush. Even though the events of rathergate involve discrediting a Bush who wasn't even president yet. They had to go all the way back to his Vietnam days.
They have to get to the bottom of that! Anything involving oBama, be it his past associations or current policies are worth not even a mention.
Could you imagine if the border scene were playing out under Bush instead of Obama? but instead of going to the border Bush decided not to and instead played pool and went to fund raisers?
As to a movie about Rathergsae, why does Hollywood insist on making movies that lose money? how did that Plamegate movie do? Learn the lesson.
Is this movie going to include the scene where rather gets beaten up by a whacko screaming "what's the Frequency, Kenneth?" True it happened in 94, so would be out of the timeline. But, probably would be the only interesting scene in the movie..
Noticed this last night over at PowerLine. Sometimes I forget that Redford is still around. Been a long time since he did anything I would want to spend money to see. Though when I was driving down through Idaho Springs the other day, I was reminded that this was where he was supposed to have grown up in Downhill Racer. Interesting that the team name of the small stadium you drive by is the Golddiggers. And, I think he did some stuff with Paul Newman. Other than that, he just comes across as a bug eyed whacked out rich liberal.
My in-laws were classmates of Dan Rather at Sam Houston State back in the day. It was a small campus (still not very big), and everyone knew everybody else. They said even back then, Dan Rather had a highly inflated opinion of himself.
"There exists a cohort out there who believe Bush stole the election, conspired to knock-down the World Trade Centers and somehow covered-up his AWOL status with the TX ANG."
Garage has already purchased his ticket.
Now that I think of it, ever since Dubya started running for office Dan Rather has been no Dan Rather.
" More likely they "humanize" Rather and the network as "good guys" who got carried away trying to save the country."
From the Amazon blurb for Mapes' book: "TRUTH AND DUTY is Mapes' account of the often-surreal, always-harrowing fallout she experienced for raising questions about a powerful sitting president.
As I know Mapes still insists the documents were authentic. Her narrative remains, "Speaking truth to power." Since that's what's in her book, I'd assume that will be the movie.
The assertions seem absurd, given the provenance (or lack thereof) of the documents as well as the strange coincidence that they look just like Microsoft Word on its default settings.
Oliver Stone's "documentaries" don't make sense either, but they still find an audience.
BTW, isn't it time to retire the term "documentary" for a non-fiction movie? Considering that just about all so-called documentaries are little more than exercises in propaganda.
There's probably a reason why the law (precedent and statutory) is written as text and not shot as video: a text may be true or false, but a video is always in a grey area between the two.
Even if a video is an unedited shot of an actual event (not a re-enactment), the camera forces us to look at what its operator wants us to look at (and not at something off-screen which might be more important).
In short, non-fiction video is inherently deceptive because it creates such a convincing illusion that it is real. Text just can't create that "seeing is believing" illusion and thus remains always open to questions of veracity; questions of who wrote it, and for what purpose.
It will be interesting to see what they try to do to resurrect Rather and Mapes. I am sure that we are going to see mysterious people passing the mysterious document to Bill Burkett at a cattle show where he was selling his bull's semen.
But, I highly doubt that they will go the next step, and show that the documents were printed using Microsoft Word using standard settings (except point size set to 11.5) including Times New Roman, using Army, not Air Force abbreviations and terminology. Or that the Rather/Mapes segment was completed discredited by the Thornburgh-Boccardi report commissioned by CBS. I expect that none of that will come out in the movie, since it didn't in the book.
I do wonder though about the timing. Are they announcing it now because Obama's numbers have dropped below Bush's, and this is an attempt to tar Bush some to get his numbers below Obama's again? Gotta be some BDS involved somewhere. Or, is it the upcoming election? Or, do rich liberals just have too much money on their hands, and we need a special tax on them?
Bob Ellison @ 7:12,
If I remember correctly, Charles Johnson did a left-right-left; not just a right-left. So perhaps he was coming home after an extended vacation.
