Bravo. This is why I use the Internet.

You have to remember this is the same L.A. Times that edited part of a George Will column on Bill Clinton because they thought a section about Gennifer Flowers (sp?) could not be sunstantiated. The editors seem to have had a selective application on whose articles can be edited for accurate content.

Nice work. Keep exposing this fraudulent screedster with the facts. Truth will win out.

I think it was a reference to Juanita Broaddrick, not Geniffer Flowers.

While I can't link it, I recall reading a story or two about Scheer's background - far, far left in the 60's .... so much so that "Communist" would be a description, not an epithet.

What am I missing here? Why would a columnist from the LA Times be expected to represent responsible journalism? It's not like it is a serious publication or that anyone relies on it for factual information.....think of it as a daily "Onion".....now don't you feel better?

Calling Bob Scheer a communist would not offend him then and it would not offend him now. After hearing him speak so many times (on KCRW) I can hear his sneering voice whenever I read some of his tripe (only on an empty stomach).

BTW the KCRW program he is on is called "Left, Right and Center" (Bobby is the lefty of course) and for the longest time their "representative from the right" was that whackjob Arianna Huffington.

Wonderful stuff but you've forgotten the most egregious of all, Scheer's lie that the Bush administration had given $43 million to the Taliban government.

I see some well known liberals are bashing Sheer on this. I think they are getting the point Limbaugh made in his last interview with Russert.

Both parties have their share of "kooks" and it is important to each party to distance themselves from their "kooks" lest the party becomes defined by their "kooks".

Your Canard-o-Matic was great. You could do something similar for Maureen Dowd, Mark Morford, Paul Krugman, or any number of other columnists. When I used to listen to NPR in the morning I made a drinking game out of Kevin Phillips commentaries. Whenever he said "The Rich" I would take a slug of coffee.

Re: Zacchino-Scheer conflict of interest

Not sure how the Chron works, but at many newspapers, the Editorial/Op-Ed staff is outside the newsroom chain of command and reports directly to the publisher. So there may be no conflict. Even if she does oversee that staff, I think "conflict of interest" is a bit strong, especially as he's not a staffer but (as I understand it) a syndicated columnist. Still, it's certainly valid to ask if he gets edited with kid gloves.

I don't think Scheer's wife has anything to do with it. The fact is, he's been a deeply entrenched leftist since his days as a radical with Tom Hayden and those guys in the '60s. Even now he holds a prominent position at the Annenberg School for Communication at USC, and he's always been a prominent member of the LA Times' staff.

I've been waiting for this day since I was about 10 years old, circa 1956! The distortions of fact, the lies couched and reported as truths, the continual pouring of half-truths, factoids and outright rubbish into the 'news' media of our world, from 1956 to this day, is NOW being caught, pointed out, made known, made indefensible and -soon- made unprintable!

Informed arguments should always be made available for consideration. These half-baked, self-infatuated screed-scriveners need to be slapped down, head-butted with the truthful power of accurate observation and accurate reporting, then removed from access to public distribution media... (media for pay).

Blog? Sure! Cer-tain-ly! Who's gonna pay you for inaccurate, biased, poorly-thought-out, foggy, second-rate opinions? If I want those, I can ask 9 people right around me, now, for FREE!

Bye-bye, Scheer! Bye-bye Eason Jordan! Bye-bye Raines! "I have given power to the people..." Your time is done! Rabbits got d'gun!

And that IS an Eye Opener!

It may be worth noting what John Perazzo has to say about Robert Scheer in FrontPage Magazine:

Here's a money quote:

Later in the decade, Scheer and Tom Hayden co-founded Berkeley's Red Family - a commune of urban guerrillas, which trained its members in the use of explosives and firearms and called for the creation of "liberated zones" in the United States - a liberation to be accomplished by force of arms. Dedicated to Maoist principles, Red Family leaders adorned the walls of their headquarters with portraits of such Communist heroes as Ho Chi Minh and North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung, and Black Panther thug, Huey Newton.

Scheer's lies and deceptions have been documented elsewhere, most notably by Ben Fritz at Spinsanity. They have only gotten more egregious.

I had a subscription to the L.A. Times for over 30 years, which I cancelled on April 1st in protest over yet another half-baked tirade by this professional liar. I feel cleaner, somehow, not getting that rag any more.

Congratulations on exposing the mendacity of Robert Scheer whose preposterous columns have been mindlessly appearing regularly in the Los Angeles Times. As a spokesman of the left he played an important role in my own move to the right.

