Just when you think that liberal "journalists" can't grow any more biased or offensive, along comes someone like The Daily Beast's Eleanor Clift (who formerly helped edit Newsweek magazine into oblivion with a succession of cover articles praising Barack Obama's God-like perfection).
Clift, while discussing Benghazi on a Sunday news talk program, angrily said "I would like to point out that Ambassador Stevens was not murdered. He died of smoke-inhalation in the safe room in that CIA installation!"
That's right- Stevens wasn't murdered by anyone, he was simply a victim of bad ventilation! And you know the thousands of people who died in the World Trade Center? Presumably Clift believes that they weren't murdered by terrorists either - they all just happened to die of natural causes like fire, falling, and being inside collapsing buildings.
Or maybe she'd like to argue that during the Holocaust, the death camp victims weren't murdered by anyone - they just happened to die because of cyanide gas inhalation.
Clift's suggestion that no one was murdered in Benghazi (and by extension that there are no murderers to bring to justice) is appalling beyond belief. But astoundingly, she wasn't finished - she also insisted that the attack was a spontaneous demonstration in reaction to the infamous YouTube video, a preposterous whopper that even spokesliar Susan Rice dropped like a scalding potato almost two years ago.
Sadly, Eleanor Clift's willful ignorance and sneering disregard for both life and facts are nothing unusual in what passes for journalism today - and people like her continue peddling propaganda and lies secure in the belief that the Obama administration makes it safe for them to do so.
But remember, Eleanor, it was also this administration that assured Ambassador Stevens that he had a safe room.
39 comments:
And come the revolution its she and her ilk that will be first against the wall ( as history shows).
Barry T
Okay, then Trayvon Martin died of lead poisoning, Eleanor.
The very sad thing, which Stilton alluded to, is that this is not an aberration. This is consensus among the so called media, and by extension those on the left who lap up their tripe.
Do ya' think Harry Reid got ahold of her to say this stupidity because he needed someone to take over for his inanities.
Unbelievable. How can you reason with such profound stupidity? More proof that liberalism is a mental disorder (and it is further spread, NOT treated, with Øbamacare)
Edward R. Murrow... where are you!? Wherever he is, he's spinning in his grave over the likes of Clift, Ed Shultz and Chrissy Tingles.
Her uncle, Monty, had a car wreck that disfigured his face; I think Eleanor must of had an accident that disfigured her brain. This ranks right up there with global warming causing earthquakes, and army bases causing islands to tip over.
But, in her defense... did you all know that the Challenger crew died from a very sudden lack of oxygen?
The Digital Hairshirt +1
This is an excellent case study of the Joseph Goebbels theory:
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."
Especially when you are aided and abetted by a complicit media...
The real tragedy is that anyone takes people like this seriously.
During the Clinton years, I used to argue that if video were to emerge of Bill & Hillary Clinton gleefully clubbing baby harp seals, Elenor Clift would already have a story in the file to run about how clubbing baby harp seals was a just and selfless thing the Clintons were doing on America's behalf, and would be on next week's McLaughlin Group to shame us on our criticism of them.
And they wonder why Newsweak failed. On the day of her final farewell, she'll definitely be welcomed into the Goebbels wing of journalist hell.
@The Digital Hairshirt: Good one.
@Digital Hairshirt ~ Perfection! And may I add that we should make all the Left die from lead poisoning! Like the possessed lemmings that they are, we need to throw them all over the "clift"!
Sorry to be so blunt but there it is. Eleanor and all the Left are just worthless trails of cat sick! This is simply outrageous! I feel like a sane person living in an insane world. I just pray that the next election will reflect more sanity.
Gad- these are all wonderful comments. Like the others, Digital Hairshirt (great name) seems to be the winner so far.
But I must say, the bottom line is Judi King's comment: "The real tragedy is that anyone takes people like this seriously."
The press is so sick .... Clift is the poster-person. She is the stuff of HnC.
Beyond belief!
But at the same time not surprising.
And that is why I take responsibility as much as I can for my own protection of property and life. And damn what the liberal/looney/leftist/democrats think about my self-reliance.