I don't think just using an old typewriter would have done the job. If I remember correctly, not only was the use of MS Word an issue, but the documents themselves were not consistent with military format or procedure. I recall on one blog someone from the military - and it may have been from the TX ANG - really picked them apart. It was really a very crude and amateurish attempt at faking douments. That anyone would continue to defend or make a movie based on these documents is unbelieveable, unless the movie is to be an honest depcition of why someone would be so stupid to attempt anything like this.
jr565 said...
As to a movie about Rathergsae, why does Hollywood insist on making movies that lose money? how did that Plamegate movie do? Learn the lesson.
Somehow the Abscam movie made money. Lots of money.
As I mentioned in my previous post, the Rathergate memos were created using Microsoft Word with default settings, with the exception of the 11.5 font size. That though reminded me of how much we take for granted computers these days (and even back then in 2005). One of the things that slipped by Mapes, et al. was that Word automatically converts 1st, 2nd, etc. to use superscripts for the "st" and "nd". Not only are they raised, but also utilize a reduced font size. A typist at the time that Bush was in the TANG could have rolled the paper in the typewriter for superscripts - but could not have changed the font size. That would have required a specialized type setting machine, which, of course, the TANG was not using at the time for routine communications. We just take this functionality for granted, and forget that it didn't really exist 25 years ago. (And, yes, you can disable this feature in Word Options).
" Switching from right to left in a big way is less common."
David Brooks comes to mind. Do you suppose Johnson is a closeted you-know-what ?
Remember the Valerie Plame movie, it wasn't about the truth and this movie won't be either.
"This was another example of the left's lack of intellectual curiosity as it works through the echo chamber of epistemic closure."
Kevin Drum, now a writer at leftist "Mother Jones" did a thorough investigation of this story before the CBS face plant and concluded there was no truth to it. I have always respected Kevin about this even though we agree on nothing else. That was back when he had his own blog.
CWJ, that's an interesting concept. I looked it up on Wikipedia and can't find much.
Your initials intrigue me. Are you Charles, still trying to find your political home?
Why do people align themselves strongly with a political group?
It's mostly for money. Money, money, money. Also power. Power, power, which becomes money.
I don't think just using an old typewriter would have done the job. If I remember correctly, not only was the use of MS Word an issue, but the documents themselves were not consistent with military format or procedure.
Job couldn't have been done on a typewriter at the time. First, there was the font - 11.5 point Times New Roman. Common today with MSFT Word, but not really available back in the early 1970s on typewriters. Close, as Mapes points out in her book, but not exact. And, secondly, the way that superscripts were handled in the document - not only raising them, but reducing font size. Something done automatically by modern word processing programs, but not really available on typewriters of the time (so, they just wouldn't have bothered in the TANG).
But the other part of your post is also true. The memos used Army, not Air Force, rank abbreviations, among other things. There were other problems too - like the memo ordering Bush to report for a physical on Mother's Day (when TANG units didn't operate), esp. since the physicals were apparently automatic, based on birthdays. That sort of stuff.
Oh, and another thing that I forgot about the memos - they had kerning. Another feature that we take for granted. Different characters having different widths. I flipped to a Word document that I was working on in TNR font, and this is really noticeable, since I am lining things up with tabs (for example, F=3 under N=8, and the N is noticeably wider, with the "="s not lining up). Making things worse, characters can be moved closer together. Thus, Word will move the "o" in "To" under the "T" a bit.
IBM Selectrics of a slightly later vintage could do a bit of variable spacing of fonts. But, of course TANG wasn't using them at the time, and this was apparently a feature added a bit later. AND, the granularity that IBM could implement manually was far courser than is used by modern word processing programs like Word (and evidenced in the memos). Moreover, those variable width Selectrics wouldn't move characters closer together or further apart depending on what they are next to. (Again, which was present in the Mapes memos).
Rather is doing the lecture circuit (he was in Madison a few weeks ago), so there's obviously a market for his nonsense.
I never understood the verb "Swiftboating." I understand Lt. John Kerry's mixed record in the service. I understood what the Swift Boat Veterans were saying about Kerry. Those veterans were there, and were eyewitnesses. They were not all eyewitnesses to everything Kerry did or didn't do, of course.
