PREVIOUS POSTS IN THIS SERIES:
Introduction
Chris Benoit’s Son’s Medical Condition Sets Off a Media Frenzy
Linda McMahon Goes on “Good Morning America”
LET’S GO TO THE VIDEOTAPE
The audio of an interview Linda McMahon did for the ABC News Good Morning America website on June 28, 2008, can be heard at http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=3326657. In the interview, McMahon uses many of the same talking points in her television interview the same day with Robin Roberts, but this one does not have the exact language on TV referring to”the management and the schooling and the rearing of this child who had the mental retardation.”
I can no longer find the Robin Roberts TV interview online. Surely the video still exists, and if someone has it and can pass it along to me (tips@muchnick.net) or put it up on YouTube, that will be another valuable record for the 2010 Senate campaign. There is no point in my trying David Westin, the president of ABC News; Westin did not respond to my queries about the doctoring of the website transcript of a recent interview with McMahon promoting the piece that ABC’s Kate Snow did about her for weekend World News Tonight.
NEXT: The DA and WWE Back Off; What Does It All Mean?
Irv Muchnick
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Linda McMahon Goes on 'Good Morning America' (Part 3)
PREVIOUS POSTS IN THIS SERIES:
Introduction
Chris Benoit’s Son’s Medical Condition Sets Off a Media Frenzy
LINDA McMAHON GOES ON “GOOD MORNING AMERICA”
On June 28, 2008, Linda McMahon was interviewed by Robin Roberts on ABC’s Good Morning America. Here’s the money quote from Linda:
“And as we found out over the last, literally, probably over the last 48 hours, we found out about Daniel’s illness, which we did not know.... But we do understand now, in fact, I think the, the focus of this is really turning more to the tension that must have been happening between a husband and wife over, you know, the management and the schooling and the rearing of this child who had the mental retardation.”
(The full transcript can be viewed at http://muchnick.net/lindaongma.pdf.)
NEXT: Let’s Go to the Videotape
Irv Muchnick
Introduction
Chris Benoit’s Son’s Medical Condition Sets Off a Media Frenzy
LINDA McMAHON GOES ON “GOOD MORNING AMERICA”
On June 28, 2008, Linda McMahon was interviewed by Robin Roberts on ABC’s Good Morning America. Here’s the money quote from Linda:
“And as we found out over the last, literally, probably over the last 48 hours, we found out about Daniel’s illness, which we did not know.... But we do understand now, in fact, I think the, the focus of this is really turning more to the tension that must have been happening between a husband and wife over, you know, the management and the schooling and the rearing of this child who had the mental retardation.”
(The full transcript can be viewed at http://muchnick.net/lindaongma.pdf.)
NEXT: Let’s Go to the Videotape
Irv Muchnick
Linda McMahon and 'Fragile X Syndrome' (Part 2)
PREVIOUS POSTS IN THIS SERIES:
Introduction
CHRIS BENOIT’S SON’S MEDICAL CONDITION SETS OFF A MEDIA FRENZY
After World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Chris Benoit strangled his wife Nancy, snapped their son Daniel’s neck, and suspended himself by the throat from a home gym exercise machine, one aspect of the media frenzy concerned the medical condition of Daniel. (The bodies were found on June 25, 2007, after a weekend-long chain of events.) All this is explained fully in my book CHRIS & NANCY. During my book research, I blogged contemporaneously about this subject at these links:
“Crossing the T’s on Fragile X,” September 28, 2007, http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/archive-92807-crossing-the-ts-on-fragile-x/
“Back to Daniel Benoit and Fragile X Syndrome,” May 8, 2008, http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/archive-5808-back-to-daniel-benoit-and-fragile-x-syndrome/
In a nutshell:
(1) The loose-lipped district attorney of Fayette County, Georgia, scene of the crime, told the media that Daniel’s arm showed needle marks from injections of Human Growth Hormone by his parents, who were said to be concerned about the boy’s size. He was “small, even dwarfed,” DA Scott Ballard said.
