Tonight’s Rachel Maddow show ran a clip from Matt Lauer’s interview with George W. Bush, telecast tonight to coincide with the roll-out of Bush’s book. Maddow had an early “teaser” to hook viewers into staying around until the Bush interview ran, near the end of the show. The teaser urged viewers to stay to see Bush’s “whopper.”
Sure enough, here came a whopper. Lauer asked, “Did you ever ask yourself, ‘What more could I have done to prevent this [9/11] from happening?’ “ Bush responded, “We just didn’t have any solid intelligence that gave us some warning on this.”
Maddow followed this clip with video of Condoleezza Rice admitting to the 9/11 Commission that the President’s Daily Briefing for August 6, 2001, was entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.” Maddow punctuated the segment this way: “George W. Bush is trying to sell the same kind of spin he tried to sell when he was President.” That is, in her words, “a whopper.” For extra emphasis she repeated the clip of Bush saying no intelligence and Rice reading the title of the PDB.
But the whopper was Maddow’s, not Bush’s. For she had carefully truncated Bush’s answer. Here’s his full, undoctored answer to Lauer’s question: “We just didn’t have any solid intelligence that gave us some warning on this—We didn’t have any intelligence that said, get ready, they’re going to fly airplanes into the New York buildings.”
Ironically, Maddow’s deception comes just a few days after MSNBC suspended Keith Olbermann for violating a company rule against contributing to political campaigns. Olbermann’s sin was being honest—not at all unethical—about his pro-Democrat bias. Maddow’s much greater sin—with no suspension—was being dishonest about hers.
Tags: 9/11, 9/11 Commission, Bin Laden, Condoleezza Rice, Fox News, George W Bush, intelligence, Keith Olbermann suspension, Matt Lauer, MSNBC, Obama, President’s Daily Briefing, Rachel Maddow, whopper
Ethics Bob 
November 9, 2010 at 4:52 am |
Rachel’s having a bad week, that’s for sure. She also defended Olbermann in the worst way possible, attacking Fox’s opinion commentators like Karl Rove for violating MSNBC’s policy—-thought they don’t work there!—and Fox News, for not having MSNBC’s policy prohibiting political contributions by obviously partisan on-air personalities, as if it was “ethical,” when in fact it is pointless and deceptive.
Using video clips this way is Andrew Breitbart stuff—bad on a website, but lying to my face for a TV news host. Fox News and MSNBC are officially on a race to the bottom as far as fair reporting goes.
Integrity points for flagging this, Bob—I know you’re a Maddow fan.
November 10, 2010 at 11:11 pm |
Yes, I am, although less than I was. You and I agree it’s important to call out people on your own side when they do wrong.
December 19, 2010 at 7:54 am |
[…] “Disseminating willful distortions” I would use the above comments about Social Security, but those are lies, not distortion. Too numerous to count. Whether it’s Chris Matthews obsessively distorting the message and intent of the Tea Party or the purpose and popular support of the Arizona Immigration Law, or Rachel Maddow truncating President Bush’s answer to a recent Matt Lauer question to make it appear that “W” was trying to put a spin on the intelligence his Administration had prior to 9-11. https://ethicsbob.com/2010/11/09/msnbc%E2%80%99s-rachel-maddow-matches-fox-news%E2%80%99-distortions-… […]