Correcting Olbermann’s Report On David Kuo
October 14, 2006 at 4:12 pm
“The vast majority of what David writes is factually untrue.”
The Bush White House toward David Kuo’s new book?
Nope. It’s his former boss, Craig Winn of the out-of-businss company Value America, about Kuo’s prior book, Dot.bomb (quoted in the Washington Post almost five years ago today.)
Now Kuo’s got a new book out. It’s been paraded by MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann.
An excerpt from the Olbermann report on the book that appears on the MSNBC website:
By the early ‘90s, he was already a conservative insider, part of Jack Kemp’s think-tank, Empower America. To help bring about the 1994 Republican revolution, Kuo writes that he and his team taught more than 600 candidates how to run for office: by blaming President Clinton for the nation’s sad state of affairs at the time.
Kuo writes that they tried to ignore the fact that Clinton had only just started in office after 12 years of the administrations of Presidents Reagan and Bush.
Together with fellow Christian Mike Gerson, now Bush’s top speechwriter, Kuo writes that he wrote political speeches designed to appeal to religion audiences, even when the speakers did not want to give those speeches. Jack Kemp, for one, removed religious values language from a speech he was to give to the Southern Baptist Convention. So instead, Kuo writes, Gerson and Kuo snuck in a few phrases that evangelicals would recognize but laypeople would not.
I worked at Empower America with Kuo. I actually liked David and respected his intellect and passion. We had a good working relationship. So the following facts are presented strictly to correct what Olbermann got wrong.
1) Yes, Empower America was a Jack Kemp think tank. It was also a Jeane Kirkpatrick think tank. The third co-director was Bill Bennett. We all worked for the organization, but Kuo was part of the roughly defined Bennett staff. (I was with Kemp, having worked for him at HUD when he was Secretary). Olbermann should have made that clearer. Kuo himself does, here: “I worked for William Bennett and John Ashcroft in the mid-1990s.” Why’s that distinction important? Because of point #2:
2) Olbermann implies that Kuo wrote Kemp’s speeches. He did not. Kemp had an accomplished, talented, and tireless speech writer on staff who also directed Empower America’s communications strategies. That person wasn’t Kuo. Olbermann overstates Kuo’s role in the organization, at least vis a vis his position with Kemp. And the idea that Kuo — or anyone, for that matter — could sneak a few phrases into Kemp’s speech? Laughable. Jack Kemp is not one to be duped, and it’s ludicrous to assert that any staffer could ever pull the wool over his eyes when it comes to drafting a speech.
Olbermann may have found delight in reporting Kuo’s book. But he shouldn’t have left these unfounded and misleading assertions go unchallenged. And he’d do well to correct something else he got wrong: Michael Gerson is not President Bush’s top speechwriter. Gerson has departed the White House. It was announced in June.
Drew Kelley said,
October 14, 2006 @ 9:54 pm
Oh my gosh! Olberman got something wrong? Who would have thought this was possible? MSNBC? Isn’t that a five-digit, code group for “Lies?”
Kaitian868 said,
October 14, 2006 @ 10:53 pm
Facts? They don’t matter to Keith Olbermann.
Peder said,
October 14, 2006 @ 11:12 pm
So let me get this straight, Clinton didn’t deserve any blame for the state of the country in ‘94 because of twelve years of Republican administrations? Didn’t Olbermann just recently put sole blame for 9/11 on Bush because he was president when it happened? How does that work?
Anonymous said,
October 14, 2006 @ 11:50 pm
While it is true that Michael Gerson left the White House in June 2006, he had already left the chief speechwriter position more than a year earlier. He was replaced in that position by Bill McGurn in February 2005:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/02/20050209-17.html
ScottM said,
October 14, 2006 @ 11:56 pm
Keith Olbermann is stupid. I mean, just plain low-IQ stupid. So stupid, in fact, that holding him responsible for the things he says is simply not fair.
He doesn’t know anything, and he isn’t smart enough to be expected to know anything.
The man should be pitied, not hated.
Ian said,
October 15, 2006 @ 12:56 am
Keith Olbermann was a good sportscaster but a terrible talk show host. He seems unwilling to admit his very partisan bias and he seems to be ill informed regarding politcs and is left reciting Democratic talking points.
Despite evidence to the contrary, he continually pitched the idea that Ohio was stolen in the last Presidential election. He recently criticized President Bush for not taking responsibility for 9/11 but that is ridiculous. President Bush was in office eight months as opposed to Bill Clinton being in office for eight years. Everyone who follows politics knows that the first few months of any new administration are really a transition period, so that gave President Bush basically six months to do something about Al Qaida.