Scheer distorts things no more than you do, Stefan. He's writing an opinion column, as do you and your gripe with him is simply that you don't agree. Big deal.

That's a pretty good distortion too, "Dave", so I guess you're eligible to join the club with Bob and me.

great work...never let em' get you down!

"Eye Opener" is exactly right. There is a revolution taking place before us as the Internet creates a second level of opinion formation. The old news sources, like "old Europe," are becoming anachronistic. Long live blogs!

nice work, ca ching, game set match,

ouch, that has got to hurt

send and email here to complain about scheer.

john.carroll@latimes.com

Yeah, that Scheer joker is a filthy liar. Go check out www.spinsanity.org, they've got the good on him over his attempt to characterize $43 million if food aid to starving Afghan people as aid to the Taliban rulers. http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20011008.html

Shocking, shocking! It makes lying about WMD's as a pretext for an unnecessary war look puny by comparison.

This article is abomnible. Sheer is abomnible, a reporter with no ethics. If this is freedom of the press then he should be ashamed for this tripe. There is no basis for it.

The people I knew attending the Peabody School of Journalism at UGA 20 years ago were idealistic. They choose journalism to make a difference not a fortune. All during the 90's I wondered when there would be a pendulum swing back toward objectivity away from the leftist activism that controlled the big media and strangled dissent...

"the relentless tolerencia who grace our lives with tyranny"

Maybe some of those men and women are beginning to look in the mirror and think about what is true.

May 22, 2003

I sent an email to Scheer 2 weeks ago suggesting that he must have a good friend in management that allows him to write such juvenile invective.
Little did I know that his wife is his editor.

I wouldn't describe Scheer as a communist but as a ravening, reactionary leftist moonbat.

MonkeyPants
Imperial Falconer

"Shocking, shocking! It makes lying about WMD's as a pretext for an unnecessary war look puny by comparison."

The real question is: can you trust the sources that you depend on to sustain your opinion that Bush lied? This is the question you don't want to examine, you would rather shout down the messenger.

The question of "unnecessary" also implies that you have been studiously avoiding any mention of the mass graves, the genocide, that Saddam used as an instrument of maintaining power. This also implies that the sources you find "credible" are giving you the same partial and distorted view of the facts that Scheer does.

If this war was unnecessary, so was our involvement in WWII. Good thing you guys are in the distinct minority.

Bush lied and lied. Mass graves were not the reason we went to war. It was SUPPOSEDLY to make our own country safer by taking out WMD's. Sorry. Mass executions in Iraq are no reason for Americans to die. We didn't even care when Hitler and Stalin were exterminating millions. Remember, FDR went to war not to save the people in death camps but because the USA was attacked. We were attacked on 9/11 too but not by Iraq. The war was a failure and Bush will pay the price in '04. The election will be essentially a tie but, not to worry, if Bush has to, he'll just steal the election again. Have faith. He wasn't elected and he won't be re-elected but he's good for 8 years....unless the economy just causes a Dem landslide (please God) and he cant steal a few million votes.

Brilliant writing. I am so happy to discover your Blog! I lived in Los Angeles for 18 years and intermittently subscribed to the L.A. Times. Some "sweet young thing" would call and persuade me to subscribe, I'd get the paper for a few weeks and then when my rage reached maximum density, I'd call and cancel and tell them precisely why! It was a lousy paper then (I've been in Ohio for 9 years now) and it's still a rotten excuse for a newspaper. And so well I remember that when I was a journalism major at The Ohio State University in the early 60s, it was taught as the perfect example of the perfectly brilliant newspaper. Harumph!

Bush did NOT lie. He said Iraq (Saddam) had failed to live up to the treaties it had signed and we had substantial evidence it was still trying to procure or develope WMD.

It seems obvious to most of America we couldn't wait for the smoking gun since that could possibly big a giant, radioactive crater here in the USA.

And Bush did not "steal" any election. The final analyses showed the process worked just as it was designed to. When there were questions, the Supreme Court decides which they did.

The current court can hardly be termed conservative; they made a determination based on the facts and laws on the ground at the time. There never was a Constitutional Crisis or anu other such foolishness except in the fevered minds of the Left-biased media. Everything worked just fine. If we don't like the outcome, we're only stuck for four years. If the voting public thinks Bush hasn't done a good enough job, we'll replace him

Great analysis. This Jason Blair is a God send these coastal newspapers are receiving the scrutiny they deserve. I have been reading this nut job Scheer for years and can't understand why anyone takes him seriously. Homer Simpson has better analysis.

