Real State of the Union (The Independent)

[numediaman]

The Independent (a British newspaper) ran the following story this morning . . . here is the link for the full story . . . excerpt below

link: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=482947

20 January 2004

George W Bush and the real state of the Union

Today the President gives his annual address. As the election battle begins, how does his first term add up?

232: Number of American combat deaths in Iraq between May 2003 and January 2004

501: Number of American servicemen to die in Iraq from the beginning of the war - so far

0: Number of American combat deaths in Germany after the Nazi surrender to the Allies in May 1945

0: Number of coffins of dead soldiers returning home from Iraq that the Bush administration has allowed to be photographed

0: Number of funerals or memorials that President Bush has attended for soldiers killed in Iraq

100: Number of fund-raisers attended by Bush or Vice-President Dick Cheney in 2003

13: Number of meetings between Bush and Tony Blair since he became President

10 million: Estimated number of people worldwide who took to the streets in opposition to the invasion of Iraq, setting an all-time record for simultaneous protest

2: Number of nations that Bush has attacked and taken over since coming into the White House

9.2: Average number of American soldiers wounded in Iraq each day since the invasion in March last year

1.6: Average number of American soldiers killed in Iraq per day since hostilities began

16,000: Approximate number of Iraqis killed since the start of war

10,000: Approximate number of Iraqi cililians killed since the beginning of the conflict

$100 billion: Estimated cost of the war in Iraq to American citizens by the end of 2003 . . .

[G4scott]

Sounds like someone's a bit bitter...

This is why I don't like to trust one-sided "pseudo-news" articles. They are rather biased and uninformative. It seems to be a form of hate speech that serves to attack one group, but do nothing for any other. It comes from the left, as well as the right (although I've seen a lot more from the left), and it just makes me wonder how people will take any news article for granted these days, without looking at the other side.

Oh well... now, to read the liberal rag know as the Daily Toxin, uh, I mean, Texan...

[zimv20]

Originally posted by G4scott

This is why I don't like to trust one-sided "pseudo-news" articles.

it's called an opinion piece

[Taft]

Originally posted by zimv20
it's called an opinion piece

To be fair, they never identify it as such.

What I don't like about these types of peices is that they lay out selective facts and basically say to the reader, "judge for yourselves." The problem with that is they are obviously biased in which facts they present. Any reader with half a brain can see that they are biased.

Now I don't mind bias when the person is making complete arguments. Everybody is biased in one way or another and arguments generally reflect those biases. However, there is a big difference between judging someone's arguments and judging a list of information provided. An argument can often be judged solely on its content. I think many people will judge such a simplistic list on its bias rather than on the information it contains.

By passing off such an obviously biased list of statistics as news, this paper loses credibility. Instead, they could have easily turned this into an editorial piece with cohesive arguments against a Bush re-election.

However, to label this article as "hate speech" is ludicrous. Conservatives have latched on to this term and applied it to ANY political attack or criticism. What exactly is hate speech? Is it content which obviously discriminates? Is it content which attacks a policy? Is it content which attacks a politician?

If I were to define hate speech it would be something like this: content which attacks an opponent without basis in policy or fact. Just because I don't like someone (or even hate someone) and I write about it doesn't mean that I am engaging in hate speech. If I have legitimate compaints with that persons behavior or policy, then it is fair to criticize that person, or even say that I personally don't like (hate) that person because of those actions and policies.

This article is based in fact. It may be biased. It may be unfair. But it is obviously singling out Bush's policies and saying, "THIS is why I don't like Bush." This is not hate speech.

Taft

[numediaman]

I picked up this piece off the Independent web site. It was not labeled "opinion" -- but the British papers handle these kinds of things very differently than US papers. Papers there don't pretend to be nonpartisan -- and the Independent clearly doesn't think much of Prez Bush.

I think many Bush supporters have no real clue how angry Europeans are about his policies. Today's Chi Tribune has a story on the front page about the Bush administrations objections to the World Health Organizations (WHO) fight against obesity. The original story appeared on the BBC web site on the 15th: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3414741.stm

Apparently, the Bush admin is mad because the WHO wants to warn people about excessive consumption of sugars and junk food. But then again, there is no obesity problem in the U.S.;)

[Neserk]

I'm confused. How is quoting actual numbers biased?

