Daily Kos

Howler History of Kit Seelye

Mon Dec 29, 2003 at 10:33:28 AM PDT

 Did you know/remember that that before Al Gore was labeled "boring", the media was trying to label him NASTY & NEGATIVE?

 sounds familiar! kinda like "ANGRY" & "PESSAMISTIC".

 heres an interesting piece of Kit Seelye history.

SMILE-A-WHILE—KIT’S HOWLER HISTORY: How gong-like was Seelye during Campaign 2000? For just one bit of her clowning clownistry, consider her utterly clowning report on December 17, 1999.

Two nights before, Gore had staged a fund-raiser at Nashville’s Wildhorse saloon. (Bush had been in Nashville at the same time.) At the time, Gore was battling Bill Bradley for the Dem nomination, and the “press corps” had an Official Approved Script: Al Gore is too nasty and negative. Needless to say, Katharine Seelye was hunting for ways to pass on this Official Script. She exploited a spouse’s introduction:

SEELYE: [Bush and Gore] also collected money at the same saloon here, the Wildhorse, with Mr. Gore staging a fund-raiser Wednesday night and Mr. Bush following tonight, in his first fund-raising foray into Tennessee. Mr. Gore’s wife, Tipper, introduced him by saying, “He’s good enough, he’s smart enough,” an allusion to the idea that Mr. Bush lacks the intellectual heft to be president.

Engaging in her standard spin and dissembling, Seelye told readers that Tipper Gore had directed a shot right at Bush. But what had actually happened that evening? When Kriste Goad described the event for the Memphis Commercial-Appeal, she included what Seelye withheld:

GOAD: Tipper Gore has a master’s degree in psychology, so she said she felt qualified to say: “You’re good enough. You’re smart enough. And doggone it, people like you, Al.”

Mrs. Gore was cracking wise with her comedian friend Al Franken but later said the same goes for her Al, the Vice President of the United States and the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The crowd at Wildhorse Saloon roared with laughter Wednesday as Tipper and Al Gore clutched hands with Franken, political-comedy savant and creator of Saturday Night Live’s self-assuring Stuart Smalley.

As emcee of Al Gore’s final major fund-raiser of the primary season, Franken loosened up the audience between more than two hours of musical acts by Kim Richey, Aaron Neville and Donna Summer.


That’s right, gang! Tipper had been joking with Al “Stuart Smalley” Franken, whose presence Seelye knew not to mention. Seelye had a script and, doggone it, she typed it. So too with Clark-on-Iraq.

Bonus: Note the way Seelye pared down what Tipper Gore said. Because she had a spin to sell, the “doggone it” part just had to go. Readers, have we ever told you? “Kit” Seelye is a true world-class crackpot.

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