KAN O’ KORNBLUT! Anne Kornblut, the dumbest person on earth, complains about long-winded Clinton: // link // print // previous // next //

TIL TUESDAY: We’ll postpone our report on that important Times story until (we think) tomorrow.

KAN O’ KORNBLUT: In this morning’s Post, we finally learn what makes the Washington Post use the naughty word “filibuster.” No, the Post won’t rush to say that word when Republicans actually filibuster, killing bills in Congress. But today, Anne Kornblut uses a mocking metaphor concerning vile Hillary Clinton. Here’s how Kornblut begins her “news report” about Clinton’s appearance on Sunday’s talk shows:

KORNBLUT (8/24/07): Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared on all five talk shows yesterday morning and demonstrated a particularly senatorial skill: the art of the filibuster.

Asked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos whether she would withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq during a first term as president, Clinton (D-N.Y.) gave a simple answer: She did not know.

But she used more than 225 words to say so...

As we’ll see, Kornblut went on to punish her readers, making them read the “filibuster” Clinton dropped on poor George’s head. But first, the scribe went aggressively out of her way to slam the length of Clinton’s answer. Why, the “filibuster” had taken more than 225 word, the yapping child angrily said.

Kornblut was troubled by all those words–all those word she had to endure! But readers, is 225 words a long response on a Sunday talk show? We didn’t have the slightest idea–and neither do any of Kornblut’s readers! Kornblut uses an unfamiliar measure to criticize the length of Clinton’s answer. In this manner, she gives the impression that Clinton spoke extra-long. In truth, the statistic is totally meaningless for most people reading the Post.

Is 225 words a long answer? In part inspired by Howard Kurtz’s reference to Condoleezza Rice in his own current piece, we decided to measure Rice’s answers the last time she showed up on Sunday.

That took us back to Sunday, August 5, when Rice appeared on Face the Nation. Her first answer ran 172 words–but soon, she was expounding at greater length. Her next uninterrupted answer ran 198 words, and soon she was ripping off replies of 212, 238 and 268 words. Meanwhile, on that day’s Fox News Sunday, Rice gave answers which totaled 319, 269 and 268 words. But a search of the next day’s Washington Post finds no complaints–in alleged “news reports”–about the way Rice “filibustered.” Instead, the complaint pops up today, with pseudo-evidence, as the Post’s small loudest yapping dog expresses her distaste for her subject.

Kornblut had been forced to sit and listen to Clinton’s long answers! Soon, the small, loud lhasa was yappng her view of Clinton’s overall outing:

KORNBLUT: Above all, though, in a morning of appearances that yielded virtually no news, Clinton illustrated her ability to talk. And talk. And talk.

What a remarkable paragraph in an alleged “news report”–a “news report” in which Kornblut illustrated her ability to spin. And frame. And posture.

For the record, Sunday appearances rarely “yield news” in any discernible manner. Kornblut simply punished Clinton by imposing this framework on yesterday’s sessions. But for what its worth, many of Clinton’s answers were well worth discussing–except to the type of vacuous “press corps” which mainly longs to waste its time discussing phone calls from Rudy’s wife. For the record, here’s the answer which Kornblut mocks–an answer she’s too small and stupid to discuss, critique or analyze:

KORNBLUT: Asked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos whether she would withdraw all U.S. troops from Iraq during a first term as president, Clinton (D-N.Y.) gave a simple answer: She did not know.

But she used more than 225 words to say so. "You know, I'm not going to get into hypotheticals and make pledges, because I don't know what I'm going to inherit, George. I don't know and neither do any of us know what will be the situation in the region. How much more aggressive will Iran have become?" Clinton said. "What will be happening in the Middle East? How much more of an influence will the chaos in Iraq have in terms of what's going on in the greater region? Will we have pushed al-Qaeda in Iraq out of their strongholds with our new partnership with some of the tribal sheiks or will they have regrouped and retrenched?"

She continued: "I don't know, and I think it's not appropriate to be speculating. I can tell you my general principles and my goal. I want to end the war in Iraq. I want to do so carefully, responsibly, with the withdrawal of our troops, also, with the withdrawal of a lot of our civilian employees, the contractors who are there, and the Iraqis who have sided with us.

