Kinsley's Sneering NYT Review Of Bush Memoir Accuses Him Of 'Stealing' 2000 Election
Could Michael Kinsley possibly be any more predictable? His review of George Bush's "Decision Points," appearing in today's Sunday New York Times, is precisely the smug piece of sneering partisanship you would expect in this paper and from this quintessential liberal MSM elitist.
As the headline indicates, Kinsley flatly accuses W of "stealing" the 2000 election. Kinsley offers no proof, but surely most of the people who will read this review require none. They take it as a matter of deep partisan faith. Speaking of faith, the former Crossfire man is mocking of Bush's. Consider this excerpt:
"[H]e stopped drinking with the help of God, who spoke to him while he was out jogging. (I make light, but this part of his story is actually fascinating, gutsy and very well told.) Thirteen years later, after he had made a quick fortune buying and selling a baseball team and then had been elected governor of Texas, God told him to run for president."
If Kinsley admired Bush's telling of how his faith helped him to stop drinking, why then would he "make light"? Could it be that he needs to remind his audience and himself that they are way too sophisticated to take this religion stuff seriously?
The review is littered with insults:
- Father and so Bush "smugly" refer to each other as 41 and 43.
- Even at 64, W is still "callow."
- H.W. is a "grandee-with-a-switchblade."
On Iraq, hear the sneer in this excerpt:
"Bush’s other error, of course, was those weapons of mass destruction. His defense is that virtually everyone — including his predecessor, Bill Clinton, and his 2004 rival, John Kerry — also believed there were such weapons, or the ability to build them. Bush is enraged by the slogan “Bush lied. People died.” He wasn’t lying! "
Bush's defense seems pretty sound. And indeed, Kinsley doesn't attempt to refute it. He presumably just trusts that readers will take his mocking tone as a subliminal signal that he and they somehow know better.
Finally, consider how Kinsley ends his review. Despite having professed admiration for the way in which W gave up alcohol, Kinsley takes one last puerile poke: "Although Bush is admirable for stopping, he probably was more fun when he drank."
Kinsley's review ultimately says less about W and more about himself--and the kind of audience for which he surely saw himself writing.
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Comments
Liberals just can't help themselves
Submitted by motherbelt on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 9:15am.
They always reveal their own smug pettiness when they try to tear down someone else.
When he talks about God "speaking" to Bush, he HAS to make light of it, or he would lose his liberal sophisticate creds.
Kinsley's attempt to twist the truth (calling it a "defense") in the WMD matter is pathetic. Just like the "stealing" of the 2000 election.
They just can't let it go; no matter what. They know the truth; the "facts" are a conspiracy.
"They know the truth; the
Submitted by Mark Finkelstein on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 9:28am.
"They know the truth; the "facts" are a conspiracy." -- great line. They are just as religious, in their seculuar way, as the most ardent believers.
Kinsley is just one more
Submitted by Average_JoeMN on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 9:37am.
Kinsley is just one more example of the fact that liberals have no conscience.
Liberal hate speech
Submitted by ronber on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 9:46am.
Liberals ALWAYS have to have someone to hate, and they feel compelled to tell everyone else whom to hate. Kinsley is just one more sordid example.
Could the NYT have picked a
Submitted by Chris Norman on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 10:11am.
Could the NYT have picked a more resolute Bush-hater than Kinsley to review his book? Why not just go ahead and pick Al Gore?
Al Gore
Submitted by djm159 on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 4:10pm.
Al Gore most likely could not read the book much less give an "honest" review of it. Whatever anyone did to keep Gore, the pathological liar, from assuming the reigns of this country saved us for 8 years. Al Gore wouldn't know the truth if it bit him on his sizeable behind. Even his own frau "Tipper" kicked him out after 41 years because he is a nut and a cheater and a liar. Nuff said. Bush, Supreme Court, whoever blocked Gore from assuming power, God bless you- you saved America for two terms.
Tipper gave him the boot
Submitted by NL207 on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 4:13pm.
Tipper gave him the boot because he was caught playing 'hide the toad in the hole'.
The Times
Submitted by funkdome on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 10:11am.
Of course, when the Times reviewed Clinton's book, they had their regular book reviewer, Mickiko Kakutani, do it.
For Bush they called in a nasty and predictable partisan. What a joke.
Give it up
Submitted by NVRAT on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 10:16am.
Kinsley you sniviling little Liberal. You are surely one of humankinds most irrelivant clones.
One day Kinsey will hear God
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 10:44am.