[Neserk]

*MY* state of the union addressed.

The economy is in the toliet. THe only thing that has kept it from being flushed is high gasoline prices and high housing costs.

Over 500 citizens of the United States have died in Iraq.

The "President" is a liar. In all fairness, that would go for anyone who has ever been in the white house but this is the guy who was suppose to "restore integrity" to the white house.

I still don't have health insurance.

Or a permanent job.

The bigots who run the country think that they can define marriage. And they might just get away with it for a few years.

Civil rights are a thing of the past.

We won't get into the state of the world...

[Sayhey]

Originally posted by G4scott
It seems to be a form of hate speech that serves to attack one group, but do nothing for any other.

Sorry for the length of the article below, but I HATE the use of this term to describe political criticism. This article, by Brendan Nyhan over at Spinsanity (http://www.spinsanity.org/columns/20031113.html) deals with the topic better than I could.

Over the last two months, the Republican Party has begun a systematic effort to label attacks on President Bush by Democratic presidential candidates as "political hate speech," a new piece of political jargon intended to delegitimize criticism of Bush. It appears this strategy will expanded in the coming months -- a recent memo from Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie urged party officials to adopt the term in their rhetoric.

Like "Enronomics" and "Daschlenomics", "political hate speech" is a carefully crafted term designed to create a hazy, non-logical association between two concepts. In this case, the phrase associates criticism of the president with "hate speech," which generally refers to speech that attacks others on the basis of their race, religion, ethnicity or sexual orientation. Of course, some rhetoric directed toward President Bush could fairly be described as hateful (just like any politician), but Republicans have used the term sweepingly to try to delegitimize nearly all criticism of Bush, regardless of its substance. This is a key tactic of political jargon, which often seeks to undermine the legitimacy of criticism by invoking hazy but powerful emotional symbols.

In addition, the phrase reverses the term "hate speech" by directing it back at liberals (another classic jargon tactic), who are associated with the term due to speech codes proscribing "hate speech" at certain colleges and universities. The use of the term "political hate speech" against Democrats thereby imparts an implicit, largely non-rational accusation of hypocrisy, even though no evidence is provided that the candidates in question support prohibitions on hate speech.

Attacks on liberals for "hate speech" have occurred before, most prominently in Bernard Goldberg's book Bias, which lists twelve alleged instances of "liberal hate speech" documented by the Media Research Center, many of which would not meet any fair-minded definition of the term. However, the RNC has recently made the term "political hate speech" central to its attacks on Democratic presidential candidates, repeating it over and over in statements, interviews and press releases. Gillespie's memo to RNC members and party officials, as quoted by ABC's newsletter The Note, instructs Republicans to "Highlight the party of political hate speech ... The presidential candidates have now called President Bush a 'miserable failure,' a 'liar,' compared him to a 'gang leader' and to Saddam Hussein himself. Americans instinctively know that anyone who's willing to demean the presidency in order to gain it is not worthy of having it entrusted to him."

Gillespie originally debuted the term during an appearance with Democratic National Committee chairman Terry McAuliffe on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sept. 7:

"The kind of rhetoric you hear from [Democratic presidential candidates] ... on either side of the aisle, Ronald Reagan never said Jimmy Carter couldn't find countries in his own hemisphere. Walter Mondale never said that President Reagan was a miserable failure. When Bill Clinton ran against President Bush, he didn't compare him to Saddam Hussein or the Taliban. And when Bob Dole ran against President Clinton, he didn't say that he was an absolute phony or a liar. The kind of words we're hearing now from the Democratic candidates go beyond political debate. This is political hate speech."

Gillespie was very explicit in attacking the legitimacy of the Democrats' statements when he said "The kind of words we're hearing now from the Democratic candidates go beyond political debate." Yet he was intentionally vague about what attacks he is condemning. Implicit comparisons to Saddam Hussein or the Taliban are inappropriate and unfair - though far from unprecedented in the post-Sept. 11 political environment - but the other statements are aggressive in the usual manner of partisan politics. (Needless to say, Republicans certainly did not pull their punches during President Clinton's term either.)

