More proof of Leftist media bias... [Archive]

Taft

May 4, 2004, 09:40 AM

...NOT!

This is an interesting case, though. Dan Rather was personally contacted and withheld the story on that basis. Does this have ties with Bush? Is this a common occurrance in reporting on the war?

It makes you question the objectivity of the major media in this country. Could they be pandering to the right? <incredulous>But that goes contrary to every piece of conservaitve propoganda I've ever heard!!!</incredulous> :rolleyes:

Anyway, here's the story...

CBS News says it held prison abuse story

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By David Bauder

May 3, 2004 | NEW YORK (AP) -- CBS News delayed reporting for two weeks about U.S. soldiers' alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners, following a personal request from the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.

Gen. Richard B. Myers called CBS anchor Dan Rather eight days before the report was to air, asking for extra time, said Jeff Fager, executive producer of "60 Minutes II."

Myers cited the safety of American hostages and tension surrounding the Iraqi city of Fallujah, Fager said, adding that he held off as long as he believed possible given it was a competitive story.

With The New Yorker magazine preparing to run a detailed report on the alleged abuses, CBS finally broadcast its report last Wednesday, including images taken last year allegedly showing Iraqis stripped naked, hooded and being tormented by U.S. captors at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

Fager said he felt "terrible" being asked to delay the broadcast.

"News is a delicate thing," he said. "It's hard to just make those kinds of decisions. It's not natural for us; the natural thing is to put it on the air. But the circumstances were quite unusual and I think you have to consider that."

Bob Steele, a journalism values scholar at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, said there should be an "exceptional principle and argument" to justify withholding news of such magnitude.

"You'd have to be convinced that these other American lives are truly on the line," he said. "I would want to have a very specific and short time period (to withhold the news). If CBS believes it was justified, to hold back two weeks seems like an awful long time. Perhaps a day or two. But two weeks is a long time, particularly with the nature of the allegations in the video."

Steele said he was troubled that CBS did not disclose during the show that the images had been withheld. "This is very important," Steele said. "There should have been a disclosure at the time of the broadcast."

Fager said he believed the story was better because of the delay; CBS was able to interview Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt about the alleged incidents because the network waited.

Myers, speaking on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, confirmed that he asked CBS for the delay.

"You can't keep this out of the news, clearly," Myers said. "But I thought it would be particularly inflammatory at the time."

Fager knew that CBS had to consider safety issues in deciding when to run the story. "We can't just be acting in a void," he said. "There's a war going on and Americans are at risk, especially the ones that are being held hostage. It concerns us."

Although one American hostage recently escaped and others may have been killed, at least one hostage is still believed held in Iraq.

Steele pointed out that Iraqi prisoners could have been at risk, too.

"Allegations of this nature, the violation of the rights of the enemy prisoners, should not be taken lightly in the slightest," he said. "It's possible that their lives could be in jeopardy as well. ... it's not impossible to consider that at least their health, if not their lives, were at risk."

Taft

mactastic

May 4, 2004, 10:38 AM

Ah that liberal media. They'll even go so far as to hold off on a story that might be damaging to the president. :eek:

With a liberal media like that, why even have a conservative media? :p

numediaman

May 4, 2004, 11:50 AM

That shining example of liberal media, Bill O'Reilly, is at it again. For some reason he continues to target Canada for his venom:

O'Reilly also complained about several points in a Canadian Press story on Thursday.

"Hey you pinheads up there, I may be pompous, but at least I'm honest," O'Reilly was quoted as saying in a New York Times story. But the commentator says he was referring to Globe & Mail staff, not Canadians in general, who he says are good people.

"I got nothing against the Canadian people but in the last few years you've swung dramatically to the left," he says. "And we in America have some questions about that."

How do you like the "we" in America bit? It's nice of O'Reilly to designate himself America's spokesman.

mactastic

May 4, 2004, 11:55 AM

I love how he also forgets (or deliberately omits) that while it may appear to him that Canada has swung 'dramatically' to the left, he forgets that seeing something move doesn't necessarily mean it is moving, or that it is the only thing moving. Just ask Einstein.

