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Nice try, Novak. Johnny was NOT a Republican. Check the facts.

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President Jesus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:04 PM
Original message
Nice try, Novak. Johnny was NOT a Republican. Check the facts.
Johnny's political donations: http://www.newsmeat.com/celebrity_political_donations/Johnny_Carson.php

Plus, Johnny's closest friend Peter Lassaly said on Franken's show today that he was a "flaming liberal."

Bob Novak, like the idiot he is, tried to claim Johnny was a republican in the last seconds of today's Crossfire.

What a douchebag.
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flamingyouth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:06 PM
Response to Original message
1. ROFL - anyone who remembers his show knows the facts
Hello, Novak ... meet Floyd R. Turbo. I think watching a few clips of old Floyd pretty much shoots his theory out of the water. :D
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flamingyouth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:08 PM
Response to Original message
2. I just got the Afternoon Buzz from Buzzflash - great Tony Peyser toon
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Gato Moteado Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:09 PM
Response to Original message
3. novak=repuke=liar
it's a simple equation. and novac proves it almost every day.
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gordianot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:23 PM
Response to Reply #3
10. You forgot high crimes and treason.
Edited on Mon Jan-24-05 05:25 PM by gordianot
If a Democrat pundit had vetted a CIA agent, like Novak, he/she would be in jail possibly facing execution by now.
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coloradodem2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:11 PM
Response to Original message
4. Crossfire is still on?
I thought it was going off the air. God, how do idiots like Novak have jobs anyway.
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Stephanie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:15 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. There was a great piece about Novak on On The Media this weekend
on NPR - cited his long string of false stories over the years
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coloradodem2005 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:18 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. And yet this hack among hacks still has a news job.
If you want to call what he does news.
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Ian David Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:22 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. He was also a big donor to The James Randi Educational Foundation
A tribute to Johnny Carson by James Randi

A very bright light in my life has gone out.



Forgive me if what follows is a little disorganized, but I've just heard that we've lost Johnny Carson. It doesn't seem possible. We were in touch just a week ago.

I'm dropping this into the web page as a sort of catharsis. The phone has been ringing incessantly, and I'm hardly able to speak coherently to those who express their grief and shock.

Just a few years ago I asked John about his triple bypass and how it was affecting his life. Typically, he told me that it had made such a difference to him in so many ways, that he would recommend it to everyone, "whether they need it or not." I now regret that I was never able to ask him a burning question: whether he'd given up smoking. I suspect he hadn't, since those of us who appeared on his show were well aware that he smoked all through the taping, concealing that fact by waiting until the camera was on a guest and would probably stay there for at least 30 seconds. There was an exhaust fan under the desk, always a lit cigarette within reach, and the audience had been prompted to simply not notice that he was smoking in between camera shots. I mention this because it seems pretty evident that tobacco got the man, as it does so many of us. It makes me hate the product — and those who promote it — even more than I did previously; it took away my father, too.

John was generous, kind, and caring. The JREF received several checks — 6-figure checks — from this prince, because he really believed in what we were doing, he followed our web page closely, and he would call every now and then with comments and suggestions for subjects he believed to be important. The phone will never again give me the delight of hearing his voice, and that is the burden I will have to live with. I will miss him more than I can say.

There was always a bit of mystery connected with my appearances on the show. John would never wish to meet guests before they actually walked out onto the set, but I was accustomed to hearing at tap on the door about 10 minutes before airtime, opening it to find him standing there. He was thoughtful enough to want to ask me what I wished to promote during my appearance, and always had some sort of anecdote to share with me. Once, after he'd left my dressing room, I was asked by the prop man, "Do you know where the body's hidden, or something?" He just couldn't understand why John had broken his rule in my case.

When the famous expose of Peter Popoff occurred on his show, conditions had been somewhat changed over those that usually applied. Earlier that afternoon I had met with Fred DeCordova, his director, I had shown him the video footage that we had exposing Popoff's scam, and when Fred said that he would show the video to Johnny, I'd suggested that it might be better to surprise him. "No," Fred had insisted, "Johnny doesn't like surprises." "Well, just think for a moment about the expression he'll have on his face," I told him. That did it. We went on-camera that evening without Johnny knowing the big surprise — that Popoff had a concealed receiver in his ear. John let out an expletive that was dropped out of the tape before it was broadcast later in the evening, and DeCordova had to agree that we'd made the right decision.

