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Dan Rather Lectures Kellyanne Conway on “Facts and Truth”

Dan Rather Lectures Kellyanne Conway on “Facts and Truth”

Self-awareness Fail Alert

From the man who brought us “fake but accurate” . . . Dan Rather is possibly the living person least entitled to pontificate about the importance of truth in journalism and politics. So naturally, Chris Matthews invited him on this evening’s Hardball to do just that. Hat tip Colleen B.

In criticizing Kellyanne Conway’s use of the term “alternative facts” to explain White House spokesman Sean Spicer’s comments while addressing the press this past Saturday, Rather said: “facts, and the truth . . . are at the very foundation of our democracy.”

Rather gave examples of indisputable facts: there’s snow in Alaska and sand in Saudi Arabia. Right: and a fabricated document is a fabricated document.

Matthews began by playing a clip of Conway’s appearance on Meet the Press.

CHUCK TODD: You did not answer the question of why the president asked the White House press secretary to come out in front of the podium for the first time and utter a falsehood. Why did he do that? It undermines the credibility of the entire White House press office on day one.

KELLYANNE CONWAY: Don’t be so overly dramatic about it, Chuck. You’re saying it’s a falsehood and they’re giving, Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that. But the point is —

TODD: Alternative facts? Alternative facts: four of the five facts he uttered.
CONWAY: Hey Chuck, hey Chuck —

TODD: Four of the five facts he uttered are just not true. Look: alternative facts are just not facts. They’re falsehoods.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Dan, there’s a new phrase, and I think Kellyanne is as smart as a whip. I think that one was a mistake. That one was a strike-out. Because somebody, I might as well do it: somebody’s going to do it: alt-facts. It’s not even going to be “alternative.” It’s going to be “alt-facts.” And you know what that means. That’s coming.

DAN RATHER: To say it was unfortunate is to put it mildly. This was a big mistake. Listen: we cannot, we simply cannot. I don’t mean journalists, I mean writers per se. None of us can go into in this world of alternative facts. Listen: two plus two equals four. That’s a fact. There’s no alternative to it. [Matthews can be heard chuckling off-camera.]

Water runs downhill, that’s a fact. It snows in Alaska. There are sand dunes in Saudi Arabia. These are facts. This idea of alternative facts, this is a propaganda tool. And look, you and I know that Ms. Conway is a smart lady and she didn’t just offhandedly say this. They’ve made this point before. I don’t think that even most of the very—Trump supporters who really believe in him—want us to deal in a world of alternative facts. Facts, and the truth, or as close as is humanly possible to get to the truth, are at the very foundation of our democracy and dealing with an informed citizenry.

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Comments

Mark Finkelstein | January 24, 2017 at 7:09 am

Tomorrow night on Hardball: special guest President Bill Clinton talks about the importance of fidelity in marriage!

Courage.

casualobserver | January 24, 2017 at 7:47 am

The new administration has clearly decided to go to battle with the media and address nearly every effort to spin or distort. Or deceive. If this is MSNBC’s best rebuttal, they haven’t got a prayer at even staying in the fight.

“What’s the frequency Kenneth?”

That nut made more sense than the nut he attacked.

Dan Rather Lectures Kellyanne Conway on “Facts and Truth”

Gee, I thought I was reading a headline in “The Onion!”

The left is really running on an empty tank.

Actually, “alternative fact” is a perfectly good concept, and really not that hard. One can fail to understand it, but it takes dedicated obtuseness; much like all those people who pretended to misunderstand Rumsfeld’s “known unknowns”.

“The TPP is good for America.”

“The TPP is bad for America.”

These are both facts, if “good” is carefully defined. “Nuanced”, perhaps.

Both propositions can be argued and verified with facts and figures, all of which are themselves facts.

And if “good” isn’t carefully defined, then all you have is a sound bite.

Somebody has a photo of the Mall between the Capital and the Washington Monument at about 12:05 PM on January 20, 2017. When that photo shows up it will help sort how many were there. A photo taken at 10:00 AM is a false basis for estimating. Frankly the lefty press is playing a lousing game with alternative media available. It is like Malls saying they will only sell to people wearing suits – lotsa luck – I’ll buy online.

DAN RATHER: To say it was unfortunate is to put it mildly. This was a big mistake. Listen: we cannot, we simply cannot. I don’t mean journalists, I mean writers per se. None of us can go into in this world of alternative facts. Listen: two plus two equals four. That’s a fact. There’s no alternative to it.

Dan Rather – the purveyor of alternate facts – the presentor to fake memo’s to prove a story that never existed.

Two of the four memo’s were readily apparant as obvious fakes due to to writing style (the CYA memo and the order to take a physical) The subsequent discovery of times new roman font and the incorrect dates proved the memos were fake.

Dan Rather continues to live in an alternative universe.

Dan Rather? Is that bag of wind still around. The left must really be desperate to be resorting to a discredited has been.
I’d rather watch cartoons.

RE the inauguration photos. CNN has a 1 billion pixel photo which clearly shows the audience back to the Washington monument. Use your arrow keys to move around the photo.

http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2017/01/politics/trump-inauguration-gigapixel/

Hey Dan, two plus two does equal four but then so does three plus one. Could that be an alternative fact?

I think that Dan Rather is the perfect person to warn the MEDIA about alternate facts. If we tally up all of the obviously false narratives spun by the media during the Trump campaign and those spun by Trump and his people, who do you think had the most inaccuracies and falsehoods?

I notice that the MSM is still ignoring the totally false report of the MLK bust being moved. Just another example of the totally biased reporting of the media.

    murkyv in reply to Mac45. | January 24, 2017 at 2:46 pm

    During the Pressers yesterday, Spicer was asked why the new administrations was continuing to talk about crowd size.

    And was asked that same question about 6-7 times.

    Hull-O?

Rather led the charge against Nixon (applause for Rather by fellow correspondents when introduced at news conference… Nixon to Rather, “Are you running for office?” Rather to Nixon, “No… are you?” With Cronkite’s success against Johnson with Viet Nam, the media really began to shape the news to influence the listener or reader. They question whomever they want and cut the dialogue when it suits them. Now they are being openly challenged and rightfully so if they are to be kept (fairly) honest.

Alternate facts, invented facts, and suppression of facts are the foundation of Rather’s career. These are propaganda tools he knows quite intimately. Evidently he’s still sore about having been caught using them. He should get together with Brian Williams so they can cry in each other’s beer.

This is a panoramic view of the mall during the inauguration

http://imgur.com/1FrPjoM

And this is what was circulated under the pretense that the inauguration was poorly attended. It was a picture taken before the inauguration, and before the peak crowd arrived.

http://i.imgur.com/yRtTGrf.jpg

If Obama’s crowd has to be bigger, I’d say he was compensating.

This is proof we live in the Twilight Zone.

And, after a few days when the facts have settled out,

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/01/crowd-size-matters-trump-is-right-it-was-huge/

Yes, Trump’s crowd was much bigger than presented by the media, Obama’s first, but not his second, might have had more people physically at the site, and the overall viewing audience, including those that watched online, was record-breaking.