How To Lie With Excerpts?

HOW TO LIE WITH EXCERPTS?….I guess this isn’t really worth my time or yours, but it will take me a only few minutes to write and you fewer to read ? got that? ? so here’s the latest example from our friends at The Corner in How To Lie With Excerpts?:

CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD [KJL]
From Cathy Seipp today on A&E’s Ike, a reporter’s exchange with director Lionel Chetwynd:

Question: “You did contribute to [Bush’s] campaign?”

Chetwynd: “Yeah, the limit was $1,000… Would it make a better film if I’d given $1,000 to Gore?”

Question: “Yes.”

Chetwynd: “Why?”

Question: “Because it would show less potential bias.”

Goodness! Some Hollywood hack apparently thinks you can’t make a good movie about Eisenhower if you’ve contributed to the Bush campaign. That’s lefty nutballism for you!

Except for one little detail: in the original column Cathy specifically noted that this exchange had nothing to do with the movie Ike. It took place last year and referred to Chetwynd’s widely ridiculed soap opera version of George Bush’s handling of 9/11. You remember: it’s the one with dialog like “If some tinhorn terrorist wants me, tell him to come and get me! I’ll be at home! Waiting for the bastard!”

Now, Cathy doesn’t get entirely off the hook either. She correctly notes that this conversation concerned a movie about Bush, but still insists that this demonstrates some kind of nefarious lefty bias. But surely the reporter’s point is that contributing money to anyone except Bush would demonstrate less “potential bias” when you’re making a valentine of a movie about Bush.

Still, at least you can make up your own mind. The Corner’s version, conversely, is just a lie.