Always Mock Content From "Think Progress"

"Think Progress" delivers some high-powered attack blogging - they accused John McCain of plagiarism, but apparently had not exerted themselves to actually check McCain's speeches available at his Senate website - he claims first dibs on the disputed phrases by pointing to a speech he gave in 1995 to the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

Yes, hindsight is 20/20, but how much prescience would have been required for Think Progress to have pinned this down?  For example, one of the McCain phrases that stood out was "War is wretched beyond description."  A search on the word "wretched" at McCain's Senate site produces just three hits, one of which is the 1995 speech.

What seems to have confounded the person who noticed this is that Google's search spiders seem to be blocked from the McCain site; neither a conventional Google search nor a Google search on McCain's Senate site deliver the 1995 speech.

Comments

[Elliott]

Another Google-enabled gaffe.

[ThinkProgress]

Who can we contact at Google to refund our subscription?

[Elliott]

Googlegaffery? Googfoolery? IneBrinated?

[clarice]

That's what they deserve for writing a story that even if true would be so piffling in the face of Clinton's non-stop mendacity and Obama's close association with crooks and racists.

[bgates]

In case you're wondering, here's thinkprogress.org's entire coverage of the Deval Patrick/Barack Obama "just words" controversy:

but, you know, i am a stickler for sourcing and citing…
barack COULD’ve cited deval patrick’s speech as his inspiration,
maybe should’ve…

That's here. Comment #52, the last word on a thread about a suicide bombing.

[Lesley]

Reminds me of the story about McCain's teeth (some left-leaners making fun of them) Geesh, to make fun of a man's teeth only to learn that he'd had them knocked out at the gum line when he was tortured by the North Vietnamese during his 6 1/2 years in a prison camp.

I hope those people felt lower than cockroaches.

[Cecil Turner]

Yep, that one was pretty lame. Even dumber is this one on the resurgence of "blackwater fever" (supposedly named after the security company). But the simplest possible google woulda clued 'em in . . . first two hits are WikiPedia and Encyclopedia Britannica, both of which note the prime symptom:

and the passage of urine that is black or dark red in colour (hence… blackwater fever...

After their own commenters noted the error several times, including the wiki link, and much ribbing by Glenn, they finally corrected it.

[Ralph L]

Why haven't they jumped on McCain's 1999 skin peel to look younger for the 2000 election, a treatment which I suspect brought on his facial melanoma.

[Bill in AZ]

Ralph, That'll be up on ThinkProgress tomorrow - with a link to your JOM post for proof.

[narciso]

First they mix up Zawahiri with Zarquawi (two Sunnis with Iranian connections, to disprove McCain's assertions of regime cooperation with Islamist elements)Don't
even remind them that Maqdissi, Zarquawi's
mentor, was an Iraqi Shia living in Kuwait
and Jordan. Then they float this stupid
'Blackwater association' most likely caused
by the fact that Michael Moore's freedom fighters, blow up treatment plants, hospitals, et al; much like the Taliban who didn't figure out they'd need the cell towers to transmit their own message. Jamail's outfit was the same who provided that apocryphal slam by Fallon at Petraeus, before last year's testimony. Then they celebrate seemingly a suicide bombing in Afghanistan(what if it happened in their neighborhood!)Now they rush out there and
proclaim that McCain plagiarized Admiral
Ziemer (which as fellow aviators, they probably agree on)instead of the other way
around. That comment about McCain's teeth,
was the final straw.

[Other Tom]

Hell, remember in the early days of Clinton's first term when some of his young stalwarts were ridiculing Bob Dole's gimpy arm?

[Bob Dole's "Gimpy" Arm]

You've not heard much from those young stalwarts now, have you?

[M. Simon]

The left doesn't like to look outside its comfort zone.

Thus they are continually blindsided.

BTW I send David Broder - who is definitely not a Rove fan - my bit on Rove bring behind Obama. I can't wait to see what he makes of it. The evidence looked pretty good to me.

Is Rove Behind Obama. The links lead to the site of a Clinton fan but it looks well sourced. If this hits the news/opinion cycle now I think the guys behind Obama - Kennedy, Dashle et. al. are cooked and so is Obama.

I don't think at this point the Dems can afford to give up Obama no matter what Rove was up to. It would be seen as white racism. Notice Karl is smiling a lot these days? I love it when a plan comes together.

The barb is deeply embedded. Any attempt to pull it out now is going to rip a lot of flesh.

[soccer dad]

Google allows you to creat your own customized searches. I tried to do this at work last year but it didn't work. So I contacted the help and was told that the sites I included were not indexed properly. Apparently McCain's site is not properly indexed.

Other Tom - that's already started happening with Anna Quindlen:
But the senator is not your average man of his age. He takes stairs slowly and cannot lift his arms to comb his hair. One reason few people want to address his age, or his infirmity, is the valor of his Vietnam service. It's humbling to consider that he broke both arms and a leg when his fighter jet was shot down, then suffered fractured shoulders and broken ribs when he was tortured during five and a half years as a POW. You can tell he thinks it should be humbling, too: when a boy at one event asked him respectfully if he was too old for the job, he responded with his trademark acerbic humor, "Thanks for the question, you little jerk."

and Ellen Goodman:
It was probably not wise for the 64-year-old Brit Hume to describe the 71-year-old John McCain as having a "senior moment." A blip would have been better. Or a gaffe. Or even a dent in the candidate's "experience" armor.

But when the traveling senator confused Shiites and Sunnis, when he conflated al-Qaeda with all extremists, the "senior moment" phrase uttered by the Fox newsman got velcroed to the story of The Man Who Would Be the Oldest President in American History.

[boris]

Italiacto!

[Bill in AZ]

Looks like this phrase appeared much earlier in a McCain speech - May 6, 1999 - SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN'S SPEECH TO THE AMERICAN RED CROSS "PROMISE OF HUMANITY" CONFERENCE.

Found via Dogpile instead of Google.

Re: Googles nonsensical excuse about the site not properly indexed... pffft... he's right, but Google does the indexing, and empirical observation leads me to conclude that they have a mechanism of weighting who/where/how indexing occurs - and it is slanted to the left. Things like this confirm it for me. I don't trust Google much anymore and use Dogpile or other search engines, especially if it's for politically related searches.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

No, Ralph, a skin peel doesn't "bring on" melanoma.

[megapotumus]

The RoveBama thing is pretty scary. But even if Karl IS a genius it wouldn't take one to see the critical flaw in the Dem machine is that it is based on group grievance politics. Once two clients were to grasp one apple, well... But all the Rovation takes place after the DNC keynote address. Barry was anointed then and there. If Karl has more accurately aimed the dagger, the thrust is still from the Left and right into the spine. These are mirthful days for wankers like me. Oh yes.

[TallDave]

What seems to have confounded the person who noticed this is that Google's search spiders seem to be blocked from the McCain site

Blocked? No, very unlikely.

Methinkss some lefties at Google are probably deliberately omitting McCain's site -- with the amusing consequences above.

Fate is a fickle bitch who dotes on irony.

[Neo]

It's one thing to Think Progress but entirely another to Make Progress.

[Ralph L]

a skin peel doesn't "bring on" melanoma
I doubt there's proof either way, but anecdotally, my melanoma at age 30 was where a sunburn had been sandblasted on Ocracoke Island 5 years before. But I have a genetic predisposition (grandmother had it in her eye), don't know if McCain has one. I assume he had a peel--his face looked like blotchy raw meat, IIRC.

[capital L]

In what possible setting is "well I couldn't find it on Google" an acceptable excuse?

[battery]

In what possible setting is "well I couldn't find it on Google" an acceptable excuse?

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