Grading PolitiFact: If only Newt Gingrich had been "artful" like Obama

Truth-O-Meter, Flip-O-Meter. Might as well use a dousing rod.

PolitiFact somehow caught word that Keith Olbermann thinks that Newt Gingrich is a hypocrite. But this is not a situation where Keith Olbermann will get rated regarding the truth of his statement. Rather, it is time to judge Newt Gingrich.

To make the long story short, PolitiFact finds Gingrich guilty of a half flip.

But I wondered what the rating would have been if PolitiFact considered Gingrich to be "artful" as with Barack Obama?

Writer-researcher Angie Drobnic Holan took Gingrich's statements on China and political dissidents as absolute statements. And here is what Gingrich said:

Republican leaders made explicitly clear our unwavering commitment to human rights and individual liberty. I believe it was vitally important that we used this opportunity to address the basic lack of freedom -- speech, liberty, assembly, the press -- in China. ... As I said in China this spring, there is no place for abuse in what must be considered the family of man. There is no place for torture and arbitrary detention. There is no place for forced confessions. There is no place for intolerance of dissent.

Now, of course it is Gingrich talking and Gingrich is a mere Republican. But just imagine that gifted orator Barack Obama is the one talking.

I think once we do that, it becomes possible to see that the subject was really the political situation in China ("the basic lack of freedom ... in China"). Hmmm. Surely Obama is talking about civil society and not war and international relations, in spite of the "no place for torture and arbitrary detention" remarks? After all, Obama (for the sake of argument) artfully stipulated that he was talking about "what must be considered the family of man" in the context of politics and civil society.

But obviously Gingrich is not artful like Obama, so this entire post of mine is surely a waste of time. Gingrich might as well be every bit the hypocrite that Olbermann claims.

But just one more thing:

Mr. Gingrich chose Hong Kong as his platform to warn Chinese leaders that attempts to confine freedom to economic issues while refusing to allow it in politics would surely fail. He referred explicitly to ''the lack of basic freedom -- speech, religion, assembly, the press'' in China today. The Speaker maintained this same blunt tone in his talks with Chinese leaders. It would not be a bad idea if Administration officials adopted the same straight-speaking approach.
(The New York Times)

The Grade:

PolitiFact: D-

I'm skipping the individual grades this time in favor of a corporate grade, though I suppose I'll simply mention that Angie Drobnic Holan and Bill Adair worked on this piece. This PolitiFact entry, in conjunction with a recent one about Michelle Bachmann, suggests that this fact-checking organization takes its cues from the left. Why is Keith Olberamann on the PolitiFact radar? Why did Michelle Bachmann's comments on a relatively obscure Internet television channel (PJTV) cause a blip? And why is there relatively little interest in big politics, like artful Obama's recent speech? The one where the president apparently made up some history on Winston Churchill?

Who's the worst person in the world, again?

Scott Johnson at Power Line posted about Keith Olbermann's interview of Chris Matthews after Tim Russert's death. Johnson's explanation of the sequence of events, while accurate, arguably obscures the depths to which Olbermann sinks.

With due acknowledgment to the work of others in bringing this story to the attention of the public, I think the most graphic way to reveal Keith Olbermann consists of showing three consecutive videos each is short) with minimal commentary.



Chris Matthews insults Tim Russert during an interview by Olbermann, essentially saying that Russert was duped into supporting the war (Mathews and Olbermann are well-known in opposition, so it's a nice little pat on their own backs).

Worlds Worst
by krs601

Andrew Breitbart, on Fox & Friends, calls Russert a fair Democrat.



Olbermann names Fox the "Worst person in the world" for supposedly disrespecting Russert so soon after his passing.

Olbermann:

And our winners Fox News and its morning program--and this is not the usual nonsense; this is about class, or its lack.

You want to do a segment dismissing Tim Russert as a member of the liberal media, you want to feed the delusions of your viewers that the failures of their lives are fault of somebody else like TV news and not their own responsibility? You want find an excuse for the daily two minute hate? And this time it's gotta be Tim and whoever might succeed him?

