Lies & the Lying Liars Who Tell Them_ A Fair & Balanced Look at the Right - Al Franken [67]
Cleland is a war hero. Conservative Georgians first elected him to the Senate in 1996 on the basis of his unquestionable integrity and selfless loyalty to his country. And yet he lost his bid for reelection in 2002 largely because of attacks on his patriotism.
Cleland’s opponent, Saxby Chambliss, was not a war hero. He got out of Vietnam because of a bad knee. Cleland has never had a bad knee. Before the war, he had two good ones. Afterward, he would never have to worry about his knees for the rest of his life.
Chambliss ran one of the great attack ads of the 2002 cycle, one that warmed even Karl Rove’s icy heart. It featured images of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and . . . Max Cleland.
The ad savaged Cleland’s votes against the “President’s vital homeland security efforts.” The tag line: “Max Cleland says he has the courage to lead. But the record proves Max Cleland is just misleading.”
To recap quickly. Cleland loses three limbs in Vietnam. Cleland authors Department of Homeland Security legislation. Bush blocks it. Bush proposes politicized version of same legislation to trap Democrats. Cleland stands on principle and votes against it. Bush says senators “not interested” in security of American people. Chambliss compares Cleland to Osama and Saddam and attacks Cleland’s courage.
Chambliss wins. Republicans take Senate. Bush credits victory to change in tone.
I grow discouraged.
23
I’m Prudenized
Every once in a while, it’s a good idea to think about Korea. And not just on Korea Day. We fought a war there and lost thirty-three thousand brave Americans. Fifty years later, we still have thirty-seven thousand troops deployed on the Korean peninsula, which might give you an inkling of how long we could be occupying Iraq. Oh, and North Korea has nuclear weapons and has threatened to turn Seoul into “a Sea of Fire.”
Still, let’s remember some of the things Korea has given us. Sanyo, for example. Also, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church.
The Reverend Moon has proclaimed himself “the Savior, Messiah, and King of Kings of all humanity.” Frankly, I don’t think he’s any of those things. But the folks over at the Washington Times do. They think he is the incarnation of Himself, and agree with him when he says, “I will conquer and subjugate the world.”
After all, he’s their boss. That’s why, since 1982, employees of the Times have been forced to marry other Times employees in mass weddings conducted by the Reverend Moon. This May, for example, Moon paired off the men in the subscription department with the women in classifieds and married them on the Times’s five-color printing floor.1
So it’s probably no surprise that the Times has not only reflected Moon’s worldview (e.g., “I am the King of it”), but doctored stories involving South Korea and those dealing with the reverend’s felony convictions for tax evasions. (The Messiah spent time behind bars in Connecticut.) Let’s face it, you might be willing to alter wire service copy about a guy who has the power to force you to marry the gal in ad sales with a hump.
Most of the doctoring, though, has not been about Moon or Korea, but about American politics. And much of that was done at the behest of the Times’s executive editor, Wesley Pruden. Pruden is an Arkansan whose father was chaplain of the White Citizens’ Council, an adjunct of the KKK. (The Ku Klux Klan, not the Korean King of Kings.) I’m not sure what the chaplain does in the White Citizens’ Council. My guess would be he provides comfort and religious counseling to troubled members after a particularly traumatizing assault on black people.
According to Times writer and Blinded by the Right author David Brock, “There were endless controversies and resignations over what became known as ‘Prudenizing’ news copy—slanting it in a conservative direction.” Which brings me to 1999, the year I was Prudenized. That spring, I give a speech to the White House Photographers Association.