I'm not so sure that anything that any of the Swift Boaters' comments would have served to disqualify Kerry from the Presidency; I suspect not, in fact. All that they did was to put a dent in what the Democrats were trying to do, which was to paint Kerry as a courageous war hero in contrast to Bush, who was supposedly AWOL.
Absolutely nothing that the Swift Boat Veterans did approached the level of plain fraud that was involved in what was attempted against Bush.
So why is there now a verb, "swiftbaoting," in honor of Kerry, but nothing in honor of Bush who was the victim of a much clearer fraud?
I remember that when the sh*tstorm had well and truly broken over "Rathergate," someone involved in the CBS production insisted that they'd taken the document to the White House for comment, and gotten "no comment."
The implication was that this -- which is the response you'd expect if the information was dynamite -- was unfair. Apparently the WH staff was supposed to have taken one look at the thing and chortled "You frakkin' everloving rubes, you've gotten hold of a document that someone typed in MS Word and then put through several rounds of re-Xeroxing, and you expect anyone at all to believe it was typed in 1973? Good luck with that." Instead, the WH deadpanned it -- with, I imagine, considerable effort. Dirty low-down trick, that.
Bob Ellison, I was never a fan of Little Green Footballs (I think Kos was right when he labelled it a hate site), but as I understand the Charles Johnson iconography, he was always a liberal, but took a short journey rightward after 9/11. Once the intensity of the war on terror wore off, he went back to his natural place on the left.
As to your other point, most conservatives were liberal when young, the rightward drift with age is natural. That is why conservatives have a much better understanding of liberalism than liberals do of conservationism--conservatives are liberals who grew up.
The opposite--conservative when young drifting left with age--is much rarer and the people doing it are mostly nutters like Arianna Huffington. In Churchill's formulation, they have neither a head nor a heart.
Used copies of Mary Mapes' "Truth and Duty" are available from Amazon for prices ranging from $0.01 to $0.95.
I am going to have to pick up a copy now. Missed it the first time.
Does she actually defend her part in this fiasco?
Cate Blanchett is a notorious barking lefty in Australia who no doubt thinks she's striking a blow against the Man.
Maples and Hollywood are just trying to apply thhe standard leftist tactic of telling the same lie again again until it is accepted through sheer familiarity.
On the upside maybe they'll get Lexa Doig to reprise her role as Detective Lucy Ramirez, the TV detective who was supposed to have handed over the smoking gun papers. She's a cutie.
tim maguire, good points.
Some people do go left with age, though. Huffington, as you note. And then there is Richard Nixon. (Went left with wage and price controls, the EPA, etc.)
I think the explanation is always money and power. These people do not crave, or even understand, morality and philosophy. They just want money and power.
This is why rightists don't understand leftists. If your world-view requires that people are motivated by principles, you can't understand the Hillaries, Baracks, and Nixons of the world.
"So why is there now a verb, "swiftbaoting," in honor of Kerry, but nothing in honor of Bush who was the victim of a much clearer fraud?"
Because the liberal media control the narrative.
Courage!
What about Andrew Sullivan?
That was an interesting case: a gay man, mindful of gay "rights", who supported the Iraq war big-time, and then suddenly became a Bush-hater.
Money, money. Power. Money.
Bruce Hayden said...
Noticed this last night over at PowerLine. Sometimes I forget that Redford is still around. Been a long time since he did anything I would want to spend money to see. Though when I was driving down through Idaho Springs the other day, I was reminded that this was where he was supposed to have grown up in Downhill Racer. Interesting that the team name of the small stadium you drive by is the Golddiggers. And, I think he did some stuff with Paul Newman. Other than that, he just comes across as a bug eyed whacked out rich liberal.
The Sting
Butch Cassidy
The Natural
A River Runs Through It
That's enough. Pretty A+ career right there. Also, it makes my wife happy to look at him, so there's that.
I've seen The Sting at least five times, and could watch it another five times.
Enough time has passed that they can lie about it. Not enough people will remember, and anyone who brings up the truth about the documents will be shouted down.
The internet is walled off now in a way it was not in 2004, and liberals are much better at discrediting conservatives, even when they are right. This time they'll have their narrative ready to go.
