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DISTRACT FROM IT!!
Bush Buddy Murdoch Uses NY Post to Do GOP's Bidding and Revive Long-Discredited FauxGate
by Tamara Baker
Feb. 12, 2002 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (APJP) -- I was wondering how the Bush Junta was going to try to distract our attention from the imminent release of the names of the high-profile Bush/Cheney folks who were involved in the Enron "partnerships" scams.
I thought it was going to be by bombing Iraq, or Iran, or maybe the Philippines or Colombia.
But no!
The good folk in those lands can rest easy -- for this week, at least -- because the GOP has instead chosen to bomb another target, namely Bill Clinton, by reviving a long-discredited FauxGate:
February 12, 2002 -- WASHINGTON - The Clintons' White House gift scandal is set to reignite today as a congressional committee reveals new records showing dozens of presents that probers charge the couple concealed in their official disclosure report.
A yearlong House investigation concludes the Clintons never revealed goodies like champagne, Ferragamo silk ties, hundreds of cigars, imported suits, Bulova and Citizen watches and Ming Dynasty jewelry given during their White House tenure.
The report, the first and only formal review of the gift scandal that marked the end of the Clinton presidency and the start of Hillary Rodham Clinton's Senate career, includes hundreds of detailed records never before released.
The investigation found:
Bill and Hillary Clinton received scores of gifts that were never reported to the public because they were valued below $260 - the threshold level for listing gifts on federal disclosure forms...
Got it?
These were PERFECTLY ETHICAL, ACCEPTABLE and LEGAL gifts!
The government doesn't bother enumerating them because it would cost more than the gifts are worth!
(Besides, I'd like to see what Bush the Elder got. Bet what the Clintons received pales in comparison.)
Official White House records show that most of Monica Lewinsky's gifts to Bill Clinton were never reported anywhere.
...because they all were less than $250.00! But of course, Unca Rupert MUST find an excuse to say her name.
The House Government Reform Subcommittee on natural resources, led by Rep. Doug Ose (R-Calif.), is slated to release its report this morning - including more details on the gifts - as it opens a hearing into the gift mess...
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Meanwhile, you all know what to do.
Pre-empt this thing with letters to the networks, to the editors of the New York Times, Maureen Dowd (dowd@nytimes.com), and to your local paper -- or better yet, the ombudsman of your local paper.
Nip this FauxGate revival in the bud -- and use the opportunity to turn the conversation back to Enron -- or Funeralgate, or Arbusto, or Bush's desertion from the Texas Air National Guard, or any of the other genuine Bush scandals the GOP Media dutifully covers up.
ADDENDUM
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 14:28 -0500
To: Maureen Dowd <dowd@nytimes.com>
From: Tamara Baker
Subject: House GOP liars cite Dowd's Clinton satire AS FACT
I swear to you, I didn't make this up. Only the GOP, they who lie without shame and who are never called on it, could do this....
[preliminary draft of above snipped]
...satire from one of Maureen Dowd's columns, wherein she spoke of nonexistent gift registries for the Clintons' separate houses, and QUOTED IT AS FACT.
This is just like those pseudo-Christian idiots debunked over at snopes.com -- you know, the ones who took The Onion's Harry Potter satire, complete with fake "quotes" from the New York Times, and cited it AS FACT?
Truly, as M. Scott Peck says, the GOP really are indeed the People of the Lie.
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 14:30:19 -0500
To: Tamara Baker
From: Maureen Dowd <dowd@nytimes.com>
Subject: Re: House GOP liars cite Dowd's Clinton satire AS FACT
that was never a satire.
the republicans are right
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002
To: Maureen Dowd
From: Maia Cowan
Dear Ms. Dowd,
The NY Post is reporting that the Republicans in Congress are STILL trying to nail the former President for inappropriately accepting gifts. Their report includes the astounding "fact" that they even had a gift registry at an expensive Nebraska store.
Since you - inadvertently, I'm sure - started this nonsense with your long-ago satirical comment about the gift registry (NEBRASKA! Who *wouldn't* know that was satire?), I hope you'll use your column to correct the disinformation that's helping those crazy Republicans to revive the Clinton Gifts faux scandal.
