A couple of weeks
after I did the show, I was stopped by a TV news producer who said, "Man,
you really bitch-slapped Bernie Goldberg."
Yeah,
I did. But I have to admit, I did it a little unfairly. I ambushed Bernie. With
his own book.
-Al
Franken, from Lies...pg.
28
Al is referring to
Bias, Bernard
Goldberg's bestselling book in which he accounts his experiences amid the
"liberal media," as a long-time employee of Dan Rather. Liberals see Bias as a threat to their very existence.
Franken discredits it by passing off Goldberg as a disgruntled former employee,
and Arianna Huffington and Alan Colmes have publicly criticized the book as
well. Why wouldn't they hate it? It's an attack on the very liberal propaganda
that they're capitalizing on. If I were a liberal, I wouldn't like it very much
either, but unlike Franken, I would at least get my facts straight before
criticizing it.
If you've read the
6th chapter of Lies, then you know that Al Franken is absolutely giddy over his
alleged "bitch-slapping" of Bernie Goldberg on Donahue in January of 2003. Basically, he's citing
a passage from Bias in
which Goldberg criticizes former NBC anchor John Chancellor for undermining the
tragedy of communism in Soviet Russia. The Chancellor quote, which aired on
August 21, 1991, goes like this:
It's short of soap, so there are lice in hospitals. It's short of pantyhose, so women's legs go bare. It's short of snowsuits, so babies stay home in winter. Sometimes it's short of cigarettes, so millions of people stop smoking involuntarily. It drives everyone crazy. The problem isn't communism. No one even talked about communism this week. The problem is shortages.
So like I said, our friend Al became absolutely giddy when Bernie Goldberg pointed out this quote and used it as ammunition against NBC. If you take Franken's argument at face value, it makes perfect sense. As he notes, the statement was from August 21, 1991. That was a significant day in history because, as Franken asserted on Phil Donahue's show, "That was the collapse of the coup, the hard-liner coup at the parliament...And that was huge. Do you know that the perestroika had been in effect for six years at that point?"
Okay, so what is
Al Franken trying to say, exactly? He obviously feels very proud of himself for
having uncovered the specific context of the quote, but how does that discredit
Goldberg's argument? Well, it doesn't, actually. In fact, the only absurdities
within Franken's argument are Franken's own words. Read Franken's rebuttal
again. He is countering Goldberg's argument by suggesting that it was stupid
for Goldberg to emphasize communism in light of the news report's message.
After all, the perestroika had been in effect for six years, the Berlin Wall
had long since fallen, and the Russians were now living in a Utopian paradise,
right? Wrong.
In a Newsmax
article two months after the Goldberg-Franken confrontation, journalist John
Lofton called Franken's remark "one of the stupidest, most ignorant, most absurd
statements ever made on national TV," and rightfully so (to access the
article, use the link at the bottom of this page).
Lofton points out
that Mikhail Gorbachev, the author of perestroika, was himself a communist,
having publicly professed it in the June 11, 1990 issue of Time Magazine. Isn't
it interesting that the Time proclamation came only a year before the
ridiculous John Chancellor statement, the statement which Franken feels should
not have been used to illustrate the liberal undermining of communism?
I advise you all
to check out Lofton's article. It contains a long list of examples illustrating
a direct connection between communism and national shortages. Bernie Goldberg
was absolutely right to challenge John Chancellor's implication about the
importance of communism in relation to Russia's shortages. If history reveals a
correlation between two concepts, then who is Al Franken to come along and
belittle someone for suggesting that the correlation should be noted when one
of the concepts is presented? In fact, when one such concept is communism, a
philosophy considered the world's greatest threat only a few years prior, it is
absurd to pass it off as insignificant! It would be no different than if
Geraldo Rivera went off to Afghanistan and reported on poor living conditions,
while suggesting that the recently-overthrown Taliban regime had nothing to do
with it. Unfortunately, that's how things work on PlanetFranken.
Also, during Al's
little debate with Bernie Goldberg, he seems to have found it necessary to
point out that John Chancellor "is dead, and couldn't defend himself"
(Lies...pg. 30). Bad
move, Al. Can Ronald Reagan defend himself from all the slander you've launched
against him, time and time again? Not quite. As I mentioned in Al Franken on
Bill O'Reilly, Franken can
be very sensitive when it suits him.
Al goes on to say,
"Why, Bernie asks on page 57, is Rush Limbaugh referred to as a
'conservative' talk show host, but Rosie O'Donnell is not always labeled a
'liberal' talk show host?" Al finds this idea very amusing, and he has
some fun with it on page 33 of Lies. He seems to think that Goldberg's questions is stupid because
Rush skewers liberals for a living while Rosie simply interviews celebrities.
Well, Al would have a point if not for the fact that Rosie does NOT simply
interview celebrities. Goldberg's question is a legitimate one, because Rosie
has used her show as a political platform a number of times. How about when she
invited Tom Selleck onto her show to discuss his career, and then ambushed him
about his views on second amendment gun rights? How about when she appeared on
Nick News to discuss gay rights with children??? At least Rush Limbaugh has
clear intentions. Sorry Al, but you're wrong about this one, too.
Article: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/3/7/131319.shtml