(Transcripts are not yet available, but from what I remember O'Reilly stated)
"He wants to Impeach the President"
"He claims the Presidents wants terrorists to attack the U.S."
"He's conspired with Cindy Sheehan"
"He's a nut"
"None of the other news outlets have honestly looked into this guys background - it should have been a the TOP of every article"
"It's not like anyone who has worked for the government, automatically has credibility"
So, McGovern is a wacko-nutjob that the press should have exposed? And exactly how does this explain that Rumsfeld did say he "knew where the [WMD's] were" on This Week, and that he did say "There's bullet proof evidence of links between Saddam and Al Qaeda"?
Yeah, sure, McGovern being a "nutball" just happened to make Rumfeld Lie his ass off... right.
I'm sure Media Matters will be all over this a few hours, they usually are -- but before they join the fray I wanted to take a bite outta O'Leilly.
Glenn Greenwald has already been on the case here and has carefully documented the rise of these rumors and allegations against McGovern as they bubble up from the fever swamp of the right-wing bloviosphere.
What is it that Gateway Pundit's "investigation" revealed about McGovern that prompted Reynolds' admiration, along with his lament that "Big Media" failed to issue a similar report? To begin with, in the headlines of Gateway Pundit's post, we learn right away that McGovern is a"nutjob," as in: "Nutjob Ray McGovern Heckles Rummy."But that revelation is just the beginning. Gateway Pundit also informs us that McGovern is a "certified nutcase" who "has a trail of lunatic behavior a mile long." G.P. also uncovered evidence conclusively demonstrating that McGovern is a "moonbat." I agree with Instapundit- what right does the MSM have to keep this important information from us?
What is the evidence which supports these substantive allegations? G.P. first cites a website - something called PrisonPlanet.com - with the headline: "Government May be Manufacturing Fake Terrorism," presumably to imply that McGovern believes that Islamic terrorist attacks are perpetrated by the U.S. Government. In fact, the website merely quotes McGovern as accusing the administration and its supporters of manipulating terrorist threats in order to maximize their power and urging skepticism about government statements in the event that another terrorist attack prompts efforts to impose martial law.
So McGovern doesn't really think the government is sponsoring terrorism, but we could speculate about exactly what feels - just like O'Reilly does - forever. (Maybe he feels that the "Red Light/Green Light" Homeland Security alert system just might be being manipulated, that the government might be taking advantage of the fear that terrorism attacks engender to gather more and more power onto itself. Y'know, like ignoring Habeas Corpus, the 8th Amendment ban on "Cruel and Unusual Punishment" and the 4th Amendment ban on illegal "search and seizure"? God they're right, that McGovern is a fucking fruitcake! That kinda shit could never happen in the U.S. of A!)
Enough guessing - here's what McGovern actually said...
Ray McGovern, former CIA Analyst during the Regan and Bush 41 regimes, joined Alex Jones on his daily radio show Monday 17th October as part of a round table discussion of issues surrounding the Iraq war and the "war on terror"....
Mr McGovern stated that the war
"has nothing to do with democracy or freedom or defending "our way of life", it is to do with enriching the pockets of those who support this administration."
Alex then put it to Mr McGovern that Congressman Ron Paul had recently been on the show and said that The Bush Administration was openly trying to set up a martial law police state in America. McGovern responded in the affirmative:
"Well it does seem that those who have his (Bush's) ear are hell bent on giving away or providing wider responsibilities to our military. Witness what they are talking about now with giving the military primary responsibility for catastrophes, for hurricanes and so forth. Our military has been built up as an instrument of power but has never existed with this kind of potency before, and so we all need to look at this because there are laws against using the military in law enforcement capacities and we need to get to our Congressmen and Senators and say "look enough of this stuff."
That law would be the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. So McGovern is being called a "nutball" for accurately pointing out the reality of the greater militarization of our society as being illegal?
Greenwald continues...
McGovern has also said that the desire for control over oil and the desire by some "zionists" to benefit Israel were factors influencing the U.S. invasion of Iraq -- views which apparently makes him both crazy and anti-Semitic. Moreover, McGovern travelled to Iraq as part of what G.P. calls a "hate America freakshow" that included "pedophile" (not to mention former United States Marine officer and aide to General Norman Schwarzkopf) Scott Ritter, whose pre-war claims about Iraq (in stark contrast to Instapundit, among others) proved to be entirely true. G.P. also uncovered the highly incriminating fact that McGovern (like 60% of Americans) also opposes the war in Iraq and, as a result, has attended various anti-war events. G.P. also links to "Allahpundit" over at Hot Air, Michelle Malkin's new venture, where the same "charges" are repeated.
It seems rather amazing that the fetid ramblings of Instapundit and Michelle Malkin are winding up on National Television -- oh wait never mind we're talk about FOX aren't we? Ok, it's not that surprising.
As Georgia10 points out today, this phenomenon is far from new - it's classic rebranding GOP/Fox style.
This obsession with form over substance is the hallmark of political analysis these days. Instead of addressing the substance of Colbert's critique, Cohen's first column obsessed over the form of its delivery. And now, he wastes a second column whining about the tone of emails he received, instead of addressing the substance of his readers' complaints. Deborah Howell, in her Abramoff column dust-up, focused more on the form of reader emails than the fact they were calling her out on a factual error. And the substance of Harry Taylor's dissent wasn't analyzed as media coverage focused on form: the President vs. the protesting American
Confronted face-to-face with facts that are unarguable, the tried and true tactic is to impune the character of the person bringing out the issue. This has been done to Cindy Sheehan, Joe Wilson, Scott Ritter and many others.
Catch the GOP in the midst of indiscriminately spreading rancid bullshit (which I suspect they might consider fertilizing) and you'd best be ready to get smeared. It doesn't matter that when you compare Rumsfeld 2006 to Rumsfeld 2003 you have a clear picture of things - let's ignore that and instead accuse the accuser of having untoward motives simply for asking the question.
What I find really frightening about this, is the concept of the litmus test, that somehow you have to be perfectly and completely politically "clean" - simply for your question to be considered legitimate. Just like the soldier who had previously asked Rumsfeld about "Hillbilly Armor", and was later accused of being a pawn of the media. Instead of wondering why the media would need to use pawns and couldn't simply ask the question themselves, they attack the soldier and ignore the fact that the U.S. forces to this very day have not resolved the armor issue.
It's Revisionist Reality.
Rumsfeld didn't really say what he said - because McGovern is an anti-semite who likes to flog cats on the weekend. Fact doesn't matter. Truth doesn't matter. Experience and expertise don't matter. This guy is a "Far Left LI-BER-AL" and can't be trusted. And poor Don Rumsfeld had to put up with his rantings? Good on the Secretary for being so patient, so gracious...
And the most frightening parts is that this shit works at redirecting the attention of a large portion not only of audience of Faux News, it works for much of the general public as well. Operation: Hey Look over There... marches on.
And we all lose in the process, left and right alike.
(Update - Link to Olbermann Transcript)
Vyan
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