..and managed to disserve in other ways, too.
(Credit is due here to dKos contributor Captain Frogbert. In a critique of this same WAPO article that the Captain posted last week, he directed readers’ attention to the hasty and careless “journalism” that aided and abetted the GOP’s effort to disappear Dr. Ford, to disappear her appearance before the committee, and to disappear her allegation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her.)
A flimsy piece of “drive-by journalism” can be read under the headline, “Partisan Politics and Kavanaugh’s Defiant Words Put Supreme Court in Unwelcome Light.” WAPO, 09/28/2018)
The authors carried water for the GOP effort to disappear Dr. Ford. At best, call it carelessness. Claim the article was an attempt to take a more omniscient, above-the-fray perspective. But a flimsy, bland and lazy thesis, at odds with many of the quotes (a real grab bag of quotes these are) intended to support it, and the glaring absence of context for those quotes, doomed this half-hearted effort to inform readers. File it under “innocuous and shallow,” but stay angry, recognizing that it played along with the GOP propaganda/disinformation campaign.
It’s a hot, wet mess.
The takeaway for readers who, rightly, deserve context: Gosh, partisanship…
What a profoundly irresponsible article. Fascism waxes, but gosh, partisanship…
Equally damning is the lack of intellectual and journalistic rigor that allowed a conceit to slip in to the article and be carried along as a conceptual parasite. That conceit: there is a meaningful gap in GOP hegemony between “ideology” and “partisanship.”
The headline sets the stage for this car wreck. It asserts that mere partisan politics, and some “defiant words” (no, it was a rambling, lie-filled, conspiracy-laden whine) spewing from the maw of a belligerent, often-drunk, entitled man-boy, draw unwelcome attention to the Supreme Court.
That cause/effect premise is notable for at least three reasons: it is shallow, it is ahistorical, and it is a flimsy clothesline upon which to hang the disparate laundry of quotes (and worse, unattributed assertions, i.e., editorializing) that follow.
So much more is going on, in these hearings, in the GOP’s struggle to hide Kavanaugh’s past, in a government far, far too much under the thumb of one-percenters, in a Supreme Court Chief Justice who ushered in the consequences of Citizen’s United and McCutcheon vs FEC, and has the gall, the arrogance, or the supreme stupidity, to insist he is, as stated in the WAPO editorial/article, “trying to protect the reputation of the court as nonpartisan.” If John Roberts actually maintains this delusion, he is a Supreme Bullshitter.
If all that readers are supposed to glean is “that darn partisanship,” and that, golly, justices “should” be above political fray, the WAPO article should have been scrapped. It is pap.
As flimsy as the thesis is, a still flimsier conceit is the claim made by court observers that the Supreme Court attempts to rise above partisanship.
One word: Alito.
Wait: I forgot his equally perverse ideological papa: Scalia.
Kazoos ready? “There’s a hole in your thesis, Dear Liza, Dear Liza…”
The perverse ideology that compelled Roberts and the conservative majority on the court to advance Citizens United and McCutcheon vs FEC is nothing other than raw, putrefying partisanship. No gap there between a perverse ideology and the perverse partisanship that flows from it. Nope.
And the visible, deafening, palpable, malodorous partisanship so rankly displayed by Grassley, Hatch, Cornyn, Graham (a band of Fascists, or, if you will, prep school boys, exposing themselves, and knowing, because of entitlement, that they’ll never face any consequences) is a front. A front.
C’mon WAPO, dig a little deeper. Editors on sabbatical?
Look behind these bought-and-paid-for GOP committee puppets and skewer the ringmasters who pay them to perform. While you’re at it, lacerate their ideology (idiot-ology).
Context: Who makes the Judiciary Committee’s GOP puppet-senators dance?
Here’s a thesis with guts that provides focus: “Fascism Contaminating Supreme Court.” Makes a good headline, too.
THAT is a story. But instead, the authors give undue attention to the Republicans’ pyrotechnic performance (Squirrel!!!), or their sleight-of-hand, if you will, while overlooking the machinations of the deep-pocketed, fringe-element sociopaths and deviants who bought the fireworks.