CenTexTim: There may, however, be some hope here, in that the rest of the quote goes something like:
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
More and more it's beginning to dawn on many of the fools that they have indeed been fooled as the truth leaks into the narrative. The fact that this administration has so far failed to shut out truthful news sources is most certainly not due to a lack of effort. And they have thus far failed to utterly collapse our economy, which is pretty much a prerequisite to even reasonably recreating the social conditions of post WWI Germany. One can only hope at this point that they have played their hand too soon and America has not noticed too late.
I have read that just some 17% of the people now trust the big media -- so in a sense she's talking to the last folks to bother. The viewership seems to be in the 100s of thousands, or just low millions -- they hardly reach anyone anymore. I don't know how any of you stomach watching this garbage. On the other hand, if she drove Newsweek into the ground, perhaps she can assist the others too. Though, as the news "reporters" say -- "As you can see behind me, there's an idiot," and I said to the TV "No, I can't, get out of the way!" Finally I just moved the TV out of the house.
Ultimately, I suppose, what difference does it make if no one is really paying attention anymore? Their power to influence has simply collapsed. And while it might seem bad that few pay attention, on the other hand, we shouldn't have to. They are warbling themselves into irrelevance.
@Mike Porter, I've long argued that the media is only useful in convincing people that things are bad when they really aren't. It's much harder, impossible really, for the media to convince people that times are good when they aren't. They can claim that ObamaCare is a success and that the economy is better than when Bush was President, but that doesn't work when people and/or people they know are losing their insurance for ObamaCrap, they're getting their hours cut, or the great new job they got pays a fraction of their previous one.
And what better example of America's new impotence than that of our new hashtag diplomacy? That really must have the axis of evil quaking in their boots.
@Jim Hlavac, the state of television news today is awful. (And I know it may be hearsay to say here, but that includes FOX, which I consider totally unwatchable) Everyone now speaks exclusively to their audience, assuming they still have one. It's not even decent propaganda anymore.
@Jim Hlavac
Gad, I hope you're right. I no longer watch TV much. Maybe a movie at TCM once in a while. But for the rest, I hope that you are correct.
@Mike Porter
"which is pretty much a prerequisite to even reasonably recreating the social conditions of post WWI Germany"
You have touched a raw nerve with me, in the sense that this is my big fear about America today. We seem to be there. Gorp!!!!!
For Stilton: http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y25/jons/tumblr_moui0ghhCB1ql2603o1_500.jpg
John the Econ,
I'll agree with you about Fox News to a point, but I'll give them this. At least they are presenting a different point of view than the "Fully in the Progressive Tank and Licking O'Liar's Scrotum" other networks. I actually really like Megyn Kelly, Shepard Smith and Brett Baier a lot; they're not all hyped up like Hannity and such.
Louisiana Open Carry Awareness League,
Holy cow! That's a real knee slapper! Too funny.
Ah...you like many others have misspelled her name - it's Clit, Eleanor Clit
Jeff
@Colby, I agree that Fox makes it impossible for the MSM to cover-up Progressive corruption the way they had become accustomed to during the Clinton years. But beyond that, they're presentation is little more than leading the race to the bottom. I haven't watched them since Brit Hume left the evening report.
Ironically, and as a further demonstration of MSM myopia, CNN seems to be emulating Fox's format more and more, mistakenly under the impression that it isn't their leftist bias that has viewers ignoring them, but the Fox low-attention-span format. So they are eagerly following them down the rabbit hole.
@Barry T- Yet another reason that we should have a wall running the length of the Mexican border; it's the only one that would fit all of the news media at once.
@The Digital Hairshirt- Precisely.
@TrickyRicky- Clift should be treated as a joke within her profession, but instead she's considered one of the "grand old ladies" of the field. Which tells you pretty much all you need to know about modern journalism.
@mjloehrer- That's an appealing theory, but I'd lay odds that Reid will say something even more boneheaded before the week is out.
@Chuck- Eleanor seems uniquely attuned to the damage caused by a sudden lack of oxygen. I'm guessing that on at least one occasion, her brain went without it for over four minutes...
@CenTexTim- The great thing about BIG lies is that they tend to be simple and easy to remember. Truth is complicated - especially when
some folks are deliberately obscuring the truth.
@Judi King- I completely agree. If these were just lunatics shouting in the wilderness, I wouldn't care. But they are widely heard, seen, and (tragically) believed.