On the upside maybe they'll get Lexa Doig to reprise her role as Detective Lucy Ramirez, the TV detective who was supposed to have handed over the smoking gun papers. She's a cutie.
So basically Rathergate was all part of some Liber8 terrorist plot? I knew it!
Bush's family no doubt at one point owned slaves and pushed the slavers agenda. Very interesting, how everyone here is so quick to jump on the bandwagon that President whitey was somehow wronged, despite being the evil racist - like we should all be happy that white america got to keep its puppet in power for four more years.
Of course, white Americans can only shout "NO", it doesn't really matter what the topic of conversation is because anything that takes us further away from the 1820s is bad and therefore must be resisted. Point out that Bush is a serial liar who avoided his duties to his country, NO! Point out that Barack Obama is a citizen of this country and has a real birth certificate, NO!
It goes back to the same issue every time, and no doubt a bunch of you will disagree with this incoherent rant but what you don't even realize is that you reflexive dismissal and denial of what is laid out clearly in front of you is, yet again, a privilege only to be found in White America.
So yeah, you all found one little 'ambiguity', one little point that ok, was technically false, but that doesn't change the fact you're all ignorant racists.
- MC Cralexander
H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and Beatrice Webb all visited the Soviet Union and were granted interviews with Stalin. These perceptive and acclaimed observers of their time wrote articles about how struck they were with the wisdom and vision of Stalin. So far as I know, there has never been a dramatization of how gullible and wrong such leftists were. There's a story here, but it has never been told and never will be told. But it keeps being reenacted.
I wish them well. I hope they have a huge budget and spend every cent. Whoever funds this tripe deserves the losses when it flops.
As to your other point, most conservatives were liberal when young, the rightward drift with age is natural.
Not always. Hillary! supposedly moved from a Goldwater girl to an Alinsky girl during college. But, more pertinent maybe, looking back, I was already a bit to the right of center during college some 40+ years ago. It was during Vietnam, and the protesting bothered me. Mostly, I just ignored it, and never, of course, participated in it. And, thought that it was somewhat unpatriotic to scam conscientious objector status, or even buying a doctor to get a disability exemption. But, I took the easy way out, just keeping my mouth shut. But, back then, I suspect that it was an unexamined conservatism, and not like hopefully I am today, conservative because I realized that progressive/liberal/socialist solutions cannot work because they are based on false premises, and will ultimately lead to an authoritarian state, if not totalitarianism.
Old C-SPAN video of Brent Bozell interviewing Mary Mapes about "Truth and Duty."
http://www.c-span.org/video/?190154-1/words-mary-mapes
Robert Redford only plays characters who are the best at what they do.
Butch Cassidy: best shooter
Indecent Proposal: best rich asshole
The Natural: best baseball player
All the President's Men: best investigative reporter
The Great Waldo Pepper: best pilot
This list goes on and on. I guess now he's more producer and funder than actor. But Redford has issues with self-admiration.
That's enough. Pretty A+ career right there. Also, it makes my wife happy to look at him, so there's that.
Each to his own. I will stick with Downhill Racer (I know it isn't that good - but I was still racing at the time) and Butch Cassidy. Maybe The Sting. Most of the rest of his stuff has always seemed a bit too preachy for my, admittedly conservative, tastes. And, maybe his sanctimonious role in All the President's Men is what really turned me off. And, comparing what Nixon did, to what Obama has and continues to do, makes the former look almost like a saint. They celebrated bringing down a President for behavior that today the same people, likely including Redford, would consider justified, because "we won".
Dan Rather is a potentially dramatic figure...a hero for these modern times, I agree Mr. Redford.
He definitely shone a light in the darkness of corporate malfeasance and oil-hungry, closed-minded imperialism, absolutely, sir.
Frankly, if I may so, you're an American classic, an icon. I love your movies.
Afterwards:
Dan Rather? I thought he might be dead.
Didn't he get caught in his own unethical hackery, done in by a likely over-sized ego, activist zeal and inflated sense of purpose?
Tank said:
The Sting
Butch Cassidy
The Natural
A River Runs Through It
In front of the camera, he did "Three Days of the Condor" and "Brubaker" which were excellent. Behind the camera, "Quiz Show" is still one of my all-time favorites. He is such a lefty, though.