After the Democratic debate on Sept. 9, Gillespie was again quoted accusing the Democrats of "political hate speech" and asserted that "These kinds of harsh, bitter personal attacks are unprecedented in the history of presidential politics," an absurd claim given the vitriol of American political history, particularly in the 19th century. (He repeated the "political hate speech" label and the claim that the attacks were unprecedented during a Sept. 22 breakfast with the editors of the Christian Science Monitor.) The RNC press release on the Sept. 9 debate also invoked the phrase, but merely listed a number of statements from the candidates rather than offering an argument about why any of them constitutes "political hate speech."

In an interview with the New York Times on Sept. 10 that was part of the offensive, Gillespie implicitly suggested that Democratic attacks on the president hurt the war on terrorism, again trying to delegitimize their actions. "There is a contrast here," he said. "[W]hile President Bush is attacking the terrorists, the Democrats are attacking President Bush." (Gillespie also used the term on Sept. 16 on Fox News Channel's "The Big Story with John Gibson.")

On October 1, a RNC deputy press secretary, David James, turned the term against former Vermont governor Howard Dean, the frontrunner in the Democratic primary race, saying Dean "has demonstrated he's one of the masters of political hate speech." Like Gillespie, James also claimed the Democratic rhetoric was unprecedented and non-rationally contrasted it with the war on terrorism to try to undermine its legitimacy:

"Howard Dean also said in the Democratic primary debate in New York, 'George Bush is the enemy,'" James said. "The last time I checked, Osama bin Laden was the enemy. I don't think we've heard that sort of rhetoric coming out, at least not on the presidential level."

Three days later, Gillespie was quoted using the term in the Washington Post. On October 8, he then repeated it in on CNBC "Capitol Report" in sweeping form, claiming that "The Democratic field has engaged in political hate speech for the past six months."

By this point, the term was making its way into official RNC documents, including October 8 fact sheets on the California recall and an RNC gala, which both evidently proved that Americans are rejecting "attack politics and political hate speech."

In a Washington Times op-ed published on October 9, Gillespie was quoted trying to frame "political hate speech" as an attack on the institution of the presidency itself: "The attacks have moved beyond political rhetoric and into the realm of political hate speech. No one has ever won the White House by demeaning the presidency." Over the next month, Gillespie used the term frequently to attack Democratic candidates before, during and after debates, beginning with an October 9 press release prior to a debate. On October 24, he even demonstrated his psychic abilities before another debate, predicting that the Democratic candidates "will continue a pattern of political hate speech."

Other uses includes an October 12 Q&A with the Dallas Morning News; an October 21 RNC press release which used the term to attack Democratic opposition to one of Bush's judicial nominees; an October 23 speech by Gillespie in which he again suggested that Democrats are "willing to demean the presidency in order to gain it"; an October 27 briefing of reporters; a second appearance on CNBC "Capitol Report" on October 30; a November 3 RNC press release; and a November 5 news conference featuring Gillespie.

Finally, the most recent use of the term came in a November 10 article in the Des Moines Register, which highlights the way experts can use such jargon. Note the repetition of the phrase twice in three sentences:

"The Democrats are spending more and more on their political hate speech and pessimism and reaching fewer and fewer people," [RNC deputy press secretary David] James said. "It's the constant attacks on President Bush. It's the political hate speech that people are turning off. The president has a positive agenda, and that message is clearly resonating with Americans."

When Democratic presidential candidates cross the line in their rhetoric, they should be held accountable for their statements. But the blanket application of "political hate speech" is being used to undermine the legitimacy of criticism and dissent in principle -- a tactic which disturbingly echoes Bush's "changing the tone" rhetoric from Bush's campaign and early months of his presidency, which implicitly defined a changed tone as the absence of opposition to the President's policies. It is also a direct descendant to the many vitriolic attacks unleashed by Republicans and conservative pundits on those who have questioned Bush or the war on terrorism, including former RNC chair Marc Racicot's attempt to preclude any discussion of replacing Bush earlier this year. When John Kerry, a Democratic senator from Massachusetts and presidential contender, inappropriately compared regime change in Iraq to the 2004 election while the war was still ongoing, Racicot went even further, saying Kerry "crossed a grave line when he dared to suggest the replacement of America's commander-in-chief at a time when America is at war." The term "political hate speech" represents a continuation of these tactics by other means.

