I and many Democrats are very passionate about this election: we need to protect the President's legacy against the GOP desire to roll it back, we need to take back the SJC-it's been in conservative control for 30 years and this has really hurt voting rights, and a woman''s right to choose among many other issues-and we need a candidate who understands that whatever change we get beyond this at least to start will be incremental.
Clearly that candidate is HRC who I will go as far as saying is simply the most qualified politician in America. I mean who else even including the other Democrat candidates could have pulled off what she did in the Benghazi hearings?
A lot of people like Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC seem to be jealous of the GOP and all its wild-eyed candidates. I don't know why. This just underscores how divided their party is and how unified Dems are. For once maybe we do need to get in line rather than worry about falling in love.
Maybe there are different and more mature forms of love. Think of it this way: the party fell in love with President Obama. But now we have these children from the marriage and who we choose next has to be a more pragmatic choice. I say this, though, of course, I've always loved Hillary Clinton.
So I will admit that I've probably been a bit sharp edged myself in my attitude towards Vice President Joe Biden's hypothetical candidacy. A lot of Democrats had gotten a little sick of the King Hamlet thing.
While we empathize with him over his loss and how difficult this is, we have an election that we have to win for all the reasons I mentioned above and more-like simply breaking the final glass ceiling.
But after watching the Vice President at his 60 Minutes interview, I have to say, I feel a little better about him now. I had always loved and defended him when the GOP and media mocked him as a 'gaffe machine.'
But the King Hamlet thing had worn thin, However, in fairness to Joe, what I come away with from his interview, is that the media did him no favors. They framed him as simply throwing spitballs at HRC and waiting to see her fail.
But the way he explained it Sunday night makes a lot of sense. His desire to run wasn't because he hates Hillary or thinks she'd be a horrible candidate, but because: he wanted to run. This has been a life long dream. It was very hard to give it up.
When he said he thought he was the best person to be President, this wasn't a swipe at her. As President Obama had said in addressing the media a few weeks ago, it's natural that as Vice President Joe had thought about being President.
His desire to run was no more about thinking HRC is wrong for the job than her running is because she thinks Bernie is wrong for the job. When you are on the level of HRC and Joe, of course, you want the job and think you'll be best. That goes with the territory. If you don't believe that then you shouldn't run.
Just a hint to Jeb.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/10/bush-family-stages-intervention-for-jeb.html
On 60 Minutes, Joe was honest. He admitted that the reason he chose not to is because he didn't see a path to victory. Melissa Harris-Perry last Saturday on her show seemed to take the Zizekean argument that Biden should have run precisely because he was seen as a longshot. She seems to think there is something Holy about Lost Causes.
http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Lost-Causes-Slavoj-Zizek-ebook/dp/B004GKMBIO/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1445950716&sr=8-1
With all due respect, we Democrats don't have the luxury in 2016 to lose to make ourselves feel pure. I appreciate that Joe realized that it's only worth running with a path to victory. Running for President is not a cause.
The one other big takeaway. Maureed Dowd is a liar. Biden tells us that there was no big deatbed appeal by his son, Beau, that he run for President. He called out her attempt to make this some Hillary hating bashing Hollywood movie.
Here was the interview
http://www.cbsnews.com/live/video/vp-joe-bidens-interview-on-60-minutes/
As Erik Wemple says there are some real questions about how the NY Times let this go to print wholly unsourced. It was the basis of so much of the shoddy reporting on Biden's possible run the next two and a half months.
"Such a richly detailed, emotional—and, we might add, totally unsourced—passage in the column of one of Washington’s most famous Hillary-haters could not help but electrify the chattering class. So when Biden appeared to pour cold water on the story, the schadenfreude was instantaneous. Dowd—who by this point has long since become a parody of herself—is always a rich target, and it seemed like her critics had another transgression to add to their list. Headlines like “Joe Biden slaps down Maureen Dowd’s version of ‘Beau Biden’s dying wish’ story” and “Maureen Dowd Is A Idiot, Says Joe Biden And Everyone Else” quickly popped up."
"Before we re-crucify Dowd, though, we should step back for a second, because this story is rather more complicated than that."
http://www.salon.com/2015/10/26/no_joe_biden_didnt_shred_maureen_dowd_why_the_nyt_columnists_dramatic_2016_report_cant_be_so_easily_dismissed/
Why? On general principle she deserves to be crucified. This is someone who still plays the same sexist game with HRC she did in the 90s, the claim that Hillary uses her gender to play the victim. Isn't Dowd the one using her gender here? She can attack HRC in the virulent sexist terms that a man might have to answer for a little quicker.
So basically the writer, Jack Mirikison is arguing that Dowd never said it was literally a 'deathbed' that this conversation took place.
