UPDATE: This just in–Rmoney and GOP pull ads from Michigan and Pennsylvania
h/t to commenter JWB
So the AP decided to fact check President Clinton’s speech last night. You’d swear that Ron Fournier was back at AP and taking his direction from Karl Rove, like the old days.
When Clinton brought up the Rmoney Campaign’s recent statement that they weren’t going to be “dictated by fact checkers”, to which Clinton stated “they finally said something I can agree with”, the AP report on that portion invoked Monica Lewinski.
CLINTON: “Their campaign pollster said, ‘We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers.’ Now that is true. I couldn’t have said it better myself — I just hope you remember that every time you see the ad.”
THE FACTS: Clinton, who famously finger-wagged a denial on national television about his sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky and was subsequently impeached in the House on a perjury charge, has had his own uncomfortable moments over telling the truth. “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” Clinton told television viewers. Later, after he was forced to testify to a grand jury, Clinton said his statements were “legally accurate” but also allowed that he “misled people, including even my wife.”
We also learn from the AP’s factless check that when President Obama tried to give away the store last year, and offered the Republicans not only everything they wanted, but more than that in order to stave off a government default in the “Grand Bargain” that when the teabagger caucus (the entirety of the house Republican caucus) refused to negotiate at all, that it was Obama’s failure to compromise.
I’m not going to subject you to the whole mess. You can check it out yourself, if you really need to.
@mattapuzzo is giving a defense of his “work” as half-assed as his original piece was.
Scott S.
Y’all elect me president in 2016, and I promise to drop Matt Apuzzo down a well and seal it up.
maya
What! No blue, (or pink), dress jokes?
Snarki, child of Loki
That is SO last millenium
phillip anderson
This isn’t a “fact check.” It’s straight up trolling. Period.
SP
Wtf, that’s not a fact check, that’s someone with a combination of ADD and Tourette’s trying to be a Republican shill. The “check” says nothing about the statement in question but just reflexively blurts out “Clenis!”
Just Some Fuckhead
Both sides!
Hunter Gathers
The Clenis is forever. It will never leave us. 50 years from now, Luke Russert’s offspring will be writing about how offended his father was at Clinton’s infidelity when he learned about after nap time at Super Fun Time Day Care .
Another Halocene Human
@phillip anderson: word.
Matt McIrvin
Wow, that is weak.
Ash Can
Sounds like someone’s under the influence of a few good belts of Make This A Horse Race Or You’re Fired, vintage 2012.
SatanicPanic
Pffftt, what was that? I tried to read the whole story by the AP but it was just too dumb. What kind of brain-dead person reads this both-sides-do-it stuff anymore?
Jay C
Right: so Bill Clinton sucessfully guts and skins the Repubs on national TV over serious policy differences and BS claims on the economy, and the AP’s “response” is to bring up Monica Lewinsky?
FAIL
Is this really significantly different from Ann Coulter’s or Michelle Malkin’s vile bilious Tweets?
Paul W.
Fact yes, relevance… no. I think most people will see right through this.
Ben D.
I was in sixth grade during Teh Clenis scandal, and somehow I wasn’t scarred for life or whatever by learning what “oral sex” was. Get a grip MSM!
Culture of Truth
Wait, Clinton had a affair?!?
That’s it, I’m voting for Romney. I didn’t want Medicare anyway.
Ben Franklin
The Media has their own version of ‘both sides, do it’. CNN and AP are two of WingNut Nations biggest Liberal Apologists. They both have been dialing back on their hard questions to Republicans, while they ramped up those they ask of Dems. In point of fact; they have adopted the knee-jerk reflexes of our Party of the Past when the critique is just too painful to endure. They probably feel SOMEONE has to tamp down the enthusiasm for the Big Dog, by giving last night’s speech some context, so they may appear to be objective.
