Shocker: WND Prints Substantive Criticism of Its Reporting Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily typically pretends that criticism of its reporting comes from people who are ideological enemies and don't get their brand of journalism (even though bias, false claims and plagiarism are universally understood journalistic failings). Also typically, the only criticism of WND that it highlights is of the most extreme type in order to paint that as representative of all criticism of it.
So it was a surprise to see WND run a critical letter that focused on WND's journalistic failings, regarding a Sept. 15 article on a study purporting to show that "some homosexuals can change their 'orientation' through religiously mediated guidance." Since WND refuses to archive its letters and it will cycle out after a week, we'll reprint it here:
I am extremely disappointed at your extreme bias in the report of conversion therapy for gay people. While quick to tout the report as a success and demonize those who were criticizing it, you failed to mention key aspects of the report according to Dr. Throckmorton. There were 25 participants who failed to continue the study. The failure to follow up with these people would automatically disqualify it from any legitimate psychological journal. If you include those 25 people to make up a total of 98 participants in the study, there was only an 11 percent success rate of conversion from identifying as gay to identifying as straight. Of those reporting heterosexual feelings, the following statement was part of the study:
"Most of the individuals who reported that they were heterosexual at Time 3 did not report themselves to be without experience of homosexual arousal, and did not report heterosexual orientation to be unequivocal and uncomplicated. … We believe the individuals who presented themselves as heterosexual success stories at Time 3 are heterosexual in some meaningful but complicated sense of the term."
You also falsely stated that the study disputes the contention by the American Psychological Association and American Psychiatric Association that change is not possible. Neither association has ever made such a claim. Of course your readers ate up your story and responded to your poll in kind. Why are you afraid to report the truth, the whole truth? Are you afraid that your own basis for being against gay people is rooted in hatred?
Micah Bergdale
Of course, there's no indication that WND has actually done anything to correct its shoddy reporting. Pushing its ideology on its readers is much more important than fulfilling the journalistic mission of telling them the full truth.
Of Cherry-Picking and Censorious Desires Topic: NewsBusters
In a Sept. 15 NewsBusters post promoting his cherry-picking attack on the Huffington Post, Tim Graham criticized "leftist Web sites like MoveOn.org" for "demanding" that the Democratic Party "provide no bow of respect or prestige to Fox News, since it was a 'mouthpiece for the Republican party, not a legitimate news channel.'" Graham added: "Leftist bloggers like Matt Stoller of MyDD.com were explicit in their censorious desire that Fox News should not exist: 'The lies of FOX News and Roger Ailes have no place in public discourse, journalism, or the Democratic Party presidential debates.'"
First, note Graham's conflation of Stoller's comment about "the lies of FOX News and Roger Ailes" to an "censorious desire" that all of Fox News be muzzled. Of course, Stoller never said that, unless Graham is admitting that everything on Fox News context is a lie.
Second, by applying similar conflation to Graham's work: By attacking Huffington Post, isn't he expressing a similar "censorious desire"? Isn't it Graham's sweetest dream to see HuffPo shut down? Graham, through his study, is trying to use a tiny fraction of objectionable post to tar the entire operation -- the best way to accomplish such a thing, even if he won't say the words.
And cherry-picking is exactly what Graham does, by the way: Out of the tens of thousands of posts made on HuffPo over the past two years, Graham specifically cites just 19. Graham then claims: "These blogs may not be typical, but they are common." Since Graham did no statistical analysis of objectionable content in HuffPo blogs -- that is, comparing the number of posts with objectionable content to the total number of posts made on the site -- he has no factual basis for that statement.
Graham makes his bias clear in his "study" by his disparaging attacks on HuffPo's bloggers as an "all-star far-left cast of celebrity dilettantes," "celebrit[ies] toasted by the leftist elites" and "Arianna’s cast of hate-speech specialists." Remember, Graham is making this judgment on the content of just 19 posts out of thousands.