John and I were fond of pertinent quotations. We'd exchange them by e-mail or phone, really, I suspect, trying to out-quote one another. Here's one I'll send him right here and now:

Love is a bad tenant for one's bosom; for when compelled to quit, he always leaves the mansion more or less out of repair. — C. F. Hoffman 1806-1884

I loved you, Johnny. We all did.

Yes, I'm rambling because I just don't know what else to say. I will miss Johnny Carson like no other person in my life. He was such a good man, one of my minor gods, and a good friend that I regret to say I did not meet again in person after he left TV so long ago. Just one small example, if I may, of how generous he was. When I called and asked him if he might place a telephone call to Martin Gardner on that gentleman's 90th birthday, John had no hesitation agreeing to do so. "I've got most of his books," he told me, "and it'll be fun to speak with him." They did speak, on the afternoon of Martin's birthday, for some 20 minutes. That's the kind of gentleman that Johnny Carson was.

John, I will miss you, as will so many millions here and around the world, but your legacy lives on. I've just run out of words.

----------



Well, he's done it again, folks. When I returned from Italy, I found the usual pile of mail awaiting me, and one small hand-addressed envelope from Johnny Carson. In his letter, referring to a recent appearance by speaking-to-dead-folks John Edward on a popular TV show, Johnny expressed dismay at the acceptance afforded such a farce. The enclosed very generous check expressed his willingness — again — to support the work of the JREF. We are substantially encouraged by Johnny's participation, and we promise that his contribution will be assiduously applied to getting the facts out there to interested persons all over the world. It's so good to have friends, and Johnny Carson is one of The Good Guys who have reached out to us. Sincere thanks.
http://www.randi.org/jr/092702.html

Monday, November 08, 2004

Most people know that James Randi is legally obligated to give $1,000,000 to the first person who can prove the existence of "paranormal" powers in a properly-constructed test. Not everyone knows that a lot of the money was fronted by his buddy Johnny Carson, who also started out as a professional magician. You can find hundreds of web pages about albino midget bicycle porn, but sadly, far as I can tell, www.randi.org is the only web site that carefully debunks paranormal flim-flammery, with a good sense of humor and regular weekly updates.
http://www.mcnett.org/2004/11/most-people-know-that-james-randi-is.html


In 1973, Carson had a legendary run-in with popular psychic Uri Geller when he invited Geller to appear on his show. Carson, an experienced stage magician, wanted a neutral demonstration of Geller's alleged abilities, so, at the advice of his friend and fellow magician James Randi, he gave Geller several spoons out of his desk drawer and asked him to bend them. Geller proved unable, and his appearance on The Tonight Show has since been regarded as the beginning of Geller's fall from glory.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Carson


FIGHTING AGAINST FLIMFLAM

Leon Jaroff

(From: Time Magazine Australia, 1986, June 13, p. 50-52.
Reprinted with permission in Investigator 3, 1988 November)

The studio audience at the Tonight show in Burbank is strangely silent, staring intently at the proceedings on the stage. A shirtless volunteer lies face up on a table, behind which stands a short, balding man with a fringe of white hair, a bushy beard and piercing green eyes. He kneads the exposed abdomen with both hands, presses one thumb down and draws it across the skin. A trickle, then a stream of blood appears. The audience gasps. Now his hand thrusts into the abdomen and, accompanied by a sickening squishing sound, pulls up a clump of bloody tissue. Host Johnny Carson grimaces. A groan of revulsion sweeps the crowded studio; one woman faints.

Again the hands plunge down, bringing up more gore and then a tubular organ, which the bearded man stares at momentarily. "Oh, no! That doesn’t come out," he apologizes, his eyes suddenly twinkling, and pushes it back into the body. The spell is broken and the audience roars, then titters nervously as he proceeds to remove additional gore. Finally he wipes away the blood, revealing an expanse of unbroken, unscarred skin.

What millions of people have just seen is a demonstration of "psychic surgery." The blood had been donated by a volunteer before the show; the "diseased tissue" consisted of shreds of lamb heart, hidden in a tray behind the table and manipulated by the facile hands of a master magician: James ("the Amazing") Randi, 59, conjurer, showman, crusader and America’s most implacable foe of flummery. The props and the techniques are those used by the so-called psychic surgeons of the Philippines, who promise miraculous, painless, lifesaving surgery to lure desperately ill people to their clinics. But what the sufferers get is sleight of hand, not surgery, and Randi’s goal is to spread that message. "These people go to the Philippines," he explains, "they spend their money, and they return home, in most cases to die."