"O’Donnell didn’t ask Biden if he was also denying that he had been Dowd’s source, and he didn’t raise the issue. But if we are to completely believe him, we have to believe that not only was Dowd handed a pile of very finely detailed fiction, but that Politico was then also handed another pile of fiction when it followed up on the story. Both could obviously be true—there have been a great many dubious sourcesswirling around Bidenworld lately—but it’s also quite possible that the story is firmer than Biden is letting on."
It's hard to say 'complete fiction'-it s more about embellishments and framing that serve to give a very inaccurate picture.
"Moreover, Dowd’s story never mentioned a “deathbed,” or Beau Biden grabbing his father’s arm, and Biden also acknowledged that his son had consistently told him that he should run, adding another layer of ambiguity to the situation. Perhaps Biden was reacting to the many stories that followed the Dowd column which all mentioned some version of a “dramatic deathbed exchange,” in the words of the New York Daily News."
Maybe not literally, but this was sort of the picture that her story drew. Often times you see a story ath only implies something that later stories pick up and connect the dots on. It still may be on Dowd for shoddy journalism.
She may not have used the literal words 'deathbed' but many stories picking up on her piece did. Does she get a total pass on that?
"In fairness to Dowd, she never did report that Beau Biden was on his “death bed” when he communicated his wishes, as Biden told “60 Minutes.” Dowd reported only that Beau Biden issued his challenge when he “realized he was not going to make it.” And Dowd reported that the conversation took place at a table, not a bed. So perhaps the vice president is batting down an exaggerated retelling of Dowd’s column. Out there in the world of Internet and television aggregation, there were plenty of commentators who ran with the “death bed” formulation. In a Sept. 14 edition of his MSNBC show “Last Word,” host Lawrence O’Donnell mentioned “Beau Biden literally on his death bed asking his father to run for president.” Reporter John Heilemann responded, in part, “He always wanted his father to run for president again, that meant a lot to Joe Biden back then, it meant a lot to him in that death bed moment which is true and did happen.” By October, when Politico published its much-trafficked story on Joe Biden’s “leak,” the dramatic scenario had hardened, as there were many headlines of this sort: “Politico: Joe Biden Leaked Beau’s Deathbed Quote To Maureen Dowd.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/10/26/vice-president-joe-biden-accuses-someone-of-very-bad-journalism/
"O’Donnell didn’t ask Biden if he was also denying that he had been Dowd’s source, and he didn’t raise the issue. But if we are to completely believe him, we have to believe that not only was Dowd handed a pile of very finely detailed fiction, but that Politico was then also handed another pile of fiction when it followed up on the story. Both could obviously be true—there have been a great many dubious sourcesswirling around Bidenworld lately—but it’s also quite possible that the story is firmer than Biden is letting on."
http://www.salon.com/2015/10/26/no_joe_biden_didnt_shred_maureen_dowd_why_the_nyt_columnists_dramatic_2016_report_cant_be_so_easily_dismissed/
At a minimum, it shows the need for even the paper of record doing a better job on making sure explosive factual claims like this are sourced adequately.
Clearly that candidate is HRC who I will go as far as saying is simply the most qualified politician in America. I mean who else even including the other Democrat candidates could have pulled off what she did in the Benghazi hearings?
A lot of people like Melissa Harris-Perry on MSNBC seem to be jealous of the GOP and all its wild-eyed candidates. I don't know why. This just underscores how divided their party is and how unified Dems are. For once maybe we do need to get in line rather than worry about falling in love.
Maybe there are different and more mature forms of love. Think of it this way: the party fell in love with President Obama. But now we have these children from the marriage and who we choose next has to be a more pragmatic choice. I say this, though, of course, I've always loved Hillary Clinton.
So I will admit that I've probably been a bit sharp edged myself in my attitude towards Vice President Joe Biden's hypothetical candidacy. A lot of Democrats had gotten a little sick of the King Hamlet thing.
While we empathize with him over his loss and how difficult this is, we have an election that we have to win for all the reasons I mentioned above and more-like simply breaking the final glass ceiling.
But after watching the Vice President at his 60 Minutes interview, I have to say, I feel a little better about him now. I had always loved and defended him when the GOP and media mocked him as a 'gaffe machine.'
But the King Hamlet thing had worn thin, However, in fairness to Joe, what I come away with from his interview, is that the media did him no favors. They framed him as simply throwing spitballs at HRC and waiting to see her fail.
But the way he explained it Sunday night makes a lot of sense. His desire to run wasn't because he hates Hillary or thinks she'd be a horrible candidate, but because: he wanted to run. This has been a life long dream. It was very hard to give it up.