(2) Hearing these reports, a woman in Vancouver, British Columbia, a Fragile X parent and activist, told a radio station there that her late husband had once contacted Chris Benoit (a native Canadian celebrity) about the possibility of Benoit’s becoming a Fragile X spokesman in Canada.
(3) Nancy Benoit’s family fired back in outrage, saying Daniel was a medically normal child. The chastened district attorney recanted.
And in the middle of all this, Linda McMahon, CEO of WWE, helped directed a 48-hour corporate media campaign, which exploited the vague and undocumented Fragile X story to divert public attention specifically from the large stash of steroids, growth hormone, and other drugs found in the Benoit home, and generally from the hideous culture of death in her industry.
NEXT: Linda McMahon Goes on “Good Morning America”
Irv Muchnick
Introduction
CHRIS BENOIT’S SON’S MEDICAL CONDITION SETS OFF A MEDIA FRENZY
After World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Chris Benoit strangled his wife Nancy, snapped their son Daniel’s neck, and suspended himself by the throat from a home gym exercise machine, one aspect of the media frenzy concerned the medical condition of Daniel. (The bodies were found on June 25, 2007, after a weekend-long chain of events.) All this is explained fully in my book CHRIS & NANCY. During my book research, I blogged contemporaneously about this subject at these links:
“Crossing the T’s on Fragile X,” September 28, 2007, http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/archive-92807-crossing-the-ts-on-fragile-x/
“Back to Daniel Benoit and Fragile X Syndrome,” May 8, 2008, http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/archive-5808-back-to-daniel-benoit-and-fragile-x-syndrome/
In a nutshell:
(1) The loose-lipped district attorney of Fayette County, Georgia, scene of the crime, told the media that Daniel’s arm showed needle marks from injections of Human Growth Hormone by his parents, who were said to be concerned about the boy’s size. He was “small, even dwarfed,” DA Scott Ballard said.
(2) Hearing these reports, a woman in Vancouver, British Columbia, a Fragile X parent and activist, told a radio station there that her late husband had once contacted Chris Benoit (a native Canadian celebrity) about the possibility of Benoit’s becoming a Fragile X spokesman in Canada.
(3) Nancy Benoit’s family fired back in outrage, saying Daniel was a medically normal child. The chastened district attorney recanted.
And in the middle of all this, Linda McMahon, CEO of WWE, helped directed a 48-hour corporate media campaign, which exploited the vague and undocumented Fragile X story to divert public attention specifically from the large stash of steroids, growth hormone, and other drugs found in the Benoit home, and generally from the hideous culture of death in her industry.
NEXT: Linda McMahon Goes on “Good Morning America”
Irv Muchnick
Linda McMahon and 'Fragile X Syndrome' (Part 1)
INTRODUCTION
Far from the clamor of electioneering, families across the country were heartened this week by a possible research breakthrough for cures of a genetic disorder called Fragile X Syndrome.
What this has to do with the Linda McMahon Senate campaign in Connecticut is like most things related to pro wrestling and death: tangential but revealing. For details, read on.
But first let’s use this opportunity to educate whoever is reading this on the tragic phenomenon of Fragile X and on today’s important news in the hope for a cure.
Lauran Neergaard, who covers health and medical issues for the Associated Press, did a thorough story yesterday about the clinical trials for a pill to treat Fragile X. A good link is http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gfjBuMAT2mLOwnO5GkJ8NOIQYMWg.
According to the National Fragile X Foundation (http://www.fragilex.org), Fragile X is the most common inherited cause of mental impairment. The syndrome occurs in approximately 1 in 3,600 males and 1 in 4,000 to 6,000 females. There are various symptoms, with divergence between the genders. The majority of males with Fragile X show significant intellectual disability, from learning disabilities to severe mental retardation and autism.
