frankenlies.com
Blogspot is swatted like a bug
In 2004, a decrepit blogger made a feeble and flimsy attempt to challenge the content of this site. I couldn't help but laugh when many readers tried to post the site as evidence that this site had been rebutted. The blogger's challenge is posted at the site frankenlies <dot> blogspot <dot> com .
What many challengers failed to credit was the fact that the blogger had to admit that I was 100% correct and Franken was flat-out wrong in several cases! In the other cases, the blogger rambled about topics he did not know about or tried to defend Franken for what he wrote. The blogger's ineptness is probably the best reason why he (or she) barely responded to half of the material (about Lies) on the site!
Bottom line: The blogger refuted nothing. Period.
Still ... Several have asked me: Why don't you respond to this blogger? Although I feel it's a big waste of my time ... OK. Here you go:
#1: Franken and the Pope and 12 Airplanes
Buried in his long and rambling tripe is the admission that Frankenlies.com is 100% correct (and Franken is completely wrong): The Clinton administration had nothing to do with thwarting the assassination of the Pope.
Philippine officials also thwarted a plot called Bojinka, the plot to "blow up twelve U.S. jetliners simultaneously" (as Franken put it). The Report of the Joint Inquiry Into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 – By the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, released in full to the public in July 2003, states (emphasis mine),
"In 1995, Yousef’s plots to bomb twelve U.S. airplanes flying Asian routes, kill the Pope, and crash a plane into CIA Headquarters were thwarted by Philippine police when a fire erupted in an apartment where Yousef was preparing explosives." (page 310) http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/pdf/part3.pdf
The Bojinka plot was a very specific plan to be carried out by four men using specific plane flights. (You can read more about this in the highly recommended book, 1000 Years for Revenge by Peter Lance.) Again, Philippine officials disrupted this plot by seizing the bomb materials and the flight plans. This discovery also forced the uncaptured bombers-to-be to flee the country. Note to blogger: Terrorists can no longer carry out an attack if they no longer have their bomb materials and their flight plans. Got it? Ugh.
The blogger makes an ignorant attempt to connect the arrest of a man to the success of American officials stopping the plot. I'm afraid the blogger is simply uninformed and is hopelessly desperate to defend Franken's errors. The man whom the blogger talks about had nothing to do with the Bojinka plot at all! (Again, see Lance's book, which covers it all.)
Again: Frankenlies.com is 100% correct. Blogspot is slapped.
#2a & #2b: Flier / Oreos
Uhh ... Where are my errors? What should I say? ... Except I'm 100% correct!
The only thing I think can respond to is the blogger's claim that the 2002 Oreo-throwing incident with Republican Michael Steele is "questionable." Blogger: You should read, in addition to my listed sources, this: "Michael Steele Oreo Incident Eyewitness Report," http://www.nationalcenter.org/2005/11/michael-steele-oreo-incident.html .
#3: Franken and Willie Horton
Again, it's hard to respond to something when I've made no error. Roger Ailes did not "direct" any Willie Horton attack ad against Gov. Dukakis. The FEC cleared Ailes of any wrongdoing. In addition, Willie Horton was not the concoction of Ailes or the Republican Party. In the primaries, Al Gore took major issue with Gov. Dukakis' furlough program (although he did not mention Horton by name). Horton's name had already been published nationally long before Dukakis secured the nomination! See this Nov. 29, 1987, LA Times article!
#4: Clinton Tape
Ugh. Most of what the blogger does here is regurgitate what Franken already wrote. My sources refute all of it. Note to blogger: Do you really think Clinton had no option to nab bin Laden? Read this from former CIA man Michael Scheuer:
"[B]etween January 1996 and June 1999 ... I speak with firsthand experience (and for several score of CIA officers) when I state categorically that during this time senior White House officials repeatedly refused to act on sound intelligence that provided multiple chances to eliminate Osama bin Laden - either by capture or by U.S. military attack. I witnessed and documented, along with dozens of other CIA officers, instances where life-risking intelligence-gathering work of the agency's men and women in the field was wasted." (emphasis mine)
Do you want to stick up for Franken now? Ugh. Read Scheuer's article, originally published in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday December 5, 2004: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/printer_120604E.shtml. Who was President between 1996 and 1999? You got it: Bill Clinton.]
#5: Florida 2000 Election
The blogger is simply desperate here. To defend Franken's implicit claim that Florida "deliberately purged" black voters out of some racist agenda is loony. Here and here are two articles by Peter Kirsanow, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which further debunk the "Florida myth" ... Here is an Opinion Journal article addressing the issue as well.
#6: Helen Thomas
The blogger writes, "[T]he passage can be ambiguous, and that ambigouity (sic) does not equal dishonesty." In other words, I'm 100% correct.
Another thing: Although Franken did not correct almost all of his errors for his revised paperback, he felt the need to insert two clarifications about this passage in the paperback!
#7: CIA plane
The blogger writes, "See top." Ummm, OK. I'm looking at the top of the page ... Uh ... I see a header, a title, a couple Google ads ...
Wha--?? Do you see what a joke this blogspot page is now?
#8: Research
Blogspot acknowledges I am 100% correct.
#9: Ashcroft letter
I was not the first person to point out Franken's dishonesty. The blogger cites no error on my part.
#10: Racism
Again, the blogger cites no error on my part. The blogger simply tries to defend Franken.
#11: Tax Break
Again, the blogger cites no error on my part.
#12: Poverty
Blogger acknowledges I am 100% correct.
However, the blogger added, "I'm sure Franken will correct this." Guess what? FRANKEN DIDN'T!
#13: Blogs and Racism
Franken claimed that "Several blogs reported on voter suppression in the 2002 campaign in great detail." Then the only blog address that Franken provided links to an image of the Maryland flier. That's it! And I am wrong because ... ? Where's the "great detail" from the blogs, Al?
#14: Glick and O'Reilly
Again, the blogger cites no error on my part. However, I got a good laugh when the blogger tried to challenge what I said by trotting out remarks from ... are you ready for this? ... actor George Clooney.
#15: Wishful Thinking
Quite simply, I'm correct ... again.
#16: Operation Ignore
The blogger writes, "I personally would not hold Bush responsible for the 9/11 attacks or any other administration," but that's exactly what Al Franken implicitly does, and that was the purpose of my post! The blogger cites no error on my part.
#17: GAO Vandalism
My favorite from the blogger. He wrote (emphasis mine):
"This is a whopper for Franken. On page 153-4, he writes that the GAO investigation of reports of vandalism at the White House during the 2000-1 yielded no damage. However, the GAO report that Franken cited yielded precisely the opposite conclusion of what Franken claimed. Franken is issuing a retraction for his next printing, but this is his own 'Coulter-Earnheardt (sic)' episode."
Franken never issued any retraction! This blatantly false and egregious error (though revised) is still in all editions of his book!
As of fall 2005, the blogger has published NOTHING on posts #18 through 25 and has said NOTHING about the 6 addendums. That's 14 out of my 31 total posts! I guess it makes sense that there have been no further responses from blogger in light of the humorous ineptitude of his (or her) first attempt.