The WAPO authors, and their editors, their EDITORS (!!!!), hurried this piece into publication, doing a great disservice to readers. Fast on the heels of the flimsy thesis comes another gross oversight: not parsing the quotes, and providing critical context.
If the purpose of the article was to provide context for the Fascist farce that is the Kavanaugh Judicial Committee hearings, the quotes manage to shoot the messenger.
Parse the quotes. They perforate the thesis.
No case can be made that Kavanaugh’s rant before the committee, or the committee’s withholding of information pursuant to a complete investigation of his background, is the result of, or is necessitated by, “a calculated and orchestrated political hit fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.”
No. That crazy rant needs to be put in context. Or, like a rabid dog, it needs to be shot, autopsied and buried.
But the authors never do put a bullet into Kavanaugh’s rabid rant. They never provide the context it needs.
The reason for Kavanaugh’s speech, and for his subsequent delusional, conspiracy-laden babble, is a credible claim, increasingly corroborated, that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted the woman whose name does not appear once, not once, in the quotes from the nominee or his supporters. Yes, this was a deliberate effort on their part to disappear Dr. Ford.
But the authors let Kavanaugh’s quote, that bag of swamp gas, hover over the article. They never puncture it with arrows of context, never send up a lit match to clear the air.
Here’s the context: Dr. Blasey-Ford came forward and testified to the Judiciary Committee that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her.
And THAT testimony, WAPO authors and editors, isn’t motivated by partisanship. This isn’t a Democrat testifying that a Republican sexually assaulted her. This isn’t the fruit of Democratic partisanship. Nor is it compelled by, or animated by, Democratic “ideology.” Blasey-Ford’s testimony describes a nonpolitical, specific, physical, inhuman, violent, criminal act, and names Kavanaugh as the perpetrator.
The quotes, from Kavanaugh and his cabal, show Republicans are not only attempting to disappear Dr. Ford, but disappear her (nonpartisan) allegation. As craven as they are, even Republicans fear being labeled “the sociopaths who openly condone sexual assault.”
Here’s another focused thesis that also makes a good headline: “Fascists strive to install another sexual predator on the Supreme Court.”
“Condones Sexual Assault.” Any, ANY senator who votes ”Yes” on the nomination needs to have those three words included in every sentence mentioning his or her name.
Are we to believe the authors never actually noticed the conspicuous absence of Dr. Blasey-Ford’s name (oh, shit!), and her specific allegations, which specifically accuse Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge, when weighing the quotes from him and his lynch mob. Kavanaugh’s been caught lying, lists of his lies circulate widely, the propaganda outlets hired to prop him up have foisted laughable smears about Dr. Ford that were quickly discredited, so why not parse his statements, and those of his fellow Fascists?
Sexual assault.
And do I really have to spell this out? The wrench in the works that stalled Kavanaugh’s roller coaster ride to a seat on the Supreme Court is: Nonpartisan Sexual Assault.
Not partisanship.
So, what is THE story here? Brett Kavanaugh stands accused of the nonpartisan sexual assault of a minor, Christine Ford.
Yes, I can see THAT is a difficult topic to fit into a puff piece about partisanship. Maybe scrap the conclusion-in-search-of evidence approach to selecting story topics, and wag the dog.
Are we to believe this glaring absence, the absence of the name and the specific allegations of his accuser, and alleged victim, Dr Blasey-Ford, never struck the authors as deliberate, as calculated, as misleading, as a GOP deflection that responsible journalists should not, ever, aid and abet?
Here’s how you do it: “Left out of all the deflections and bloviating offered by Kavanaugh and his supporters is the fact that Dr. Blasey-Ford testified before the committee that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her.”
Context.
Are we to believe that somehow, and this is baffling, somehow, the authors rationalized that reminding readers these laughable GOP claims about “revenge” and “hit jobs,” which reek of conspiracy-theory fever, have not, not, been corroborated, but that Dr Blasey-Ford's testimony not only withstands scrutiny and remains credible, but is actually being corroborated as other information comes to light and other witnesses come forward?