I'm amazed that they're repeating the joke about the gift registry as if it were a fact, since the CEO of Borsheim's has stated publicly that there was no such registry. A January 30, 2001, Salon article by Eric Boehlert provides the unambiguous rebuttal:
Within days of Dowd's column, Susan Jacques, CEO of Borsheim's, told the local Omaha, Neb., newspaper that Hillary was not registered with the store and no registry had been set up on her behalf. Clinton's spokesman also denied she had registered for gifts there.
It was fun while it lasted, but if my tax dollars are being wasted pursuing this faux scandal, it's time for somebody with authority to call a halt to it. And since you started it, it's only right that you should put a stop to it.
Thank you,
Maia Cowan
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002
From: Mike Hersh
To: Maureen Dowd
Maureen Dowd writes:
>"that was never a satire.
>the republicans are right"
Oh really? The Republicans are right? You are seriously claiming Sen. Hillary Clinton DID register for gifts at Borsheim's?
That is NOT true.
You are repeating a lie. Note:
"Susan Jacques, CEO of Borsheim's, told the local Omaha, Neb., newspaper that Hillary was not registered with the store and no registry had been set up on her behalf. Clinton's spokesman also denied she had registered for gifts there."
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002
From: Nancy Hudson
To: Maureen Dowd
Come on Maureen! Let's get over the Clinton's and Fauxgate. There are so many corrupt things going on with the Bushies that everybody just wants to sweep under the rug!! One doesn't even know where to start!! Are you afraid for your life or what?? Show us you have some balls, woman! Get on it and get off Clinton.
Where are your scruples?
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002
From: Maureen Dowd
To: Nancy Hudson
where are yours?
i wrote about when it happened
it was tacky
i'm not writing about it now
you are
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002
From: Maureen Dowd
To: Mike Hersh
friends and donors registered for her
whether you like it or not, it's true
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002
From: Mike Hersh
To: Maureen Dowd
What I want or do not want has nothing to do with anything. You claimed HILLARY CLINTON registered. Not friends. Not donors. Hillary. So you admit your story is already changing. Also, the CEO of Borsheims says you're flat out wrong. Hillary never had a registration at the store. You made the claim. If Ms. Jacques is lying, prove it.
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002
From: Maureen Dowd
To: Mike Hersh
i never said hillary registered
read the paper before you send misinformed emails inspired by misinformed websites.
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002
From: Mike Hersh
To: Maureen Dowd
Sure you did.
But the point is, you believed false rumor, one which was refuted by the CEO of the store in question, and now you refuse to make good. If you get the little things wrong, why should anyone trust you to get anything right?
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002
From: Maureen Dowd
To: Mike Hersh
i never claimed that. stop repeating something wrong. why don't you read the columns
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002
From: Mike Hersh
To: Maureen Dowd
Actually you did.
The Republicans said Hillary registered. Not friends. Not supporters. Hillary. Then you said they were correct. Now you're trying to backpedal, but you can't even get that right.
You're repeating something Ms. Jacques says is wrong. Something she says never happened. Where is your proof Jacques is lying? I asked this before, and you keep doing some kind of Texas two-step.
Why don't you stop telling lies and taking cheap shots at the Clintons? Why not try reporting on the lies Bush told us all through the 2000 campaign and the 2001 budget process about the huge surplus? The one he promised we'd have, but which is now long gone? Why not report on the huge tax cuts for the wealthy Bush said were fair and are not, or the new set of tax cuts Bush wants? Are you depending on that cash so much that you're a sell out? Have you become an RNC shill?
I guess it's easier and safer for you to attack an out-of-office President and a junior Senator on gift registries than to confront a sitting, although unelected President on life or death issues?
When will you do your job -- inform yourself and write about serious issues? When will you tell your readers how Bush is looting their Social Security and Medicare, destroying our fiscal situation, and so much more to hurt America? I'm guessing never. You are too gutless, shallow and insipid!
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002
From: Tamara Baker
To: The Editors
Notice that, now that the bogus Nebraska gift registry story -- which she was still saying was TRUE as of yesterday -- has been debunked, does she apologize, via e-mail or in print? No.
Does she go rushing off to her buddies in the GOP House and say "Hey! That gift registry story's a fake, and was debunked by Eric Boehlert over a year ago -- better pull it from your report!" No.
Does she instead try to make it the reader's fault for catching her in the act of spreading and buttressing an anti-Clinton FauxGate being used by the RNC to try to take attention away from Enron? But of course. This is Maureen Dowd we're talking about.
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