Ooh, too delicious! WaPo review of anti-Hillary book slaps GOP gullibility

[Nothing Without Hope]

And he also hits Rove and Bush with a very satisfying punch. We recognize the mindless drones he's talking about here because we witness them as freepers and trolls on the internet. These people really do belong in a different species - Homo contemptibletrollus.

Read the whole article - it's a treat! And among the gibes is also is hard-hitting political commentary for anyone who isn't a H. contemptibletrollus.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/27/AR2005062701325_pf.html
washingtonpost.com

Right-Wing Sucker Punch

By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, June 28, 2005; A15

Edward Klein has written one hell of an exposé. His new book on Hillary Clinton, "The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President," insinuates epic mendacities, sapphic sex, fiscal improprieties and marital rape. All of that Klein documents either vaguely or not at all and is so beyond belief and good taste that the very fact his book is selling like proverbial hotcakes starkly exposes the anti-Clinton people as the village idiots of our time. It takes one to buy this book.

(snip)

His book is flying off the shelves -- more than 350,000 shipped. The other day it was No. 4 on Amazon's bestseller list and was sold out at my sedate neighborhood bookstore when I checked. It has become a Rorschach of conservative madness -- proof that they will buy anything, no matter how badly done, that attacks the Clintons or liberalism. Klein's book is just the most recent example. He looked at conservatives the way P.T. Barnum looked over his audience: "There's a sucker born every minute," Barnum said. Ed is nodding all the way to the bank.

This calculating contempt for the IQ of right-wingers is not limited to opportunistic authors, of course. Last week it was demonstrated by Karl Rove, of all people. Speaking to the New York State Conservative Party, the president's most important adviser had this to say: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." Actually, a Los Angeles Times poll taken in November 2001 showed Bush with an approval rating approaching 90 percent and Democrats almost as supportive as Republicans for going into Afghanistan and pounding the Taliban.

So Rove's crack is simply not true. I attribute it, possibly, to his deep, subconscious shame over never having served in the military or, more likely, a cynical appreciation that his audience would rather hate than think. So he patronized them, knowing that they would not for a moment connect such simplistic thinking to the quagmire of Iraq, the debacle of Social Security reform or the dash back to Washington from Texas so that George W. Bush could sign a bill attempting to keep the sadly brain-dead Terri Schiavo alive. The real reason such conservatives frequently wear Gucci loafers is that they cannot tie their own shoes.

(snip)

Edited to add the email address at which you can tell the writer of this review what you think of his comments. You can bet he'll get LOTS of hate mail from H. contemptibletrollus specimens. Let's give him some DU support!
[e-mail]

[Wickerman]

1. The real reason such conservatives frequently wear Gucci loafers is that

The real reason such conservatives frequently wear Gucci loafers is that they cannot tie their own shoes.

it bore repeating.

:rofl:

[Nothing Without Hope]

2. Yeah, that was one of my favorites too! A classic to savor.

This is the kind of ridicule that can do some real damage to the Administration pretenses of credibility and invulnerability. Humor, carefully wielded, can be a potent weapon.

Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense. –Mark Twain

On the other hand, gullibility can be dangerous:

"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." -- Martin Luther King Jr.

[geckosfeet]

3. good slap down of Klein by Joe Connason on Air America last week.

[Griffy]

5. that was great!.. watch sundance version.. see his face!

I love when Joe says "thats a lie, your lying right now" .. was great! Al had a good appraoch to.. kept balance and let Joe be bad cop!

[Nothing Without Hope]

13. OMG! This is frigging hilarious! Al Franken and Joe Conason CRUSH Klein

Al begins by asking Klein, in that serious-sounding tone that tells you to watch for incoming if you're the recipient, "Would you say this is your BEST book?" (This is an approximate quote from memory.) Ed avows that it is. And then the fireworks begin. Al and Joe show a brazen lie from the book, make Ed squirm, go on to demolish more lies and false statements, and then when Al comes up on a break, he says they'll be back for more and "it'll be FUN, Ed, HONEST!"

I haven't even heard Part II yet, and I'm :rofl:

[gratuitous]

19. I really liked it right at the end

Paraphrase, but close:

FRANKEN: And I sincerely, really, want to say thank you, Ed, for appearing on the show.

KLEIN: {Icy silence}

FRANKEN: You're welcome.