Context. Get some, WAPO.
How do you disserve readers? You quote Elvis Kavanaugh insisting he isn’t dead, and let him blather on about aliens and other vacuous conspiracies. You let him sit back and enjoy his safe place, that place where he can rationalize his own actions as he plots to disenfranchise his supposed inferiors from a place, a Supreme Court seat, where he is almost completely insulated from accountability.
Context: the credible testimony of Dr. Blasey-Ford about an actual, specific event, Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assault of Dr. Blasey-Ford, put the habitual liar back on his heels, left him spouting nebulous, conspiratorial nonsense, found him making a paltry attempt at deflection.
Exactly how much space should the authors have set aside for Kavanaugh’s vacuous, spoon-fed-and-regurgitated conspiracy theories about party-driven revenge/partisanship.
None.
But start with a weak, unfocused thesis, and you get a rambling, ineffectual article. Garbage in, garbage out. It’s not enough to say that Dr. Blasey-Ford’s name was left out because her testimony didn’t support the thesis, that her name and allegations had no connection to the subject or focus of the story.
Her testimony about one specific event, involving her, Judge and Kavanaugh, was the impetus for the latter’s unhinged rant. It was HER testimony that caused GOP partisanship to swell and burst, a partisan pimple suddenly rupturing the already-thin skin of GOP “civility,” that civility a filmy pretense of the type sociopaths put on when they appear in public.
The GOP “partisanship” that distracted the authors is an appendage of ideology so perverse that it is damnably irresponsible to see the former wagging and not call out the beast who wags it.
Responsible journalists grab the tail and wag the dog. See the partisan tail, name the ideological dog, and describe the symptoms of rabies.
But the authors repeatedly failed to provide context: They quote a genuine bimbo-hack, Carrie Severino, of the Judicial Crisis Network (laughable organization name, when you know what they endorse. Better to call it the Judicial Fascists Network): “Senators have a choice: endorse a smear campaign or support Judge Kavanaugh.”
Uh, no, shit-for-brains. Senators actually have several choices. Senators with integrity, genuine public servants, simply gather facts and evidence, and remain transparent while also keeping the process transparent. Of course, Grassley and the other GOP degenerates on the committee did exactly the opposite.
The authors don’t call out Severino for spouting her false-choice fallacy. Why was her useless sentence even repeated? Sure, it was partisan. But what ideology makes her such a degenerate? Spell it out. Her statement, absent an expose of her depravity, illuminates only her incompetence.
Context.
And what to make of the authors’ decision to include, “There’s the process before Kavanaugh, and the process after Kavanaugh,” this gem of a deflection from Lindsey “Got-the-vapors” Graham. This grasping idiot’s ahistorical assertion not only disappeared Dr. Ford, but disappeared Anita Hill and the farce that was the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.
I guess the authors’ rationale was, “Well, it’s partisan alright. Toss it in.” But they never do skewer the fallacy in Graham’s threat, the one hiding in broad daylight. This allows a mere hack like Graham to mislead readers into believing that an unqualified nominee of poor character, Thomas, who also suffers from ICS (Ideological Constipation Syndrome) had never before been propped up by a GOP confirmation circus stuffed with stooges and clowns.
Driver’s quote: “Justices pride themselves on disagreeing without being disagreeable.”
I’ll refute that the same way I did before: Alito.
And the authors let the quote stand, unchallenged, unbalanced by a single, solid bit of reality or historical fact.
Context.
In its heyday, the New York Times earned its reputation as a source of meaty, top caliber journalism for providing context, solid, historical, fact-based context, for the events on which they reported.
Yes, the WAPO article does manage the odd near-bullseye. But it did so in one case with an unattributed bit of editorializing. Unless some quotation marks are missing, the authors note that both Kavanaugh’s and Thomas’ nomination processes were “bitterly political, unpredictable and ultimately unflattering.”
Drive-by journalism. It contaminates an already ugly, horrendous crime scene.