Lie Like a Dog

Why not begin at the top? That would be the Queen Bee of the dog kennel, Ellen Brodsky. She is up in paws over the news that Richard Blumenthal lied about his (non-)service in VietNam and that Fox dared to report it. Why, the story itself is “not holding up” wrote Brodsky, even as the New York Times discovers more examples of Blumenthal fabrications. But never mind that; it’s important to Brodsky to impugn the story because--even though it started in the Times--it was reported on Fox. To that end, she makes a preposterous claim:

Fox News predictably jumped on the story (in a way it did not with the resignation of “family values” Republican Mark Souder).

What is Ellen not telling us this time? Contrary to her claim, Fox News “jumped” on the Souder story before anyone else did. It was a Fox News Exclusive! Fox broke the story! To further obfuscate the truth, Brodsky includes two search links that purport to show how FNC gave more attention to Blumenthal than Souder. Hmm. That might just be because Souder, an obscure Congressman, resigned his office just hours after the news broke. Story over. While Blumenthal, running for Christopher Dodd’s US Senate seat, did not immediately respond. When he did call a press conference that was more news. And then more examples surfaced, continuing the story. And he’s still in the race. Is it surprising that a continuing news story gets more coverage than one that ended in three hours?

But let’s take a closer look at the links Brodsky cooked up to defend her claim. They seem to prove the Blumenthal story was covered over 12,000 times by Fox, while Souder shows only 102 hits. Do you really believe there are 12,000+ stories on foxnews.com about Blumenthal’s VietNam lies? Well, Ellen was clever, but too clever by half. Her search link for Souder looks for one word: Souder. Her link for Blumenthal looks for two words: Richard Blumenthal. Yes, you guessed it. By not putting “Richard Blumenthal” in quotes she ensured that the search results would turn up any entries containing Blumenthal or just Richard! Sure enough, those 12,000+ entries are overwhelmingly about other people named “Richard”, and not about Blumenthal at all! If you filter out all the irrelevant and non-Blumenthal results in those 12,000+ hits, the number of links actually relating to Blumenthal’s lying is: 34.

Writing under Brodsky’s byline is yet another anonymous (and therefore presumably unqualified) “guest blogger”. “Brian” wants us to believe that Neil Cavuto committed a cardinal sin by interviewing a Democrat who supports the Arizona immigration law:

It’s hard to recall any fanfare at Fox News when Republican Marco Rubio criticized the Arizona immigration law but when the “fair and balanced” folks at Fox dug up a Democrat, Rhode Island State Representative Peter Palumbo, who supports the law and wants to enact a similar one for his state, they not only brought him on Your World with Neil Cavuto, they trumpeted his party affiliation in the video and in the Foxnews.com description of the video.

Yeah, never mind that Cavuto had on both Judge Napolitano and Republican Mike Huckabee to speak against the bill--on the very day it was signed! And ignore the fact that Marco Rubio came on Fox News Sunday to discuss his opposition to the bill.

But here’s the clincher: contrary to “Brian’s” claim, Neil Cavuto did interview Marco Rubio (R) on air about why he was against the bill. What’s more, they trumpeted his party affiliation in the video and in the Foxnewscom description of the video. But “Brian” says it’s “hard to recall” that ever happening. Yeah it really taxes the memory, especially when the video is sitting in plain sight at foxnews.com and youtube and any number of other places. Another Hound Lie? We report, you decide.

Speaking of lying, our pal “Priscilla” is jockeying with Brodsky for the crown. Of Martha MacCallum, Prissy writes:

During an interview with the right wing Arizona Superintendent of Education, she agreed with him that ethnic studies curriculum and texts seem to encourage youth to be un-American.

Prissy based her claim on this interview, where the guest never even used the word “un-American”, let alone MacCallum agreeing with that sentiment. Is this yet Another Hound Lie? You make the call.