One day Kinsey will hear God speak to him, and I imagine he will not like what he hears and the verdict God gives.
That's why Kinsley is a media giant....
Submitted by NeoKong on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 11:28am.
Oh wait......he's not.
He is a giant in the eyes of
Submitted by NL207 on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 11:36am.
He is a giant in the eyes of his fellows within the Liberal Media.
I am always amused at the polls that show that about 20% of Americans self identify as liberals but something like 88% of the news media do this. And these hack journalists have the effrontery to believe they represent the people!
Far-left liberals will never let this meme go...
Submitted by UltraC on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 11:55am.
... no matter how many times rational people explain how Bush didn't steal the 2000 election. It reminds me of the Reagan quote: "It isn't that Liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so much that isn't so."
As for Kinsley making light of Bush's overcoming alcoholism, that doesn't surprise me either. I think these far-left bomb throwers are terrified of a man like Bush, who's been to the edge of the abyss, gazed into it, and come away a stronger person. They can't understand it, so they mock and belittle it. Especially if it involves faith.
Even the NYT blew up the 2000 election myth
Submitted by In_Awe on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 4:25pm.
Don't I recall that in 2001 a consortium of liberal news sources (including the NY Times) took it upon themsleves to "prove" that Gore won and Bush stole the election from him? And didn't that selfsame group come - tail between their legs - and admit that only under the most audasciously unlikely circumstance would Gore actually have won the vote count? Shouldn't that have warranted a truthful editor's note in Kinsley's review? Oh, that is where fantasy eclipses reality in the MSM doesn't it?
Outright lying
Submitted by KC Mulville on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 12:19pm.
Kinsley has Parkinson's, and he supports embryonic stem cell research. So watch him as he portrays the embryo issue as an obviously slam dunk case for his side that Bush is too stupid to grasp.
Dishonest is what he's being
Submitted by ckc1227 on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 4:09pm.
Bush didn't shut down embryonic stem cell research. Kingsley was and is free to fund all the embryonic stem cell research he wants because there is no law against it. Embryonic stem cell research is ands was completely legal. All Bush did was end federal funding for it.
Nuance
Submitted by In_Awe on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 4:48pm.
Actually Bush did not shut down federal funding for embryonic stem cell research - he merely limited it to existing stem cell lines created from embryos. So, researchers could continue (or start new) research on the existing lines drived from embryos or get grants for research in the truly promising - and actually productive - area of adult stem cell research.
I haven't looked lately, but I recall that embryonic stem cells therapies were found to generate cancerous growths and other non-optimal outcomes. Yet, adult stem cell research has avoided those results and contributed some truly promising outcomes. The Japanese developed a way to create stem cells from skin that gets around the whole issue.
In CA the embryonic stem cell research fans in the entertainment industry and their friends in the stem cell research arena pushed a $5B state proposition which passed that created an inviolate embryonic stem cell research industry in order to spit in Bush's eye at the expense of CA taxpayers. The money built expensive labs for research where the results would be patented by the state and licensed to the pharmaceutical industry. The proposition stated that the income from licensing would pay for the $10B in bonds (plus interest). Problem was that the licensing revenue was projected to be 3-5x the total from all other state (university) held patents combined. And the law was written in such a way to prevent any re-direction of the research away from embryonic stem cell research by the Governor, state legislature or the board of directors.
The liberal lie machine knows no bounds. Similar provisions are in the Obamacare law which prevent any future Congress from changing what the current omnipotent, omniscient Congress embedded in various provisions of that law.
once more to the well
Submitted by ZuccoZoid on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 2:06pm.
Since the liberals can't give up the myth that Bush "stole" the election, let's go back to the leftist moonshine still. I'm going on memory here; correct me if i'm wrong:
- Democrats insisted on recounts only in select counties where more Gore votes could magically appear; they insisted on changing voting rules after voting had taken place - with the votes not in their favor;
- Democrats designed and approved the butterfly ballot they later blamed for 'hanging chads' and 'mistaken' votes for Buchanan rather than Gore;
- Democrat controlled state court refused to allow FL sec. of state from verifying the vote count as per FL law, essentially granting legal license to continue selective recounting until enough votes were discovered to claim a win for Gore;
- Then-current FL state asst. atty. general was allegedly involved in Gore's campaign;
- Democrats refused to allow Republicans to participate in the 'selective' recounts;
- The news media declared FL for Gore 1-2 hours before the polls closed in the Republican dominated FL panhandle (which would have given Bush a much wider margin of victory);
- The US Supreme Court voted twice in Bush's favor (7-2, then 5-4); a key component being that "selective" recounting in a state for an election with *national* consequences was unconstitutional.
