RSS Feed for This PostCurrent Article

In 15 Minutes! Carl Bernstein on NQR Radio “Sins of Omission”

By SusanUnPC on March 9, 2009 at 12:45 AM in Current Affairs, Hillary Clinton, No Quarter Blog, NoQuarter Radio, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

BUMPED DOWN . SHOW OVER

nqontheairpromo2001Paulie Abeles’ guest tonight on“Sins of Omission” at 9:00 pm EST is Pulitzer prizing winning journalist, Carl Bernstein, with calls welcome from 9:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET. (See instructions about calling in to the show, below the “fold.”)

hillary-bernstein-s1Bernstein will share his perspective on the Election of 2008, discuss sexism and media bias, and how his perspective on Secretary Clinton has changed since he wrote the critically acclaimed biography: A Woman In Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton”

paulie-s1Here is Paulie’s image. Details for the show, including live chat and caller instructions, are below the fold.

Carl Bernstein shared a Pulitzer Prize with Bob Woodward for his coverage of Watergate for The Washington Post. He is the author, with Woodward, of All the President’s Men and The Final Days, and, with Marco Politi, of His Holiness: John Paul II and the History of Our Time.

bernstein_carl1-sBernstein is also the author of Loyalties, a memoir about his parents during McCarthy–era Washington. He has written for Vanity Fair (he is also a contributing editor), Time, USA Today, Rolling Stone, and The New Republic. He was a Washington bureau chief and correspondent for ABC News.

As always, Host Paulie Abeles will take calls from listeners starting at 9:30 p.m. at 1-347-677-0792. And the LIVELY CHAT ROOM will be open throughout the hour! This will be a great show! Don’t miss it!

(So we can accommodate our many callers, as always, please keep your questions short and to the point and take your answers off the air).

  • catherine

    Thus far very good interview. BTW, I’ve read the book and I highly recommend it.

    I always admired Hillary but after reading Bernstein’s book I admired, respected AND loved her even more!

  • AnneinPA

    I thought the book was very entertaining too. I learned alot about Hillary. That the book was supposed to be a negative telling of her faults, I thought he brought up a lot of positive attributes about her.

    This book made it easy to work and vote for Hillary for President. Not that I think Bernstein wanted her
    to be President, after all the slams he has made about her on CNN (fat ankles) no one
    would think that.

  • susan k (nyc)

    Great show!!

    Suggestion to people who argue Hillary’s case:

    I think instead of using the “flipping the bird” example, which some might say is debatable, I would refer to the use of the song “99 Problems but a Bitch Ain’t One” as the intro music as he took the stage after a critical victory during the primaries (I forget which state or states). The video of that is out there in YouTube land. His campaign staff, and therefore, he, was calling Hillary a bitch, straight up. No one would have DARED to play music that included disparaging language in reference to African Americans on the campaign trail.

    • catherine

      Actually I think the bird reference flustered him. I really appreciated the Karen caller letting him have it.

      Bernstein as well as many in the media know they f*cked up royally. They also know that we Clinton supporters are NEVER going to “let it go”. And this disturbs them on a number of levels.

      1. We more than anyone else have started the campaign to unmask them as the propagandist whores that they are. If it only came from republicans they would say that “well they always call us the liberal media”. The fact that the contempt from so many life long hardcore dems won’t let up 7 months AFTER the DNC convention is beyond baffling to them. And I think truly frightening where this will lead.

      2. Which is their complete lack of credibility.

      3. Not only are they beginning to realize they were wrong about their candidate but also how completely RIDICULOUS the American media looks not only to more Americans waking up from the koolaid but also the International media.

      4. It’s got to kill them that a bunch of “feminist, uneducated, racist deadenders” as they think of us had Obama’s number long ago while they remained clueless. We saw right through him and everything we predicted about this clown is becoming apparent.

      5. And finally, even the biggest sexist pig secretly somewhere in his subconscious acknowledges to no one but himself/herself how the hateful bigoted treatment that was piled upon a more than qualified woman candidate would never have been offered to a black, completely unqualified candidate. This more than anything I believe is why they want us “to let it go” “to unite” “to move on”. In other words to stop reminding them of their own inexcusable prejudices. We will never forget or “get over it”. And by continuing to speak the truth the sexist hypocritical media is reminded of the revolting ugliness they participated in and encouraged. And history will judge them accordingly.

      • Liberty Belle not for Obama

        Amen! Well said. Too tired from listening to the show (and working all day) to add comments, so ditto yours, Catherine.

        • socalannie

          Haha! I second that!

