Today I had this story written about me regarding what I said at a Town Hall event in Burlington, Iowa by a reporter who wasn’t even at the event. Incidentally, I declined to be interviewed by this particular reporter yesterday for reasons which will soon be apparent.
In referring to me, she reported “he doesn’t like modern campaigning, isn’t interested in running for President, and will not be devastated” if he doesn’t win.
Below is a transcript of what I actually said in response to a question by a local Burlington resident which was the basis of the reporter’s story.
It is clear that there are those in the media who will exact a high price for candor and from those whom they consider to be insufficiently ambitious. But it is with increasing amazement that we see that those who are willing to slant or leave out important parts of a story to make their point.
I used to attribute the “lazy Thompson” narrative to nothing more than the media’s own lack of interest in real coverage—but with the number of times Sen. Thompson has been deliberately misquoted I’m starting to wonder if there’s something more at play here. I’m starting to wonder if the media isn’t afraid of Sen. Thompson. After all, the media leans heavily Democratic—and they have a vested interest in seeing the weakest possible Republican challenger to their heir apparent Hillary Clinton. That’s why the media has been playing hands-off with Mike Huckabee—they know that his pseudo-populism would fracture the economic and social wings of the Republican coalition and ensure a Clinton victory. Sen. Thompson is an authentic conservative on both fiscal and social issues. He’s strongly pro-life, he’s strong against earmarks, and when it comes to judges, Sen. Thompson is the one that President Bush chose to help Chief Justice Roberts through the Senate. Thompson would keep the Republican base together in a way that few—if any— of the other Republican hopefuls can.
No wonder they’re afraid.
What Sen. Thompson actually said in Iowa reminds me of precisely why I support Sen. Thompson’s bid for the Presidency. He isn’t a career politician, nor is he a member of the Beltway political class. From Sen. Thompson’s remarks:
If people really want in their president super type-a personality, someone who has gotten up every morning and gone to bed every night and been thinking about for years how they win the presidency of the United States, someone who can look you straight in the eye and say they enjoy every minute of campaigning, I ain’t that guy. So I hope I’ve discussed that and didn’t talk you out of anything. I honestly want – I can’t imagine a worse set of circumstances [than] achieving the Presidency of the United States under false pretenses. I go out of my way to be myself.
We’ve had enough of phony political hacks pandering to every possible group under the sun. The professional political class in this country is an affront to the values of citizen leadership that the Founders desired. Sen. Thompson has a career of civil service, but he’s hardly a member of the political class. His campaign is based strongly on ideas, not empty promises and not attempts to conceal the issues with gauzy personal narratives.
Thompson remains tied with the rest of the pack, but if substance were what mattered, he’d be winning by a large margin. The media keeps misquoting him because they have their narratives in play, and they’re scared that a solid conservative might get the Republican nomination and take the Republican Party to the White House for another four years. Republican primary voters need only concentrate on who the media wants them to vote for to know precisely who is the least fit to win. Thompson is the real thing—a conservative with solid policy prescriptions and the ability to get them enacted. That’s what the media fears, and that’s what the country most desperately needs.
Inside, Thompson shook a few hands — there were only about 15 people there — and then Chief Dan McKenzie handed Thompson the chief’s fire hat so Thompson could put it on.
Thompson looked at it with a sour expression on his face.
“I’ve got a silly hat rule,” Thompson said.
In point of fact, the “silly” hat was the one Chief McKenzie wore to fires and I am guessing none of the firefighters in attendance considered it particularly silly, but Thompson was not going to put it on. He just stood there holding it and staring at it.
To save the moment, Jeri Thompson took the hat from her husband’s hands and put it on her head.
“You look cute,” Thompson said to her. She did.
Unfortunately for The Politico, a CBS News reporter happened to be there and captured the actual event:
This just goes to show how the media doesn’t always give you the straight story. With the advent of things like YouTube it’s harder for people to get away with these mischaracterizations. The media has a narrative, and sometimes that narrative and reality don’t occupy the same ZIP code.
There have been many criticisms of Thompson’s campaign style (or lack thereof). Given that Thompson is on a major bus tour of Iowa, visiting 54 of the state’s 99 countries in the days before Christmas, that narrative might end up haunting the media. Iowa’s voters tend not to do what the media thinks they’ll do, which makes for a much more interesting race. When you’re locked into one mode of looking at the world, it’s much more difficult to see the nuances that can quickly decide a race as close as this one.