‘That is all. Carry on’
YAFB
It seems to be Mittens-sanctioned viral rebuttal troll talking point #1 today, as ever was:
Odie Hugh Manatee
I think the AP would fail the easiest “One of these things is not like the other” quizzes that almost all elementary school kids breeze through without effort. They aren’t trying, they’re reaching for nothing and trying to make people think it’s something.
FAIL.
kindness
AP sucks. Ron sucks too so who knows?
Maude
That is slanted against Clinton and the Democratic Party.
We all know about Monica. Bill Clinton is stuck with that whole mess forever.
Why bring it up here? It’s about Obama now.
Culture of Truth
This is like fact-checking accusations that Clinton had affair by bringing up Watergate
Frankensteinbeck
To be fair, I’m pretty sure that offer was nearly as poisoned and deceptive as the deal they were eventually forced to take. That has been Obama’s method. It still made perfectly clear that the Republicans weren’t interested in anything that could even be described as compromise.
Todd
Oh, fuck me. They really went there again?
Ben D.
I’m just waiting for someone to bring up Vince Foster and his trip to the USSR, or maybe his “draft dodging”. Then I can turn on some Nirvana and fire up the Sega Genesis.
Villago Delenda Est
Rmoney throws countless thousands out of work, no big deal.
Clinton gets a blow job, stop the presses.
The AP needs to be cleansed by fire.
pseudonymous in nc
That actually sounds like vintage Nedra “the Pickle” Pickler, whose stock in trade was presenting pomaceous fruit as if they were citrus.
Brachiator
Silly me. And here I thought that fact checking would have something to do with vetting Clinton’s statements, not rehashing known political history.
Almost makes it sound like it was a good thing that the Tea Party People were so stupidly stubborn that they ended up outsmarting themselves.
The Red Pen
More proof that the media is in the tank for Obama!!!1!!
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Scott S.:
__
The Environmental Impact Report on this plan is going to be a problem, aka why do you hate the watertable?
The Ancient Randonneur
Bill Clinton: “It’s the arithmetic, stupid!”
AP: “You lie!”
Xecky Gilchrist
THE FACTS: Clinton … has had his own uncomfortable moments over telling the truth.
Not often you see such a lovely specimen of ad hominem on the hoof (with a sidecar of Tu quoque.)
Xecky Gilchrist
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: why do you hate the watertable?
That is a problem. What if it were a well on the Moon?
Chyron HR
I’m outraged! And to think that the Romney campaign spent all day yesterday bragging about how much they had in common with this “Slick Willie” fellow! I’m definitely voting for that nice family man Obama now.
Culture of Truth
THE FACTS: The AP has had its own uncomfortable moments over telling the truth
ally
Actually, Fournier was good yesterday on Warren Olney’s public radio show “To the Point.” He was quite blunt in hammering the Romney campaign for its racist dog-whistles, esp. the lying welfare ads.
Ben Franklin
We need a watch-dog to watch the watch-dog of ‘Both sides do it’
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/06/bill-clinton-said-many-many-things-about-medicare-last-night-heres-how-his-facts-check-out/
Scott S.
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Okay, tell y’all what — instead of dropping Matt Apuzzo down a well, I’ll help expand the space program and grow more American jobs by putting Matt Apuzzo in a rocket and shooting him into the sun.
Culture of Truth
Wait, Clinton is married? That AP is really on top of things.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m not surprised they went to the Clenis, but I never thought they would have used a “fact check” hook to get there.
ChrisNYC
I’m thoroughly enjoying the absolute meltdown in the press over the Dems and the Prez kicking ass. So looking forward to Halperin’s face on election night.
Scott S.
@pseudonymous in nc: What ever happened to Pickler anyway? I assume she’s moved into either AP management (to make the AP even worse), journalism education (to mis-educate future reporters), or working for some generic Republican’s campaign?
? Martin
CNN has a photo gallery from yesterday. About 20 photos in is a shot of a delegate holding up a photo of him and Obama in 5th grade in Hawaii. Obama was a really cute kid.