Would Graham and his MRC compadres be similarly offended if, say, the entirety of NewsBusters was judged by objectionable content by commenters on a single post? You bet they would. That's why we accuse NewsBusters of forwarding false or misleading claims and smears, we don't merely cherry-pick hither and yon. Webackitup.
And remember, NewsBusters has run ads from a company that sells a T-shirt that says, "Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required." Does Graham find that more or less offensive than what he plucked out of HuffPo?
Apparently, hatin' on Michael Sulick is what all the cool conservative kids are doing these days.
Joining the Washington Examiner's Rowan Scarborough in Sulick-bashing is NewsMax's Kenneth Timmerman in a Sept. 17 article. Like Scarborough, Timmerman depicts ex-CIA chief Porter Goss as a noble reformer and Sulick as a career agent who threw a fit over it. Also like Scarborough, Timmerman hurls unsubstantiated allegations at Sulick and his co-worker Stephen Kappes:
As I will reveal in my upcoming book, "Shadow Warriors: Traitors, Saboteurs, and the Party of Surrender," Kappes had been implicated in a serious security breach at a CIA station overseas, but was never disciplined by the Agency.
Furthermore, both he and Sulick were engaged in activities to lobby members of Congress in their own districts that violated U.S. law. When Goss tried to discipline them, the two men resigned in protest.
Timmerman offers no evidence for these claims -- apaprently, NewsMax readers don't need to have claims substantiated. Might sell a few more copies of that book.
Timmerman then goes on to claim that Sulick’s rehiring "sends a 'terrible message' to CIA officers who are trying to do their job and stay out of politics, and suggests that the CIA bench is so thin they have no other candidates for the critical job as head of the Clandestine Service." He attributes this claim to "former agency officers." He also relays a complaint by Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra, former chairman of the House intelligence committee, that he wasn't consulted when Kappes was rehired as CIA deputy director.
Both Scaborough and Timmerman are so eager to defend Goss that they don't mention who was CIA executive director -- the agency's No. 3 position -- under Goss: Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, currently under indictment for corruption. Neither of them explain why Sulick and Kappes are worse hires than Foggo.
Clinton Derangement Syndrome Watch Topic: WorldNetDaily
In a Sept. 17 WorldNetDaily column headlined "Hellary's chilling honesty," Doug Powers uses the obligatory unflattering photos of Hillary Clinton to illustrate his semi-entertainingly paranoiac version of Hillary's camapign:
Here's the Clintons' philosophy on national security: Your enemies usually won't want to harm you as long as there are still cheap goodies available in your national garage sale.
[...]
Ads that ran in Iowa and elsewhere featured Hillary touting what will happen if she's elected: Americans "will no longer be invisible to their government." Well I don't doubt it – she's got our FBI files and a heck of a bright flashlight.
Graham Attacks Anti-War Protesters, Ignores Popularity of Withdrawal Topic: Media Research Center
In a Sept. 13 NewsBusters post and Sept. 14 MRC CyberAlert item, Tim Graham wrote to the Washington Post quoting "radical left" anti-war protesters as saying, "The antiwar movement 'is far from where Bush would like you to think we are, that we are the fringe. They are the fringe. We are the mainstream." Graham asserts that the Post "help[ed] far-left protesters" by doing so.
In fact, when one defines "anti-war" not by the actions of a relative handful of extremists or Graham's subjective labeling but, rather, the opinion of Americans on whether to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq -- and polls show that a majority of Americans favor a withdrawal of at least some U.S. troops -- the anti-war protesters are, indeed, in the mainstream.
First, it was the hiring of a gay-porn actor as its Iraq correspondent. Now, WorldNetDaily's standards slip further as, according to a Sept. 17 article, managing editor David Kupelian plans to make a appearance on "Mancow's Morning Madhouse."
This is a show that WND itself criticized in 2003 for rejecting an attempt by a man to purchase a "pro-God" ad during the show. Mancow also has a history of obnoxious and offensive behavior.
