Infuriating, ignorant Chi Trib Editorial tries to Floridize Ohio theft

[Gabi Hayes]

this REALLY pissed me off today in the local fishtrainer:

If someone had told me 30 years ago that I would one day invoke Richard M. Nixon as a moral example, I'd have said the person was nuts. But that's what I'm about to do.

Legend has it that after the 1960 presidential election, an aide informed Nixon that there was enough evidence of irregularities in the results of the balloting in Illinois that a strong challenge to John F. Kennedy's victory here could be mounted.

To his credit, Nixon is said to have rejected a challenge as not worth putting the country through. In other words, winning wasn't the sole end of politics.

That Nixon legend came to mind this week as I opened what seemed the 1,000th e-mail in which the writer declared that the results of the 2004 presidential election are suspect and suggested that, instead of pursuing evidence of election theft and corruption, the Tribune and the rest of the "corporate media" are intent on ignoring the facts.

read on for the aggravating agitprop which follows
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0504280106apr28,0,5908365.column?coll=chi-ed_opinion_publiced-utl

where to begin with.... this jackass is ignoring the real facts about the 1960 Illinois situation. It's been revealed in myriad places, and this Slate article is as good a single retelling as one is likely to find without suffering carpal google syndrome:



contrast the following with what the egregious Tribhack said above:

....while Nixon publicly pooh-poohed a challenge, his allies did dispute the results—aggressively. The New York Herald Tribune's Earl Mazo, a friend and biographer of Nixon's, recounted a dozen-odd fishy incidents alleged by Republicans in Illinois and Texas. Largely due to Mazo's reporting, the charges gained wide acceptance.

But it wasn't just Mazo who made a stink. The press went into a brief frenzy in the weeks after the election. Most important, the Republican Party made a veritable crusade of undoing the results. Even if they ultimately failed, party leaders figured, they could taint Kennedy's victory, claim he had no mandate for his agenda, galvanize the rank and file, and have a winning issue for upcoming elections.

Three days after the election, party Chairman Sen. Thruston Morton launched bids for recounts and investigations in 11 states—an action that Democratic Sen. Henry Jackson attacked as a "fishing expedition." Eight days later, close Nixon aides, including Bob Finch and Len Hall, sent agents to conduct "field checks" in eight of those states. Peter Flanigan, another aide, encouraged the creation of a Nixon Recount Committee in Chicago. All the while, everyone claimed that Nixon knew nothing of these efforts—an implausible assertion that could only have been designed to help Nixon dodge the dreaded "sore loser" label.

The Republicans pressed their case doggedly. They succeeded in obtaining recounts, empanelling grand juries, and involving U.S. attorneys and the FBI. Appeals were heard, claims evaluated, evidence weighed. The New York Times considered the charges in a Nov. 26 editorial. (Its bold verdict: "It is now imperative that the results in each state be definitively settled by the time the electoral college meets.")

read on if you haven't heard the whole story yet....if you had, this sort of revisionism in the service of MOCKING the truth, just as they did in 2000/2001, makes me as angry as I've been for some time.http://slate.msn.com/id/91350/

I particularly like the bit in which Ralph de Toledano, a conservative writer/friend of Nixon, mentions catching him in his first (hahahahahaha) lie, WRT one of the central tenets of the big lie propagated concerning Nixon's reluctance to pursue an Illinois
challenge: Many others, chief among them Eisenhower, urged him to take action against the vote fraud in Illinois, as well as elsewhere, but he demurred, for the good of the country.

Back to the Trib--Wycliff goes on to say that the DEMS were resonsible for the low number of voting machines in heavily dem areas, and other such twaddle. Too bad he didn't take the time to lionize Blackwell in the same heavy-handed stroke.

Finally, does anybody know anything about his classic "authority figure," upon whom he rests his proposition? Never heard of him, but he's sure using one of the cornerstones of Propaganda 101 in bolstering his claim, rendered highly implausible by his complete hogwashy intro.

[followthemoney]

1. If you don't know history then you might as well have been born ...

yesterday. The next thing Repubs will say is that the supreme court nomination of Abe Fortas was not filibustered. Say anything to the ignorant because they will likely believe most of it.

Ignorance of this country's history is a form of anti-patriotic behavior by MSM editorial staff.

[Gabi Hayes]

2. they've already been caught in lies about that one....heard it mentioned

on the radio just the other day, and it's happened before that, too.

they have actually NO compunction anymore, because they know that their mistress media will, at best, play stories like that once or twice, then let them drop into the memory hole, to be forgotten by all but a very small number who can't, apparently make much of a difference

but the effrontery of this jackwad at the Trib to spread such a bald lie about Nixon just drives me nuts...not so much because of Nixon, but because it's clearly in service of maintaining the myth that Ohio, just like Florida, was democracy in action, and that ANYbody who claims differently is just another conspiracy nutcase

[vince3]

3. I sent him an email two days ago....

...and i just sent him another one. How the hell does this guy know that the election wasn't stolen?