@John the Econ- I've always considered Clift to be the worst kind of liberal whore, because I actually think she's too smart to believe the positions she advocates. Rather, she's cramming spin down the peons' throats because she believes that the ends justify the means.
@Sparky- I'll note that we should not make the left die of lead poisoning or anything else - we just need to move them out of positions of power (in or out of government) so they can no longer harm our country.
@Chuck Ef- Clift really is in the top ten offenders list as far as left-wing lie mongers go.
@American Cowboy- "Self-reliance" is the dirtiest of dirty words to the Left.
@Mike Porter- The nail-biting question is whether the tide can still be turned, or if the momentum of the Obama administration will inevitably continue to damage our country even after Barry is out of office. I'm genuinely not sure - but I am sure it's still important to speak up.
@Jim Hlavac- I read this week than CNN now gets only 250k prime time viewers (or fewer) for their top shows. That's a flat out joke.
It's entirely likely that Clift is getting more exposure from outraged conservatives than she did on her news talk show.
I am pleased that the old media is dying, in no small part due to self-inflicted wounds.
@John the Econ- Great point about it being easier to convince people that "good is bad" than the other way around. Profound, even.
@Chuck Ef- Not to stray off topic, but I love TCM. I have to laugh at the new supersized, 3D, 4k, high-def televisions because I still find myself happiest watching "The Thin Man" in black and white with mono sound.
@Louisiana Open Carry Awareness League- Sweet!
(More comments later)
The left is forced to make completely outrageous statements, lies and BS so they get noticed. Otherwise, no one is watching. There was a rash of it a few months ago at MSNBC. It's the only way they can get any attention and exposure. This includes Harry Reid.
They remind me of my 3 year-old granddaughter "Look at me, look at me, look at me!"
@Colby- I agree with you on FOX News; I don't watch the more strident folks (Hannity, OReilly), but really like the Bret Baier news report and the roundtable summary at the show's end. And "Red Eye," although news/entertainment, is a delight.
@Jeff- I think you must be mistaken; the word you're thinking of is associated with pleasure - and Eleanor has never been accused of that.
@John the Econ- You mention the "low attention span" format on Fox, and I wholeheartedly agree. I'm sick of all their bells and whistles, lower third graphics, FOX NEWS ALERTs for matters of no urgency, and the ludicrous white laboratory setting they've created for Shep, with interns manipulating giant touchscreens in order to show Twitter messages.
Maybe it's necessary to compete in this ADHD world, but I just find it all annoying and demeaning to the integrity of the news.
@SC- I think you're right that the Left frequently DOES let fly with crazy statements just to get noticed. For instance, the entire broadcast schedule of MSNBC...
What AMAZING options are opened by such logic as LNR Clift! So, let's say, a person wants to "off" someone, but doesn't have the "killer instinct" to do it the old fashioned way, y'know... like with a club, or tire iron... so he can just set fire to the guys HOUSE, and voila... SMOKE INHALATION!
Man, I can see a PLETHORA of appeals pouring in from "death-row" because "I didn't strangle him... his NECK was too fat for my hands!
"I didn't DROWN him... he just couldn't process the "O" of H2O well enough."
"I didn't STAB HIM to death, he just had a premature unscheduled AUTOPSY!"
L.O.C.A.L
That sign reminds me of a song by Anneau (du Vic-Bilh) Lennox!
Eeyore Clift was spotted here.
" “Rape isn’t intrinsically bad?” he interjects.
“It’s not,” she replies."
@Stilton, I'm not sure that FOX can compete with CNN regarding the overuse of the "Breaking News" meme:
Breaking News
@Chuck Ef, what you have actually linked to is an example of what happens when too many people have nothing legitimate to do with their lives. Since we're such an affluent society where such a small percentage of us have to work in order to provide a beyond-subsistence level of existence for nearly everybody, others are free to pursue other things. Since actually being productive citizens is seen as below these people, they need to create self-aggrandizing crisis to justify their own existence to others and themselves. No place illustrates this phenomenon today as academia. And the "education bubble" created by government grants and subsidies make it all the worse. One has to ask that if academia didn't exist, what would these people be doing?
Speaking of intellectual incongruence: At the moment, I'm watching a rally over "Net Neutrality"; the notion that the Federal government should control how private companies manage dataflow on their networks.