SlyHunter

May 4, 2004, 01:15 PM

here is a site dedicated to documenting left wing media bias
http://www.fightthebias.com/

comparisson democrats to Republicans interesting
http://www.fightthebias.com/Archives/Issues/31/31.htm

A CBS reporter provides proof of medi bias

Think the media are biased? CONSERVATIVES HAVE BEEN crying foul for years, but now a veteran CBS reporter has come forward to expose how liberal bias pervades the mainstream media. Even if you've suspected your nightly news is slanted to the left, it's far worse than you think. Breaking ranks and naming names, Emmy Award-winning broadcast journalist Bernard Goldberg reveals a corporate news culture in which the close-mindedness is breathtaking, journalistic integrity has been pawned to liberal opinion, and "entertainment" trumps hard news every time. In his three decades at CBS, Goldberg repeatedly voiced his concerns to network executives about the often one-sided nature of the news coverage. But no one listened to his complaints-or if they did listen, they did nothing about the problem. Finally, Goldberg had no choice but to blow the whistle on his own industry, to break the code of silence that pervades the news business. Bias is the result. As the author reveals, "liberal bias" doesn't mean simply being hard on Republicans and easy on Democrats. Real media bias is the result of how those in the media see the world-and their bias directly affects how we all see the world.

http://www.fightthebias.com/fight_liberal_media_bias.htm

Another site dedicated to the research of medi bias and this one has better examples of it.
http://www.mediaresearch.org/

SlyHunter

May 4, 2004, 01:20 PM

Mocking Bush’s Freedom Push

Kerry’s Loyal Media Servants
Bob Woodward: “The President still believes, with some conviction, that this [the Iraq war] was absolutely the right thing, that he has the duty to free people, to liberate people, and this was his moment.”
Mike Wallace: “Who gave George Bush the duty to free people around the world?”
Woodward: “That’s a really good question. The Constitution doesn’t say that’s part of the Commander-in-Chief’s duties.”
Wallace: “The President of the United States, without a great deal of background in foreign policy, makes up his mind and believes he was sent by somebody to free the people — not just in Iraq, but around the world?”
Woodward: “That’s his stated purpose. It is far-reaching, and ambitious, and I think will cause many people to tremble.”
— Exchange on CBS’s 60 Minutes, April 18.

ABC: Inflame First, Verify Later
How do you explain to Americans how you got that so wrong, and how do you answer your opponents who say that you took this nation to war on the basis of what have turned out to be a series of false premises?”
— ABC’s Terry Moran to President Bush at his prime time news conference on April 13.

“Two and a half years later, do you feel any sense of personal responsibility for September 11th?”
— New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller to Bush.

“Two weeks ago, a former counter-terrorism official at the NSC, Richard Clarke, offered an unequivocal apology to the American people for failing them prior to 9/11. Do you believe the American people deserve a similar apology from you, and would you be prepared to give them one?”
— CBS’s John Roberts to Bush.

“One of the biggest criticisms of you is that whether it’s WMD in Iraq, post-war planning in Iraq, or even the question of whether this administration did enough to ward off 9/11, you never admit a mistake. Is that a fair criticism? And do you believe that there were any errors in judgment that you made related to any of those topics I brought up?”
— NBC’s David Gregory to Bush.

“With public support for your policies in Iraq falling off... quite significantly over the past couple of months, I’d like to know if you feel that you’ve failed as a communicator?”
— National Public Radio’s Don Gonyea to Bush.

“Arab language TV channels reporting from the battle zone, and local residents who witnessed the fighting, say the 40 killed in one mosque included people taking part in afternoon prayers. The main hospital is overflowing. The casualties appear to include many civilians. ‘Why do they have to do this?’ said this boy from his hospital bed. ‘So many dead and I can’t walk anymore. Why?’ The Marines have sealed off Fallujah completely. Even the phone lines are down. There’s no way to independently verify the facts.”
— ABC’s David Wright reporting over matching video from al-Jazeera, on the April 7 World News Tonight.

Our Soldiers “Victims, Not Heroes”

“Treating soldiers fighting their war as brave heroes is an old civilian trick designed to keep the soldiers at it. But you can be sure our soldiers in Iraq are not all brave heroes gladly risking their lives....During the last few years, when millions of jobs disappeared, many young people, desperate for some income, enlisted in the Army. About 40 percent of our soldiers in Iraq enlisted in the National Guard or the Army Reserve to pick up some extra money and never thought they’d be called on to fight. They want to come home....We must support our soldiers in Iraq because it’s our fault they’re risking their lives there. However, we should not bestow the mantle of heroism on all of them for simply being where we sent them. Most are victims, not heroes.”
— CBS’s Andy Rooney in a syndicated column published in the April 12 Buffalo News.