NEXT: Chris Benoit’s Son’s Medical Condition Sets Off a Media Frenzy
Irv Muchnick
Far from the clamor of electioneering, families across the country were heartened this week by a possible research breakthrough for cures of a genetic disorder called Fragile X Syndrome.
What this has to do with the Linda McMahon Senate campaign in Connecticut is like most things related to pro wrestling and death: tangential but revealing. For details, read on.
But first let’s use this opportunity to educate whoever is reading this on the tragic phenomenon of Fragile X and on today’s important news in the hope for a cure.
Lauran Neergaard, who covers health and medical issues for the Associated Press, did a thorough story yesterday about the clinical trials for a pill to treat Fragile X. A good link is http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5gfjBuMAT2mLOwnO5GkJ8NOIQYMWg.
According to the National Fragile X Foundation (http://www.fragilex.org), Fragile X is the most common inherited cause of mental impairment. The syndrome occurs in approximately 1 in 3,600 males and 1 in 4,000 to 6,000 females. There are various symptoms, with divergence between the genders. The majority of males with Fragile X show significant intellectual disability, from learning disabilities to severe mental retardation and autism.
NEXT: Chris Benoit’s Son’s Medical Condition Sets Off a Media Frenzy
Irv Muchnick
Program Note: Blog Series on Stamford Police and ‘Benoit Wikipedia Hacker’ Interrupted by Breaking News
There is still one part to go in our series “Linda McMahon Chronicles: Strange Tale of the Stamford Police and the ‘Benoit Wikipedia Hacker.’”
Because of a breaking new series of posts on another aspect of World Wrestling Entertainment’s despicable spin of the June 2007 double murder/suicide of star wrestler Chris Benoit, I’m going to hold off on the conclusion of the Stamford/Wikipedia story. I’ll get back to it in due course – and closer to the date of my March 25 book signing, at Borders in Stamford, for CHRIS & NANCY.
Irv Muchnick
Because of a breaking new series of posts on another aspect of World Wrestling Entertainment’s despicable spin of the June 2007 double murder/suicide of star wrestler Chris Benoit, I’m going to hold off on the conclusion of the Stamford/Wikipedia story. I’ll get back to it in due course – and closer to the date of my March 25 book signing, at Borders in Stamford, for CHRIS & NANCY.
Irv Muchnick
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Hartford Courant's Rick Green Pushes Muchnick Challenge to Linda McMahon
Rick Green, a columnist for the Hartford Courant, is one of the Connecticut journalists who gets it. What else am I supposed to say about someone who just blogged for the fifth time in 37 days about how my book CHRIS & NANCY: The True Story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide and Pro Wrestling’s Cocktail of Death is inconveniently shadowing the Senate campaign of Linda McMahon?
I will even forgive Green for continuing to call me “the Desperate Sportswriter from California.” As D.W. said in one of the Arthur books, “I’m not little and I’m not lost!”
In “Muchnick Invites Linda McMahon for a COCKTAIL OF DEATH,” http://blogs.courant.com/rick_green/2010/02/muchnick-invites-linda-mcmahon.html, Green reproduces the front and back of the postcard I just snail-mailed to McMahon’s Greenwich home, asking her — and her husband Vince and family members, and her World Wrestling Entertainment board of directors, and her campaign contributors and vendors — to join me at my March 25 book reading at Borders in Stamford, the home city of WWE.
I don’t think Linda will mind. After all, as she said on Face the State a couple of weeks ago, “I’ve worked and been in a business that is very testosterone-loaded.”
Irv Muchnick
I will even forgive Green for continuing to call me “the Desperate Sportswriter from California.” As D.W. said in one of the Arthur books, “I’m not little and I’m not lost!”
In “Muchnick Invites Linda McMahon for a COCKTAIL OF DEATH,” http://blogs.courant.com/rick_green/2010/02/muchnick-invites-linda-mcmahon.html, Green reproduces the front and back of the postcard I just snail-mailed to McMahon’s Greenwich home, asking her — and her husband Vince and family members, and her World Wrestling Entertainment board of directors, and her campaign contributors and vendors — to join me at my March 25 book reading at Borders in Stamford, the home city of WWE.