By contrast, WND stopped linking to Salon.com articles in 2001 because if offered "galleries of erotic art and photography."
Is Kupelian so desperate to peddle his book that he will team up with a smut merchant like Mancow to do it? Yep. It's the second time this month WND has done so; on Sept. 6, WND news editor Joe Kovacs made an appearance.
Of course, there's a couple of mitigating factors that WND doesn't mention in its Kupelian promotion.
First, as the 2003 WND article noted, Mancow has "usually conservative or libertarian political views" and offers a "staunch defense of the U.S. Constitution. Second, Mancow is syndicated by Talk Radio Network, with which WND has a synergistic relationship.
For a news outlet that has made a big deal about having a certain set of standards, WND is sure eager to violate them.
Human Events' Jeffrey Joins CNS Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com announced in a Sept. 17 article that Terence P. Jeffrey, editor of Human Events, has joined CNS as editor-in-chief. This doesn't bode well for CNS' recent attempts at balanced reporting, given his record of advancing conservative misinformation:
He has falsely asserted that Hillary Clinton has "high negatives in her own party."
He has misleadingly claimed that the White House and Congress examined the "same information" on the Iraqi threat during the buildup to war in late 2002.
He claimed in March that "we also didn't have ... a careful enough debate in Congress about the potential consequences" of invading Iraq, though in 2003 he asserted that claimed that "people have a very realistic and well-informed opinion about our policy towards Iraq."
In the CNS announcement article, Jeffrey is quoted as saying: "I am honored to join CNSNews.com. ... Its ability to debunk liberal bias by delivering legitimate news is unsurpassed. I look forward to seizing new opportunities to perpetuate the mission of Cybercast News Service and the Media Research Center." So it looks like he may not be terribly interested in forwarding CNS' actual stated mission to "fairly present all legitimate sides of a story" and will boost the conservative propaganda function instead.
Freedom's Watch Funder Has NewsMax Ties Topic: Newsmax
How lazy of a reporter is NewsMax's Ronald Kessler when it comes to reporting non-fluff about conservatives? He didn't bother to pass along what NewsMax itself had reported on the funding behind Kessler's new favorite conservative group.
As we noted, Kessler wrote in an Aug. 23 article promoting the pro-war group Freedom's Watch that "the total assets of the organization and the largest sources of funds are not being disclosed," but he made no attempt to explain why (though he attacked George Soros for funding liberal groups). A Sept. 7 article by Kessler about Freedom's Watch was similarly uninterested in delving into the group's funding, though he claimed the group "has more funding than MoveOn.org and other George Soros operations."
But Kessler could have found out by looking at ... NewsMax.
The same day Kessler's first article ran, NewsMax reprinted an Associated Press article about Freedom's Watch, which listed some of the people behind it:
Freedom's Watch was organized as a nonprofit organization under IRS rules and is not required to identify its donors or the amounts they give. The group named some of its financial backers but Blakeman said others wished to remain out of the public eye.
Among those publicly behind the effort are billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a fundraiser for Bush and chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., and conservative philanthropist John M. Templeton Jr. of Bryn Mawr, Pa. Both men have been major contributors to conservative causes. Also backing Freedom's Watch are top Republican donors Anthony Gioia, Mel Sembler and Howard Leach, all former ambassadors in the Bush administration. Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer is a founding member of the group.
One of those names should sound quite familiar to NewsMax readers. John Templeton Jr. is the son of John Templeman, whose financial analysis NewsMax has been touting for years -- as far back as 2005, as this promo for NewsMax's Financial Intelligence Report shows.
An Aug. 17 article by Christopher Ruddy at NewsMax's MoneyNews site shows that the relationship between NewsMax and the elder Templeton is not just casual:
Back in later 2004, I was invited to see Sir John Templeton in the Bahamas. It was my second visit with the legendary investor.