"We have a huge humanitarian refugee crisis on our hands. We have millions of Iraqis who have been displaced, some internally, some into other countries. The problems we're going to face because of the failed policies and the poor decision-making of this administration are rather extraordinary and difficult, and I don't want to speculate about how we're going to be approaching it until I actually have the facts in my hand and the authority to be able to make some decisions."

Clinton’s answer is detailed and layered, and it’s well worth discussing. (Some anti-war liberals might be very unhappy with what she said, for example.) But you live at a time when your celebrity press corps likes to talk about haircuts and earth tones–and about phone calls from candidates’ wives. Answers like this bore the Anne Kornbluts stiff. And of course, Kornblut belongs to a professional cohort which has been trashing Big Dems for many years.

Some of Clinton’s answers ran a bit long this day–but Kornblut was writing a “news report.” Today, the lady’s agenda is showing a bit–in the open mockery she’s allowed to direct at her long-winded subject. And of course, we wonder what will happen next. During Campaign 2000, the polite boys and girls who we call “career liberals” kept their mouths shut while Candidate Gore was attacked by Kornblut’s cohort. Kornblut’s piece just isn’t a “news report.” Will the “liberals” who typically fight so politely get off their big keisters and notice?

THE WORLD’S DUMBEST PEOPLE: Today, Kornblut attempts to punish Clinton by printing her long, boring answers. Ironically, this creates a rare opportunity for the Post’s readers to find out what Clinton is saying. More often, the piffle-fed poodles who type for this paper prefer to offer their own deathless paraphrase. And of course, on yesterday’s Chris Matthews Show, we saw, once again, what the world’s dumbest people actually prefer to discuss.

Try to believe (just try to believe) that they went to this bungled, eight-year-old topic again–that they dragged out the hopeless old groaner about Clinton, the Cubs and the Yankees:

MATTHEWS (9/23/07): When Hillary ran for the Senate, she tried hard to prove she was a New Yorker.

[Videotape, 6/10/99]

KATIE COURIC: Are you a Yankee fan, too?

CLINTON: Well, now, the fact is, I've always been a Yankee fan.

COURIC: I thought you were a Cubs fan.

CLINTON: I am. I am a Cubs fan, but I needed an American League team. Because when you're from Chicago, you cannot root for both the Cubs and the Sox. I mean, you know, that's–there's a dividing line that you can't cross there. So as a young girl, I became very interested and enamored of the Yankees.

[End of videotape]
NORAH O'DONNELL: Oh boy.

MATTHEWS: I just love the way Katie went at her there. “Come on, how many hats you wearing, babe?” I just think that was great.

KATHLEEN PARKER: Oh boy.

ANDREW SULLIVAN: She's a Midwesterner, she's a New Yorker, she's from Arkansas, she has California, she's anything she needs to be.

JOHN HEILEMANN: She can feed the multitudes.

PARKER: And let's not forget her Birmingham accent, or Selma, which–

MATTHEWS: Have you noticed that lately, as part of her latest morphing, she was an Arkansan and then she was a New Yorker? Lately she's been selling this, “I’m a Midwestern daughter.”

Yesterday, they were back to the moronic Hillary-and-the-Yankees nonsense, a story that was never worth discussing–a story they have always had wrong. Simply put, you can’t get dumber than people like this. O’Donnell? Sullivan? Heileman? Parker? There are no dumber people on earth.

Yes, Hillary Clinton was a Yankees fan when she was a child in Chicago. (And a Cubs fan too.) Way back in the early 1990s, the Post reported this matter twice–back when no one felt the need to pretend that the story was bogus (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 6/14/00). But later on, in June 1999, the mainstream press corps was trashing Bill Clinton–it was also savaging Candidate Gore–and it decided to play the public for fools with this new piece of nonsense. Last March, they dragged this mangy old cat out again (see THE DAILY HOWLER, 3/7/07)–and yesterday, Matthews and his fellow idiots decided to go there again! Five big journos sat there and clowned; because these people are such perfect fools, none of them said this was bogus.

Yes, these are the world’s dumbest people. Meanwhile, we Democrats are protected from their scripted piffle by the world’s meekest group of watchmen. Matthews et al can clown this way because career liberals have always allowed it. They have a team name across their chest. You know that name: Washington Generals.

The Trotters have played an old trick once again. Just watch as the Generals fall for it.