It’s a fake, obviously, as Obama was still in his sekrit Kenyan bunker scheming on how to overthrow the US.
low-tech cyclist
Correct fact-check analysis of Clinton’s statement: “True.”
AP version: “We don’t feel like saying ‘True,’ so we’ll bring up a dishonest statement the speaker made 14 years ago, and talk about that instead.”
ChrisNYC
And how funny is it that no one in the MSM has pointed out that ummm the GOP convention was a total bust? A shambles. A disaster. They are so delicate and tactful about SOME things.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Xecky Gilchrist:
@Scott S.:
Great minds think alike, huh?
Speaking of wells, this made me think of a new metaphor for our failed news media experiment: if our news media were a public source of drinking water, the ghost of John Snow would have removed the pump handle by now.
JGabriel
__
__
Speaking of factiness, we get this today from the Romney campaign (via DKos):
I’m guessing that, for the GOP, modern history must begin in 2009.
.
Soonergrunt
@Scott S.: Pickler is still at AP, it seems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nedra_Pickler
MattF
And where is Dick ‘Dick’ Morris in all this?
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/07/31/dick_morris_clinton_is_going_to_cast_his_ballot_for_mitt_romney.html
I’d really like to know, in some sense, although not actually.
Mandalay
@maya:
Well Ann Coulter did her best on Twitter:
There’s not a chick in that audience that Bill wants in kneepads. That’s ugly
Monica Lewinsky somewhere, sobbing, clutching stained dress and eating Haagen Das by the Tv light… Four cats yawning.
As Bill Clinton said last night, “I actually never learned to hate them the way the far right that now controls their party seems to hate our president and a lot of other Democrats”.
So much hatred, so little time…
Chris
Wow.
Just wow.
And people actually believe in the fucking “liberal media.”
MattF
@Mandalay: I liked Coulter better when her jaws were wired shut. Which isn’t saying much.
raven
Is the Heather person on twitter?
Waynski
As usual, Dr. Krugman predicted this. Only it came a day early and in an even more ridiculous package than anyone could have thought. These people are a national disgrace.
Soonergrunt
This just in–Rmoney and GOP pull ads from Michigan and Pennsylvania
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/09/romney-gop-michigan-pennsylvania-pull-out.php?ref=fpnewsfeed
Studly Pantload, the emotionally unavailable unicorn
Speaking of sex, look who’s doing some pulling out.
Edit: Ah, beaten to the punch!
Also, too, FYWP and your weirdo formatting issues.
Violet
@raven: I don’t think so. ABL has mentioned her in her Tweets, but hasn’t put up a Twitter link for her.
Culture of Truth
I love the smell of desperation in the morning.
It smells like… victory
Captain Haddock
For f*cks sake – I guess the Powers that Be decided that pissing and moaning about “God and Jerusalem” wasn’t enough to squash the enthusiasm. Doubt this will work either.
I mean, I loved Bill’s speech, but Lewinsky is never far from my mind (or most peoples’ I’d wager). I just don’t care about it. Never did. But you can’t get away from it either.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mandalay: I’m sure Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts are proud to see her occupying their chairs. As delusional and dishonest as he may be, you know GWill hates having that clown sit next to him.
jwb
@Soonergrunt: Can’t a guy get any respect? I flagged this version of the story almost 90 minutes ago.
Edited to fix links.
Culture of Truth
for the kids out there, this is where the group Move On came from.
Raven
@Violet: Thanks!
pseudonymous in nc
@Scott S.:
Still at the AP, apparently. I believe she’s had some health problems over the past few years, so I wish her the best for those, but she did pioneer that particular fact-choking style for the AP — “Democrats say they will be nice to kittens, but in fact, they have been known to say mean things about raccoons.”
David Hunt
@Scott S.:
Bad idea. He’d show up in a bootleg video tape and anyone who watched it would be turned into a talking point quoting zombie in seven days.
Scott S.
