The Truth about Tom Brokaw

I’ve had one eye on Brokaw ever since 2003 when he cleverly smeared Wes Clark in the Democratic primary. Unlike most journalists who wear their bias on their sleeve, Brokaw is subtle in the way he lends currency to the outlandish. To see this point, and before watching the video below, consider how the existence of any measurable association between Barack Obama and William Ayers has been thoroughly debunked.

From Fight The Smears:

Smear groups and now a desperate McCain campaign are trying to connect Barack to William Ayers using age-old guilt by association techniques. Here’s the truth: the smear associating Barack to Ayers is “phony,” [Chicago Sun Times] “tenuous,” [Washington Post] – even “exaggerated at best if not outright false.” [Associated Press]

William Ayers is a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago, with whom Barack served on the board of an education-reform organization in the mid-1990’s. According to the Associated Press, they are not close: “No evidence shows they were “pals” or even close when they worked on community boards years ago …”

Smear groups and the McCain campaign are trying to connect Obama to acts Ayers committed 40 years ago – when Barack was just eight years old. Here’s what the New York Times reported on the connection:

“But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”

Now watch how today on Meet The Press, Brokaw allows any viewer to conclude there could be something to an Obama-Ayres association. He does this by not questioning why the McCain campaign would push a discredited story, but by simply asking if the McCain attack on Obama is working. In doing so, he allows the empty-headed WSJ writer Paul Gigot to tell us why associations are important, as in “they go to character and judgment.”

Brokaw is a fraud from Rumproast Clips on Vimeo.

Brokaw allowed Gigot’s comment to stand without any further probing or critical follow-up. Brokaw knows exactly what he is doing and he’s quite skilled at pushing stories for his favorites. He’s a journalistic fraud.

Posted by poputonian on 10/12/08 at 10:03 PM • Permalink

Categories: News • Politics • Election '08 • St. McSame • Barack Obama • Our Stupid Media •

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I am not all that surprised to see Brokaw behave like a GOP hack. He never raised a single hard hitting question on the run up to the invasion of Iraq, so why would he now? He belongs to a generation of men and women who revered authority and trusted the govt to do the “right thing”, which is why he wrote that “Greatest Generation” book. A book which in essence romanticizes the 50’s era when everybody swallowed the ‘govt is good’ pill and never questioned its intentions. Is it any wonder why he never wrote about Vietnam? No soul searching over Iraq? Ever wonder why? because pandering is good business. They call WW2 the good war..why? because yes US did help free Europe from the Nazis but also that we won. So it helps to write feel good touchy feely stories about men and women of that generation who sacrificed and gave their all for the nation. and that makes the old timers get all misty eyed and remember the good ‘old days before ...you know..all those “other” people started entering America..and u know when those shoe shine boys were asking for freedom and right to vote and eat in restaurants and all that…it was a time when any sort of rebellion was disdained. He didn’t write about Vietnam because we lost it and that would not have a made for good romantic pandering, and the same applies to Iraq. I would have been more interested in hearing from him why the lessons of Vietnam were not applied to Iraq and why is it that the media didnt do their job then and didnt do it in 2003?

Brokaw, Williams, Couric, Scheiffer, Russert, Rose..all hacks, all journalistic hacks who cheerleaded the war, attacked people like us when we questioned the invasion and then still show no remorse and apologies about the way they did their job

Comment by bimbo slice on 10/13/08 at 12:36 AM

If you want your emails to get to the fatuous, unctuous, pompous, McCain-ball-sack-suckling Brokaw, send them to his assistant Mary Casalino at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

She forwards them along to him, and initially gave me back responses from him. Although not lately, since the tenor of my messages to him increasingly sounds like the one I sent after today’s MTP:

Tom, Tom, Tom…

One of the major party candidates for President/VP was the subject of a bipartisan report on her RECENT actions in her CURRENT role as Governor which concluded she violated ETHICS LAWS, and you could only mention the subject in passing on Meet the Press?

Recuse yourself, you shamelessly biased and incompetent excuse for a reporter. Seriously, aren’t you rich enough already?

Comment by Allan on 10/13/08 at 12:44 AM

After his self-serving performance in the townhall debate, I’d say the only thing Tom Brokaw knows how to do is operate a stopwatch. Surely we can get him a nice little retirement job as a park district track and field coach somewhere and let Rachel Maddow have his job on “Meet the Press.”

Comment by Kerry Reid on 10/13/08 at 09:01 AM

He’s another pretty face with the requisite skill to read a prompter and look at the camera. As ‘trusted’ as he is, he would never buck the Establishment or ask questions of any real depth.

Comment by Ripley on 10/13/08 at 09:29 AM

Disgraceful. I’m also really sick of Cokie Roberts, Candy Crowley and other so-called objective journalists peddling a false equivalence about the negative attacks and smears. As if there’s anything even remotely comparable between the 2 campaigns’ strategies. Paul Begala has been calling them out on this, and I’m glad to see it. It’s about damn time.