[zimv20]

here's the NYT op/ed piece about the SOTU

link (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/21/opinion/21WED2.html)


January 21, 2004

State of the Union Abroad

Last night President Bush surveyed the state of his foreign policy over the past year and, unsurprisingly, gave himself high marks. In truth, while there have been achievements, the last year of war in Iraq and stubborn unilateralism on issues ranging from the use of military force to environmental policy and trade have dominated and strained America's relationships with most of the rest of the world.

While it is too early to draw final conclusions about the ultimate success of military operations in Iraq, the fact is that Mr. Bush's decision to engage American forces so heavily without reliable intelligence, real international backing, legitimate United Nations authority or serious postwar planning has exacted a high price, for which he did not account in the rather glossy assessment in his State of the Union address. In last year's speech, Mr. Bush made frightening allusions to Iraqi unconventional weapons presumably available for immediate use, almost all of them subsequently discredited. A pale echo of those inflated claims appeared last night as cryptic references to Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities."

It was fitting that Iraq figured prominently in Mr. Bush's speech. No decent person regrets the toppling of a heinous dictator who murdered hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and Mr. Bush can claim credit for his capture. Libya's decision to end its nuclear and other weapons programs and allow inspections was welcome. And Afghanistan is showing the first buds of a democratic government.

But at this point, Mr. Bush's optimistic talk of a "new Iraq" that is free and stable is anything but assured. Iraq's Shiite majority and Sunni and Kurdish minorities are grappling for advantage against an essentially arbitrary American deadline for turning over sovereignty to an interim government. American war deaths now stand at over 500, and combat is continuing. Washington is finally asking the U.N. to help smooth the transition to democracy and ensure international legitimacy. But that decision, however welcome it was, followed nearly a year of rudely ignoring U.N. procedures, undermining the authority of the U.N. and ignoring some of America's most important allies.

The burdens of occupying Iraq for what looks certain to be many months to come have severely strained the long-term capacity of American ground forces, both regular Army and reserves. And while the White House has focused its attention on Iraq, other compelling and dangerous crises have been more or less put on hold, at potentially grave risk. By abruptly shifting its attention to Saddam Hussein before fully consolidating peace in Afghanistan, Washington has contributed to a situation where the Afghan central government rules little more than Kabul. While Mr. Bush talked of the Afghans "building a nation that is free, and proud, and fighting terror," the Taliban have re-emerged as a serious force barely two years after what seemed a crushing military defeat. Afghan warlords, at best a fractious bunch and at worst a mortal threat to Afghanistan's democracy, have armies that dwarf the national government's forces. The border with Pakistan remains porous to members of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

In the past year, North Korea has proceeded incrementally toward assembling a nuclear arsenal. Israeli-Palestinian relations have frozen into a seemingly intractable standoff, which poisons Arab attitudes toward the United States, yet the Bush administration is now making virtually no serious effort to push the hostile camps toward negotiations. And Mr. Bush's policies have badly damaged America's alliances with its most important economic and military allies in Europe. Latin American governments are more estranged from the United States than they have been for a long time. Washington was also centrally responsible for the collapse of trade talks that were aimed at ending the crushing unfairness of the rich nations' subsidies for crops that cannot compete on the open market.

Mr. Bush's one-sided emphasis on Iraq is not the only explanation for these multiple reverses, but it figures in all of them. That may explain why Mr. Bush largely passed over them last night.

[wwworry]

You might say the phrase "political hate speech" is a kind of political hate speech.

Nice find Sayhey.

[wwworry]

and why no word of the over-a-billion-a-day-in-new-debt fiscal policy?

[Neserk]

I was watching "Meet the Press" this morning and apparently Bush's approval rating went down after his State of the Union Address. Which is very unusual.

[Dont Hurt Me]

Originally posted by wwworry
and why no word of the over-a-billion-a-day-in-new-debt fiscal policy? There is no fiscal policy, just look at the spending bill he just signed. does he even know what a veto is? Fact of the matter is he has a spending habit and we and our children will be paying for it.