What gets me is that there was nary a peep from this same crowd over the notion that control over the Internet's Domain Name Service (DNS) structure should be put under control of the UN. This is the same body that just admitted Iran, a nation that encourages the stoning of women for adultery or for being raped to its Commission on the Status of Women.
So evil incarnate is the idea that Comcast might be able and willing to screw up my Amazon video feed, but giving control of the entire Internet over to a body dominated by totalitarian regimes that can't wait to censor content isn't such a problem.
@Bruce Bleu- After the outcry about Clift's idiocy, she appeared in another interview and was given a chance to take back or change her statement. She didn't, saying instead that when most people (ie, the rabble) think of "murder" they get an incorrect picture in their head, and that by emphasizing death by smoke inhalation she was "adding complexity" to the citizenry's understanding of Benghazi.
She was also asked about the victims of the (original) 9/11 attacks, and refused to comment on whether they had been murdered. Perhaps because that question lacks complexity and thus bores her.
Regarding Annie Lennox, I'm a big fan of all her music.
@Chuck Ef- Congratulations, you've accomplished the rare feat of stunning me into freaking speechlessness.
@John the Econ- I sometimes fantasize about a post-apocalyptic world in which people will have to show some useful skill to avoid going into the communal stewpot. I tend to think that the academic intelligentsia will be appreciated mainly as a source of flavor when added to potatoes and onions.
Regarding "Net Neutrality," I just saw a news flash from FOX saying that the "Titanic Is Still Sunk." No, no - really it said that the FCC has just announced that they're going to rewrite Internet rules. I've got no details yet, but my sphincter is puckering as if to warn of a coming storm...
@Doc
Well, here is another one from this morning's news. I do not like Kirsten Powers, except to say she is way cute and way smart but usually wrong in everything she says. USUALLY.
Now this gives me extreme pause when someone on the left points this out - though I did not read it all. So maybe it is a ruse. Still ...
Thought police cometh.
@John the Econ
OMG - CNN has scooped one! Wow ... inanity rules, dude.
And, speaking of which, to answer your question regarding academia ("One has to ask that if academia didn't exist, what would these people be doing?"), I give you this response.
The modern academic in its native state.
@Stilton, don't try to find any logic or other signs of sanity in Clift. Whatever critical thought she had escaped her decades ago. Just add her to the growing list of Baghdad Bobs for the left.
As for the economic apocalypse, mass extinctions do serve a purpose; to cleans and strengthen both the gene and skills pool, which clearly need it today. Subsistence economies have no slack to support otherwise worthless people like the Elenor Clifts, Sandra Flukes, Barack Obamas...
@Chuck Ef: If there's an upside to the insanity in academia these days, it's the reality that they are starting to eat their own. A chancellor from UC Berkeley wasn't liberal enough for the kids at Haverford? There was more ideological flexibility under Stalin & Mao that what these people will tolerate.
These people are putting the "uni" in "university".
Breaking News: Fast food workers picketing themselves out of jobs. Brilliant.
OK, had to delete that and try again. Didn't proof read well enough.
Re: academia nuts,
There is an old saying that goes something like this:
Those who can....do
Those who can't.....teach
Full disclosure, I married a teacher. And I can tell you honestly they live in their own little world. No offense to any HnCer's that are, used to be, whatever, teachers. But I say that because in my experience most of them tend to interact almost exclusively with other teachers, ie, living in an echo chamber.
Not all, but certainly most.
@WMD, through my academic journey, I had many excellent teachers. They were not just there for the paycheck and benefits; They loved what they did. I don't hesitate to say that without exposure to those people, I would not be the man I am today. But without question, those people I consider excellent were but a small minority of all the "educators" I was made to endure over the decades. I shudder to imagine how I would have turned out had I not have the influence of those people.
Too many of the rest were just what you describe; people existing in their own little world, using the system as a bubble to protect them from the cruel reality that the rest of us face every day. The only exposure to the real world many get is from minority of students (like myself) who would insist on challenging the consensus of the echo chamber. And naturally, whatever people like me say is automatically rejected.
What they didn't understand what that when I'd challenge their consensus, it wasn't an effort to change their mind. I knew that would never happen as they were too invested in their ideology. But what it would do is expose their insanity to my classmates. And the harder a teacher would try to shut me down, the more I knew that others in the class would figure out what was happening. The greatest joy I experienced in college was the knowledge that many of the students in the classes taught by the most liberal instructors would leave those classes more conservative than they were when they walked in.
