Al Gore returns ... and spreads some falsehoods (10/3)

By Ben Fritz

As Al Gore has moved back into the public eye recently with aggressive speeches challenging the record of the Bush administration, he has been the subject of harsh criticism. In many ways, it’s been a replay of the way he was treated by the media during the 2000 campaign. Then and now, pundits, politicians and Republican operatives are spending most of their time analyzing Gore’s motivations or accusing him of lying. Many of these accusations were exaggerations, half-truths or outright fabrications, such as the myth that Gore claimed to have "invented the Internet." But given his largely media-created reputation, why has Gore been giving ammunition to his critics with factual errors and distorted claims in his last two major speeches?

Speaking Wednesday at the Brookings Institution, a left-leaning think tank, Gore blamed the failing economy on President Bush’s policies and derided his Social Security plan. "Thank goodness," Gore stated, "that President Bush did not succeed in persuading Congress to privatize Social Security and invest the trust fund into the stock market just before it collapsed." But President Bush never had an opportunity to invest the trust fund in the stock market “just before it collapsed.” The NASDAQ famously began its precipitous decline in March 2000, while the Dow Jones index began to seriously decline in spring of 2001, soon after Bush took office and well before any major policy change could have possibly been implemented.

Furthermore, President Bush never advocated investing the trust fund in the stock market. He supports a partial privatization plan that would have let individuals voluntarily invest a portion of the Social Security taxes in the private investment vehicle of their choice, which could be stocks, bonds or something else. It was actually President Clinton, Gore’s former boss, who advocated investing part of the Social Security trust fund in the stock market in his 1999 State of the Union speech, which of course took place over one year before the stock market’s collapse.

Gore also engaged in some misleading rhetoric in his speech last week on Iraq and the war on terror. As Mickey Kaus has pointed out, Gore misstated Bush chief of staff Andrew Card's much-criticized rationale for the timing of the administration's press offensive in support of taking on Iraq during his Sept. 23 speech on Iraq and the war on terror. Card told the New York Times, "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August." Gore, however, misquoted Card as saying, "Quote, 'From an advertising point of view, you don't launch a new product line until after Labor Day,' end quote." Kaus correctly points out that this makes the statement appear more political by linking it directly to Labor Day, the traditional start of the election season, and substitutes the loaded term "advertising" to describe the administration's efforts to garner support for a potential war.

In the same speech, Gore went on to accuse the Republican National Committee of running ads "publicly taunting Democrats with the political consequences of a no vote." The RNC is not running any such ads, though other Republican committees may be.

The attacks on Gore have been some of the outrageous in recent memory -- he isn't nearly as flagrant a liar as many of his critics have accused him of being (as this Washington Monthly article demonstrated). But it’s still his responsibility as a national leader to get his facts straight, something he hasn’t done enough recently.

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10/3/2002 10:06:35 AM EST |

The strange disappearance of the "not interested" quote, continued (10/3)

By Brendan Nyhan

The omission of the context for Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's speech on the Senate floor on Sept. 25 and the debate it triggered is becoming more pathological. Now the key quote -- President Bush implying that Senate Democrats are "not interested in the security of the American people" -- is disappearing from generalized reports on the alleged politicization of a potential war in Iraq and the war on terror.

On September 27, ABC's Claire Shipman reported on the question of whether President Bush is politicizing the war on terror on "World News Tonight." She did not mention the "not interested" quote, presenting a less controversial one instead.

And, in a new piece for Newsweek on the alleged politicization of a potential war in Iraq, Howard Fineman carefully avoids the "not interested" quote. He writes, "weeks of [Bush] accusing Democrats of caring more about 'the special interests than protecting American security'" was "a line of attack that sent the city’s top Democrat, Sen. Tom Daschle, into a husky-voiced tirade." Where's the "not interested" quote that was the center of the whole debate? Nowhere to be found. And Fineman's quotation of Bush appears to be incorrect -- it does not appear anywhere in the Nexis news database, Google or on the White House website (though it resembles similar statements made by Bush in recent weeks).