Templeton saw it all coming. A massive liquidity boom had been fueled by artificially low interest rates. The Fed under Greenspan had created the largest bubble in history. As night turns to day, it would inevitably pop. Go here now to read our exclusive interview with Templeton.
Templeton didn't know the "when" moment. But it would arrive.
FIR readers were warned in February 2005 of my meeting with Templeton about the impending residential home decline and were advised to take defensive actions: avoid housing stocks, sell residential REITs, mortgage, finance and banks linked to the residential boom.
In fact, the relationship between Ruddy and Templeton Sr. goes back even further. A March 2001 profile of Templeton by Ruddy is very fawning, calling him "an extremely unpretentious and robust man" and proudly noting that Templeton's philanthropic foundation has John Templeton Foundation in Radnor, Pa. "assets [of] $235 million." Ruddy added: "In 1995, Templeton's son, Dr. John M. Templeton Jr., left his successful surgical practice to serve full time as president of the foundation."
So, there's some linkage here, through Templeton, between Freedom's Watch and NewsMax that NewsMax should have disclosed in some form (though it didn't disclose its funding from Richard Mellon Scaife to its readers until we started calling them on it). Kessler, meanwhile, should demonstrate a little less fealty to his conservative buddies and show a little more journalistic initiative.
Sheppard: Warbloggers Are 'Extreme Right' Topic: NewsBusters
In a Sept. 16 NewsBusters post, Noel Sheppard praised the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz for calling it "a step forward" that President would meet with conservative pro-war bloggers even though, as Sheppard wrote, "it seemed almost a metaphysical certitude the President would be lambasted for catering to the extreme right."
Is Sheppard really calling warbloggers "extreme right"? By applying Sheppard's own logic -- as demonstrated by a Sept. 15 post in which he declared that Keith Olbermann's questioning of why John Edwards ran an ad immediately after President Bush's address on Iraq, adding, "I don't think I'm saying anything unknown to the audience, I don't think he would have gotten a hard time from this particular network," as an admission that MSNBC is liberally biased -- the answer is yes.
Sheppard also ignored that Kurtz's praise of conservatives isn't as surprising as he depicted: last week, he declared that Fox News is "entitled" to "pose[] as a news organization and puts out dangerous misinformation [and] is a cheerleader for the Bush administration, that it is misinforming our society."
WND Still Pushing Folger's Less-Than-Factual Anti-Gay 'Facts' Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily is still promoting Janet Folger's not-so-factual "facts" about "hate crimes" laws being used to silence anti-gay protesters.
In a Sept. 12 article, Bob Unruh -- as he has done in the past -- cited Folger's laundry list of purported descriptions of "arresting people for stating their religious beliefs that homosexuality is wrong" as "the facts." But as we've detailed, Folger and Unruh leave out the full context of the incidents. There's another incident on the list we seem not to have covered:
Madison, Wis. David Ott, a former homosexual, was arrested for a "hate crime" for sharing his testimony with a homosexual at a gas station. He faced a $10,000 fine and one year behind bars. Seven thousand dollars in legal fees later, [he] was ordered to attend re-education classes at the University of Wisconsin conducted by a lesbian.
Folger and Unruh don't state that the incident is not a recent one; it dates to 1997. And as the court's summary of the case shows, Ott was not "arrested for a 'hate crime'"; he was charged with disorderly conduct with a "hate crime" modifier -- not the same thing. (h/t Snopes comment thread.)
Ott's case has apparently been a anti-gay rallying point for some time. From the June 28, 1999, issue of of the Moonie-run conservative Insight magazine:
Meet David Ott, a former homosexual who approached a practicing homosexual and engaged in conversation. David, holding his toddler at the time, was making no threats but merely disagreeing. A few months later he got a knock on the door and a court summons. He was charged and convicted of a "hate crime" and sentenced to a reeducation class led by a lesbian whose opening premise was, "Homosexuality is normal." It cost Ott more than $7,000 in legal fees to fight the alleged "hate crime" of disagreeing. Seven thousand dollars for disagreeing? So much for freedom of speech.