I don’t think Linda will mind. After all, as she said on Face the State a couple of weeks ago, “I’ve worked and been in a business that is very testosterone-loaded.”
Irv Muchnick
Linda McMahon Invited to Muchnick Book Signing for ‘CHRIS & NANCY’ in Stamford
Linda McMahon — Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut, and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment — has been invited to the book signing for Irvin Muchnick’s CHRIS & NANCY: The True Story of the Benoit Murder-Suicide and Pro Wrestling’s Cocktail of Death at Borders Book Shop in Stamford on March 25.
Here is the text of Muchnick’s postcard invitation:
You are warmly invited to the reading
and book-signing for CHRIS & NANCY:
The True Story of the Benoit Murder-
Suicide and Pro Wrestling’s Cocktail
of Death, at Borders Books, 1041 High Ridge
Road, Stamford, on Thursday, March 25,
7-9 p.m.
This invitation is being extended to, among
many others, Linda McMahon and Vince
McMahon; Paul “Triple H” Levesque and
Stephanie McMahon-Levesque; all members
of the WWE board of directors; and all Linda
McMahon campaign donors and vendors.
Please RSVP to RSVP@muchnick.net. We look
forward to seeing you March 25 at Borders!
A facsimile with four examples from the postcard mailing can be viewed at http://muchnick.net/invite.pdf. The examples are:
Lowell P. Weicker Jr. A former Connecticut U.S. senator and governor, Weicker is on the board of directors of WWE.
Lowell P. Weicker III. The son of Lowell P. Weicker Jr., “Trey” Weicker is a Linda McMahon campaign contributor.
Dan Malloy. The former mayor of Stamford and a Democrat, Malloy endorsed Linda McMahon, a Republican, when Governor Jodi Rell nominated her for the state Board of Education last year. Malloy is now running for governor himself.
Jerry S. McDevitt, Esq. McDevitt, a partner in the law firm K&L Gates, is WWE’s chief outside counsel.
For further information, contact Irvin Muchnick at media@muchnick.net.
Web: http://muchnick.net
Blog: http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com
Twitter: @irvmuch
YouTube: http://youtube.com/WrestlingBabylon
Here is the text of Muchnick’s postcard invitation:
You are warmly invited to the reading
and book-signing for CHRIS & NANCY:
The True Story of the Benoit Murder-
Suicide and Pro Wrestling’s Cocktail
of Death, at Borders Books, 1041 High Ridge
Road, Stamford, on Thursday, March 25,
7-9 p.m.
This invitation is being extended to, among
many others, Linda McMahon and Vince
McMahon; Paul “Triple H” Levesque and
Stephanie McMahon-Levesque; all members
of the WWE board of directors; and all Linda
McMahon campaign donors and vendors.
Please RSVP to RSVP@muchnick.net. We look
forward to seeing you March 25 at Borders!
A facsimile with four examples from the postcard mailing can be viewed at http://muchnick.net/invite.pdf. The examples are:
Lowell P. Weicker Jr. A former Connecticut U.S. senator and governor, Weicker is on the board of directors of WWE.
Lowell P. Weicker III. The son of Lowell P. Weicker Jr., “Trey” Weicker is a Linda McMahon campaign contributor.
Dan Malloy. The former mayor of Stamford and a Democrat, Malloy endorsed Linda McMahon, a Republican, when Governor Jodi Rell nominated her for the state Board of Education last year. Malloy is now running for governor himself.
Jerry S. McDevitt, Esq. McDevitt, a partner in the law firm K&L Gates, is WWE’s chief outside counsel.
For further information, contact Irvin Muchnick at media@muchnick.net.
Web: http://muchnick.net
Blog: http://wrestlingbabylon.wordpress.com
Twitter: @irvmuch
YouTube: http://youtube.com/WrestlingBabylon
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