@Soonergrunt: Her Twitter account says she’s been on leave since November. Maybe she’s never coming back…
WarMunchkin
Why are they pulling ads? They have unlimited resources, they could just run those ads for fun if they wanted. Also:
I haven’t seen this ad, but are they really doubling down on the whole imaginary Obama thing?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Soonergrunt: I think they’re at least a month ahead of McCain’s schedule, if memory serves. Hope everybody in Ohio has a TiVo, cause all your air time is about to be bought up by Rove and the Kochs.
Ben D.
UNLIMITED PULLOUTS!!!!
? Martin
Well, if Romney is pulling ads from MI and PA, then he’s pretty near done. The money advantage only helps if you have a lot of states to spend it on, and he doesn’t. Without those two, we’re down to NV, CO, WI, IA, OH, VA, NC, FL as battlegrounds. PA and MI were two of the bigger media markets to dump money into. Obama can afford to lose all of them so long as he keeps FL, or he can lose FL and keep OH, VA.
That’s a pretty small playing field, and small playing fields favor ground games. Those volunteers in PA and MI can be dispatched to OH if that gap holds here (and it looks like it’s going to grow, actually).
The cage is tightening on Romney. He’s running out of room to work. And if Obama can get about another 30 EVs to tighten up, he can actually direct much of his effort to house and senate races.
JP Stormcrow
Actually I thought the looniest thing in the article was leading with this in response to Clinton’s characterization of Obama as a cooperator.
And then they end that section with:
Just the facts.
Soonergrunt
@jwb: didn’t see that. Still, updated the top.
Mandalay
@Soonergrunt:
Rmoney and GOP pull ads from Michigan and Pennsylvania
Ha! So the trees were not the right height in Michigan after all.
Romney is fast running out of paths to victory.
celticdragonchick
@Jay C:
The tweets from Coulter made me almost physically ill.
I cannot believe the amount of self hate she must internalize as a woman.
jwb
@Soonergrunt: I didn’t mind. Just giving you a hard time.
Dennis SGMM
I miss Molly Ivins so damned much these days. She would have gleefully and wittily shamed all the “It hurts when I think” journos who are going through contortions unknown even to Chinese acrobats to prove that both sides do it.
Culture of Truth
@WarMunchkin: I’m not even getting the purpose of these attacks. Obama has disappointed by not being liberal enough, so dang I’m voting for Swiss Banks Guy?
catclub
@Mandalay: Looks like Romney could lose all of his home states, except Utah. How many are there? Mich, NH, Mass, Cali, Utah
Naturally, Obama wins Hawaii, Illinois and the expats in Kenya.
jwb
@? Martin: Actually, I think it’s interesting that they are pulling out. If you really do have unlimited cash, you certainly don’t want to make it look like you think that the race is out of reach anywhere. This suggests to me that the SuperPacs don’t really have much money on hand. The question is why? Are the donors seeing Romney’s election as a fool’s errand and so pulling out? Or did the SuperPacs never have the money they claimed?
Tractarian
What Apuzzo.
Sorry.
Dennis SGMM
@WarMunchkin:
The words “Republican” and “Hispanic outreach” don’t even belong in the same universe, let alone the same sentence.
General Stuck
There is a predictable degree of fapping from all concerned with horse race matters and keeping the political football as near the 50 yard line as possible. It is good for the news bidness that has become mostly about profit like all other businesses.
There is squawking about fact checkers, on this or that minutia of detail, that is in the heat of a POTUS campaign, like reporting on speeding violation at the Indy 500. Though the nutters have kicked in the afterburners on the liars side like never before.
And Bill Clinton steps to the plate. Never easily predictable, nor predictable at all. He said a bunch of words that most anyone with a pol pulse recognized as something special, even monumental.
But my take in the light of next day, that is for none of the stock reasons people are talking about taking on the Romneys and republicans for a wonk ride of clarity. Nor, his genuine affection and endorsement of Obama, that had been lacking in the past.