Why Report? Just Deride

“The President [said again] today there was nothing in the daily briefing he received on August 6, 2001, that told him, quote, ‘Oh, by the way, we’ve got intelligence that says something is about to happen in America.’ His administration thus seemingly on the verge of resembling the old joke about the man who loses his wallet on a city street at night. A policeman finds him searching for it under a street lamp and asks, ‘Is this where you lost it?’ And the man replies, ‘No, I lost it over there in the dark.’ The policeman says, ‘Then, why are you looking under the street lamp?’ And the man answers, ‘Because it’s not so dark over here.’”
— MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on the April 12 edition of Countdown.

http://www.mediaresearch.org/notablequotables/2004/nq20040426.asp

Keep in mind when I am talking about media bias I am only including those media outlets who swear they are not biased. I am not including biased news shows like Rush Limbaugh, Neal Boortz, Air America, those shows that admit to their biases up front.

zimv20

May 4, 2004, 01:27 PM

why do i have the feeling that sly is trying to demonstrate a left-wing bias by posting long articles from right-wing sites?

oh, the irony!

mactastic

May 4, 2004, 01:27 PM

I am only including those media outlets who swear they are not biased.

You mean like FOX?

takao

May 4, 2004, 01:54 PM

You mean like FOX?

you mean the FOX with the german dauther company FOX Germany which produced the "FOX tönende Wochenschau"..which was one of the backbones of the 33-45 propaganda ?........(the other 2 "wochenschau" producers didn't have sound/pictures combined.....so FOX was preferred ...)

i just wanted to add that....i doubt everybody knows that...

Lyle

May 4, 2004, 02:07 PM

Mocking Bush’s Freedom Push...To be fair, I lump people like Keith Olberman and Andy Rooney in with people like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, etc. I don't think any of them can seriously claim to be "journalists"; they're commentators with pretty obvious biases.

I think the thing that bothered me most about Mike Wallace's interview with Bob Woodward was the condescending attitude they displayed when they were taking about Bush's "duty" to free people around the world. What you don't pick up from the transcript, but which was clear when you watched it on "60 Minutes", is a gesture that Wallace made while he was speaking the line "... [Bush] believes he was sent by somebody to free the people...". At the word "somebody", Wallace paused, glanced upward and gave a little grin, clearly indicating that the "somebody" in question was God.

Regardless of what he (Mike Wallace) meant to convey with that little display, what a lot of people took away from that was, "Mike Wallace is an elitist who thinks that people who believe in God are idiots".

Lyle

May 4, 2004, 02:09 PM

you mean the FOX with the german dauther company FOX Germany which produced the "FOX tönende Wochenschau"..which was one of the backbones of the 33-45 propaganda ?........(the other 2 "wochenschau" producers didn't have sound/pictures combined.....so FOX was preferred ...)

i just wanted to add that....i doubt everybody knows that...Not only didn't I know that, I still don't know what I didn't know. ;)

For those of us who have no idea what you're talking about, could you elaborate on what the "FOX tönende Wochenschau" and the "33-45 Propaganda" refer to?

Taft

May 4, 2004, 02:12 PM

AAAARRRRRRGGG!

Sly, I die a little bit inside every time you post this tripe.

here is a site dedicated to documenting left wing media bias
http://www.fightthebias.com/

...

Another site dedicated to the research of medi bias and this one has better examples of it.
http://www.mediaresearch.org/

Neither of these sites could possible qualify as proof of a liberal media bias. Why? Because both sites were created on the assumption that the media is biased towards a liberal agenda. Their whole purpose and reason for existance is to prove that there is a media bias.

Now, you might be asking, how does this differ from "proper" proof? Well, via the scientific process, that's how.

To determine bias, you must take many, many criteria into account. For example, citing a single quote from a single anchor's mouth is most certainly NOT proof of a liberal media bias. Rather, you would want to look at trends in a reporter's collection of "questionable" quotes. Another tactic you might use is to look at the stories an editor passed over vs. chose to run. This might give an indication of a larger trend in how they select news. This, in the long term, could indicate a bias.

Similar exercises could be constructed to look at how much "negative" press was given to candidates and politicians of each political party. Same with the positive.

But this is such a complex process (and expensive!!!) that no-one has ever done a comprehensive study. Which publications would you choose? What is considered "mainstream" media? What qualifies as a "negative" story? "Positive?"

The interesting thing about the story I posted is that it plays into a larger trend which has been covered on these boards many times: that the press has frequently treated the war on terror and in Iraq with kid gloves. You may or may not agree with that statement, and admittedly proof is a little hard to come by. But many here feel that the press should have covered the war on terror and the war and Iraq less positively, as so much has gone wrong in both efforts.

Taft

zimv20

May 4, 2004, 02:19 PM

Sly, I die a little bit inside every time you post this tripe.

i am LOVING the ignore feature in this case

But this is such a complex process (and expensive!!!) that no-one has ever done a comprehensive study.
i've seen such a study, and posted it here. now where was it....?

i'll have a look later

Taft

May 4, 2004, 02:22 PM

Regardless of what he (Mike Wallace) meant to convey with that little display, what a lot of people took away from that was, "Mike Wallace is an elitist who thinks that people who believe in God are idiots".