[Nothing Without Hope]

9. Here are links to audio files of this Conason&Franken/Klein confrontation:

From the Crooks & Liars site (I'll give the permalink, but there's a lot of stuff there, as it's for the whole day):
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/06/24.html#a3615

Clickable audio links - WMA format:
Part I:
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/franken_klein_1.wma
Part II:
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/franken_klein_2.wma

Update from the AAR site:

http://shows.airamericaradio.com/alfrankenshow/node/2883
FOR THE RECORD: KLEIN WAS TOLD ABOUT CONASON

For those who just heard the interview with Ed Klein: Al called Adrian Zackheim, and was assured that Klein had been told that Joe Conason would be on the program. But it wasn't necessarily a lie. "He's been through so much this week," Zackheim told Al, "that maybe he forgot."

[drm604]

22. It was hilarious

the way Klein whined about how he wasn't told that Conason would be there. What was the big deal? Did he think Conason was going to hit him or something? :rofl:

[Nothing Without Hope]

24. Did you see the update from Al Franken's AAR page on this? I posted

it elsewhere in this thread, at the end of this post:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1891966&mesg_id=1892134

Poor Ed has been through a lot this week!

:rofl:

[drm604]

34. Are you talking about this:

FOR THE RECORD: KLEIN WAS TOLD ABOUT CONASON

For those who just heard the interview with Ed Klein: Al called Adrian Zackheim, and was assured that Klein had been told that Joe Conason would be on the program. But it wasn't necessarily a lie. "He's been through so much this week," Zackheim told Al, "that maybe he forgot."

Yes, i saw that. My first thought was, well maybe he did forget (I like to give people the benefit of the doubt). But the more I thought about it the less likely it seemed like that could be the case. Conason being there was obviously a big deal to him. If the thought of facing Conason was that objectionable, surely he would have remembered being told about it! I think this was another example of typical rightwing maneuvering - object that some aspect of the interview is unfair so that you can later use it as an excuse if the interview doesn't go well. Also you can point to it as another example of those mean ol' liberals once again mistreating the upstanding but beleaguered conservative by outnumbering him during the interview. I swear they must have a playbook for this stuff. Their shenanigans backfired this time and I suspect that they will continue to do so more and more as people catch onto them.

[Nothing Without Hope]

35. yes, and that resonable-sounding tone from Al and Joe was just

devastating through it all. You could hear their contempt - it wasn't fiery, it was deadly cold and, I thought, very convincing up against his mendacity and whining.

[drm604]

36. Absolutely!

"It'll be fun, Ed, honest!"

:rofl: :bounce: :rofl:

[Imagevision]

39. Klein is a flake, that's why he was pissed Connason was there!

Joe Connason made Klein appear as nothing more then 2-bit reporter with nothing more then exagerations and purposely omitted facts in telling of his Hillary smear book. Franken and Connason wish he never showed up for the interview.

[Nothing Without Hope]

4. Please note that I've added the email address of the WaPo review author

to the end of the opening post. Let's give him some support and show the WaPo that we appreciate HONESTY for a change!
:applause: :applause: :applause:

[globalvillage]

6. Thanks.

Thanks for the post and for the e-mail address. Just sent my 'thank you' to Mr Cohen.

[woodleydem]

7. That was hilarious. I espcially liked the village idiot comments:

"All of that Klein documents either vaguely or not at all and is so beyond belief and good taste that the very fact his book is selling like proverbial hotcakes starkly exposes the anti-Clinton people as the village idiots of our time. It takes one to buy this book."

or this doozy:

"Right-wingers are the useful idiots of our times and while they have their occasional left-wing counterparts, the lefties will not buy essentially the same book over and over again -- if only because they lack the funds."

:toast:

[ComerPerro]

8. Great lines in there. I liked:

All of that Klein documents either vaguely or not at all and is so beyond belief and good taste that the very fact his book is selling like proverbial hotcakes starkly exposes the anti-Clinton people as the village idiots of our time. It takes one to buy this book

It has become a Rorschach of conservative madness -- proof that they will buy anything, no matter how badly done, that attacks the Clintons or liberalism. Klein's book is just the most recent example. He looked at conservatives the way P.T. Barnum looked over his audience: "There's a sucker born every minute," Barnum said. Ed is nodding all the way to the bank.

[dryan]

10. Excerpt in this month's

"Vanity Fair". Pretty ho hum if you asked me. Nothing that hasn't already been printed in other magazines.