Finally, in 1987, a skeptic named James Randi exposed Popoff's scam on the Johnny Carson Show. The reverend's wife was feeding him info-blurbs on frequency 39.17 MHz, according to an article in Science and the Paranormal magazine. Popoff listened to his wife's transmissions on a tiny earpiece. Ironically, the healer insisted the device was a hearing aid.
http://www.idsnews.com/story.php?id=26408
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moggie12 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:29 PM
Response to Reply #7
12. Wow, great post -- thanks (I loved Johnny...) n/t
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immoderate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:52 PM
Response to Reply #7
16. The Carson-Randi partnership will be largely overlooked...
These men were performing a great service for humanity. Randi carries on as one of the most powerful forces in the world whose mission it is to fight ignorance and superstition. Carson was one of the few who would not give credibility to those grifters.

--IMM
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Stephanie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:22 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. Link to NPR story and the Washington Monthly story it was based on:
Edited on Mon Jan-24-05 05:23 PM by Stephanie
Novak Rules

Conservative columnist and pundit Robert Novak has built a mini-media empire by tapping highly placed sources for insider news about Washington politics. The "Prince of Darkness," has also earned his share of infamy, most recently after outing undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame. The search for the source of that information resulted in jail terms for two prominent journalists, but not for Novak. Bob talks to Washington Monthly editor Amy Sullivan, author of a recent profile of Novak.
X ARTIST: Geri Allen, Charlie Haden, Paul Motian TRACK: In the Year of the Dragon ALBUM: In the Year of the Dragon LABEL: JMT Productions

http://www.onthemedia.org/

Transcript is not up yet, but it's an interview with the author of this article:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0412.sullivan.html

Bob in Paradise
How Novak created his own ethics-free zone.
By Amy Sullivan

<excerpt> His journalistic judgment, however, is not always as keen as his political nose. Consider just a few Novak highlights from the past fall. In August, when the members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth went after John Kerry, Novak used his column and television appearances to hype their claim that Kerry had lied his way into receiving medals in Vietnam, and flacked their book, Unfit for Command, with a glowing review. When Novak attended a party at Morton's Steakhouse in downtown Washington to celebrate the book's success, he was joined by the director of marketing for its publisher, Regnery Publishing: his son, Alex Novak. In the six years that Alex has been in charge of promoting Regnery products, Novak has positively reviewed at least four Regnery books for conservative magazines and has favorably mentioned others in his column and on his television shows—all without disclosing his relationship to the publishing house. He dismisses any criticism as politically motivated, and insists that he and his son don't discuss the books. But he has another connection to the publishing house that also goes unmentioned. Tom Phillips, the owner of Regnery, also owns Eagle Publishing, which distributes the “Evans-Novak Political Report,” available to subscribers for an annual $297 rate.

In September, Novak wrote about remarks made at an off-the-record dinner party by the CIA's top specialist on the Middle East, Paul Pillar. The CIA officer was one of the authors of a recent National Intelligence Estimate and he claimed at the dinner that the CIA had warned the White House in January 2003 that war with Iraq could unleash a violent insurgency in the country. Novak wasn't at the dinner, which was conducted under established background rules—the substance of Pillar's remarks could be reported, but not his identity or his audience. But someone there told Novak about it. So Novak, apparently feeling bound by no rules, outed Pillar by identifying him as the speaker. It's a trick he uses often—others attend off-the-record meetings or briefings, tell him about it, and he reports not just what was said, but fingers those who spoke as well.

Less than a week before the 2004 election, Novak resuscitated one of his favorite charges—that Democrats steal elections. He hit the note regularly after Mary Landrieu narrowly defeated Woody Jenkins to win Louisiana's open Senate seat in 1996, even though a congressional investigation dismissed similar charges. And he has repeatedly claimed that “the Indians” stole South Dakota's 2002 Senate election “by stuffing ballot boxes.” Novak made the comment again on “The Capital Gang” in October, months after South Dakota's Republican governor had called his charges “ignorant” and the state Republican party chair deemed his statements “appalling” and “insane.” It's a case, his friend and colleague Mark Shields observed to me, of Novak “toeing the party line even when it ceases to be the party line.”