"You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain."
I can't imagine why they'd want to make a movie about the elderly, villainous Dan Rather, instead of focusing on his crusading liberal-hero youth, unless they *want* to do a betrayal-of-principle tragic picture. It's like making a hagiographic film about Brezhnev.
Mary Mapes had been trying to get the dirt on Bush's TANG service since the 2000 election. She, and then Rather, became obsessed with this. The letters "mesh with the narrative!" They're "fake but accurate!" I cannot fathom what Redford thinks this movie will prove, or why anyone would be interested. He and Rather are both past it.
Bob Ellison @ 9:04,
Back when I followed LGF, I remember Johnson saying he was a liberal until 9/11. This event plus Bush's speech and behavior in its aftermath was his "road to Damascus" moment. He then made the then conventional left to neo-con pivot.
As to whether or not I am said Charles Johnson, you'll have to understand the W to solve the mystery.
Cheers.
"Some people do go left with age, though. Huffington, as you note. And then there is Richard Nixon. (Went left with wage and price controls, the EPA, etc.)
"I think the explanation is always money and power. These people do not crave, or even understand, morality and philosophy. They just want money and power.
"This is why rightists don't understand leftists. If your world-view requires that people are motivated by principles, you can't understand the Hillaries, Baracks, and Nixons of the world."
A veritable farrago of nonsense. Only in a time when the extreme right has pushed all political parameters rightward could Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or Richard Nixon be called "leftists." Of this trio, Nixon was the most "progressive" in some of his public policies, but that is partly due to greater variety within the Republican party at that time of political views--the party had not yet become the front group for the John Birch Society that it is today--and partly due to political pragmatism: Nixon knew that he was better advised putting certain policies in place to mollify the will of a great percentage of the electorate at that time. Clinton and Obama are both them completely worthless; Nixon is preferable by far to either of them.
I was raised in a Republican family and registered as a Republican at age 18. I voted for Jerry Ford in 1976 and (shudder) Ronald Reagan in 1980.
As I grew up and left home and started thinking for myself, I saw that the world is not as tidy or black and white as the rightists view it, and I changed my party affiliation to Democrat. At this point, I'm disgusted with the Democrats, who have moved rightward and are nearly as abject in their servility to the plutocrats as the Republicans, if less crazy and beholden to the idiocrats than the Republicans have become.
In my move leftward I have been drawn by the principles of honesty, ethical behavior, fairness, and compassion for others with which I was raised by my honest, decent midwestern Republican parents.
CWJ, the "Cheers" tells me you're from the UK.
Where, though, is the great right-to-left biography?
I really would like to read a book or see a movie on that. There have been a few attempts (David Frum, I'm looking at you, and I'm using this idiom because I think you're an idiot), but not much in the way of explaining why they went that way.
Witness is a fantastic exposition on how one man went from far left to far right.
I'd like to see a left-to-right example.
The only Robert Redford Movies I've seen (in order of liking them): Jeremiah Johnson, The Candidate, All the President's Men, The Great Gatsby, Out of Africa
Movies lots of other people have seen that I have not (in order of aversion): The Way We Were, The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
In my move leftward I have been drawn by the principles of honesty, ethical behavior, fairness, and compassion for others
OK..this ought to be fun....
Name three examples of leftys who illustrate these attributes.
Bonus points if they have had anywhere near the impact on history as Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. (or Castro, or Ortega, or Chavez, or.....)
Of course. The Hive takes care of its own.
And I'm guessing you're using "compassion" as its defined in the "liberal"* lexicon: willingness to force Peter to help Paul.
*and by "liberal" I mean of course "tax-happy, coercion-addicted, power-tripping State-fellators".
Witness is a fantastic exposition on how one man went from far left to far right.
This doesn't accurately capture Chambers' politics, I don't think. He was never "far left", which I usually see used to describe anarcho-syndicalists or Trotskyites who considered doctrinaire "Party" people like the young Chambers to be to their "right". And yes, in his spying days, Chambers was very much a CPUSA down-the-line doctrinaire Communist. He was interesting in that his post-Great-Purges arc didn't put him into the typical Trotskyite groups, but rather back into the Quaker-pacifist set which had originally led him to the Party.