It's well established that a specific statement was the key to this controversy. By omitting President Bush's much-criticized statement, journalists not only don't tell the whole story; they blatantly misrepresent an important political debate.

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Related links:
-The incompetent reporting of Tom Daschle's speech (Brendan Nyhan, 10/1/02)
-"Not interested" in the truth? (Brendan Nyhan, 9/29/02)
-Post mortem (Brendan Nyhan, 9/28/02)
-GOP tag team drags down Daschle debate (Brendan Nyhan, 9/28/02)

10/3/2002 09:39:26 AM EST |

The incompetent reporting of Tom Daschle's speech (10/1)

By Brendan Nyhan

Never underestimate the incompetence of the Washington press corps. That's the lesson of sad tales like the reporting of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's speech on the Senate floor Wednesday. Daschle specifically objected to a statement President Bush made in New Jersey on Sept. 23, quoting it directly. Yet the Washington Times editorial page, NBC, CNN, CBS and the Wall Street Journal editorial board have all erroneously suggested that Daschle was responding to a different, more mild statement Bush made later in the day, which could have the effect of making Daschle look like he was overreacting.

During his speech, Daschle slammed Bush for unfairly implying that Senate Democrats are "not interested in the security of the American people" - a statement from a speech Bush made in New Jersey. Discussing his dispute with Senate Democrats over legislation that would create the Department of Homeland Security, the President said, "The House responded, but the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people," though he later added that "this isn't a partisan issue."

Daschle was quite specific that he was referring to this statement and even cited a newspaper article that featured the quote. "The president is quoted in The Washington Post this morning as saying that the Democratic-controlled Senate is 'not interested in the security of the American people,'" he said before repeating the "not interested" phrase three more times for emphasis as he denounced the president. Yet a number of press outlets have gotten this key piece of context completely wrong when reporting this story.

The troubles began the morning after Daschle's speech. On NBC's "Today," host Ann Curry and reporter Campbell Brown both quoted a different statement Bush made on Sept. 23 at a political fundraiser for Doug Forrester, the Republican Senate candidate in New Jersey. Bush said then, "My message to the Senate is: You need to worry less about special interest in Washington and more about the security of the American people." While Daschle may object to this quote as well, he specifically cited the "not interested" statement - reporters have an obligation to accurately report this. By framing Daschle's speech as a response to a milder statement from Bush, they legitimized Republican objections that Daschle's response was overblown and inappropriate.

By the end of the week, Curry and Brown's bungling seemed like par for the course. The same morning they were mischaracterizing Daschle's speech, CBS reporter Bill Plante was citing the same incorrect quote on the CBS "Early Show". On Friday, the Wall Street Journal editorial board led off their CNBC panel with the wrong quote. And on Sunday, CNN's Wolf Blitzer played it before a clip of Daschle during a "Late Edition" interview with Senator John McCain, R-AZ.

Things continued to go downhill on Sunday, when the Washington Times published a long editorial premised on the false assumption that Daschle was responding to the incorrect "worry less" quote (I dissected this in detail on Sunday). In the process, the Times quoted directly from Daschle's speech, but somehow failed to grasp the source of the key "not interested" phrase, which Washington Times reporters Bill Sammon accurately reported as triggering Daschle's speech in two separate news reports last week.

The editors failed to run a correction Monday, but in a response to an email from me Washington Times editorial page editor Tony Blankley told me late yesterday afternoon that the paper would issue one soon. The "clarification", which ran today, states, "we're informed that Mr. Daschle's outburst actually came in response to comments made several hours earlier by the president," but never actually quotes the statement in question. We can only wonder how members of the national press corps continue to get away with such obvious mistakes.

Update 8:04 AM 10/3/02:: I've found one more example of this phenomenon -- Peter A. Brown's column in the Orlando Sentinel on Sept. 27.

