On Tucker, Bob Franken resurrected false stories about childhoods of Bush, Gore

[NNN0LHI]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200711270001?f=h_top

On the November 26 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, former CNN correspondent Bob Franken described President Bush and former Vice President Al Gore as being "as different as night and day" because "Bush was raised in the oil patch in Texas" while Gore "was raised in a hotel in Washington and went to St. Albans, a very, very chichi private school." In contrasting the childhood experiences of Bush and Gore, Franken misled MSNBC viewers about both men, resurrecting false storylines that were common in media coverage of the 2000 presidential campaign.

Franken's comments reflect a claim often made by Bush during his 2000 presidential campaign -- that "the biggest difference between me and my father is that he went to Greenwich Country Day and I went to San Jacinto Junior High." In fact, Bush went to a private high school every bit as "chichi" as St. Albans: Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he was head football cheerleader during his senior year.

Further, Franken's comments reflect a distortion of Gore's childhood that was common in news reports during the 2000 campaign: that he was raised in a "vast" "penthouse suite" in the "elegant" and "swank" Fairfax Hotel, a "luxury Washington hotel." In fact, the Gores lived in a modest two-bedroom suite in which Gore shared a bedroom with his sister. The supposedly "swank" hotel featured linoleum floors and was, according to an October 26, 1998, Washington Post article, popular with foreign-service families because "{t}he hotel apartments were the only ones with kitchens that were within the State Department's stingy temporary-housing allowance."

[Cha]

1. So franken in all his

faux frankness didn't bring up bushit's blowing up of frogs with dynamite..just because he could?

[gratuitous]

2. I wonder what point Bob Franken was trying to make?

That plucky George W., clawing his way up from his hardscrabble roots, became president, and started several wars? And that pampered and perfumed Al Gore squandered his prime berth in life to just win a Nobel Peace Prize?

Sheesh, I thought this line of nonsense had gone the way of the dodo, especially when the facts are all conveniently assembled at The Daily Howler for any "journalist" who gives a shit about the truth to find for himself or herself at the cost of two mouse clicks.

But stone-brained reportage will persist, apparently. When does Tucker's game show gig start? Is he just trying to leave a lingering stench at MSNBC?

[blogslut]

3. This again?

Geeze Bob. You ever been to Midland?

When baby Bush moved there at the age of two, the town had at least 20,000 people and the population practically doubled after that due to the oil boom. Painting Midland Texas as some sort of sage-filled desert is preposterous. The city grew leaps and bounds while little man went to suburban schools that were no different than any other in the US, except for the accents. He spent 9 years in Midland and then it was off to Houston - a city with a population of well over one million in 1959.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Al Gore worked his ass off on the family farm in the summer and

the two bedroom hotel suite was nothing fancy. It's amazing how many of the media talking heads are ignorant of their own subject material. One would think the owners and CEOs of this pathetic dysfunctional media would give a rat's ass about their product. I believe they hold the American People's intelligence in the same high regard as they do the issue of journalistic integrity in their own profession, which is nil.

[Javaman]

5. Well, Al did live in Washington, moron* lived in a sty after he* was hatched. nt