Likewise, although he was very much of The Right after the Pumpkin Papers drama, I wouldn't call his National Review days "far right", either. His famous beef with Rand and the objectivists was only part of it, but he was still closer to the Nixon end of conservatism than WFB and the rest of his peers at the National Review. And obviously, he wasn't even in the same zip code as the Birchers that WFB drew a hard line against, who could credibly be called "far right".
Years ago, Redford played the role of another newsman, Bob Woodward, in "All the President's Men," the story of 2 dogged journalists who were wildly successful spoon-fed information by the Associate Director of the FBI.
Just so the record is clear... (there's no strike tag in Blogger comments)
Robert Cook, thanks for introducing me to the word "farrago". That's one I hadn't heard before.
Your other comments and words are familiar. "Veritable": throw it away; don't use it again. "Idiocrats": ditto. You sound stupid, and you're obviously trying to sound smart, using weird words like "farrago".
Michael K,
[As a right-to-left switcher] David Brooks comes to mind.
Really? He's not "left" even now; he's basically the NYT's idea of an "acceptable" conservative. But was he ever further right? I'm doubtful, having just watched a YouTube clip of Brooks (among others) in conversation with Milton Friedman. He looks to be still in high school (and one or two comments he made reinforce that impression), and he's defending Federal aid to higher education. Badly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRXEk7su62w&feature=youtu.be&t=4m21s
Robert Cook, I would also like to read more about your shift from right to left. I promise not to snark anymore. The shift is rare and fascinating, and I do think that rightists like me tend not to give leftists enough credit for actually trying to do the right thing: acting politically according to what their morals would dictate.
This is one of the big problems in American political debate.
The whole Rather/Mapes Rathergate aftermath has a creepy OJ-finding-the-REAL-killer vibe to it.
I really hope they spend a ton of money on this to see it tank at the box office. Drudge will have a field day with it. Mockery will ensue.
The prominent traits of democrat party members that have impressed themselves on me, aside from anti-American sentiment, are dishonesty, absence of ethics, and intransigent ignorance. Democrat party members will vilify "the rich", demonize wealthy conservative/libertarians, and proclaim that they "stand-up for the little guy", all while looking the other way when it comes to, for a few examples of filthy rich democrat hypocrites, the Clintons, Soros and Steyer, and Warren Buffet. They will be outraged by the name of a football team, yet breathlessly support a democrat candidate who lied about having Indian heritage. They will make spurious claims about how republican candidates behaved in high school or college, yet assert that a democrat's associations and past behavior bear no reflection on them, witness Obama and Rev Wright/Bill Ayers/Tony Rezko. The very week that people realized Obamacare would cause them to lose their insurance and lose their doctors, despite Obama's hundreds of lies to the contrary, Bill Moyers had the temerity to proclaim on his PBS program that the main difference between the two parties was that "We(democrats) care about the truth." I guess I could add self-satisfied arrogance to the list of identifying traits.
What we really want to know, Robert, is do you believe the "Rather letter" is legitimate or forged?
"OK..this ought to be fun....
"Name three examples of leftys who illustrate these attributes."
Martin Luther King; Cesar Chavez; The brothers Berrigan, (that's a twofer).
"You sound stupid, and you're obviously trying to sound smart, using weird words like 'farrago'."
What's weird about "farrago?"
As for the other words that irritate you, perhaps "veritable" could have been excised, but "idiocrats," (derived from the movie Idiocracy) is the perfect word to describe the mob of yahoos to whom the Republican party directs its messaging, for whom it tailors much of its policies,(although, really, they serve the wealthy elites), and from whose ranks come some of their elected members.
"What we really want to know, Robert, is do you believe the 'Rather letter' is legitimate or forged?"
I think the documents provided to 60 MINUTES were probably fakes. I do believe they describe the probable historical reality, so I guess you can peg me as a member of the "fake but accurate" crowd.