What Bill did, was to give the democrats and the country, by extension, the greatest gift, as the only person on the planet could bequeath. What Clinton did, for me, was drive a stake through the very heart of DLC thinking that he once used to get elected in a period where the American voter was in the midst of a 30 year experiment with wingnut governance. Bill built the bridge for dems to cross over and out of that mindset, and into a more progressive, yet mainstream future for dem candidates and supporters to rally around, and put republican light in the rear view mirror. It will take some time to play out, but Bill turned the wheel for it to happen last night, imo. It is now up to dems and Obama to make that current political reality, without the burden of Ron Reagan and the David Broder’s ghosts nipping at their heels. I never blamed Clinton for the dlc nonsense, because he was trapped, like the rest of us, in hall of mirrors and all the doublespeak pretty words from the republicans, that sounded good on paper. But were a disaster in real life. Thank You, Bubba!!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jwb: I’m wondering if they aren’t looking at the Senate slipping out of their grasp and thinking Romney’s not worth their cash.
Bob2
Both sides do it, but now we have to find balance in 1996
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@jwb:
__
It may also be that the SuperPacs are pulling their money because after the election is over they don’t want their reputations for being kingmakers who can influence the electorate to be tarnished by association with obvious and humiliating failures. That is Mitt’s job.
jwb
@Culture of Truth: The GOP had a couple of effective ads on during the Olympics—or rather they would have been effective if you thought the GOP cared at all about and had a plan to address the problems of the poor and and unemployed. Same problem: Obama and the Dems are far more vulnerable with an attack from the left than from the right; but to attack from the left, you have to be willing and able to go there on at least some issues, and no candidate in today’s GOP is capable of getting there without being drummed out.
Frankensteinbeck
@Soonergrunt:
It’s as if they DON’T have infinite corporate cash! What could have happened? Perhaps millions and millions of dollars are being squandered by grifters, ninnyhammers, and drooling zealots?
Suffern ACE
@jwb: Is it possible that they loot their donor’s cash the same way they loot corporate coffers and federal agencies? Perhaps all that cash is going to large “consulting fees.”
Dennis SGMM
@General Stuck:
Nice analysis and you thereby give me hope for the future. That hope is a small, weak, flame. You helped me to keep it burning.
I offer you my thanks and I doff my hat to you, sir.
jwb
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, but I believe they have to hold Mittwit at a floor of 45% to have a hope of taking the Senate and keeping the House. If Rmoney’s support collapses beyond that it will be very difficult, since that would mean a lot of people who would otherwise be supporting the GOP in other races are choosing not to vote.
Frankensteinbeck
@Suffern ACE:
As you can see, I favor that one. But here’s another: Perhaps stingy sonsofbitches who think 13% is too much tax on a poor multibillionaire are not ACTUALLY willing to pour as much money into politics as everyone thinks.
General Stuck
@Dennis SGMM:
Thank you Dennis. And I hope the change in your personal life works out for the best.
Bokonon
Don’t assume that Romney is writing those states off, folks. He (and his independent PAC friends) have an enormous amount of money to play with.
Just. Don’t. Assume.
GxB
@WarMunchkin: The policies of an imaginary Obama has been their foundation for the past four years. In short – yes, yes they will double down. How these aholes are so filthy rich is beyond reason. Apparently karma is getting around to that whole fool and his money thing.
cmorenc
Violet
@General Stuck: This is an excellent analysis. Someone should put this on the front page. You nailed it.
Dennis SGMM
@General Stuck:
Thank you. All I know is that it gets different. Sometimes that’s the best that it can get.
