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Thursday, July 17, 2003

More Ann! 


Maybe we should just retitle the blog, All-Ann-All-the-Time! How about this URL: theydontstoptalkingaboutann.blogspot.com ?

This beauty comes from Spinsanity:
Colmes then said, "I'll give you another example" and described how we showed that she mischaracterized a quote by a Reagan administration official as the words of the Times. In her book, she wrote that the New York Times "reminded readers that Reagan was a 'cowboy, ready to shoot at the drop of a hat'" after the invasion of Grenada (p. 179). But the quote is from a Reagan administration official quoted in a Week in Review story who said, ''I suppose our biggest minus from the operation is that there now is a resurgence of the caricature of Ronald Reagan, the cowboy, ready to shoot at the drop of a hat.'' Coulter’s highly tenuous response parses the word "reminded" to claim she wasn't misleading readers. She then again tried to change the subject by claiming the Times was using the Reagan official to remind readers of the caricature, despite him or her describing it as such, in a long exchange with Colmes:

COULTER: I didn't say they said it. I said they reminded readers. It was placed in an editorial. And I do love all these quotes from anonymous officials. Yeah, some janitor picks up the phone. It's amazing how the Times can always get precisely the quote they want...

COLMES: You know people talk off the record all the time without for attribution. It wasn't the Times that said it, it was a Reagan official.

COULTER: I can't even believe I'm parsing this with people who have described a great American patriot, as John F. Kennedy called Joe McCarthy...

COLMES: Great American patriot. (sarcastically)

COULTER: ... As a virtual Nazi, and we're parsing whether "remind" is the correct word here. I say remind is the correct word, they cited it in an editorial. They were reminding their readers...

COLMES: You gave the impression that it came from the Times when it came was a Reagan person who said it.

COULTER: It did come from the Times! [unintelligible] information that is not necessary. And I repeat again, even stipulating that you were right that this is inelegant phrasing, I can't believe that, you know, parsing allegedly inelegant phrasing in the midst of a book that is disputing historical myths that we've been living with for fifty years.

COLMES: Because, in your attempt to paint the New York Times as a leftist newspaper that's not fair and balanced, you attribute quotes to it when the quotes come from other sources and other people having nothing to do with the Times. And they are simply reporting those quotes. That's what the point is.

COULTER: Wait, just let me say, I think you're confusing this book with the last book. I don't really care if it came from the New York Times, it doesn't add anything except more words to say "reminded readers by quoting an anonymous official." It doesn't add anything here. They reminded their readers, and this isn't the book attacking the Times.

Do you admire or do you fear that kind of insanity? Kudos to Alan Colmes for going after Ann like that, proving FNC hasn't sold-out entirely.
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