Daily Howler: A Media Whore Trys To Diminish Clark's Debate Performance

Moderators-most of this is transcript from last night's debate. Only a few sentences are the blogwriter's own.


See Here for Daily Howler points out how media looks at last night's debate- it talks about how one
mediawhore writes that Clark "struggled" during the debate:
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh102703.shtml



"NAGOURNEY: At several points, General Clark appeared to struggle as he explained his views on the war in
response to a challenge from a questioner."

snip

"But why did Clark “appear to struggle?” Because Nagourney baldly misstated what he actually said. Here is
the actual Federal Document Clearing House transcript of what was actually said:"

CAMERON: General, there is a long litany of comments from you, both in your time as a former television
analyst and then over the course of the last several months. Are we to understand that what you’re saying
now is that those things you have said that were positive about the war was not what you meant?

CLARK: No, I always—I’m a fair person, Carl. And when this administration's done something right, well, if
they were Russians doing something right, Chinese doing something right, French doing something right or
even Republicans doing something right—

(LAUGHTER)

I’m going to praise them.

Now, this country was attacked on 9/11, and it was right that this administration went into Afghanistan.
And I supported that war; so did 90 percent of the American people. That Taliban government should have
been taken out.

But the failure of this administration was not to put the troops in to finish the job against Osama bin Laden.
And you know why they didn’t do it? They didn’t do it because, all along, their plan was to save those
troops to go after Saddam Hussein.

So I support them for what they did right, and I condemn them for what they did wrong.

IFILL: Thank you, General.

(APPLAUSE)

" You’d never know it from reading Nagourney’s report, but that’s what was actually said. In fact, Clark
“struggled” so hard to convey his meaning that it was greeted with laughter and applause! But it isn’t hard
to make out Nagourney’s meaning. He meant to spread a scripted message—Wesley Clark is a big, fucking
mess. And how did Nagourney create this impression? By baldly misstating what Clark really said!


Instead of presenting Clark’s actual statement, Nagourney spliced in something Clark said to another
question, earlier in the debate. And he said the resulting pseudo-reply was an example of Clark’s hopeless
bungling!"

That is a low point. But, then, the press has ever had its low points. Oddly enough, they do seem to mirror the imperfect human condition. It's such a predictable thing.

But, having said that, we do need to deal with it. So,... What are you thoughts and responses?

These guys have been working for years on their message. They have been patient, and as Will Pitt wrote, "The Rebublican elephant never forgets." It's time to kick them out of the living room, out of our living rooms.

Why do we seem to be caught unaware? Is it because we are basically honest and straight forward? We can work for our cause and still be the very nice folks that we are.

Was it AP who pointed out that while it seems to be the press's objective to diminish Clark for now... it'll be some other Democrat further down the line if Clark doesn't get the nod.

It just seems that there are some who aren't just faulting Clark but are latching onto Right Wing talking points.

But then, I supppose where one person sees "Right Wing Talking Points" another sees validity...