Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

The next guest was Harry Reid of Nevada, the number two Democrat in the Senate,
who was unimpressed by Coleman's pieties. "Judy, Mr. Coleman is campaigning, and that's
why he's on your program." He pointed out that Republicans had already starting polling in
Minnesota. Worse, they had dispatched Newt Gingrich as a Coleman surrogate to bash Mondale
on NBC's Meet the Press. "I just think this is so classless," said Reid.
Gingrich's attack on Mondale wasn't classless merely because it came so soon after
Wellstone's death. It had the added classlessness of being a lie. Gingrich said:
Walter Mondale chaired a commission that was for the privatization of Social Security
worldwide. He chaired a commission that was for raising the retirement age
dramatically. . . . If you want to raise your retirement age dramatically and privatize
Social Security, Walter Mondale is a terrifically courageous guy to say that.
Mondale hadn't actually chaired the commission. He co-chaired it. More importantly, he disagreed
with the commission's conclusions. While the majority did support raising retirement
ages and privatizing government retirement programs, Mondale co-wrote (or wrote, as Newt
might say) the dissenting opinion.
Had Gingrich searched on Google for "Mondale" and "Social Security," the first hit
would have been an August 20, 2001, article entitled °Mondale Condemns Social Security
Privatization."
The lie had its intended effect. About the same time the Washington Post was exposing
Newt's lie on its website, Judy Woodruff was credulously repeating it for her national audience
on CNN. "The Republicans say, Senator Reid, that ... they're simply pointing out Walter
Mondale's policy positions. That he chaired this commission last year that came out with a
report recommending the privatization of Social Security."
The Wellstone memorial was scheduled for Tuesday evening, October 29, at Williams Arena.
I flew to Minnesota and met up with my brother to visit our mom. We left for the event three
and a half hours early, but the arena parking lot was already full. When we finally got inside,
the place was overflowing. Twenty thousand were packed into an arena meant for sixteen
thousand.
The crowd at the event, which had been billed as a celebration of the lives of the deceased,
had a raucous energy. From where I was sitting, it all seemed just incredibly natural
and human, the way grieving people often jump between crying and laughing. A group of