But we’re not through with “Priscilla” yet, who revives a trick as old as the hounds themselves. In a piece chock full of Prissy’s favorite keywords--“persecuted Christian” (three times), “Good Christian” (five times), and “not so heavenly hosts”--she attacks Fox for interviewing a mayor who supports prayer at council meetings:

God’s BFF’s at Fox & Friends stand ready to smite the secular enemy and did so in, yet another, biased “report” aimed squarely below the Bible belt....Neither Parris nor the Fox altar boys said that the attorney (who was smeared by good Christian Parris) challenged a similar practice in Burbank, in 2000, and won a state appellate decision saying the practice violated the First Amendment. But details like that would get in the way of the persecuted Christian narrative so beloved on Fox & Friends.

Of course Prissy is wrong right off the bat: this wasn’t a “biased report” or any sort of report at all. It was an interview, with a party to a controversy in the news. If “Priscilla” doesn’t know the difference between a report and an interview it’s no surprise that she cowers in anonymity behind a nom-de-plume. But we told you that Prissy was resurrecting a time-honored bit of hound chicanery, and indeed she did. You may remember it from those times when Ellen Brodsky and others blasted Fox for an allegedly one-sided interview, while leaving out the other interview(s) representing opposing views. And of course “Priscilla” herself has played the same game.

Well it’s deja vu all over again. Prissy rails about a “biased report”, but conveniently fails to note the follow-up interview done on Fox and Friends--with Roger Jon Diamond, the attorney who is the party on the other side in this controversy. Was that a “biased report” too? Well, we’ll never know what “Priscilla” would say because she made it go away by pretending it never aired. Funny thing, that stuff that Prissy said Fox would not air because it “gets in the way of the persecuted Christian narrative so beloved on Fox & Friends”? All those points were aired in the interview Prissy didn’t want you to know about. What, you mean it puts the lie to “Priscilla’s” smear? Well, yeah. That’s why, with dozens of posts over the past two weeks, Prissy never did one on this interview. The Lie of Omission. Still a newspoodle favorite.

The Girl (?) from A.U.N.T.Y.

We have noted before the strange case of “Aunty Em”, the newspoodle smear artist who courageously posts everything under an assumed name. (And possibly more than one, given striking similarities to posts by one “Jonathan”.) But it seems that Aunty Em/Uncle Jon (hereafter AE/UJ) is nothing if not persistent. Despite being caught lying about Fox transcripts, AE/UJ devotes a whole new post to recycling the same lie!

Glenn Beck's Conspiracy Theory About A Scrubbed Internet Overlooks His Own Scrubbed Transcript... At one point he persisted in the same delusional paranoia he’s displayed a fair amount of lately, by intimating he’ll be disappeared, just like Jimmy Hoffa. And, yet, those words themselves, which were on Fox News' original transcript, have disappeared from the official Fox News transcript published later in the week.... “I wonder if they’ll bury me—could it be on the 50-yard line? I don’t like the end zone. Would you bury me there?” [Official Fox News transcript before the official scrubbing] Those exact words were posted earlier in the week on the Fox News web site... Isn’t it odd that the new, updated transcript linked from the main Beck page, removes all references to football end zones?... They have been scrubbed from the original transcript, which skips to his next complete thought. [Official Fox News transcript after the official scrubbing]... There is no scouring and sanitizing the internet. That stuff lives forever.

There are multiple lies here:

1. Those lines have not disappeared from the transcript. See for yourself. Note how it is labeled a transcript at the top of the page, produced not by Fox but by Roll Call.
B. There was no “official Fox News transcript published later in the week”. There is only one transcript and it hasn’t changed.
III. What AE/UJ calls a “new, updated transcript” is actually Glenn Beck’s daily column, which doesn’t claim to be a “transcript” of anything--the word “transcript” doesn’t even appear!
d. AE/UJ’s claim that the so-called “updated transcript” was published “later in the week” is another lie. It was published before (May 10) the official transcript (May 11). So the lines about football that AE/UJ claims were “scrubbed” weren’t removed at all. They were added.
5. The official transcript does not “skip to his next complete thought” because it remains unchanged; it has not been sanitized, scrubbed, or altered in any way. It’s sitting right where it’s always been.

