Boxer's Spine Gets Her Cut Off at the Knees

[papau]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-carlson27jan27.story
MARGARET CARLSON
Boxer's Spine Gets Her Cut Off at the Knees
Margaret Carlson

January 27, 2005

You wouldn't know it from reading the newspapers, but Sen. Barbara Boxer served her country valiantly last week. In her grilling of Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice, Boxer finally named the elephant in the hearing room, which is more than the war itself. It's the lies that got us there.

Finally, a national television audience could watch a member of Congress ask tough questions in language that didn't pussyfoot around. From all the commissions, studies and news reports, we now know pretty much what Rice knew and when she knew it. What we don't yet have is an explanation for why Rice didn't tell us what she knew and at times even told us the opposite.

Boxer asked Rice if "your loyalty to the mission … to sell this war overwhelmed your respect for the truth." Rice, without explaining a thing, coolly accused Boxer of impugning her integrity. No explanation of why her stories of yellowcake uranium, aluminum tubes and a potential Saddam Hussein mushroom cloud did not constitute an (over)selling of the war. <snip>

The Los Angeles Daily News accused Boxer of embarrassing herself with uncivil bombast. "The edge in her voice was jarring," wrote the San Francisco Chronicle. The Washington Post's Colbert King took on Boxer for "slurring Rice." In blog- land, Boxer was called, among other things, "old, burnt out, shrill and saggy looking."

Perhaps a more diplomatic interrogation could have saved herself some grief. But it's hard to find that pitch-perfect voice within the range of civility on these subjects. On Wednesday, the U.S. suffered its biggest one-day loss in Iraq. The war's body count is at 1,400. Insurgents vow a bloodbath on Sunday. In Washington, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice sail on, and everybody's mad at Barbara Boxer.

[dpbrown]

1. Boxer is a hero

Ask the questions that need to be asked.

[noamnety]

2. A lot of people have problems

with strong women. Sounds like the LA Daily News, the SF Chronicle, and the Post are having a problem with the fact that Boxer doesn't "know her place as a woman" - should be serving up homemade cookies in a frilly apron.

[mediaman007]

12. They were bought off by the administration.

The LA Daily News, the SF Chronicle, and the Post are obviously be paid by the Bush* administration. I think any media organization that strikes down administration critics should be held up to its motives.

Having the administration pay some media puts any media in question if they are supporting its policies. The LA Daily News, the SF Chronicle, and the Post will have to prove to the public they have integrity. We have the right to question them now.

[DearAbby]

19. People should be asking the Editors of these News Papers

The LA Daily News, the SF Chronicle, and the Post, How much is the Bush Cabal paying you? Each time there are untruths printed or reported on MSM, Should be asked How much of the balance in your savings Tax payers monies? What is the amount of your PAYOLA?

Of course too, good journalists blast a person on their appearence...real newsworthy stuff there :crazy:

Response to these articles and reports should be swift...What is your cut on the Payola?

[electropop]

15. It's standard GOP tactics.

When you are confronted with irrefutable proof of your misdeeds, attack the messenger. It's not possible to refute the facts, so they resort to name-calling and character assassination. But even for that, the best they can come up with is "jarring" or "shrill"? Are those bad things? For goodness sake, it's time _somebody_ jarred this nation out of its sleep.

[atommom]

18. Isn't that a big part of Condi's appeal for the Repubs?

She's a smart, educated woman, but clearly "knows her place," and will never, never deviate from the party line.

[2Design]

3. so few speak the truth - but the media is really big part of the

problem - they are not longer part of the solution

media slurs anyone who is not in 'heil' mode - it is incredible how lock step they are

even still bringing bogus cases against clinton - yet nothing against *

The dan rather thing - the truth was there - but they concentrated on the bogus document rove gave to them -

everything is upside down

[asjr]

7. No wonder our country is bankrupt. Look at all the

money spent buying off the press. Our money!

[mevans426]

9. Wouldn't it be nice...

...if there were some faction of the mainstream media that reflexively parroted every Democratic spin? The GOP never seems to have a problem getting their perspective elevated to conventional wisdom.

[kris10ep]

4. The Boxer Rebellion

Barbara Boxer is a model of what politicians should be...never compromising what you believe.

The Boxer Rebellion
By John Nichols, The Nation.

Give Barbara Boxer credit for sparking the most engaged debate that the Senate has yet seen over the Bush administration lies that led the United States into the quagmire that is Iraq.