It was under President Clinton that Al Qaida bombed the Kobar Towers and provided the perfect justification to go after Al Qaida. At that point, Bin Laden was much easier to catch or kill as well.
Can you imagine the world and Democratic party’s reaction if Bush had gone into Afghanistan after Bin Laden prior to 9/11 with the likelihood that he might not have gotten him. At that point, Democrats were still screaming about the election and Bush was being called a cowboy in Europe.
Surely, conducting a pre-emptive unilateral strike which was unlikely to succeed would have been ill advised by almost every foreign policy thinker. Heinsight is 20/20 but no President would have invaded Afghanistan to go after Bin Laden prior to 9/11 and Democrats should stop peddling the myth that President Bush is somehow responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
Peach said,
October 15, 2006 @ 1:54 am
Media Matters really should demand payment from MSMBC…they literally research and write Olberman’s entire show.
Mickey Finn said,
October 15, 2006 @ 4:04 am
Glad you cleared up that minutia. I feel much better now…
lk said,
October 15, 2006 @ 7:00 am
Instapundit linked, so I looked. Olbermann did a very long report over several days, and that’s all the “lies” you could find. I am very unimpressed.
bmbikes said,
October 15, 2006 @ 7:46 am
These mistakes don’t invalidate the rest of what he was saying. I put this on the level of declaring that U.S. Grant was the 19th President - when in fact he was the 18th. Or misspelling al Queda.
salvage said,
October 15, 2006 @ 9:29 am
Holy crap! That all means…. nothing.
Karl Rove rounded up the Bible thumping wingnut vote with tax dollars. If you’re cool with that, fine, say so.
Oh wait, you and the Perfesser already did by this sad picking of nits.
Qwinn said,
October 15, 2006 @ 10:13 am
This is “nitpicking”? Heh. This stuff is 10,000x as important and germane to the overall point being made as any criticism I ever saw of Ann Coulter’s “Slander” or “Treason”, where absolutely shocking data about media bias was dismissed because out of thousands of examples, she got one tiny little issue about reporting on Dale Earnhardt’s death wrong, and… hell, I never even saw a factual correction of anything in “Treason” that wasn’t more distorted than they claimed her book was (especially Joe Conanson’s excreable “review”).
Robert Cox said,
October 15, 2006 @ 10:16 am
Looks like the OlbyLoons have alighted here in yet another pathetic attempt to “defend” Keith by minimizing clear documentation of malfeasance by Keith and his “sources”.
Mortman demonstrates once again that the more you know about an OlbyRant the more you realize that, to borrow from Howard’s favorite quipster, Keith’s “reporting” is like cotton candy - it melts on contact.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar - and sometimes an error-prone, demagogic partisan hack is just an error-prone, demagogic partisan hack. No “conspiracy” here, just more sloppy reporting from the deplorable Keith Olbermann.
Jack Spratson said,
October 15, 2006 @ 10:22 am
So Olbermann may or may not have made a slip up depends on who you believe. Wow, front page news! Yet, Limbaugh does this on average of about every 5 minutes and it’s completely ignored by his Neo-Con servants.
Come on folks, surely you can do better than this. Go get your own game in order then come back to the playing field.
This article is a joke!
2Wolves said,
October 15, 2006 @ 10:58 am
When you don’t have a record to run on you attack anything and everything else.
I think Mortman just wants a FNS gig. He’s jealous.
Be POSITIVE Morty.
In the time it took to read your little opinion at least one more U.S. serviceman died, for no reason, in the Iraqi occupation.
Steve said,
October 15, 2006 @ 11:14 am
To quote Craig Winn is beyond belief. You should relly take a moment to find out what a disgraced scumbag he is. He was an online Enron thief. He also rippoffed Wal-Mart before he ripped off people with his Value America nonsense.
The weakest of your source only goes to prove the weakness of your point
Tom said,
October 15, 2006 @ 11:30 am
Don’t be too hard on Odormann and his gameshow Meltdown. Odormann has been devoting most of his time to uncovering the “voting irregularities” (Odormann’s words) in Ohio that “gave” the 2004 presidential election to Bush. Therefore, Odormann can’t be blamed for the infinite amount of hysterical errors he commits nightly.
Scott said,
October 15, 2006 @ 11:49 am
So apparently the party line from the Olbermaniacs is, it doesn’t matter how much KO gets wrong or distorts, because Rush gets stuff wrong too, and Craig Winn is a jerk.