Olbermann was correct about one thing. His segment was about lack of class. Olbermann lacks class.

The funny thing about Olbermann, who works his way onto my radar rarely enough, is his dizzyingly rapid descent into self-parody. Olbermann has fashioned himself into a grotesque caricature of Bill O' Reilly. Did jealously play a part in that self-transformation? I don't know Olbermann nearly well enough to even guess based on his personality, but it seems like a reasonable speculation on the face of it.

Water boarding: The Daniel Levin matter (Updated)

Disinformation seems to dog the issue of water boarding like BDS dogs liberal democrats.

And perhaps that's no coincidence.

Media reports earlier this month made much of the story of Daniel Levin, a DOJ employee charged with updating administration policy on torture.

Daniel Levin, then acting assistant attorney general, went to a military base near Washington and underwent the procedure to inform his analysis of different interrogation techniques.

After the experience, Levin told White House officials that even though he knew he wouldn't die, he found the experience terrifying and thought that it clearly simulated drowning.

Levin, who refused to comment for this story, concluded waterboarding could be illegal torture unless performed in a highly limited way and with close supervision. And, sources told ABC News, he believed the Bush Administration had failed to offer clear guidelines for its use.

(ABC News)

The thing that should stand out in this report (and it seems standard in related reporting, from what I can tell) is the lack of comment from either Levin or from any explicitly identified person. The report is based on anonymous sources (they may be known government officials providing information on condition of anonymity; "deep background" or that sort of thing).

Take a look at the photo/graphic.

clipped from abcnews.go.com

Note the portion that the media have helpfully highlighted: "Torture is abhorrent."

The thrust of the story, supposedly, is that Levin thought that water boarding was torture and wrote that in the memo. Is "torture is abhorrent" the best they could do? The same story links to a .pdf of Levin's memo. The .pdf is protected against cut and paste, and the search function doesn't work, either. From what I can tell, the memo does not specifically mention water boarding at all.

And note again the third paragraph I quoted from the story. Levin's opinion seems to be that water boarding would not (necessarily) qualify as torture if done on a limited basis and under close supervision ("could be illegal torture unless performed in a highly limited way and with close supervision").

And with that in mind, have a look at whack-job Keith Olbermann:



"'Water boarding is torture,' Daniel Levin was to write."

If that's what Levin wrote, then where did he write it?

Olbermann's take on the story isn't worth a day's flatulence from a flatworm if we don't get to the source of the claim.


Update:
I still haven't located the source for Olbermann's claim, but I did locate a version of the Levin 2004 memo that permits cuts, pastes, and searches.

In Simpson v. Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 326 F.3d 230 (D.C. Cir. 2003), the D.C. Circuit again considered the types of acts that constitute torture under the TVPA definition. The plaintiff alleged, among other things, that Libyan authorities had held her incommunicado and threatened to kill her if she tried to leave. See id. at 232, 234. The court acknowledged that "these alleged acts certainly reflect a bent toward cruelty on the part of their perpetrators," but, reversing the district court, went on to hold that "they are not in themselves so unusually cruel or sufficiently extreme and outrageous as to constitute torture within the meaning of the [TVPA]." Id. at 234. Cases in which courts have found torture suggest the nature of the extreme conduct that falls within the statutory definition. See, e.g., Hilao v. Estate of Marcos, 103 F.3d 789, 790-91, 795 (9th Cir. 1996) (concluding that a course of conduct that included, among other things, severe beatings of plaintiff, repeated threats of death and electric shock, sleep deprivation, extended shackling to a cot (at times with a towel over his nose and mouth and water poured down his nostrils), seven months of confinement in a "suffocatingly hot" and cramped cell, and eight years of solitary or near-solitary confinement, constituted torture); Mehinovic v. Vuckovic, 198 F. Supp. 2d 1322, 1332-40, 1345-46 (N.D. Ga. 2002) (concluding that a course of conduct that included, among other things, severe beatings to the genitals, head, and other parts of the body with metal pipes, brass knuckles, batons, a baseball bat, and various other items; removal of teeth with pliers; kicking in the face and ribs; breaking of bones and ribs and dislocation of fingers; cutting a figure into the victim's forehead; hanging the victim and beating him; extreme limitations of food and water; and subjection to games of "Russian roulette," constituted torture); Daliberti v. Republic of Iraq, 146 F. Supp. 2d 19, 22-23 (D.D.C. 2001) (entering default judgment against Iraq where plaintiffs alleged, among other things, threats of "physical torture, such as cutting off . . . fingers, pulling out . . . fingernails," and electric shocks to the testicles); Cicippio v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 18 F. Supp. 2d 62, 64-66 (D.D.C. 1998) (concluding that a course of conduct that included frequent beatings, pistol whipping, threats of imminent death, electric shocks, and attempts to force confessions by playing Russian roulette and pulling the trigger at each denial, constituted torture).
(usdoj.gov)