You ever hear that line about those who ass.u.me?

Anyway, there is a BIG difference between a person who believes in God and a person who believes that God has sent them to "free the people of Iraq." One is religious, the other has delusions of grandeur.

Do you believe that God has sent you to perform *specific* duties here on Earth? If so, did God talk to you? How does one know if they are "destined" to perform a specific task by the order of God?

This reminds me a little of the woman who recently killed all of her kids and used God as her excuse. Check it out. (http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/news/state/040904_APstate_childrenslain.html)

So how do we tell those who are "destined" from those who are insane? Seems like a fine line to me.

Taft

takao

May 4, 2004, 02:27 PM

Not only didn't I know that, I still don't know what I didn't know. ;)

For those of us who have no idea what you're talking about, could you elaborate on what the "FOX tönende Wochenschau" and the "33-45 Propaganda" refer to?

does a bell ring for you when i say 1933-1945 ?

sorry for being unprecise..i thought "propaganda" + "germany" + "33-45" was enough

but fox aren't the only one with a grey history because of that era.. (bayer,agfa,and a big list of other companies which made money with the war...including ibm....)

zimv20

May 4, 2004, 02:32 PM

link (http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1982860)

Bush 9/11 Admission Gets Little Play

Published: September 19, 2003

[...]

So when President George Bush admitted on Wednesday, for the first time, that there was "no evidence that Hussein was involved with the September 11th" attacks, one would assume that would be big news and an opportunity for the press to make up for past failings.

And according to some newspapers, it was a big story. The Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune (both owned by the Tribune Co.) ran front-page stories on the revelation Thursday. But an analysis of most major American newspapers found the story either buried deep within the paper -- or completely absent.

Of America's 12 highest-circulation daily papers, only the L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune, and Dallas Morning News ran anything about it on the front page. In The New York Times, the story was relegated to page 22. USA Today: page 16. The Houston Chronicle: page 3. The San Francisco Chronicle: page 14. The Washington Post: page 18. Newsday: page 41. The New York Daily News: page 14.

The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal didn't mention it at all.

Large papers outside of the top 12 that ran the news on Page One include The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Lyle

May 4, 2004, 02:34 PM

So how do we tell those who are "destined" from those who are insane? Seems like a fine line to me.So, to sum up, you believe that Christians who believe that they communicate with God (e.g. through prayer) and that God has a purpose for their lives are borderline insane. Whether you intended to or not, you've pretty much made my point about the condescending, elitist attitude towards Christianity.

Taft

May 4, 2004, 02:51 PM

So, to sum up, you believe that Christians who believe that they communicate with God (e.g. through prayer) and that God has a purpose for their lives are borderline insane. Whether you intended to or not, you've pretty much made my point about the condescending, elitist attitude towards Christianity.

Get over it. I AM Christian.

But I have a real problem with people who use God's name for their own purposes. I asked a very real question in my post: how do you determine those who have REAL purpose directly from the will of God from those who are lying or just plain insane? Its absolutely impossible, at least from my perspective.

What would you say (as a conservative, I'm assuming) if I came out and said, "I believe that God wants me to campaign against all conservatives in the upcoming election"? Yes, I think that God's plan is for me to work against the evil conservatives and help the good liberals to rebuild this country in a compassionate and giving manner. How's that for offensive? Here I am, taking something that you believe strongly in (conservatism) and saying that God's plan is for me to destroy it.

So which is it? Am I delusional, or did God give me a purpose?

I don't agree with the war in Iraq. I think it was perpetrated with ill intent, a lack of foresight, a lack of support and without proper evidence. On top of that, the person who perpetrated the war says that God gave this to him as his mission. MY God supposedly told Bush to persue this war I believe to be morally wrong. Can you see my problem with that? Can you see how moral relativism plays a big part in our difference of opinion?

And this is EXACTLY why I have a problem with people who use God as the "man with the plan." People use God's name all the time to justify their selfish desires, actions and words. How do we know Bush is any different than the delusional women who killed her sons?

Taft

zimv20

May 4, 2004, 02:58 PM

i've seen such a study, and posted it here. now where was it....?

supposedly it is here (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20093-2003Aug5.html), but the post is having archive troubles now so i can't be sure

numediaman

May 4, 2004, 02:59 PM

How do we know Bush is any different than the delusional women who killed her sons?

