1115.org

The pathetic performance of ABC News’ Jake Tapper yesterday seems to capture perfectly how fully effed up our media has become.

First, he totally distorted some remarks by Bill Clinton about combating global warming.

Tapper’s take:

In a long, and interesting speech, he characterized what the U.S. and other industrialized nations need to do to combat global warming this way: “We just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.”

What Bill Clinton actually said:

And maybe America, and Europe, and Japan, and Canada — the rich counties — would say, ‘OK, we just have to slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions ’cause we have to save the planet for our grandchildren.’ We could do that.

But if we did that, you know as well as I do, China and India and Indonesia and Vietnam and Mexico and Brazil and the Ukraine, and all the other countries will never agree to stay poor to save the planet for our grandchildren. The only way we can do this is if we get back in the world’s fight against global warming and prove it is good economics that we will create more jobs to build a sustainable economy that saves the planet for our children and grandchildren. It is the only way it will work.

Anyone whose IQ exceeds their age can see that that’s almost the exact opposite of what Tapper says he said. Clinton wasn’t advocating that we should slow down our economy and cut back our greenhouse gas emissions; he was explaining why we can’t afford to. Here’s how ridiculous Tapper’s take is: right-wing blogs are ridiculing it. For instance, the National Review’s Iain Murray wrote:

The ABC] video is actually (and again, I can’t believe I’m saying this) really unfair to Bill Clinton. The biter bit, you may say, but I don’t believe this sort of manipulation by the media is in any way helpful. The clip is out of context…. That’s not good journalism in any sense.

It’s bad enough that Tapper got it all twisted around to begin with. He then effortlessly managed to make it worse. Instead of apologizing and letting it go at that, Tapper decided to defend his absurd post.

First, he stuck this headline on his in-defense-of-myself post: “Being Accused of “Parsing” By the Clinton Campaign”. (So he hasn’t even noticed that there’s been flak from everyone and her sister, including from the right? And this guy is a journalist? Somebody pays him to stick his head in the sand, and go on spouting sh*t?)

And then this is the entirety of his self-absorbed self-defense (note: there’s a later update, “noting” what Iain Murray said,* and “responding” to it):

Wow, I hardly know how to take this.

This morning, trying to understand what former President Bill Clinton was driving at when he made a statement about effort to combat global warming, I posted a quote of his, put it in context, provided video links, and asked what he meant.

The Clinton campaign did not provide for me, as requested, an explanation of what he meant. (Dude, when you have to ask people to explain to you the meaning of statements that are perfectly clear to everyone else, you are totally in the wrong business. There’s a good reason why our ex-resident-troll JimC is not a journalist.)

Instead, the response from the Clinton campaign is to post an item on its “fact” hub and accuse me of “parsing.”

I will plead guilty to “parsing” — the dictionary definition of the word — “To examine closely or subject to detailed analysis, especially by breaking up into components” or “To make sense of; comprehend.”

But I suspect the Clinton campaign thinks of the word “parsing” in its more colloquial sense — as in “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

I guess I should defer to their expertise.

Apologies for taking a confusing public comment from a former president about a major world issue and trying to make sense of it.

Wow, I hardly know how to take that either! Is it possible that I have it wrong, and it’s this Tapper turd who pays ABC News (for allowing him to go on sullying their reputation)?

As his ABC News blog proudly proclaims,”Jake Tapper is ABC News‘ Senior National Correspondent based in the network’s Washington bureau.” Senior National Correspondent.

Let me return to the statement I started with: “The pathetic performance of ABC News’ Jake Tapper yesterday seems to capture perfectly how fully effed up our media has become.” What that statement reflects, more than anything else, is my firm belief that there will be no consequences whatsoever to Tapper for this whole shameful exhibition. (I’ll be delighted to eat my words if I prove to be wrong. And just to avoid any Tapper-like 180-degree misinterpretations, let me be perfectly clear — a promotion will not qualify as “consequences”. I do mean negative consequences.)

* For reasons that we are entirely unable to figure out, Tapper doesn’t quote what we quoted above. He quotes this instead:

…while Tapper isn’t entirely accurate in characterizing what Bill said, he’s pretty accurate in summarizing the effects of the policies he recommends. Bill Clinton’s economic stimulus plan is to slow down our economy.

I guess he’s not really responding to Murray’s criticism, is he? No, that would be too much like journalistic integrity. One might be forgiven for not even realizing that Murray criticized Tapper.