Debbie Does Duplicity

The geniuses who brought us Outfoxed are growling at Sean Hannity. It's a lesson in how to invent quotes and falsely allege a racial slur--and the debut of CQfD. Updated!: Are the lawyers getting involved?

Our favorite of the newshounds (another fine product from the Outfoxed cabal) is still “deborah”. Just seeing her name on an article practically guarantees that there will be fodder aplenty therein.

First she takes on yesterday's Hannity & Colmes, with guest Lawrence Guyot:

Hannity's harangue began at that point accusing Guyot of invoking Jim Crowe (one of his favorite minority lines). He then accused Guyot of telling African American kids that George Bush wants to keep them out of college. "That's a lie."

Actually this is pretty close, for a deborah quote. But of course, despite the punctuation, it is something less than verbatim:

HANNITY: When you tell black children that there’s an effort by Republicans to keep them out of college, that ad is lying.

Hannity called black Americans "paranoid conspiracy theorists" saying that these accusations about Bush are made every election.

Hannity slurred black Americans? How come that didn’t show up on the front page of all the newspapers? Possibly because it didn’t happen. Yes, it’s another of deborah’s counterfeit quotes:

HANNITY: If you feel comfortable invoking Jim Crowe, paranoid conspiracy theories that there’s an effort to supress votes...

What are the chances that debbie will apologize for alleging that Hannity made a racial slur that he never said? Slim and none, and slim just left town. She gives us a few more lines of purported Hannity comments:

"If you can sleep at night... If you feel comfortable telling children..." " This President has put more African Americans in high level jobs..."

Needless to say, not one of those, despite the use of quotations marks, is an accurate quote. But that’s why we love deborah so. Never a lack of fodder.

And then debbie moves in for the big finish:

Hannity's final word, as the segment was ending, was oddly off topic. "Al Gore screeching that our President betrayed his country."...I found the final "off topic" comment really strange. It's as if Hannity accidentally switched tracks on his "attack DVD".

It is strange. Peculiar. Odd. Why would he say such a thing? Can you guess where we are going with this? Yes, this is the mother of all counterfeit quotes--something that is entirely fabricated, completely made-up, totally invented. Hannity said nothing of the kind; here’s how the segment actually concluded:

HANNITY: I’m going to tell you something. This is happening every election, and it’s disgraceful that the Democratic party, who says they care about African Americans, would play this way. And you ought to be ashamed to go along with this. You ought to condemn it, you ought to have the courage of character to stand up against this, Lawrence. You’re a better man than supporting this garbage.
GUYON: The attorney general of the United States is attacking people for doing what? Registering people to vote.
HANNITY: Disgraceful.
GUYON: As we speak, he’s prosecuting people. Now is that a way to send a message that everyone can participate in this election? Come on out and vote and let’s beat this guy.
ALAN COLMES: All right Mr Guyon. Coming up next, new information about our story about Teresa Heinz Kerry from last night. Did she really mean to say “scumbag”? We’ll show you the tape; it’s coming up.

That’s it. Nothing about Al Gore, nothing even remotely like deborah's phony quote, not even distantly in the background. Where did she get this? She made it up!

Fast forward to one day later, and deborah is still in a lather about Sean Hannity. Adding to her distemper is the presence of Peggy Noonan:

Hannity and Noonan were full of theories about CBS and Hannity suggested a criminal investigation accusing them of trying to influence a Presidential race less then 50 days from election day.

We’re not familiar with the crime of trying to influence a Presidential race. Could it possibly have been a criminal investigation into, say, a crime?

HANNITY: We’re talking potentially here, forgery is a crime. Wire fraud is a crime. There are potential crimes here that need to be investigated.

Debbie continues:

When she was asked about Dan Rather, she replied with another attempt at impressing us with her intellectual superiority by misquoting F.Scott Fitzgerald. "The mark of true maturity is holding two opposing thoughts at the same time."

That’s rich--our deborah complaining that someone else got a quote wrong! But, in a fit of cosmic irony, debbie’s attempt to impress us fails because she ends up misquoting Peggy Noonan. Another counterfeit quote from deborah (hereafter “CQfD”):

NOONAN: The mark of true maturity is to hold two equal and opposing thoughts in your mind and not go crazy.

Then talking about CBS's involvement with the memos Noonan said, "I worked for them. That's what they are. CBS is liberal."

CQfD Alert!

NOONAN: I wrote for him [Dan Rather] for three years. I just love this guy.... He is a liberal, he is a leftist, he has gone to Democratic party fundraisers. As he has gotten older he has made it clear that he is a Democrat.

Once again, debbie saves her big guns for a final flourish:

Carl Cameron's wife worked on the Bush campaign in 2000.

They’re still trotting out this discredited lie? We've already demolished that phony charge.

Bush's cousin called the 2000 election for Bush before the results were certain.

Why is it important that it was Bush’s cousin? Does debbie want you to believe he was being partisan? We assume so, since she leaves out the inconvenient fact that Bush’s cousin actually called Florida for Al Gore! Only later as numbers continued to come in was that projection recalled, and the second time they got it right.

Roger Ailes was a Republican press secretary.

Rick Kaplan was a buddy of Bill Clinton. Tim Russert worked for Mario Cuomo. George Stephanopoulos worked for Bill Clinton. Get over it.

Rupert Murdoch is a huge supporter of the Republican party.

In 2000 Murdoch was vice-chair at a September 14 Al Gore fundraiser in New York. You know, that Al Gore, the one that all the huge Republicans raised money for. Newsweek reported that Murdoch personally forked over $50,000. But maybe debbie is talking about Murdoch’s contributions to Ted Kennedy and John Kerry (not to mention Charles Schumer). Well, then maybe she’s talking about Murdoch permitting the DNC to use the Staples Center in Los Angeles for Gore’s convention--without charging them a penny (a multi-million dollar in-kind contribution). Just maybe Rupert Murdoch, like many CEOs, gives to both sides.