The bottom line: AE/UJ is not just a liar, but a serial liar. But then (s)he will lie about even trivial things. Speaking of Stephen Colbert:

I was honoured to hear him use my nomenclature for his fans as “Beckerheads.”

You will note that AE/UJ’s first use of the term was October 11, 2009. And yet there it is, in the Urban Dictionary, a month before AE/UJ claimed to have invented it! Oops. But we have yet to plumb the lowest depths of the newshound pesthole.

What do you do when just lying about Glenn Beck week after week remains unfulfilling, when you need something more depraved to satisfy a diseased craving? Well then you turn to attacking him personally, and as a bonus going after his family as well. With Ellen Brodsky’s beaming approval, AE/UJ decided to tackle Beck’s relationship with his mother because, well, when he said he didn’t like Mother’s Day but he loved his mom he must be pathological:

The erstwhile Fox News Channel host does little to disabuse people of the notion that he’s a few nuggets short of an ounce... While he goes on to quickly say, “Love my mom,” one might view that merely as a reflexive action. While Beck doesn’t really care that people think he’s nuts, he doesn’t want anyone to think he hates his mommy.... Despite Beck’s claims to “Love my mom,” one wonders whether there’s just a teensy-weensy bit of resentment there.

Cute, huh? You know we might take this a tiny bit more seriously if AE/UJ had some sort of background and training in psychiatry...but hey, we’ll never know. (S)he’s too cowardly to tell the truth about his/her own identity--which neatly makes any qualifications and background, or the utter lack of same, similarly invisible. How nicely that works out. Of course no trained professional would even attempt the bilge that AE/UJ is spewing here, so we pretty much know that this is character assassination rooted not in expertise but in hate. (Besides, what educated person would make the fatuous claim that Beck is an “erstwhile”, i.e. “former”, FNC host?)

Next AE/UJ ups the ante. Hey, let’s talk suicide! Because Beck’s mother reportedly killed herself, this means we can brighten up the kennel dwellers by exploiting her death:

I think he’s the type who will cry at the tender moments in a long-distance telephone commercial, because deep down inside he’s nostalgic for a past he never had. So, it’s hard to believe Beck truly looks upon his mother fondly. While still in puberty, she left him with a legacy of alcoholism, addiction and an increased propensity to off himself.

Again, AE/UJ uses her psychic powers to divine that Beck is lying about his feelings toward his mother. So Mrs Beck’s tragic life and death is hereby reduced to nothing more than a prop for newspooch agit-prop. This is truly Pulitzer-worthy stuff. Doesn’t the Columbia Journalism Review always psychoanalyze people’s relationships with their mother?

But wait, there’s more. If Beck’s mother committed suicide, why not seize on that to really cheer up the kennel-dwellers and talk about the possibility that Beck will do the same?

According to a recent article on CNN: “A large study has found that people who as children or adolescents lost a parent to suicide are more likely to die the same way."

AE/UJ goes on to provide a helpful list of 17 “suicide warning signs” and how they all somehow apply to Beck, before returning again to capitalize on his mother’s suicide. So AE/UJ exploits a family tragedy, makes light of its seriousness, uses it to attack Glenn Beck, impugns his relationship with his mother, and to put the cherry on the sundae fantasizes about the likelihood that maybe, just maybe, Beck will kill himself.

It’s troubling enough that AE/UJ would write such a rambling, thinly-disguised death wish. It’s astonishing that (s)he would want it to be seen by the public. And it’s mind-boggling that a website purporting to serve a serious purpose would publish something so debased and repugnant. Perhaps another reason why AE/UJ and so many other “writers” for the newshounds hide under pseudonymsns. It is difficult to believe that responsible persons would have their names associated with such excrement.

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Tags: newshounds, beck, slootsky