It seems the KO (and all of MSNBC since the Abrams coup), who goes to great lengths, nightly, to point out the mistakes of others, should at least be held to minimal standards of accuracy.
Instead, we get “Olbermann did a very long report over several days, and that’s all the “lies” you could find. I am very unimpressed.” and “These mistakes don’t invalidate the rest of what he was saying.”
With days to prepare for his “investigation” which apparently consisted simply of reading quotes from Kuo’s book, KO ’s staff didn’t have time to fact check their report. Hmm. Maybe the reports will be better now that the Yankees are playing golf in Florida and KO can go back to working full-time.
kentuckyliz said,
October 15, 2006 @ 12:06 pm
Keith Olbermann doesn’t matter. His ratings are so low he’s about to drop off the radar. I’ve tried watching his show and it’s painfully bad. It appears that the rest of America except for a couple hundred thousand households agrees.
MSNBC must be feeling pessimistic about its prospects at this moment. You can bet your sweet bippy that KO will be replaced as soon as MSNBC finds it feasible.
TBDave said,
October 15, 2006 @ 12:11 pm
Don’t hold your breath waiting for journalistic journeyman Olbermann to correct his errors. He’s too busy “speaking truth to power” to worry about insignificant things like facts.
Why would he set the record straight on “Countdown To No News” when he can be pimping his book. Apparently it’s outselling O’Reilly’s book at a supermarket in Spokane. Soon to be available in the $1 bin at your local carwash.
dick said,
October 15, 2006 @ 12:38 pm
Steve,
Before you talk too much about Craig Winn, you might want to check on the CV of Paul Krugman. He also worked for Enron. Pres Clinton also sent his trade secretary out with the Enron salesmen to get them contracts. That is where your Enron problems happened. Bush was the one who stomped on Enron for its misdeeds.
Olbermann is a hack at anything other than sports, just like Frank Rich is a hack at anything other than theatre criticism.
salvage said,
October 15, 2006 @ 6:38 pm
Olbermann’s rants produce ratings
Since kentuckyliz got it completely wrong everything she says about anything else must also be wrong.
Or perhaps not?
I see no one disputes the overall point; that the GOP use religion to earn votes at taxpayer expense.
You’d think conservatives would be upset about that.
Sara Farouk said,
October 16, 2006 @ 3:44 am
Olbermann rocks!
Jim said,
October 17, 2006 @ 5:00 am
Where’s the beef? Did the Bush White House fake a faith based initative as Kuo claims or not? Was all this talk about “compassion just talk, or did Bush actually do something?
TimeToFlush said,
October 17, 2006 @ 8:05 am
I know the book just came out but did anyone here read Kuo’s book?
Did Kuo write “that he wrote political speeches designed to appeal to religion audiences, even when the speakers did not want to give those speeches”?
Scott said,
October 17, 2006 @ 3:06 pm
Salvage…
Olbermann rountinely finsihes 3rd or 4th in the ratings. His total viewership falls far below 1 million (or less than .3% of the U.S. population), and far lower in the “coveted” 25-54 demo. To most, he is just another guy who used to be on ESPN.
Ok, so his ratings have gone up since he started his ranting, er, special comments. He still fighting desperatly for 3rd place.
So where was Kentuckyliz wrong?
Jim said,
October 18, 2006 @ 12:27 pm
As a moderate Democrat, I enjoy Keith’s program very much. However, when watching I understand that Countdown is going to have the same biased, slant that FOX News and ALL of talk radio has, just the other direction.
What I commend MSNBC for is having Countdown followed by Joe Scarborough where the conservatives get their point across. Imagine FOX having a liberal talk show host on their network, following The O’Reilly factor.
Last week when the David Kuo story broke, Keith spent a couple of days highlighting how the Chrisitian Right is viewed by White House staff. He viewed Kuo’s book as a revealing portriat of how Rove and company use and exploit my fellow Americans that call the themselves the Christian Coalition. Immiediately following Countdown on the first night Scarbourough treated the book like it was an insignificant joke.
I suppose the truth, like most of America, is probably somewhere in the middle. The FAR Christian right IS probably viewed as nuts by many staffers, just like the far left environmental folks (Bobby Kennedy Jr comes to mind) are viewed as wacky by mainstream Democrats.Remember, we also have Ralph Nader in our party and he will never be viewed as close to being a moderate.
Unfortunately for our country, talk radio, and biased, onesided shows like Countdown and The O’Rielly Factor have turned many Americans into fanatics with an almost sports fan like devotion to one side or the other.
We need to start listening TO each other and respecting the other’s point of view. Sadly I do not see it happening anytime soon.
Jim