Or maybe, debbie doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Again.

Update: We passed along to Sean Hannity's staff this information, specifically highlighting the phony racial slur debbie attributed to Hannity. Their response:

It is fairly bad misquote, I will pass this on to legal.

posted: Thu - September 23, 2004 at 12:56 AM j$p send

bob kleiber
Johnny,

not sure how you remain sane dealing with the nitwits on that other site - it is a circus of misinformation, lies, and just plain boneheadedness - keep up the good work!
September 23, 2004, 12:38:18 PM EDT – Like – Reply

johnny dollar
Thanks Bob!
September 23, 2004, 1:44:33 PM EDT – Like – Reply

marc
Excellent JD!

Keep up the good work.

cheers, marc
September 23, 2004, 3:48:29 PM EDT – Like – Reply

HS
Hannity has no chance of winning that suit. He is a public figure. By placing humself in the spotlight, he must prove defemation was performed with malice (actual/deliberate intent). In addition, the burden of proof is clear and convincing (see Sullivan v NY TImes). Finally, Hannity himself has provided a vast amount of ammunition to the other side.
September 23, 2004, 4:18:35 PM EDT – Like – Reply

Major Tom
Johnny$:

I think your reference to "passing this on the legal department" was highly improper. Personal threats should be as unwelcome on this site as they are on the Newshound site. Additionally, you know that anyone could cavalierly say that Sean Hannity killed his mother, and because he's a "huge public figure," he would be non-suited within hours after filing his case in court; that is, if someone hadn't filed a counterclaim against him for intentional "abuse of process."

J$, I sure hope I do not see these kinds of personal threats any more against anyone on this particulat internet site. You're in total control of it, and we all know that.

What we all should strive to accomplish is to partake of a good solid debate without the risk of being attacked with personal threats, one way or the other.

What do you say?

Major Tom
September 23, 2004, 7:40:01 PM EDT – Like – Reply

johnny dollar
Major Tom, I didn't pass it on to the legal department. Sean Hannity's staff did.

When you accuse someone of making a racial slur ("Black Americans are..." etc) and in fact you are not telling the truth, that is a serious matter. Accusations of racism, once they get into the bloodstream of the internet, are poisonous--doubly so when they are false. Almost immediately after deborah posted her accusation, I pointed out that it was false. She did not correct it. After that I posted the true transcript of what Hannity said. She did not retract it. In fact, as I just checked the original article, her defamation of Sean Hannity is still standing: uncorrected, unretracted, unrepentant.

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting its pants on (or something like that). People should be very careful before accusing others of making racist comments.
September 23, 2004, 7:50:39 PM EDT – Like – Reply

Major Tom
Don't give that "I didn't pass it on to the legal department" stuff. You clearly passed it on to Hannity, knowing what his "pro forma" response would be, in a piss poor attempt to scare the Newshounds. Well, that did not work, not at all; and I believe you owe Debora a personal apology. Didn't you know, you can't scare off these resolute ladies with something as lame as what you did. They're not stupid, and they're certainly not cowards. So there it is.

Unquestionably, your intent was not very good, to say the least, sir.

I'll wait to hear your apology.

By the way, I actually have accused Hannity of many "questionable things" in my many emails to him, and I'm still waiting to be sued. Boy, I can't wait. Hey, would you please pass a message onto his legal department that I'm still waiting, but I won't hold my breath.

Major Tom

[edited for profanity by J$]
September 23, 2004, 8:20:54 PM EDT – Like – Reply

Major Tom
Thank you for the edit.
Major Tom
September 23, 2004, 8:35:04 PM EDT – Like – Reply

johnny dollar
I edited your message for profanity; our policy is to delete messages with profanity, so you're on probation!

I am sure you accused Hannity of many things in emails to him. But when you put something on a public webpage, for the whole world to see, that's different. And when what you put up is clearly and demonstrably libelous and malicious, when you claim he said something that he clearly and provably didn't say, and that something happens to be a vile racial slur, that's a horse of another color.
September 23, 2004, 8:43:29 PM EDT – Like – Reply

Major Tom
Okay, I sincerely think Sean Hannity is one of the biggest racists in America.

Major Tom
September 23, 2004, 8:51:55 PM EDT – Like – Reply

ellen
Johnny,
As a lawyer, yourself (that's right, we know you are one), you must know as well as anyone else that Sean Hannity is nearly impossible to libel. So gloating over "I will pass this on to legal" can only be construed as malicious mischief but without any real substance.

Secondly, you must also know that Deborah's name is DEBORAH, not Debbie. If you keep calling her Debbie, I'll keep calling you Markie.
September 29, 2004, 12:58:20 PM EDT – Like – Reply

johnny dollar
Yeah, but there aren't any movie titles that use "Deborah" that I can play off of for a title. (Wait...I remember a terrible movie called "Sweet Body of Deborah"--not much headline fodder there!)

And if you want to call me Markie, knock yourself out. I've been called much, much worse over at the newshounds site, where apparently when it comes to name calling and personal attacks, anything goes.

As for the Hannity business, there is nary a single "gloat" on the page. Rather than trying to divine my facial expression, why not ponder the question of why a site like the newshounds refuses to correct false quotations? Is it ethical to post false quotes, and then refuse to take them down because you don't think a lawsuit is really coming? Talk about Standards and Practices!

Thanks for commenting!
September 29, 2004, 4:19:52 PM EDT – Like – Reply