When he said he thought he was the best person to be President, this wasn't a swipe at her. As President Obama had said in addressing the media a few weeks ago, it's natural that as Vice President Joe had thought about being President.
His desire to run was no more about thinking HRC is wrong for the job than her running is because she thinks Bernie is wrong for the job. When you are on the level of HRC and Joe, of course, you want the job and think you'll be best. That goes with the territory. If you don't believe that then you shouldn't run.
Just a hint to Jeb.
http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/10/bush-family-stages-intervention-for-jeb.html
On 60 Minutes, Joe was honest. He admitted that the reason he chose not to is because he didn't see a path to victory. Melissa Harris-Perry last Saturday on her show seemed to take the Zizekean argument that Biden should have run precisely because he was seen as a longshot. She seems to think there is something Holy about Lost Causes.
http://www.amazon.com/Defense-Lost-Causes-Slavoj-Zizek-ebook/dp/B004GKMBIO/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1445950716&sr=8-1
With all due respect, we Democrats don't have the luxury in 2016 to lose to make ourselves feel pure. I appreciate that Joe realized that it's only worth running with a path to victory. Running for President is not a cause.
The one other big takeaway. Maureed Dowd is a liar. Biden tells us that there was no big deatbed appeal by his son, Beau, that he run for President. He called out her attempt to make this some Hillary hating bashing Hollywood movie.
Here was the interview
http://www.cbsnews.com/live/video/vp-joe-bidens-interview-on-60-minutes/
As Erik Wemple says there are some real questions about how the NY Times let this go to print wholly unsourced. It was the basis of so much of the shoddy reporting on Biden's possible run the next two and a half months.
"The record left behind by Dowd is almost nonexistent. Like a celebrated, longtime, above-the-fray literary columnist, she didn’t deign to leave sourcing details in her piece, instead preferring her vast sense of authority. “Joe Biden is also talking to friends, family and donors about jumping in. The 72-year-old vice president has been having meetings at his Washington residence to explore the idea of taking on Hillary in Iowa and New Hampshire,” wrote Dowd in a passage that dropped directly from the heavens into the content management system of the New York Times."
"That was good enough for the news side of the New York Times, which cited the Dowd piece in a story on a possible Biden run that ran the same day. The lack of transparency in Dowd’s reporting opened itself up to further reporting, as Politico alleged early this month that Biden himself divulged his son’s wishto Dowd. That story, in turn, was based on “multiple sources.”
"Last night, this blog asked the New York Times for comment about all this. We didn’t get any. We also asked the vice president’s office whether his comment pertained to Dowd. No comment, though we’d encourage the vice president to include greater specificity in his media criticism."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/10/26/vice-president-joe-biden-accuses-someone-of-very-bad-journalism/
Slate wastes time defenidng Dowd. With her track record it's fair to see her as guilty until proven innocent in terms of her journalistic integrity-this is far from her first offense."Such a richly detailed, emotional—and, we might add, totally unsourced—passage in the column of one of Washington’s most famous Hillary-haters could not help but electrify the chattering class. So when Biden appeared to pour cold water on the story, the schadenfreude was instantaneous. Dowd—who by this point has long since become a parody of herself—is always a rich target, and it seemed like her critics had another transgression to add to their list. Headlines like “Joe Biden slaps down Maureen Dowd’s version of ‘Beau Biden’s dying wish’ story” and “Maureen Dowd Is A Idiot, Says Joe Biden And Everyone Else” quickly popped up."
"Before we re-crucify Dowd, though, we should step back for a second, because this story is rather more complicated than that."
http://www.salon.com/2015/10/26/no_joe_biden_didnt_shred_maureen_dowd_why_the_nyt_columnists_dramatic_2016_report_cant_be_so_easily_dismissed/
Why? On general principle she deserves to be crucified. This is someone who still plays the same sexist game with HRC she did in the 90s, the claim that Hillary uses her gender to play the victim. Isn't Dowd the one using her gender here? She can attack HRC in the virulent sexist terms that a man might have to answer for a little quicker.
So basically the writer, Jack Mirikison is arguing that Dowd never said it was literally a 'deathbed' that this conversation took place.
"O’Donnell didn’t ask Biden if he was also denying that he had been Dowd’s source, and he didn’t raise the issue. But if we are to completely believe him, we have to believe that not only was Dowd handed a pile of very finely detailed fiction, but that Politico was then also handed another pile of fiction when it followed up on the story. Both could obviously be true—there have been a great many dubious sourcesswirling around Bidenworld lately—but it’s also quite possible that the story is firmer than Biden is letting on."
It's hard to say 'complete fiction'-it s more about embellishments and framing that serve to give a very inaccurate picture.