[Jackpine Radical]

41. My favorite line...

"The real reason such conservatives frequently wear Gucci loafers is that they cannot tie their own shoes."

[AX10]

11. Thanks

[PATRICK]

12. Almost a DU essay

Tis is a RARE time when the actual derisive rhetoric employed here seems to have found colorful echos at WaPo. It is not only nice to see the "wise" pushed over the edge but that they are capable of the piquant turn of phrase still instead of the sly putdowns of decent Dems previously their standard fare.

The more they think about that Rove comment, the more their prose boils. keep it up, liberal press.

I think, like the Sen. McCarthy turning point where he stupidly attacked the army as being full of Commies, Rove has lashed the stars and stripes of the military-leaning WaPo over the top of the Hill. If there was an Eisenhower to slap him down we might even expect a resignation. Instead we would be content to see Rove dangling in a hot wind and no one to carry his water.

[Nothing Without Hope]

14. kick n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

15. kick n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

16. John Stuart Mill weighs in - not bad for a dead guy!

"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives." -- John Stuart Mill

Clearly, Klein has done some market research! :crazy:

[Nederland]

20. Have you read John Stuart Mill?

His bashing of conservatives comes from being a libertarian, not a liberal.

[Nothing Without Hope]

25. True, but the bashing is still entertaining in the current context.

and his "tyranny of the majority" concept has its own relevance given our one-party government.

[cally]

17. What happened to the Washington Post

Maybe the email onslaught for the Downing Street Memos and against Dana Milbank made them realize we notice their bias.

[Nothing Without Hope]

27. Did you see this thread on that? The WaPo "ombudsman"

ignored Rep. Conyers' devastating letter of complaint about the Milbank travesty, but he did admit that it was not a good idea for the editors to assign a columnist to cover a news event. As if that required any deep analysis to perceive:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3950951

There was a torrent of critical e-mails and calls about a Washington Sketch column on June 17 by Post columnist Dana Milbank that appeared in the news section and was about the unofficial hearing on Iraq held by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and other opponents of the war the day before. I thought it was a serious mistake for editors to assign a columnist to cover a news event. There are large numbers of people who oppose the war and care about what Conyers was trying to accomplish, and a reporter should have covered the event as news.

[GOPFighter]

18. One of the best columns I've read anywhere!

Richard Cohen is my kind of writer. He writes from the heart, from emotion. He exasperates me sometimes, but when he hits a home run, like this, it's usually a grand-slam.

It's great to see someone slam the RW like the RW slams us day after day after day after day.

"...the very fact his book is selling like proverbial hotcakes starkly exposes the anti-Clinton people as the village idiots of our time."

"...Klein set out to expose the right wing for the gullible nincompoops they are. He has succeeded, and vast riches await him."

"So Rove's crack is simply not true. I attribute it, possibly, to his deep, subconscious shame over never having served in the military or, more likely, a cynical appreciation that his audience would rather hate than think."

"If I were a right-winger, I would be offended by both Klein and Rove. But I am not a conservative, and so I can only wonder at their gullibility. Right-wingers are the useful idiots of our times and while they have their occasional left-wing counterparts, the lefties will not buy essentially the same book over and over again -- if only because they lack the funds."

:rofl:

[realFedUp]

21. Richard Mellon Scaife must be buying the pulp fiction in cases....

outfitting his many outhouses.

[wryter2000]

23. I think I'm in love!

The real reason such conservatives frequently wear Gucci loafers is that they cannot tie their own shoes.

Who is this person? :loveya:

[Nothing Without Hope]

26. I LOVE his perfect hit on ROVE:

So Rove's crack is simply not true. I attribute it, possibly, to his deep, subconscious shame over never having served in the military or, more likely, a cynical appreciation that his audience would rather hate than think.

:nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke:

[Nothing Without Hope]

28. kick n/t

[kitkat65]

29. It takes a village to raise an idiot. n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

30. kick n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

31. a last kick for the night n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

32. Okay, just one more kick and it's lights out.

And THIS time I MEAN it. :boring:

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. kick

[Nothing Without Hope]

37. kick - the clearly spoken contempt for the Bush administration in this

WaPo article is significant, even if it is "only" a review.

[paineinthearse]

38. Restores some hope in WaPo

Great find, thanks for the post.

[Nothing Without Hope]

40. kick - this article is a sign for hope. n/t