Thank you Lucianne for linking me to this site.

Blair ousted, Scheer in the dock, but Krugman safe as a bug in a rug. What's wrong with this picture?

Marco, when you learn to love facts more than you hate Bush, then you will know peace.

good going, folks. glad to see that a posse is coming down on scheer, he whose wife edits him.

During the Clinton impeachment, Scheer claimed the entire scandal was hatched in "secret right wing luncheons" attended by Launch Faircloth, Jesse Helms and a third US Senator. (Secret luncheons? In a public restaurant?! Well I suppose anytime three Republican Senators get together, that's all the proof Scheer needs that they are plotting to destroy America).

Then, after years of defending Clinton during the impeachment scandal, saying it was nobody's business what he did, he devoted an entire column on the Bush twin's exploits in college in Texas. His rationale was that it was OK for him to invade their privacy, since Bush was a "family values" Republican. (The facts that Bush hasn't rhetorically extolled "family values" any more than Clinton did when he was President didn't matter to Scheer; nor did the fact that that Bush's DAUGHTERS hadn't extolled it at all, and they were the subject of Scheer's column; or the fact that that Clinton's conduct was guilty of hypocricy, since the questions he did not answer truthfully during the deposition on Paula Jones's sexual harrassment lawsuit were properly put to him by virtue of a sexual harrassment law HE signed as President).

I could continue to clog up the comment space with Scheer's rantings, so let me just say that IT'S ABOUT TIME Scheer is getting a fraction of what he dishes out (well, .0001%, but at least its something).

For more interesting background information on Robert Scheer (including his incredibly high-on-the-hog lifestyle for a socialist), see David Horowitz's website www.frontpagemag.com. Pull down the menu of Horowitz's articles and scroll down to the Feb. 19, 2001 posting "Scheer Lunacy at The Los Angeles Times." Not only was Scheer's wife Narda Zacchino a highly placed editor at the Times, she was the Ombudsman fielding complaints about the Times. Nice, eh?

Keep it up, please! Scheer drives me crazy. I used to write to the LA Times in response to his columns. They published one of my letters on his insane ravings on Enron, but I've given up. Now I just read him every Tuesday and see red-- no pun intended. Isn't there anything we can do?
Ron Winokur

I don't know about the Chronicle, but I doubt that Scheer's wife played a role in keeping his column with the L.A. Times. On a typical day, the whole paper reads like one long Scheer column, though perhaps with slightly less invective. That paper enjoys a long-standing monopoly on printed news throughout most parts of L.A. County, and it shows.

so, the LA Times is a family business?

More on Scheer...His journalistic life began when he wrote for Ramparts Magazine, a one-time Catholic mag, I believe, that was hijacked by the anti-war left and became a major mouthpiece of the revolution...he "reported" Vietnam for Ramparts between 65-69, I think, turning out anti-US propaganda. That's where he first became friends with David Horowitz, I believe (DH, of course, is a former lefty)...google:

ramparts magazine scheer

and you'll see get an interesting little peek into that old '60s world. You might also enjoy robertscheer.com

The LA Tims is publishing exactly what most of their readers want to read. Their movie section has been the mouthpiece for the Left Wing of the Democratic Party for years and years, they have prostituted every area of the paper. Everybody knows this and most of us haven't read it for years.

Simple question for the professionals;

IS it considered ok for op ed to comment and opine when argument's foundation is based upon mis-truth ?

Are there any rules or journalistic norms among (at least) major metro dailies which apply to op ed ?

Are publications which "harbor" untruthful content responsible for damage done or does 1st ammendment trump and protect ?

There is absolutely nobody on the other side of political spectrum who has this precious real estate in which to blast agitprop and lies. Why is that ?

My amazement continues that anyone would still expect valid factual news coverage, that is, coverage without slanted word choice and false innuendo from the Times (LA or New York), the Chronicle, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, or any of these bastions of Liberal hormone production. Newsmax, Townhall, Lucianne, and Scott Ott's Scrappleface are the places to go for honest news and intelligent commentary.

Below, there's a part of a piece RS wrote for an adventure web site in '97--about Cambodia trying to recover after the kmher rouge and pol pot...note that he refers to commie PP as "Hitlerian," when, in fact, he was really Stalinesque...there is a difference...Hitler treated the average German pretty well, the rules were pretty clear...Stalin, on the other hand, sponsored purges targeted against millions of his own citizens. And RS criticizes our relationship with China...one would never know that China and PP were his ideological soulmates.