There is no easily available independent information about the Ott incident, but we can assume by their track record that Folger and Unruh are misrepresenting what happened and leaving out important information.
This information has been added to our article on Folger.
Examiner's Scarborough Attacks New CIA Official Topic: Washington Examiner
In a Sept. 14 Washington Examiner article, national security reporter (and former Washington Times writer) Rowan Scarborough disparagingly portrays new CIA clandestine service head Michael J. Sulick.
Scarborough's attack comes in a defense of former CIA director Porter Goss, calling Sulick "a CIA retiree who left Langley in 2004 to protest reforms launched" by Goss; the article's headline reads, "Spy who left CIA in huff returns as head of clandestine service." Scarborough goes on to describe the "huff" incident this way:
In an incident that symbolized Goss' rocky tenure at CIA, Sulick quit in November 2004 as associate deputy director of operations (now the clandestine service) rather than except a transfer to New York.
Goss and his team of ex-congressional aides were trying to transform the clandestine service into a more productive branch and decided to replace Sulick with their own appointee. Sulick called Goss' chief of staff a "Hill puke," tossed a memo at the aide and stalked out of the room.
Scarborough offers no attribution for this version of events -- unusual since it is not common knowledge or necessarily the undisputed depiction of what happened. The "Hill puke" statement has also been reported by Time and the Weekly Standard; both attributed the claim to anonymous sources, all the more reason for Scarborough to state where his version of events is coming from.
Further, Scarborough's simplistic description of the event -- leaving the impression that a hot-headed Sulick fought Goss' noble attempts to make the CIA "more productive" -- leave out details other have reported about Sulick's relationship with the CIA under Goss. Here's Time's description of things:
[Stephen] Kappes [then-clandestine service chief] and his deputy, Sulick, complained in a meeting with Goss and Patrick Murray, Goss's chief of staff, about Murray's pointed critique of a Sulick memo laying out a proposed D.O. outreach program for members of Congress. Twice in that session, Sulick tossed pieces of paper at Murray. After Goss left for another meeting, Sulick, who is in his 50s and is a Vietnam vet, told Murray, who is 40, that he wasn't going to be treated like some "f___ing Democratic Hill puke," says a CIA source. Disturbed by the episode, Murray asked Kappes a few days later to reassign Sulick. Kappes refused, and the two took their dispute to Goss, who told both men to work things out. The matter festered over a weekend, and when Kappes came to work on Monday, he told Goss he and Sulick would be resigning. Goss tried to persuade Kappes to stay on, says a CIA source, but both men quit anyway.
Kappes has also returned to the CIA as deputy director; we're guessing that grates on Scarborough's nerves as much as Sulick's return.
Note that Scarborough in his article did not identify Murray by name, calling him only "Goss' chief of staff." Murray, the former Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, was indeed one of several of what the Washington Post called "Hill staff members" who followed Goss, a former congressman, to the CIA. The Post added that these staffer were "not well regarded by senior officials because they lack managerial and operational experience, and are believed to have treated career officers disrespectfully."
One former CIA official told NEWSWEEK that Murray leaned on him more than once to declassify information so he could use it to "embarrass the Democrats." Murray was irritated when the agency declined. He regarded much of the CIA as a nest of obstructionist bureaucrats, time-servers who had schemed to undermine the administration's policies—especially in Iraq.
There's a lot that Scarborough left out of his article. But he's apparently in the tank for Goss and filled with animosity for career CIA employees like Sulick and Kappes. In a Human Events interview with Scarborough to promote Scarborough's new book, "Sabotage: America’s Enemies Within the CIA," Jed Babbin summarized the book as "mak[ing] the case that the CIA is a rogue agency, not answerable to the president. That they’re not following his policies or trying to support him in this war." Scarborough went on to say in the interview: "When Porter Goss took over the CIA in 2004, really trying to reform it, what happened? He died by a million leaks. It was a cut every day, until Porter Goss by 2006 actually was forced out."
