July 16, 2002
Would you have preferred "crackpot"?

The soon-to-be-eponymously-domained Matthew Yglesias points to this week's PunditWatch, which contains the following bits:


I want to reassure our audience, they could be forgiven for not being sure who Larry Klayman is, because when he was filing an avalanche against the Clinton administration, he was largely ignored. Now that he's filing lawsuits against Dick Cheney, he's an avenging Clarence Darrow leading off all the network shows. -Kate O’Bierne, CG

Well, Salon readers have known about him since at least 1998, thanks to articles like this one by Josh Marshall. Note the accompanying clip from a Newsweek article, too. I've sure as heck known about him for a long time now. Maybe Kate O'Bierne needs to expand her reading list.

Fox’s Tony Snow showed three contrasting clips of network reporting on Klayman. He was always “conservative” when filing suits against Clinton; he was a “watchdog” filing against Cheney.

Let me get this straight: Tony Snow was able to find clips of network reporting on Larry Klayman from when he was Clinton Lawsuit Central? Does Kate O'Bierne know about this?

If you look closely at the aforementioned Salon article, you'll note that Larry Klayman is quoted as describing himself as the "conservative Ralph Nader". However, JW does call itself a "non-partisan, non-profit foundation" which serves as "an ethical and legal 'watchdog' over our government, legal, and judicial systems to promote a return to ethics and morality in our nation's public life", so perhaps there is something to this.

It is true, as Jason Zengerle noted last year, that Klayman has been an equal opportunity litigant lately. Still, it's hard for someone like me to recall that avalanche against the Clinton administration, which was funded in part by grants from uber-Clinton-hater Richard Mellon Scaife and which included tinfoil-hat allegations about Vince Foster and Ron Brown as well as an attempt to subpoena Chelsea Clinton and not think that maybe Judicial Watch has been fueled by a bit more than an interest in good governance. Perhaps if the Snows and O'Biernes of the world had been equally dismissive of Larry Klayman when he was serving their agenda as they are now when he's not, I'd have more sympathy for them.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on July 16, 2002 to Show Business for Ugly People
Comments

kate o bierne is the most vicious liar and hypocrite in creation.
as rotten bob novak.
she brags o being a superhawk' on irag.
says we must sacrifice-'forget about big ticket programs'
all in the name of 9/11.
meanwhile since 9/11-this harridan spent tens of thousand dollars to send her own little prince throug his last year at princeton.
you can be sure in the year since his graduation there is no o bierne among the recruits in the war mommy flagwaves for.
this harridan wrote a column stating the reason for so much obesity is that government spends too much feeding the poor.
this from an irishwoman-whose ancestors one fed on cockroaches and the rotting flesh of corpses because the english felt as she did.
ronald reagan once put this evil in charge o f certain programs for the poor.
if so-than reagan deserves all his afflictions.
this shaggy hair crocidile will one day get her comeuppance.
and everly last misery would be richly deserved.
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Posted by: albert peckman on September 11, 2003 11:24 AM

indeed, i too listened with revulsion to kate o'bierne on cnn's 'capital gang", go on about clinton being the real villain in this bush's war, and other ad hominem attacks on everyone except for those truly responsible. after listening to her and bob novak spew invective and falsehood, i can truly say i have seen evil and it is she, kate o'bierne, a woman so full of hatred, whose opinions are at best so vile and loathesome that she makes bob novak look like an agreeable and informed old grandee. when did such hatred for democratic society and disregard for human life become a conservative value?

Posted by: tomas rahal on May 16, 2004 3:51 PM

do you still see capital gang
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Posted by: albert peckman on March 9, 2005 10:30 AM