      • grayslady

        Really well said, catherine. Some of us are concerned about correcting the deficiencies in our system of government–for which the press was considered by the Founding Fathers to be a necessary check on the potential excesses of power. But then these are the same people who argued that Scooter Libby should have been given just a slap on the wrist, or that we shouldn’t try to find out the truth about the illegalities of the Bush administration because that would be “partisan”. Right.

        The major networks and newspapers have still never acknowledged their shameful role in pushing to invade Iraq. Why should they apologize for their atrocious behavior during the elections. Paula asked some great questions of Bernstein, and he just danced around them.

      • grayslady

        Really well said, catherine. Some of us are concerned about correcting the deficiencies in our system of government–for which the press was considered by the Founding Fathers to be a necessary check on the potential excesses of power. But then these are the same people who argued that Scooter Libby should have been given just a slap on the wrist, or that we shouldn’t try to find out the truth about the illegalities of the Bush administration because that would be “partisan”. Right.

        The major networks and newspapers have still never acknowledged their shameful role in pushing to invade Iraq. Why should they apologize for their atrocious behavior during the elections? Paula asked some great questions of Bernstein, and he just danced around them.

      • Ani

        Catherine, beautifully stated. No, we can never “move on” from this — every singly one of them who participated in this horror show must have their noses rubbed in it every single day.

      • FranSC

        I am sick that I forgot about the Bernstein interview tonight! I did email NQ last night to make sure Paulie knew about Bernstein’s utterly despicable comments about both Clintons during the campaign. I had planned to be one of the ones to call in and lambast him for it tonight. So glad someone did. I wish Paulie, Susan or someone would write about the show tonight. I was amazed he was going to be on in light of every time he was on CNN he couldn’t say enough destructive things about the Clintons. He wasn’t as bad with Hillary as he was with Bill. But Bernstein rivaled Bill Bennet who was crass enough to make statements like, “The Clintons need to get off the public stage. Nobody wants them there anymore.” This was in January 2008 with one of the first primary election night coverage. It was my first realization that this was different from anything I had ever heard before in media coverage. I was outraged! Little did I know what could possibly lay ahead!

  • vjhinFla

    Carl Bernstein is just as blind and insulated to the outrageous BS that went on as anyone else in the media. He IS part of the media afterall and played a BIG role in propagating the denegration and sexism, by doing just what he did tonight. DOWNPLAYING and denying anything ever happened. How ’bout the DNC’s role in all this mess… I haven’t listened to him in at least a year. Did he have any comments about the whole FL and MI debacle? Where is the outrage over that? Sorry I disagree with Mr. Bernstein and found no new respect for him except for the fact that he did agree to talk on Sins of Ommission.

    • Liberty Belle not for Obama

      Great points – tried to make some of the same on the radio blog, and Paulie didn’t put on many callers – she tried to debate him herself, and spent a bit of time on Palin, too.

      What about all the money Obama’s campaign (or George Soros) poured into, or promised in advance to the Super Delegates, who Pelosi and Reid told to get on board for Obama (bet it was before the end of the primaries). How do some of the Dem Party’s elected officials live with themselves these days? Or, are they still drunk on the Kool-Aid?

      After someone ties on a big drunk, isn’t there a hangover? (Even on Kool-Aid?)

      • FranSC

        Liberty Belle, you say you bet Pelosi and Reid were onboard with Obama before the end of the primaries. Nancy Pelosi was one of the dem leadership who SELECTED BO to run after his 2004 convention speech. By 2006 she and Howard Dean had his campaign laid out for him. A company in her district called Hummer Winblad raised 75% or more of the $700 Million.

        On the advice of Pelosi, in 2007 the first money this company raised for him went to payoff the super delegates (between $5,000-$11,000 for their campaigns) to keep their support in line. Obama had 4 campaigns going (none of which were of his creation, but were created FOR him by people with intense hatred of George Bush – George Soros (MoveOn.Org) poured millions into that organization that technelogically stacked the fraudulent caucuses and brought the throngs of people; the DNC’s behind-the-scenes-campaign began at least by 2007 – Pelosi helped with securing the venture capitalist fundraising company in her district and Dean contributed the 50-state strategy plus the geek that found the caucus loophole in the law; and finally, the Chicago-based campaign of Axelrod, Plouffe, and Gibbs (the car of clowns that Larry refers to) that took the credit for all of the above – AS IF!

        Is it any wonder that people are puzzled by his “brilliant”, slick, campaign and this group of Chicago idiots trying to govern this country. Neither Obama nor the Chicago gang had anything to do with the other 3 campaigns other than trying to look coordinated.

  • Joan

    Paulie was fantastic tonight. Carl Bernstein is ignorant–just like a lot of MSM but it was a very informative interview–now I know why HRC lost.