"Moreover, Dowd’s story never mentioned a “deathbed,” or Beau Biden grabbing his father’s arm, and Biden also acknowledged that his son had consistently told him that he should run, adding another layer of ambiguity to the situation. Perhaps Biden was reacting to the many stories that followed the Dowd column which all mentioned some version of a “dramatic deathbed exchange,” in the words of the New York Daily News."
Maybe not literally, but this was sort of the picture that her story drew. Often times you see a story ath only implies something that later stories pick up and connect the dots on. It still may be on Dowd for shoddy journalism.
She may not have used the literal words 'deathbed' but many stories picking up on her piece did. Does she get a total pass on that?
"In fairness to Dowd, she never did report that Beau Biden was on his “death bed” when he communicated his wishes, as Biden told “60 Minutes.” Dowd reported only that Beau Biden issued his challenge when he “realized he was not going to make it.” And Dowd reported that the conversation took place at a table, not a bed. So perhaps the vice president is batting down an exaggerated retelling of Dowd’s column. Out there in the world of Internet and television aggregation, there were plenty of commentators who ran with the “death bed” formulation. In a Sept. 14 edition of his MSNBC show “Last Word,” host Lawrence O’Donnell mentioned “Beau Biden literally on his death bed asking his father to run for president.” Reporter John Heilemann responded, in part, “He always wanted his father to run for president again, that meant a lot to Joe Biden back then, it meant a lot to him in that death bed moment which is true and did happen.” By October, when Politico published its much-trafficked story on Joe Biden’s “leak,” the dramatic scenario had hardened, as there were many headlines of this sort: “Politico: Joe Biden Leaked Beau’s Deathbed Quote To Maureen Dowd.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/10/26/vice-president-joe-biden-accuses-someone-of-very-bad-journalism/
"O’Donnell didn’t ask Biden if he was also denying that he had been Dowd’s source, and he didn’t raise the issue. But if we are to completely believe him, we have to believe that not only was Dowd handed a pile of very finely detailed fiction, but that Politico was then also handed another pile of fiction when it followed up on the story. Both could obviously be true—there have been a great many dubious sourcesswirling around Bidenworld lately—but it’s also quite possible that the story is firmer than Biden is letting on."
http://www.salon.com/2015/10/26/no_joe_biden_didnt_shred_maureen_dowd_why_the_nyt_columnists_dramatic_2016_report_cant_be_so_easily_dismissed/
At a minimum, it shows the need for even the paper of record doing a better job on making sure explosive factual claims like this are sourced adequately.
Mike, I've never cared much about this story. I had no idea Maureen Dowd was behind it until I read your post here. I like Biden OK, but I was indifferent to him running. I'm also indifferent to Dowd: I don't follower her stories much. And although it's not super surprising to discover a prominent journalist has lied, it is disappointing. At the same time, I pretty much expect politicians, even prominent ones, and even ones I agree with, to lie or bend (spin) the truth. Politics is not known for having "Feynman integrity." Lol. For example, I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that Obama is an atheist rather than a Christian. I wouldn't think any less of him for lying about it. I'd be amazed if he didn't lie about it (if it turns out he is actually an atheist).
ReplyDeleteSo to play devils advocate, it's easy to imagine scenarios in a case like this where Biden may have had an incentive to bend the truth about this in the past, or now, or both, in order to polish his public image or his legacy. For example, perhaps he doesn't want to be seen as someone who would deny his dying son's wishes (in light of the fact he decided not to run).
I have little confidence that we'll ever truly know who's lying here, when the lying took place and how much lying was done. You might be absolutely correct: perhaps Dowd is the only liar. If that's the case, it's disappointing, and I hope her false memes never enter my brain again. But if it turns out Joe is less truthful than her, that doesn't surprise or even disappoint me much. I guess as far as the truth is concerned, I hold politicians to a lower standard than journalists, especially for stuff like this. That means my prior is that all else being equal, I expect politicians to bend the truth more than I do journalists.
"I like Biden OK, but I was indifferent to him running."
ReplyDeleteThis is my gripe. Most of the Democratic party has felt the exact same way.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/joe-biden-poll_562a8497e4b0ec0a389474f1
Yet the media has made something out of nothing.
I don't know that Dowd is the only liar. Biden may be backpedalling as he realizes he lost the party a bit in the last few weeks. He can't be sin as actively being anti Hillary
Dowd may not of out and out lied but she had no sources and her piece has been used as the authority on Biden running.
Dowd' motive for at least embellishing is her long hatred of Hillary. If you have followed her commentary for 24 years as I have it's not debatable.
The real issue is the media as a whole pushing a story authoritatively that is so badly sourced. It is shoddy journalism and Dowd has for a long time been a shoddy journalist.