Ruddy Dares to Praise Clinton At NewsMax Topic: Newsmax
We've previously noted that NewsMax's Christopher Ruddy has said surprisingly nice things about the Clintons -- but in other publications, not at NewsMax. He's finally brought some of that praise to his own website.
In a Sept. 14 column, Ruddy says nice things about Bill Clinton's new book, "Giving":
Clinton’s “Giving” turned out to be quite a surprise, detailing from cover to cover his sojourn on behalf of his own and other charities.
As the title says, the former president offers examples of “how each of us can change the world.” Clinton’s focus, interestingly enough, is on individuals, private charities, corporations, churches — all working together to prevent disease and alleviate poverty, among other worthy causes.
[...]
Clinton is sharing the great philosopher Maimonides’ wisdom: "Teach a man to fish and he’ll eat a lifetime." The former president writes that “one of the greatest gifts anyone can give is a useful skill.”
In Clinton’s vision, governments play a role, but it is certainly a secondary role.
Wait a minute. Let me check the cover again. Did Newt Gingrich write this book?
No, it is not my imagination. Bill Clinton did indeed pen this.
And the praise continues, even though Ruddy describes himself as "a frequent Clinton critic." He does take a slam at another Democratic president, though:
And unlike Jimmy Carter, Clinton has refrained from using his post-presidential position to attack the United States, coddle with our enemies by endorsing sham elections like that in Venezuela and making Israel the bogeyman for all the world’s ills.
But don't worry, Clinton-haters -- NewsMax still employs John LeBoutillier, Charles Smith and Dick Morris, so its readers are still getting their minimum daily requirement of Clinton-bashing.
MRC-Fox News Appearance Watch Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's coziness with Fox News continues.
Brent Bozell appeared on the Sept. 13 edition of "Fox News Live," and TimesWatch's Clay Waters appeared on the Sept. 14 edition of Fox & Friends. Both appearances were solo, with no ideological counterpart to balance, and neither Bozell nor Waters (or the MRC itself) was identified as conservative.
UPDATE: The MRC's Tim Graham appeared solo on the Sept. 14 edition of "The O'Reilly Factor" to tout his cherry-picking attack on the Huffington Post. Deviating from Fox News policy, O'Reilly did identify the MRC as conservative.
Posted by Terry K.
at 7:37 PM EDT
Updated: Saturday, September 15, 2007 12:42 AM EDT
A Sept. 14 NewsBusters post by Warner Todd Huston tries to paint the Alexis Debat faked-interview scandal as a "liberal media" problem because he served as "the main source for some of the AP's and ABC's stories." But Huston downplays the fact that conservatives got hoodwinked by him as well.
For instance, the conservative Counterterrorism Blog loved the heck out of Debat:
One of the premier experts in Washington on Pakistan, Alexis Debat of the Nixon Center and ABC News, traveled again to Pakistan last month and gave a briefing yesterday to invitees. Alexis is a daily CTB reader, and we've traded valuable background information and timely intelligence. He met there with numerous government officials and non-governmental personnel, including those in league with the terrorists. His findings and conclusions are extremely troubling, not only for the future of Pakistan but also for the future of a democracy in Afghanistan.
Further, a Sept. 2 WorldNetDaily article cited Debat as the source of a claim that the Pentagon has rejected a strategy of "pinprick strikes" against Iran's nuclear facilities and plan on "taking out the entire Iranian military." A Sept. 2 NewsMax article similarly repeated Debat's claim.
Huston went on to add:
So, what the heck is going on with editors these days? It seems they are all out to lunch while liars like Jason Blair, Jack Kelly, Michael Finkel, and Stephen Glass -- the list goes on and on -- just make things up out of their rear ends and publish their lies with little notice from those who are supposed to be the media's fact-checkers.