"We didn't like the Vietnamese. We, the U.S., were allied with China. We ended up backing a coalition that included this Hitlerian figure Pol Pot, giving money to this coalition, which ended up in his pocket - and then finally he was too much of a murderer and we turned against him. "Now, of course, we will be grateful that he is captured. It is a mess.

"My feeling is that it's best to stay home and let other folks sort out their own history. This is like being involved in a neighbor's divorce. You feel important but in the end, you make matters worse."

Ronald Winokur:

How dare you criticize me! I am the almighty Robert Scheer! The only reason you don't like my columns is that you are secretly plotting with John Ashcroft, Gary Baur and the neoconservative cabal to despoil our environment and turn America into a theocracy, with Pat Robertson as the unquestioning, all-knowing Ayatolla over all of us.

Keith Kato:

Now that dissent in America is equal with treason, I suppose you are going to toss me in a concentration camp along with Susan McDougal, Tom Daschle, Barbra Boxer and everyone else who dares to criticize the murderous plot of George Bush and his neoconservative cabal to dominate the world and stamp out all that is good in it. I hope you enjoy the fascist dictatorship you are helping to build in America by your blind allegance to this modern-day totalitarian regime.

Abdul Rahim:

How dare you mention my wife!! My private life is none of your business!!! Don't you know that the private life of public figures only matters if they are family values religious conservatives who seek to force their values on the world like the Taliban in Afganistan or Bush's buddy, Osama bin Laden!

Mr. Winokour, Kato & Rahim:

Seing as how you guys appear to despise Robert Scheer as much as I do, I hope you appreciate the above post in the spirit in which it was sent. (and it IS kind of an honor to be the subject of a Scheer rant, don't you think?)

Each of your three examples vindicates Scheer. Scheer's columns express an opinion based on his understanding of the evidence. Disagreeing with opinion does not make him a liar.

Your first example baffles me. Even if Scheer overstated his case by saying Rumsfeld claimed Iraq was behind 9/11, it's certainly a far smaller transgression than Rumsfeld himself was making!! First of all, no evidence, none, zippo, diddling fucking squat, has been shown to conclusively link al Queda and Iraq. Second, even if all Rumsfeld said al Queda and Iraq were connected, he certainly meant to imply to the American people something just as nefarious as Scheer actually writes. Rumsfeld surely knows that the majority of the American public had been duped into believing Saddam had something to do with 9/11.

Second example: I appreciate that you can't find Bush ever saying "imminent." However, Scheer didn't put quotes around imminent. Perhaps Bush didn't use that word. But what about the claim that Saddam was six months away from nuclear weapons (lie)? That makes the case sound imminent. And what about the frantic rush to war, inspections be damned? Certainly seemed like Bush thought he had to go in soon.

The third example: What is contested here is what Evans said, not what Bush says. Scheer is clear about that. Your Bush quote does nothing to impunge his credibility. As to what Evans said, "lead the nation at this time" is certainly close to "called him to wage war on Iraq." Evans may not have been so specific, but the context of the article and the quote clearly refer to the war. Scheer was characterizing Evans' take (not quoting) and it is no stretch if you read the whole USA Today article.

Look, frankly I find you people ridiculous. Comparing Scheer to Blair? Are you out of your minds? You don't seem to mind that the President spent months pontificating about thousands of liters of anthrax and all these other WMD when none showed up. You don't care that he's blocking the 9/11 investigation? You don't mind that US citizens can now be detained with a charge and without access to a lawyer?

And worst of all, you question the patriotism of liberals because they don't support the President? I love a good argument and a thoughtful communication about policy and politics. Why are you people so afraid to have one? Do you really want to bring back the Alien and Sedition acts?

Shame shame.

Good on ya, Harry.
Glad I am not the only one who thinks Stefan et al doth protest a bit too much about integrity.

"Harry" with the MIT IP address wrote above: First of all, no evidence, none, zippo, diddling fucking squat, has been shown to conclusively link al Queda and Iraq.
Oh? The Toronto Star, probably not a tool of the CIA concluded otherwise:

Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization and Saddam Hussein's regime shared direct contact as early as 1998, according to top-secret Iraqi intelligence documents obtained by the Star.

Which MIT department are you with, "Harry", Linguistics?

Brilliant crowd you ally yourself with, "Dave".

Thanks, Stefan. I have high value of your opinion.

Harry:

No matter how hard you try to spin it, Scheer explicitely accused the Bush Administration of trying to connect the Iraqi regime to the 9/11 attacks, despite the fact that NO ONE in the Bush Administration has done so.