Oh, I'll add a postscript regarding "Rathergate": I think Dan Rather and the producers of the segment, prominently Mary Mapes, showed poor judgment and a too-casual regard for and adherence to basic journalistic standards to present these documents as being genuine. If they could not definitively authenticate the documents as genuine, they should have spiked the story.
Bob Ellison said "Charles Johnson of littlegreenfootballs made that tiny motion picture. That was when he was a right-winger, before his bizarre metamorphosis into left-winging."
In fact he was never right-wing, except in the sense that the left would defined as 'right-wing' anyone who strongly opposed islamo-fascism.
As I recall Charles' opinions on all other matters (to the extent that he mentioned them on the LGF blog) were all very much liberal.
Re the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, they were never "fake but accurate"
They were "true and accurate"
They made 4 claims about Kerry in 2004:
1) Claim: That he never threw away his medals. Fact: Kerry had a complete set of medals hanging on the wall of his Senate office. He later told reporters that he had actually thrown away a friend's medals as a favor to him.
2) Claim: Kerry spend Christmas in Cambodia taking a CIA guy up river. The CIA guy gave him his hat (pretty suspicious right there) and Kerry claimed that "To this day I carry the hat in my suitcase. I have the hat!" Fact: There were no operations on Christmas eve, the base Kerry was stationed at was 50 miles from the border and there was no water route that he could have taken had he wanted to.
3) Claim: Kerry did not say the things he said at the Winter Soldier hearings. Fact: There turned out to be video of Kerry saying some pretty horrid things.
4) Claim: His fellow sailors did not think he would make a good prez. Fact: 350 of his shipmates, who served with him in SVN, signed a petition saying he would not make a good president.
It is a shame that the term "Swiftboating" has come to mean some sort of unfair attack on a politician. Exactly the opposite of what it actually was. People who knew about Kerry's SVN service stating facts about him.
It was true and accurate.
It was also fair game because he made such a big issue of his service on Swiftboats.
John Henry
Robert Cook: " I do believe they describe the probable historical reality..."
LOL
No.
Not even close.
But you would need to have some familiarity with how the Reserves operate in particular with regards to physicals for pilots/backseaters who happen to be in non-flying billets as well as the standard Officer fitness process.
But then again, Robert Cook is one of those insane "believe anything told to them by other lefties" 9-11 and "October Surprise" truthers.
Thus does political orientation and profound/astonishing ignorance of the subject at hand lead one Robert Cook over the edge into accepting another hilariously inept and BS assertion.
Gee, I did NOT see that coming....
Redford gave some very erratic performances in his acting career. Mostly though, I think he did well to show up wearing the right clothes. Really now, In Out of Africa, I kept waiting for the director to jump into the scene, give him a kick in the ass, and say "Wake up Bob, we're making a movie here." In Havana he looked like he was wondering around looking for the camera. I can only imagine what a dreadful movie this will be based on this material, although it might turn out to be full of similar laughs.
Redford will do a bad Rather imitation, Shatner twenty years ago would have nailed it.
And who, pray tell, is playing Charles Johnson in this romantic farce?
"Martin Luther King; Cesar Chavez; The brothers Berrigan, (that's a twofer)."
Cesar Chaven--a thug.
MLK--all right when he was fighting for liberty against forced segregration; but always with a suspicious collectivist background, and in his later years a collectivist. Also somewhat of a phony, likle his hero Gandhi. Preached "non-violence" but was willing to use the power of the State to achieve his ends.
The Berrigans--don't know much about them, but as leftists I assume they alos believe in using the Mailed Fist to achieve their vision of Utopia.
Over 75% of Americans believe that President Kennedy's assassination was in some form a conspiracy involving more than lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald. This despite being the most researched assassination incident in the history of the world with all available evidence supporting only the conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald alone was responsible.
While Redford's day has passe, he is clearly looking to influence the future meme, to cast at least some "reasonable" doubt on the truth of what happened, to aid futre leftists in their training up future generations to mistruct reality unless it is told from the approved left wing point of view.
It's the left's long game. Not sop much about today or even 2016, but to confuse and, yes, indoctrinate young America. They already have American Universities and the National Education Association and Major parts of American Culture. Now just to make everyone understand "fake but accurate" . . . .
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