Script Never Dies

[Uncle Joe]

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SCRIPT NEVER DIES! The press corps grossly misbehaved, the boys say. Then they say it was all Al Gore’s fault! // link // print // previous // next //
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2006

PART 2—SCRIPT NEVER DIES: They bury it deep inside their new book. But Harris and Halperin tell an astonishing story about the outcome of Campaign 2000—the campaign which changed the course of world history. How in the world did a guy like George Bush ever make his way to the White House? According to Harris and Halperin, “ number of members of the Gang of 500 are convinced that the main reason George W. Bush won the White House” is because of the “hostile” work of the reporters who covered Candidate Gore! (See THE DAILY HOWLER, 10/24/06.) Indeed—according to Harris and Halperin, these members of the Gang of 500 “are convinced” that Bush ended up in the White House just because of the hostile work of three Gore reporters! (Ceci Connolly, “Kit” Seelye, Sandra Sobieraj.) And Harris and Halperin seem to agree with this general assessment. “No one who kept a close eye on the media coverage of the 2000 campaign would deny that the press corps assigned to Gore was more aggressive and more hostile,” they write. And they affirm the judgment of Eric Boehlert, who wrote the following in Rolling Stone: “Journalists just refused to drop unflattering Gore stories, no matter what the facts revealed.” In the end, the gentlemen reach a sagacious conclusion about the effects of their cohort’s misconduct. “Not every election is a fair fight,” they write (page 130). “The media...helped Bush tell his good story about himself, and helped Republicans tell a bad story about Gore.”

Considering who the writers are, this analysis is really quite amazing. Seven years later, Harris and Halperin—major press corps insiders—have finally started telling the truth about the conduct of Campaign 2000! But they aren’t just telling the truth very slowly—they’re also telling the truth unobtrusively. Although their analysis is a bombshell, they toss it off as a minor aside deep inside a much longer book. Nothing to look at, they seem to be saying, as they describe their cohort’s astounding misconduct. Nothing to look at, they seem to be saying, as they tell the truth slowly—and oddly.

<snip>

For the record, Harris and Halperin vastly understate the misconduct involved in this story. For example, did Ceci Connolly contribute to Gore losing control of his image “at some point along the way?” In fact, Connolly invented wild tales about Gore for twenty straight months during Campaign 2000, turning in one of the most egregious performances in modern journalistic history. Yep! “No matter what the facts revealed,” she refused to drop her unflattering stories—and she refused to stop dreaming up new ones. But according to Harris and Halperin’s clumsy locution, this gross misconduct on Connolly’s part wasn’t the cause of Gore’s problem; rather, it was “representative” of same. No, that sentence doesn’t quite parse. (Note: When professional writers start writing unclearly, they’re often trying to obscure, not reveal.) But later, Harris and Halperin do explain what they mean, rather clearly. If Gore had been a more adept candidate, he “would have worked to defuse the danger early on,” they intone. Somehow, Candidate Gore could—and should—have stopped Ceci Connolly’s gross misconduct.

Unfortunately, the boys absent-mindedly forget to tell us how Gore might have done that. All through their chapter on Campaign 2000, they keep reciting this puzzling script; they tell us, several times, that Gore “let” himself be abused by crackpots like Connolly. “In the end, Gore lost because he let his bad story resonate much more strongly than his good story,” they write on page 132 (our emphasis). But then, on page 128, the boys have already said much the same thing; writing of the endless stories their cohort gimmicked up about Gore, Harris and Halperin say this: “That nearly every one of these controversies was overplayed or mischaracterized by the Old and New Media might be unfair, but that does not alter the fact that Gore violated numerous Trade Secrets by neglecting to confront the stories.” But if reporters are simply making up stories—and if they refuse to stop telling these stories, “no matter what the facts reveal”—how is a candidate supposed to “confront” this, to stop this from happening? Absent-mindedly—and behaving like good, well-trained boys—Harris and Halperin forget to say! Amazing, isn’t it? These boys describe astounding misconduct on the part of their own “influential” colleagues. But in the end—of course!—it was all Al Gore’s fault! Once again using the Baby-Talk categories they spread all through their puzzling book, the gentlemen offer this weird thought at the end of their chapter on Campaign 2000:

<snip>

[Uncle Joe]

1. Self serving shameless kick

:kick:

[ThomCat]

2. This needs to get out there.

People need to know that neo-con enablers, media hacks who are certainly not liberal hijacked the media's news function to progagandize for the right.

And they're still doing it. Only the extent changes from time to time.
x(

[Uncle Joe]

3. Thanks ThomCat, some people will say this is old news,

but it's as current as Bush's incompetence, and the body count in Iraq.