[Gabi Hayes]

4. good for you!

he's counting on people buying his swill based on the word of one Trib employee who spent two whole weeks in Ohio right before the election (to be honest, unlike Wycliff himself, he did say Jones spent "a great deal of time" in Ohio.....what's that mean?)

why don't you send him the Slate article and call him on his egregious lie, just regarding Nixon

I quit corresponding with the likes of them after Jim Warren became out of his tree over AWOL, claiming coverage of Bush was similar to that of Clinton in 92, based on his Nexis search. I used to call his show alot, but he's gotten really lazy and RW credulous/guest-heavy on the few occasions I've listened lately.

I have to stop thinking about this for tonight, or I'll never get to sleep

but they ARE doing their level best to make sure Grand Theft Nation 2004 stays as buried as GFN 2000.

[followthemoney]

5. I sent Wycliff an e-mail about his repeated Boondocks censorship

I cancelled the Tribune but told them I would read it if they sent it for free. I just don't want to pay someone for a job they have no business doing. They have been sending the paper to me for free for the last 4 weeks (Sundays only)!

[Gabi Hayes]

6. ha! and ha!

I've been meaning to cancel for months....this should do the trick

free Sundays might be acceptable, though, as the Sunday Doonesbury/Boondocks are OK. I read Sylvia daily, too, though, and I would miss that.

who did you tell you'd take it for free?

sounds like a good trick

[followthemoney]

7. I e-mailed Wycliff then called the 800 number on their bill

Subject: Fwd: RE: On Silencing of Boondocks
Date: Tue 03/15/05 11:53 AM



--- Begin forwarded message:

From: followthemoney
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 14:16:27 -0800 (PST)
To: "Wycliff, N. Don" <[e-mail]>
Subject: RE: On Silencing of Boondocks



Mr. Wycliff,


You have given the Bush administration carte blanche with your newspaper. Their lie upon lie has resulted in untold tragedy for thousands of human beings, and unlike the New York Times and the Washington Post, you have provided no small admission of error in your overly enthusiastic cheerleading for the Bush administration and your unquestioning acceptance of their FACTUALLY UNFOUNDED statements. You have thereby contributed to a misinformed public.


When I buy your publication I expect it to adhere to “some fundamental standards: accuracy, fairness, taste” without deference to ideology and to otherwise unapparent interests.


I don’t refer to “good old days”, but “other days” when a city could support more than two papers. There may have existed more censorship WITHIN papers but more diversity of opinion BETWEEN papers. I will cite examples for you if you show any further interest.


Your protection the image of George Bush in reference to his drug use involves a finely nuanced cloak of words which leaves his history undetermined. Huey, However, the child sees the emperor has no cloths. Therein lies the charm of Huey unBowdlerized

followthemoney



--- "Wycliff, N. Don" <[e-mail]> wrote:

From: "Wycliff, N. Don" <[e-mail]>
Date: Thu, 3 Mar 2005 13:53:46 -0600
Subject: RE: On Silencing of Boondocks



Dear Mr. followthemoney:

We don't give ANYONE carte blanche with the newspaper. They offer their product, we buy it and commit to use it as long as it meets some fundamental standards: accuracy, fairness, taste. Frankly, those seem to me neither unreasonable nor onerous.

No, I can't improve on Aaron McGruder, but I don't try to. And please, don't talk about the good old days. There was more "censorship" back then than you can begin to appreciate.

You are correct: YOU are free to take GWB's refusal to answer as an implicit admission. WE, however, are obligated to say not that he admitted it, but that he refused to answer.

DW


-----Original Message-----

To: Wycliff, N. Don
Subject: On Silencing of Boondocks


Mr.Wycliff,

The editorial board endorsed George Bush for president. This was an act I strongly disagreed with. None the less, I continued to subscribe to the Tribune. I don't expect every decision of the board to coincide with mine. One of the things that balanced the Tribune for me is Boondocks. It was one of the reasons I continued to subscribe.

My position is that you should either carry the cartoon or not carry the cartoon. I don't expect you to act as co-editor of the cartoon. Frankly, I doubt you are capable of improving upon the work of Aaron McGruder. Your action only results in changing his message. You deprive me of what I paid to read.

George Bush declines to answer questions about his drug use. I am free to take that lack of denial as an implicit admission. I'm sure millions do not reserve judgment as you do. If George doesn't like it maybe he should sue. That will certainly give the issue a good airing. You need not be his personal advocate.

You claim your actions are not censorship. Semantics aside, you have silenced a voice for the day. The remedy for bad speech is not silencing such speech but the use of more speech. That is how adversarial newspapers existed in the days before homogenized, so called "objective" journalism.