Boxer, the California Democrat who has been increasingly vocal in her objections to the administration's reign of error and excess, seized the opening provided by President Bush's nomination of Condoleezza Rice to serve as secretary of state to try and force a necessary discussion about the misstatements, misconceptions and misdeeds that Rice and others in the administration used to make the "case" for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. And, to the surprise even of some war foes, she got it.

Yes, of course, Rice's confirmation was certain. In a Senate where the balance is now tipped 55-45 toward a Republican caucus that for the most part puts party loyalty above duty to country, and where there are still too many Democrats who continue to preach the failed "can't-we-all-just-get-along" mantra that has relegated the party to minority status, there was never any chance that the national security advisor's record of failure and deception would prevent her from taking charge of the State Department.

But Rice's road to Foggy Bottom proved to be far rockier than had been expected. Tuesday's Senate debate on her nomination was one of the most charged that the chamber has seen in recent years, and while Rice survived, she did not finish the day unscathed. Senator after senator rose to recall what Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., described as Rice's "false reasons" for going to war, and to charge, as Kennedy did, that had Rice told the truth "it might have changed the course of history."

more......

http://alternet.org/story/21098/

[newyawker99]

10. Hi kris10ep!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[jandrok]

5. Boxer is DEFINITELY a hero!

I have the utmost admiration and respect for her. She epitomizes what it means to be a public servant.

I don't live in California, but she's still MY senator.

[David__77]

6. We need that voice of sanity.

It must be joined by others and become the voice of the newly-aggressive Democratic Party. Away with the establishment!

[realFedUp]

8. You gotta go out on a limb to snag the sweetist fruit...

but the limb's also in danger of getting
sawed off...

I don't think Maggie Carlson reads DU.

[BamaBecky]

11. So they attack her age, and not the issues!!!!!!!!!!!! Such nonsense! eom

:mad:

[bemildred]

13. They better not piss her off. nt

[Canuckistanian]

14. "old, burnt out, shrill and saggy looking."

It's almost predictable that the ad hominem attacks begin as soon as their arguments fail.

[Tamyrlin79]

16. Margaret Carlson is a Dumbfuck.

And a republican hack to boot. Can't stand her any time she is on the Capital Gang.

She has no grasp of Barbara Boxer. Bloggers on Free Republic might have called her shrill and burnt out, but that has not been my experience at any site I've been to or any blog I've read (on admittedly left-leaning sites). Carlson makes it sound as if all bloggers on both sides think Boxer went over the line, when the truth is we here are holding her in high admiration right now for what she did.

[Be Brave]

21. Gee, our TV sets must be beaming different versions of

Margaret Carlson into our living rooms. Either that, or you think everyone you see on TV is a republican hack.

[glitch]

17. Oooh - LA Times brings out the big guns. Watch the whores scurry to

reframe. Too late! They can't, the truth is loose on the Net.
Boxer Rules.

[Donailin]

20. Screw up/Tell a Lie, you get praised and promoted

Tell the truth/put your job on the line and you get demonized and demoted:

A sample:


Rush didn't go down for his drug use and sales
O'Reilly didn't go down for sexual harassment
Newt didn't go down for adultery
Tenet did not go down for bad intelligence
Condi didn't go down for 911 intelligence failure and lying about Saddam
Gonzales didn't go down for pushing torture
Bush didn't go down for lying first term
Cheney didn't go down for pushing the war and awarding no bid contracts to Halliburton
Ashcroft didn't go down for Guantanimo or violating our constitutional rights w/ patriot act
Rumsfeld didn't go down for authorizing torture and wrong about "greeted as liberators"
Wolfowitz didn't go down for pushing the war before 911 through PNAC
Scalia didn't go down for not excusing himself for conflict of interest
Michael Powell didn't go down for selling out the media to defence contractors
Ken Blackwell didn't go down for stealing Ohio for Bush plus breaking various election laws
Kathrine Harris didn't go down for stealing Florida in 2000
Zell Miller didn't go down for sabotaging his party
Rove didn't go down for promoting a campaign full of lies and slander
Tony Blair didn't go down for misleading the Brits
Berlusconi didn't go down for his corruption
Bob Dole didn't go down for slandering Kerry
Novak didn't go down for treason

BUT:

Paul O'niell went down for telling the truth
Christi Todd Whitman went down for opposing Bush
Michael Moore was ostracized by MSM for opposing Bush
Linda Rondstadt went down for opposing Bush
The Dixie Chicks went down for opposing Bush
Dan Rather went down for opposing Bush
Howard Stern went down for opposing Bush
Howard Dean went down for opposing Bush
John Kerry went down for opposing Bush
Kofi Annan almost went down for opposing Bush

Only absolute power can keep the truth from setting us free.