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Related links:
-"Not interested" in the truth? (Brendan Nyhan, 9/29/02)
-The big NEA-Sept. 11 lie, cont'd. (Brendan Nyhan, 9/18/02)
-The big NEA-Sept. 11 lie (Brendan Nyhan, 9/5/02)

10/1/2002 07:22:39 AM EST |

"Not interested" in the truth? (9/29)

The Washington Times gets its facts utterly wrong in an attack on Tom Daschle.
By Brendan Nyhan

In a stunning display of extreme journalistic sloppiness or outright dishonesty, a Washington Times editorial today claims that Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle's denunciation of President Bush was prompted by a different statement than the one Daschle actually quoted.

Daschle's widely publicized speech on the Senate floor Wednesday attacked Bush for implying that Senate Democrats are "not interested in the security of the American people." Bush said this during a speech in New Jersey on Sept. 23 when he was discussing his dispute with Senate Democrats over legislation that would create the Department of Homeland Security. "The House responded, but the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people," he said, though he later added the qualifier that it "isn't a partisan issue."

In his speech, Daschle quoted the second part of this statement somewhat out of context and then repeated the key "not interested" phrase three additional times:

The president is quoted in The Washington Post this morning as saying that the Democratic-controlled Senate is 'not interested in the security of the American people.' Not interested in the security of the American people? You tell Senator Inouye he's not interested in the security of the American people! You tell those who fought in Vietnam and in World War II they're not interested in the security of the American people! That is outrageous! Outrageous!

Daschle cited Bush's exact words and referred to a Washington Post story that used the same quote - it's not difficult to figure out what statement was at issue. Moreover, two Washington Times reports and a letter to the editor have accurately cited the "not interested" statement as precipitating Daschle's criticism over the past week:

-Bill Sammon on Sept. 26: "Mr. Daschle excoriated the president for saying on Monday that the Senate is 'not interested in the security of the American people.'"
-Sammon the next day: "Mr. Bush's shot at Mr. Daschle came a day after the South Dakota Democrat demanded that the president apologize for saying that the Senate was 'not interested in the security of the American people.'"
-A letter to the editor published in the editorial section on the 28th: "Mr. Bush, speaking of the homeland security bill, said: 'The House responded, but the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people.'"

Yet the paper claims Daschle is objecting to a totally different quote.

The editorial begins by stating that "when [President Bush] chastised Senate Democrats Monday for failing to pass legislation creating a new federal Department of Homeland Security," he triggered "a mini-temper tantrum by Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle." The Times then falsely attacks Daschle for misconstruing a less severe statement from President Bush during his other speech on Sept. 23, citing a statement at a political fundraiser for Republican Senate candidate Doug Forrester in which Bush said, "My message to the Senate is: You need to worry less about special interest in Washington and more about the security of the American people." (This statement is even highlighted in a large pullquote in the middle of the editorial.)

On the basis of this phony argument, the Times denounces Daschle for "pretending that Mr. Bush sought to impugn the Democrats' patriotism" and his "minions" for "twisting the president's remarks for political advantage." In the process, the Times offers three quotations from Daschle's speech, including one focusing directly on the "not interested" quote: "You tell those who fought in Vietnam and in World War II they're not interested in the security of the American people!" Presumably the paper found these quotes in the text of the speech. How could it miss Daschle citing the "not interested" quote from Bush and fail to observe that he was talking about a different statement entirely?

Update 8:47 AM EST 9/30/02: The Washington Times did not issue a correction in today's paper. More to follow.

Update 4:19 PM EST 9/30/02: Ironically enough, though there's no correction, the Washington Times does feature a commentary today from Donald Lambro, one of its reporters, that gets the context of Daschle's speech right: "So, when Mr. Bush -- frustrated by the Senate's delay on a bill to create a Department of Homeland Security -- complained that the Senate was 'not interested in the security of the American people,' Mr. Daschle saw his chance to strike back."

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Related links:
-Post mortem (Brendan Nyhan, 9/28/02)

9/29/2002 08:45:18 PM EST |

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