Ed Morrissey has an excellent piece on The New Republic coming clean on the Scott Thomas Beauchamp controversy. They’re now admitting that they got hoodwinked once again, and that they didn’t check their facts. When Beauchamp’s wife is assigned to ensuring the accuracy of his piece, there’s already a massive red flag. TNR let their ideological biases get in the way, and it blinded them to the fact that they were being had.
If this were an isolated incident, it would be one thing. However, the Beauchamp scandal is emblematic of a larger problem within the American media. As the figures show, the vast majority of American journalists are ideologically homogenous—they believe in left-wing ideals and view the world through that ideological prism. Which means that the stories the tell are stories that have been twisted by those ideological assumptions. The Beauchamp story didn’t get published because The New Republic wanted to smear the troops, it got published because the story fit their own preconceptions of American servicemembers as either political pawns or mindless kill-bots. So few journalists have military experience that stories like a Bradley driver swerving to kill a dog didn’t set off their BS-detectors because almost none of them know what a Bradley Armored Vehicle looks like. Without that knowledge, it becomes harder to distinguish what’s fact and what’s convenient fiction.
Despite Franklin Foer’s lengthy attempt at apologia, the reality is that they hoodwinked again. They got what they wanted, not what was true, and they didn’t have the foresight to check their facts. It may have been a mistake borne from ignorance rather than malice, but it was a mistake none the less. To have come from a magazine that had already been the victim of another scam journalist (Stephen Glass) makes this sort of error even less understandable.
TNR has, sadly, frittered away its credibility. At the very least Franklin Foer should take responsibility and step down, along with all those who handled this story. Instead, he spends a great deal of time blaming others for their mistake. So long as that attitude prevails, TNR is unlikely to regain the credibility lost in this affair.
Is Newsweek really hurting for writers who hurl invective like a monkey flings feces? Who has the writing talent of a college freshman? Who is the very model of a partisan hack? Exactly what do they gain?
If Newsweek wanted an interesting, insightful and worthwhile liberal to contribute something meaningful to their publication, there are plenty of them out there. (Although, to be frank, they’re not hurting for left-wing voices.) At the very least, there are some thougtful liberals like Joshua Micah Marshall who would be more deserving.
They’re apparently going to “balance” Kos with a right-of-center blogger, yet to be announced. Then again, I doubt anyone would want the job of “balancing” Kos unless it’s by giving him medication. I’m not sure of a writer whose name doesn’t rhyme with Fan Molter that even comes close to the level of pure ideological spite and relentless cheerleader-ism that Kos spews on a daily basis.
Then again, it’s probably good news for the Republicans in the race—the more exposure people like Kos get, the more people see the true face of the Democratic Party. Given Kos’ ability to put his foot firmly in his mouth and then berate anyone pointing it out, giving him a larger voice in the media has got to have reasonable Democrats cringing.
I value the writers’ service and their opinions as soldiers who have served in Iraq, but wouldn’t this editorial have meant more if the Washington Post had managed to find soldiers to write it who had actually been in in Iraq in the last year?
Only two of the 12 captains had been in Iraq as late as 2006, with the rest all departing in 2005 or before. None of them are currently on active duty.
While their opinions are valuable from a historical perspective based upon what they’ve seen while they served, they hardly seem to be best qualified to be able to comment upon the current situation on the ground in Iraq, as it has changed so radically since the last of them departed.
With all due respect to the 12 American soldiers who sacrificed their time for this war, their information is out of date and contradicted by the current situation on the ground. For example, they argue that the “surge” is causing alienation between US troops and the Iraqis. If that is true, then why has the Anbar Awakening been such a success? Iraqi leaders like Sheikh Abu Sattar al-Risha have worked closely with American troops to rid al-Anbar of AQI terrorists. If there are “swayed allegiances” in Iraq those allegiances are swaying against al-Qaeda and towards a free Iraq.
The media narrative has always been one of defeat in Iraq. The truth is far more complex. It’s far too soon to declare victory in Iraq, but the signs of progress are unmistakable. The first step towards fixing Iraq has always been to restore security and allow for the Iraqis to develop their own political institutions from the ground up. We are making demonstrable progress on that front, and even the Post has been forced to admit that numbers paint a far different picture than their chosen narrative.