But NewsBusters itself has its own favorite fabulist, whom it has cited long after he was discredited.
As we've detailed, a May 2006 post by Noel Sheppard touted a claim by Amir Taheri about "a new law passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country's Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims." Sheppard added: "The question is: will America’s media report this? ... [W]here is the media outrage concerning this extremely heinous move by the current extremists in Iran?" The story was quickly retracted; the only alert NewsBusters gave to its readers about it was quietly appending a note about the retraction to Sheppard's post five days later but not otherwise publicizing it.
(In a delicious bit of irony, two months earlier, Joshua Sharf had included Taheri in a list of "real Middle East expert[s]" the Washington Post should be consulting.)
Amazingly, Taheri's lack of credibility has not kept conservatives -- and NewsBusters -- from citing him as a credible source: An Aug. 8 post by Tom Blumer touted an OpinionJournal.com column by Taheri. Neither Blumer nor OpinionJournal.com mentioned Taheri's previous fact-free debacle.
Also, Huston's mention of "Jack Kelly" is presumably referring to Jack Kelley, a USA Today reporter busted for fabricating parts of several articles. Contrary to Huston's suggestion, Kelley's work was conservative-friendly; as we've noted, WorldNetDaily printed an article by him and featured his writing about the Middle East, praising him as one of only a "few correspondents with background in the area who jetted in for a few weeks and left before they became tainted with the political correctness required of the resident media set."
Before Huston hurls any more smears at the media for taking the word of non-credible people, NewsBusters might want to clear its own closet of fabulists.
Kessler Fluffs Discredited Author's New Book Topic: Newsmax
In an Aug. 23 article, NewsMax's Ronald Kessler promoted Ed Klein's new unauthorized bio of Katie Couric. It must not be selling that well, because Kessler uses a Sept. 12 article to promote it again, complaining that "the mainstream media have virtually ignored" the book.
Missing from both articles is the likely reason people might be ignoring Klein's book -- Klein's previous book, a hatchet job on Hillary Clinton, mentioned only in passing in the Aug. 23 article and not at all on Sept. 12. Indeed, the Couric book looks to be another Klein hatchet job. From Kessler's Aug. 23 article:
As Klein tells it, one of Couric's shortcomings and a reason "CBS Evening News" remains in third place is Couric's unabashed liberal agenda.
"I think the lesson of Fox News' success is a good lesson," Klein tells me. "Couric and the people around her at CBS are really out of touch with mainstream America.
"She hangs out with Steve Tyler of Aerosmith in Nantucket. That says everything. It's the old Chablis-and-cheese liberalism. People don't want to get their news from somebody who wears open-toed shoes, wears purple eye shadow, and who hangs out with Steve Tyler of Aerosmith at night. They want somebody more serious, more trained, more culturally attuned to what's going on in the world."
[...]
Meanwhile, Klein reports, Couric wasn't interested in spending time with her husband Jay Monahan when he was dying of colon cancer. That tells everything one needs to know about her character.
To be sure, their marriage was on the rocks, in part because of her overwhelming need to outshine him.
[...]
Although she is too superficial to have deep liberal convictions, Couric's liberal image has hurt her as well, Klein says.
"She's a sort of classic limousine liberal. She is a good friend of Hillary Clinton. She got her publicist from Hillary. Her executive producer on "CBS Evening News," Rick Kaplan, is an old, old friend of Bill who slept at the White House many times while Clinton was in office."
But, Klein notes, "She's not one of these dyed-in-the wool ideologues. I think she's not deep enough and profound enough a person for that. She's more of a knee-jerk liberal. And I think her liberalism infuses everything in her life, including her work. But the thing that really has done her in is more her lack of the proper temperament and training for the job she holds than her ideology."
Yep, Klein is showing the same kind of hatred toward Couric that he showed toward Hillary. And he wonders why his book isn't selling.