Jay C
@Soonergrunt:
OK: IF this is true, it is, as VP Biden would say, a really B** F****** D*** , though I wouldn’t go ordering champagne for the victory party just yet. ISTM that maybe this a “feigned retreat”, and that some of that UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH! is going to step up and replace “official”
smears and liescampaign ads with slick concern-trolling “message ads” in order to shore up the vital local/State races.Just a WAG, but I give the R&R Mendacity Tour about 4-5 weeks of the campaign to try to move their numbers up past the GOP “floor” level (and you can be sure our “mainstream” media will do their darndest to trumpet each and every fractional “bump” as a sure sign of IT’S A HORSERACE AGAIN!!!); but if the Repub ticket is still lagging in key states by early October, I think the game is over, and the GOP cash is going to flood the downticket market to try to hang on to Congress. The last thing they need (ironically) is a repeat of 1998…..
rdldot
@Frankensteinbeck: That’s what I think. The people running the PACs are paying themselves handsomely.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Suffern ACE: Perhaps all that cash is going to large “consulting fees.”
That’s my guess. If this Cit United stuff is ever audited (unlikely, since avoiding that is the whole point of it all) I imagine there will be mounds of cockroaches scurrying for cover.
jwb
@Jay C: The Detroit News version of the article notes that the SuperPacs are also pulling out.
Randy P
Isn’t the point of the super PACs that they do their own ads independently? So I don’t think the campaign pulling their advertising dollars means much. That isn’t the Unlimited Corporate Cash(TM) right?
In the next 60 days we’re going to see a lot of money and a lot of blatant, pathological lying. We’re going to see if there’s a way to combat that. And frankly I’m glad we’re going to see that battle fought by the best Democratic Party I’ve seen in my life or ever hope to see.
Randy P
@jwb: Ah. I stand corrected.
But puzzled, since voter ID laws were supposed to deliver my state (PA) to Romney. So the pessimist in me says they’re just confident they’ve got this state in the bag. Perhaps they have some other fix in too, a la Ohio.
Mary G
@General Stuck: Great post. I still have this comment of yours bookmarked and I look at it occasionally when some wanker talks about the
“so-called ‘war on women'” and I get discouraged.
I love the smell of winning in the morning. Now we have to get senators and representatives elected and hold their feet to the fire to govern with some balls.
geg6
@Bokonon:
As a resident of PA, I can attest that there have been very few of those unlimited corporate cash dollars spent here, no matter what Rmoney and his owners say. There were literally none for months and months in late spring and early summer when Obama was running ads here about every five minutes. That changed a bit during the Olympics, when we first started seeing a bunch of Rmoney and superpac ads. But there have been none again for a couple of weeks. Obama’s lead here is solid and quite large, by pretty much every poll and polling outfit (national, regional, and statewide). I believe what I see and I’m not surprised that they’ve decided to not waste those unlimited dollars. Guess they aren’t so unlimited after all.
TenguPhule
Hah, Apologist! If elected in 2016, I will shoot Apuzzo, Rush, Coulter and Malkin into the Sun!
giantslor
This is pure GOP tactics coming from the AP. Clinton says an irrefutable fact, so the AP changes the subject with a completely unrelated fact. There’s the “liberal media” for you.
Amir Khalid
@Frankensteinbeck: It might simply be that bazillionaires don’t pile up their bazillions by betting like suckers. And that putting money on Mitt to beat Obama is looking more like a sucker bet every day.
Amir Khalid
As to the AP fact-checking fiasco. Fact-checking is an integral part of reporting and editing a story. It has to be done by the reporter before she writes the story, by the editor before he clears it, by whoever else the story passes through before it comes to the first member of the public to read it. Because everyone in that chain, starting with the reporter, is supposed to be responsible for getting the story right. You simply don’t leave it to be done after the fact by a self-appointed external fact-checker. Because if it has come to that, the damage to your newspaper/magazine/whatever is already done.
But in an age where you separate facts from news, it seems you can now turn the function of fact-checking into a partisan rhetorical weapon, a cover for sandbagging your foes with their past sins.
Patricia Kayden
Fact check this, Righties: President Clinton has a favorable rating of almost 70%. And he’s going to stump for President Obama.
Ed Drone
@WarMunchkin:
This makes even more obvious the truth of John Stewart’s comment, “There’s a Barack Obama that only Republicans can see.”
Ed