Emphasis added to text emphasizing use of water.

*****

Olbermann on General Sanchez

This is hilarious.

Is Olbermann a news guy? Of course not. He's the Bill O'Reilly of MSNBC.

General Sanchez spent fully 1/2 of his speech excoriating the news media, and Olbermann is one of many in the media who decided that you do not need to know anything about what Sanchez had to say about them.

Gov. Richardson, who was one of the only Democratic presidential candidates for who I had some respect, made an utter fool of himself by lifting certain segments of Sanchez's statement. Where Sanchez said that the U.S. could not afford to pull out quickly from Iraq, Richardson presented that as precisely his plan--and Olbermann apparently didn't even think to point out the discrepancy.

AMERICA HAS NO CHOICE BUT TO CONTINUE OUR EFFORTS IN IRAQ. A PRECIPITOUS WITHDRAWAL WILL UNQUESTIONABLY LEAD TO CHAOS THAT WOULD ENDANGER THE STABILITY OF THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST. IF THIS OCCURS IT WOULD HAVE SIGNIFICANT ADVERSE EFFECTS ON THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY. COALITION AND AMERICAN FORCE PRESENCE WILL BE REQUIRED AT SOME LEVEL FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. GIVEN THE LACK OF A GRAND STRATEGY WE MUST MOVE RAPIDLY TO MINIMIZE THAT FORCE PRESENCE AND ALLOW THE IRAQIS MAXIMUM ABILITY TO EXERCISE THEIR SOVERIEGNTY IN ACHIEVING A SOLUTION.
(militaryreporters.org)

Olbermann and Richardson both appear to exhibit the type of incompetence that Sanchez said would result in dismissal in his line of work.

I wonder if any news media figure will address the first half of Sanchez' speech? I wonder how many of them even know about it, given the reporting their industry produced in covering the speech?


Also see the comments Ed Morrissey elicited from Sen. John McCain on this issue. McCain says he talked to Gen. Sanchez in Iraq during the war and Sanchez supported the administration's strategy.


*****

A Hugh Hewitt mention on Keith Olbermann's show

Dean Barnett, who regularly posts on Hugh Hewitt's Townhall.com blog, also serves as a guest host on the Hugh Hewitt radio program.

Yesterday, Barnett took note of a mention of Hewitt by MSNBC's Bill O'Reilly wannabe Keith Olbermann.
Olbermann's closing segment has a countdown of the worst people in the world, and Republican Senator John Kyl attained the honor.

Read Barnett's commentary over at HughHewitt.townhall.com.

One comment from yesterday's radio show didn't make it into Barnett's blog post, and maybe should have. Barnett and the Hugh Hewitt crew noted that Olbermann called Hewitt a "water carrier."
A water carrier for whom, they wondered? President Bush? Bush favors the immigration bill. John Kyl? Kyl favors the immigration bill.

Hugh Hewitt opposes the immigration bill.

In order to appear somewhat closer to coherent, shouldn't Olberman say whose water is being carried by Hewitt?