Any one of these recent sins—plugging the books of the publisher that is providing income to one's family without disclosing the connection, repeatedly parroting an incendiary political charge that has proven to be false, or outing a CIA agent—might have been enough to put another journalist or columnist into scalding hot water. But Novak's actions have raised few eyebrows, and he brushes off the occasional complaints like crumbs from his vest. <more at link>
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w4rma Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 08:02 PM
Response to Reply #4
19. Right-wing propagandists make ALOT of money these days. (nt)
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DemoTex Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:23 PM
Response to Original message
9. Great Carson quote on Bartcop
Democracy is buying a big house you can't afford with money you don't have to impress people you wish were dead. And, unlike communism, democracy does not mean having just one ineffective
political party; it means having two ineffective political parties. ... Democracy is welcoming people from other lands, and giving them something to hold onto -- usually a mop or a leaf blower. It means that with proper timing and scrupulous bookkeeping, anyone can die owing the government a huge amount of money. ... Democracy means free television, not good television, but free. ... And finally, democracy is the eagle on the back of a dollar bill, with 13 arrows in one claw, 13 leaves on a branch, 13 tail feathers, and 13 stars over its head -- this signifies that when the white man came to this country, it was bad luck for the Indians, bad luck for the trees, bad luck for the wildlife, and lights out for the American eagle.


Johnny Carson
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No Exit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:25 PM
Response to Original message
11. Novak is about the least trustworthy source out there right now!
No one should listen to a word that that smug liar says!
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moggie12 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:31 PM
Response to Original message
13. Now he's gone too far
Treason may not have gotten people's attention, but lying about Johnny Carson? Novak's gonna take a fall.
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DURHAM D Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:34 PM
Response to Original message
14. Fox News claimed yesterday (Sunday) that Johnny Carson
was a Fox fan.

They know he is dead and that he can't deny their lies.
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kskiska Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 05:44 PM
Response to Original message
15. John Gibson just tried the same thing on Faux
Edited on Mon Jan-24-05 05:45 PM by kskiska
While interviewing Phyllis Diller, he asked, "Was he a Red State guy?" Phyllis, obviously, isn't into the political scene or lingo, and didn't understand what he meant by that. He then said…"the heartland," which she took to mean where he was from. Gibson kept trying to push it, but Phyllis didn't bite.

Gibson made an ass of himself by opening the interview with, "What does it mean that Johnny Carson is gone?" Phyllis answered, "It means he's dead, John." The rest of the interview continued in this manner.

He asked her what Johnny did for her career. She said nothing, because it was Jack Paar who launched her. She was already a star when she appeared on Johnny's show.
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flamingyouth Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 07:58 PM
Response to Reply #15
18. ROFL - "It means he's dead, John"
If only I could stomach Faux News - I would have loved to have seen the look on his face when she said that. :D
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kskiska Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 06:15 PM
Response to Original message
17. Blast from the Past (via Drudge)
Edited on Mon Jan-24-05 06:48 PM by kskiska
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX MON APRIL 29 2002 13:08:27 ET XXXXX

JOHNNY CARSON BREAKS SILENCE: KNOCKS FOX FOR TOO MUCH PATRIOTISM AT SUPER BOWL; THINKS BUSH IN ENRON COVER-UP

**Exclusive Details**

(snip)

Reporter Bill Zehme has been courting Carson for years and the relationship has paid off in spades: On May 8th, ESQUIRE rolls out an exhaustive exclusive interview with the press-shy Carson, running 10 pages.

Carson rips FOX for its Super Bowl red-white-and-blue coverage following 9/11: "When you look at the production -- give me a break!" Carson says. "Norman Mailer said something about patriotism being a nice thing, but just ease up a bit... It's nice to live in this country, but ease up!"

Carson takes on Bush: "Can you believe this Enron mess? I love how his good friend 'Kenny Boy' suddenly turned into 'Mr. Lay'... Give me a break! It will be a long time before we ever understand what's going on behind that story."

(snip)

Developing...
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 08:11 PM
Response to Original message
20. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
President Jesus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jan-24-05 08:50 PM
Response to Reply #20
21. great first post. thanks for sharing.
:freak:
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