There's a bright side for you, Mr. Kinsley - now you can sign up for a tour of duty with the US military. Sign up some of your lawyers too, so they can sue the drill sarge if he dares call you a "sissy."
Buttfly ballots
Submitted by nkviking75 on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 4:47pm.
If my memory is correct, they'd been using butterfly ballots for a quarter century, so most voters should have been acquainted with it.
“Always love your country — but never trust your government!" -- Bob Novak (1931-2009)
When you put the clowns in charge, don't be surprised when a circus breaks out.
Hey Mark -- on stealing the election - apologizing to Gore??
Submitted by Gary Hall on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 2:12pm.
I think you should have noted what Kinsley said there. So here:
He doesn’t apologize to Al Gore for his previous criticism — or for stealing the 2000 election for that matter.
On the 'apologize to Gore' suggestion, one has to not only wonder what the heck Kensley's talking about, but open up the conversation to the current occupant of the WH, President Obama.
If one in the media business can find some need for George W Bush to apologize to Al Gore for criticizing Al Gore (first of all - it's a far stretch to envision Bush criticizing anybody, other than Saddam, Bin Laden, or yippee coyote), they they could have an entire career tearing President Obama apart for his rather constant non-presidential habit of attacking anything or anyone that does not live and breathe liberalism. Obama, by this standard, will have to spend the rest of his life apologizing not only to individuals, news channels, poliltical parties - but to the American people at large.
Secondly, on the stealing the 2000 election; not only should Kinsley remember that Bush won the election - it was Gore who lost the effort to steal the election.
And, where he lost it because the recounts showed that he would have lost it anyway, had all the votes in the State of FL had been recounted - as unconstitutionally ordered by the FL Supreme Court - from a legal standpoint, Gore lost even that useless argument on his own accord; he opposed the statewide recounts. Kinsley should read his own paper of record:
In, "Gore's Failure to Ask for Manual Statewide Recount May Have Been Critical Mistake," the NY Times wrote this analysis Dec. 13, 2000:
"Vice President Al Gore's failure to ask the Florida courts for a manual statewide recount has emerged as one in a series of pivotal legal miscalculations that may have doomed his 35-day battle to wrest Florida's 25 electors from George W. Bush, legal experts said today."
But once again, it wouldn't have mattered - the major recounts by the media showed Bush would have won that too.
Only had Gore managed to legally overturn the election via the courts, would it be appropriate to say, "someone stole the election."
(;~/ gary
Not to pour cold water
Submitted by NevadanConservative on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 2:27pm.
Some rather cynical associates of mine at the time asserted that the 5-4 decision was simply a matter of either a missing or not fat enough envelope from the Democrats to the mercenary at the High Court.
Which confuses me... If this is the straight tell, and it HAD been fat enough, would that have made it a 'bought' election, or would it have been a 'stolen' one from the point of law being disobeyed?
Not enough coffee...
NVCon
PURPLE IS THE NEW BROWN
http://inlinethumb43.webshots.com/17194/2872764590061034863S600x600Q85.jpg
NVCon... 7-2
Submitted by Gary Hall on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 3:13pm.
".. the per curiam opinion held 7-2 that the FL SC's scheme for recounting ballots was unconstitutiona l. Even if the recount was fair in theory, it was unfair in practice."
As one ponders why we never hear that discussed in the media - one understands what media bias is all about.
(;~> gary
I've often heard it said: A
Submitted by phryingphish on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 3:08pm.
I've often heard it said:
A conservitive doesn't like the way a station covers the news, he changes the channel.
A liberal doesn't like the way a station covers the news, he wants the station shut down.
Michael Kingsley
Submitted by doug1950 on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 3:30pm.
I had no idea this ugly little toad was even still alive. He used to be a regular on several mind numbing Sunday shows but I had not seen him in so long I guess I just assumed he has shriveled up and died of being perpetually shrill and "nasty". He was in every way a very unattractive young man but I see he hasn't improved with age. These kinds of people don't know that the only people they hurt with this degree of bitterness and nasty are themselves. In the end they are the ones who end up being eaten alive by their own bile and bitterness. You can't stew in the soup of your own anger and inadequacies and last long.
It's funny how the party of
Submitted by Barack_must_go..... on Sun, 12/19/2010 - 6:03pm.
It's funny how the party of jackasses has a memory like an elephant, albeit quite selective most of the time.
Barack_Must_Go.....