Backpedal all you want, but you can't get around those two facts. And you can't spin it by saying he "overstated his case." He didn't overstate it -- he lied.

And backpedal about the comments attributed to Don Evans. The only reason Stefan used the Bush quote was because he couldn't find an Evans Quote anywhere. That means that, unless Scheer talked to Evans personally (and it's highly unlikely that Evans would talk to someone of Scheer's reputation) Scheer made up the comment out of thin air (or twisted another comment Evans made beyond recognition).

All of these affirmations of Sharkansky's nutty exegesis are another contribution to American's continuing indifference to humanism---Republicans again condemning in others the crimes that they commit themselves. It hasn't bothered them for 50 years.And it's too much to hope that sophistication should suddenly descend on them now.

hi all,

i found this to be an interesting claim: "The United States lied to the world when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he had "bulletproof evidence" that Iraq was behind the Sept. 11 attacks
The source for this was presumably a New York Times article of Sept. 27, 2002 (reposted here) which actually said
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that American intelligence had "bulletproof" evidence of links between Al Qaeda and the government of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.
the article also said
Administration officials say there is still no evidence to link Mr. Hussein directly to the attacks on Sept. 11 in the United States.
If Scheer has another source where Rumsfeld did say that Iraq was "behind the 9/11 attacks" then he should produce it."

ok stefan, i would appreciate your explanation of why it is that the majority of americans polled believe that s.h in fact DID have something to do with 9/11. is this an example of mass stupidity, a consensual hallucination, or perhaps you might have to acknowledge that "something is going on..." (what exactly that "something" might be is a discussion in itself

Cas:

So you think that Rumsfeld's comments were designed to mislead? Two comments:

1) The point of this post is that Scheer is a LYING WORM and you have produced nothing to refute that.

2) If you hypothesis is correct (that the American people were tricked into thinking Saddam was involved in 9/11 as a result of misleading but truthful comments from Bush, Rumsfeld, et al.) then maybe -- just maybe -- it would have been a better strategy to have pointed out the American people that Bush DENIED evidence of a direct Saddam/ 9-11 link BEFORE the war. Instead, Scheer; et al. decided to claim Bush & Co. DID say what they DID NOT.

The former plan of action might have obtained converts to the anti-war cause (assuming your hypothesis is correct), the latter course of action makes sense only if you feel your sole mission in life is to convince yourself your smarter than everybody else. Scheer has clearly made his choice. I sincerly hope you do not follow in his footsteps.

(First time visitor, via Andrew Sullivan)...great work! After 50 plus years I sleep better at night knowing there are ever expanding, kindred spirits fighting for truth over against the pinkoes and Pollyannas with whom I associated in the 1960s. Where are they now? In the media of course. Well, their pabulum will not play in Peoria any more. Thank You!!!

"Stefan":

First, thanks for the Star link. I suppose in the flim-flam world of Rummy/Cheney/Pearle war policy making, three hand written pages, discovered after the fact, indicating a low-level interaction five years ago, is conclusive evidence of al Qaeda/Iraq collaboration. Geez. I stand-by my original statement.

Second, no, Rummy didn't say Iraq behind 9/11. But, as I said, he surely implied it. When he says Iraq and al Qaeda are undoubtably linked, what else does he mean to suggest? That they shared sugar cookie recipes? Come on now. Most of the American public believed Iraq was behind 9/11. Shouldn't our leaders correct our misunderstandings instead of exploit them?

Finally, if you (and "AgentX") honestly believe Scheer is on par with Jayson Blair, how in the world can you let Bush off the hook for lying about Iraq's supposed nuke weapons program, drone aircraft that could supposedly target the US (see W's State of the Union), and supposed thousands of gallons of WMD?

If you are so loyal to W as to be that sort of hypocrit, then what good are you? I can always just watch Ari.

Hold on now!! To get a flavor for the integrity required to work at LA Times, you need to know about the recent speech by John Carroll, Editor. You can see an article about the speech at

http://www.dailyemerald.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2004/05/07/409bbfc0d5b00

The LA Times readers representative was nice enough to send me a transcript of the speech. In that speech Mr. Carroll lamented the lack of great opinion journalists like Lippmann, Reston, Murrow, and Sevareid. He said "Their opinions were rigorously grounded in fact. It was the truthfulness of these commentators - their sheer intellectual honesty - that causes their names to endure."

However, I'm a little confused about "sheer intellectual honesty". Can someone help me here?

Drop me a line if you can't find the transcript. I'll send.

SS