One of the more interesting experiences involved the elevated sense of competency that many of these people had. Many in academia are just smart enough to understand that they're otherwise useless, and they don't bother to explore outside their competency. However, the truly ignorant don't know that, and frequently demonstrate it. I was once in the position of having the authority of signing off on the use of some rather expensive university equipment that had the prerequisite of a certain amount of training and a demonstration of competence in using. I was always amused by the class of people (usually with lots more letters behind their names than I had) who'd show up and just expected me to just sign them off on principle, basically because they were theoretically smarter than I was. Many would actually come out and say something like, "Well, I've got a PhD in this and that (totally unrelated to the competency in question, BTW) and so I should be able to handle this. Didn't happen. Upon the being made to demonstrate their competency, most failed miserably.
The echo chamber encourages these people to overestimate their sense of self. In reality, most are no smarter than you are; perhaps less so. Those people were the most dangerous, both to themselves and others.
John the econ,
I didn't mean to denigrate teachers or their profession. I couldn't agree with you more. In my last comment I had actually included a college experience I had of my own, but I deleted it beacause I always worry about being too "wordy" or going off on a tangent. And the college experiences you describe are nearly identical to mine. I loved to intellectually corner some snobby professor. They would start to stammer and stutter and spit and sweat, because they were not programmed to respond in that area. My father (one of the smartest people I've known) used to say that some people are educated beyond their intelligence. So what if you can calculate the orbits of planets but don't know how to tie your shoes?
Again, I married a teacher and she cares deeply about her students. In fact she gets Christmas cards from many of them years later!
But I have noticed that most teachers only hang out with other teachers. And I think if you don't get out and look around once in a while your vision tends to get myopic.
By the way, I'm not yelling at you or anything. You have the most informed, insightful comments on any of the blogs I frequent. No offense to any other regulars here, I like most all the comments and commentors here, and I read them all. But y'all have to admit John the econ don't come here to play.
Well, there I go getting "wordy" again, sorry.
@WMD
Well, one of the things that appeals about blogs like this is to get opinions outside of one's experiences. Any profession suffers from insularity, my own included. In my field, we often lose touch with "the customer". I dare say, managers do the same WRT their employees. And on and on ...
The problem with academia is their out-sized influence today. "They" used to be curmudgeonly cranks - balanced however with a certain mainstream. No more.
@WMD, that's why these ideologues want to outlaw all "offensive" speech on campus. By outlawing dissenting opinion, they don't even need to think about how to defend their positions, which are all-to-often indefensible.
It's a good thing I'm no where near a campus today. I doubt I'd last long before the thought police would have me expelled, or worse.
@Chuck Ef: The problem with academia is that for the last several decades, they've been seen as the exclusive gatekeepers to upward mobility in America. With nearly unlimited funding via government subsidies, they've become funded well outside of their contribution to society and the economy. As such, the sad fact is that universities today have devolved to little more than diploma mills instead of being the supposed institutions of higher learning they once were.
Fortunately, people are now starting to do the match and figure out that it doesn't make sense going 6-figures into debt to get a low 5-figure job anymore. The trick now is getting the government to stop subsidizing the madness, which will never happen on its own.
An interesting aside: While I was writing above, I got an e-mail from one of those special teachers I knew, just to say "Hi". Interestingly, she was a "liberal" of the Carter years who after a few more decades of reality shed those views. I'd like to think I was a part of that as well.
@John the Econ
I would also point to the 1962 Port Huron "Manifesto".
As I am sure you know, it declares that radical presence in the media (Ms. Clift) and academia along with a domination of the government, are keys to radicalizing America. This, so far as I know, has been a backbone of the Saul Alinsky Brigade (cf., Killary), the community organizers, and the general riffraff that now consume our foundations based on Classical Liberalism.
What you say about funding is true; it follows this infestation. And it is also a root of the rise in medical costs and the housing bubble of 2008. And so on and so forth ...
I've figured out what the problem is... LNR Clif and her ilk are slowly dying from "BLOWING-SMOKE" INHALATION, and I don't think I need to tell YOU where the smoke is being blown... (nudge, nudge... wink, wink!)
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