A Tale of Two "Documentaries"

Re: The Clinton Chronicles

All this might seem silly were it not for the fact that similar scandal-mongering was taken quite seriously during the Clinton years. The notorious 1994 video The Clinton Chronicles tied Bill Clinton to a series of "mysterious" deaths — "Since August 1991, an alarming number of Clinton associates have died of unnatural causes," it said — and helped spawn a small industry of Internet "Clinton body count" lists. Condemning The Clinton Chronicles and tying its unfounded accusations to the mainstream political opposition became a standard part of White House defense strategy in times of scandal. For example, in her famous "vast right-wing conspiracy" appearance on the Today show in January 1998, then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton complained about the "mean-spirited give and take of American politics right now," which included, she said, "accusing my husband of committing murder, of drug running." A few years earlier, Clinton operative George Stephanopoulos, speaking to the Washington Post, angrily said of the president's enemies, "They're accusing him of murders. . . . That's unheard of." The paper reported that Stephanopoulos "senses a conspiracy of sorts — a campaign of 'manufactured hate.'" And Bill Clinton himself often mentioned the accusations in an effort to show how unreasonable his opponents had become. "I've been accused of murder and all kinds of things," he said at a 1999 news conference. -- The Weekly Standard

Re: Fahrenheit 9-11

Two Thumbs Way Up!-- Siskel & Roeper

Winner, Palm d' Or-- Cannes Film Festival

It is, all in all, a legitimate abuse of power. -- the dipshit reviewer for the amateur leftist newsletter Slate (along the way he charges "conspiracy!" because the Secret Service were protecting the Saudi Embassy, another case of a movie reviewer assuming he knows stuff because he took twenty credits of film criticism at the Seton Hall School of Communications. He now corrects to admit that, yes, it has long been a Secret Service practice to guard embassies and ambassadors in Washington; but he's still very, very suspicious)

Okay, guys. Explain the distinction. I'm all ears.

Apparently a schlocky, extremist, dishonest "documentary" is bad when it's about Clinton, but good and useful "counterpropaganda" against Bush. Please explain your objective reasons for preferring the latter while subjecting us to ten years of whining over the former.

posted by Ace at 06:11 PM

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