  • Liberty Belle not for Obama

    Paulie, thanks for having the courage to do the interview, and have us blog along on NQR. Suggestion: Next time, have more callers come on to ask him questions – perhaps he’d start to “get it”, or you’d get a break, at least.

  • Nobama4me

    Same here,vjhinFla
    I had very little hope that he would admit to any role of the MSM in the stealing of the election from HRC. He down-played the role of the MSM, dismissed the notion of sexism being one of the main reason why Hillary was defeated, put the blinds on regarding Bo and Ayers,slammed Palin without aknowledging that she had more executive experience then BO etc…a Bot in his full glory (gag)And he capped it all with his own very sexist comment about how Palin was chosen only because she is a woman…despicable!

    • snosandy

      I was waiting for someone to ask him what qualified Obama to be president more than Sarah Palin to be vice president.

      • steve

        …Or, maybe, rather, why is she unable to do what Joe Biden has been doing the past 2 months?

  • Ima Blue Dot in Texas

    Paulie, you did a better job of holding your ground against Carl Bernstein than against Evan Thomas the a-hole, but I think that’s because CB is a more credible journalist than ET.
    I think Bernstein said a lot of complimentary things about Hillary in his book, whether he meant to or not. Like many others, I didn’t know anything about Hillary before this last presidential campaign except for all of the negatives that the right-wingers had oh-so-effectively manufactured about her, but, I was blown away by all of her accomplishments by page 71 of Bernstein’s book.
    But I must say that when listening to CB tonight, I was egregiously disappointed in Mr. B’s inability to acknowledge the bias for BO and the sexism against Hillary that was displayed by the MSM. The inequality displayed by the MSM was just too blatant for any honest person not to detect.

    Even though Hillary exaggerated the Bosnia story when she said she was “ducking bullets”, the truth of the matter remains that she was in a war zone and there were helicopters circling looking for snipers and they did take evasive actions when they landed and the reception on the tarmac was cut short because of the dangerous situation. See http://www.npr.org/blogs/news/2008/03/clinton_trip_official_says_bos_1.html

    To the contrary, I can’t forget BO’s recitation how he had visited all 57 states of the union and that he was conceived in Selma 4 years after he was born and that his uncle “liberated” Auschwitz. These fairy tales were never relentlessly questioned nor mercilessly scrutinized by the media like Hillary’s statements were.
    And as for BO’s finger flipping Hillary and John McCain. No one can argue that neither Hillary nor McCain would have been given a free pass on that like BO was given.
    BO is a totally disgusting and dishonest person. All crass. No class.

    • Liberty Belle not for Obama

      Great overview, and other points, Ima Blue Dot in TX. Now your have me curious about the book.

  • susan k (nyc)

    the book is a must-read.

    and I didn’t mean to be critical about the “flip the bird” thing, b/c I absolutely agree that he did that and it was outlandish. I am just volunteering another example that is very hard to debate. But that caller was fantastic.

    Thank you all for being aggressive with him!

  • TeakwoodKite

    Paulie A.
    The interview was good one. It gives a very solid glimpse of the mind set of what is to come, if Mr. Bernstein is to be a canary in the coal mine.

    I can’t help but think that the news is only “real time” and not a collective viewing of the whole, in todays world…
    The one dimensional nature of what passes for news is an event horizon with no connection to the past.

    Carl did a job ducking the Bosnia comments and started off I thought to be somewhat less than understanding of alternative media impacts such a Altnet radio , blogs, by saying the media is not “Monolithic”.
    On this I disagree with him.

    Carl knows what an “echo chamber” is, how it works and who is in the first chair of the string and horn sections… First hand.

    I am paraphrasing, but when Mr. Berstien says, “the the truth is the best rendition of the facts as they are known”. This not the case most of the time. (or Plato would not have a cave.)

    Thanks.

    • FranSC

      I will bet the ranch Carl Bernstein will write a book on either how Obama won or Hillary lost using the same misguided and sexist ideas he had then and now. Makes me doubt the facts of his other books that he turns out in no time. I hope to God someone is writing what REALLY happened. Where is Howard Wolfson? He supposedly had a book deal and has disappeared from the radar screen.

      All of the tell-all books may be on hold because of Hillary being named SoS. In fact, I would submit that is WHY she is SoS. Bill had already promised in late October to explain his side of what happened in the primaries in January 2009 after the election. I bet anything that Emanuel and Penetta told Obama that Bill would make good on that promise if he didn’t make Hillary a good offer. I simply do not believe his Lincoln bullsh*t to naming your opponents to your cabinet. Obama is way too thin-skinned to be that magnanimous. He is only considering Howard Dean for Surgeon General since he has been shamed into it.