Taft

The difference: as Head of State, Bush has immunity.

skunk

May 4, 2004, 03:01 PM

SlyHunter

May 4, 2004, 06:04 PM

why do i have the feeling that sly is trying to demonstrate a left-wing bias by posting long articles from right-wing sites?

oh, the irony!
The irony would be a left wing site that admitted the truth of left wing media bias. Where else would you have expected me to get the facts from?

SlyHunter

May 4, 2004, 06:08 PM

Another prime example is how the media treated Trent Lott Versus how they treated Bob Dobbs over stupid unforthought out comments. Apparently they both left their speach writers at home.

and

Just because someone goes out of there way to prove media bias (like I do for example) doesn't mean they use fictitous data.

IJ Reilly

May 4, 2004, 07:29 PM

SlyHunter

May 4, 2004, 07:37 PM

pinto32

May 4, 2004, 07:40 PM

Here's a thought: We take all of the people who believe that God is on their side, and put them in one place, where they can fight it out among themselves. Then we can determine definitively who's side God is really on. I would be willing to give them Antarctica for this noble experiment.

That has got to be one of the greatest ideas I have ever heard, not only in a joking mannor either....so many people (including bush) think that god has selected them to do this or do that, and will reward them in the afterlife.....that is why we have terrorism AND the war on terror......terrorists attack us because they feel that we are infidels that must die at the behest of Allah.....we attack all Muslims because the guy in the white house thinks that god gave him the election, and wants him to bring christianity to the mid-east.

pinto32

May 4, 2004, 07:44 PM

I just scanned every cable channel I have and guess how many is right now broadcasting live pictures of us attacking Karbala right this second. That clerics thugs was setting up road blocks and check points while the Iraqi police kept themselves locked in their offices. So the US said no more and are now taking them out.

I am in the library and thus have no access to a TV, but I would hope all of them cover it, as it is credible news.

As far as your accusations of bias, did you happen to flip around the cable news channels during most of the 9-11 hearings? Fox barely had any of it on, giving it sporratic and selective live coverage, and opting instead to use 10 second clips later in the night. On the other hand, CNN and MSNBC had the full testimony braodcast live throughout the day. Hows that for bias???

SlyHunter

May 4, 2004, 08:49 PM

I am in the library and thus have no access to a TV, but I would hope all of them cover it, as it is credible news.

As far as your accusations of bias, did you happen to flip around the cable news channels during most of the 9-11 hearings? Fox barely had any of it on, giving it sporratic and selective live coverage, and opting instead to use 10 second clips later in the night. On the other hand, CNN and MSNBC had the full testimony braodcast live throughout the day. Hows that for bias???
Why would FOX need to have it on when everyone else did? How many people need to cover the same story.

mactastic

May 4, 2004, 10:05 PM

SlyHunter

May 4, 2004, 10:12 PM

If that's FOX's approach, then why were they covering Michael Jackson's arraignment right along with everyone else? :)

Come on Sly, how come FOX wouldn't cover one and would cover the other even though all the other networks were covering both events? They couldn't possibly be biased, could they? I mean they're 'Fair and Balanced' right?
Not all of their shows are "fair and balanced". Hannity and Colmes is fair and balance, the news shows are fair and balance but like everyone else they have opinion shows too. When I talk about liberal media I am not including those shows that are clearly biased because that is the way their show is. I'm talking about those News shows that try to pretend to be simply reporting the news yet they throw in their biased slant.

Besides FOX is one in a forest of wolven liberals. One channel that actually reports the other side of the news out of all those other liberal channels. Can't we just have one? One that actually tells us the truth.

mactastic

May 4, 2004, 10:15 PM

Sly, if FAUX tells the truth, why are it's viewers the most misinformed about current events?

Krizoitz

May 4, 2004, 10:33 PM

That has got to be one of the greatest ideas I have ever heard, not only in a joking mannor either....so many people (including bush) think that god has selected them to do this or do that, and will reward them in the afterlife.....that is why we have terrorism AND the war on terror......terrorists attack us because they feel that we are infidels that must die at the behest of Allah.....we attack all Muslims because the guy in the white house thinks that god gave him the election, and wants him to bring christianity to the mid-east.

Further proof that liberals are just as arrogant as they claim the religious right to be. You think its only people who believe in God who cause war and terror? WRONG. Look at communism. People use ideoligies to cause wars because they can manipulate people. God has nothing to do with war, and anyone who blames religion for war doesn't understand that most people who believe are against war. Just like you have environmentalist extremeists who commit crimes in the name of their cause you have people who "CLAIM" that violence is justified. We have terrorism and the war on terror because individuals make choices and use religion as an excuse for their behavior. We shouldn't discriminate against people who believe in God anymore than we should discrimate against people who believe in recycling because a few extremeists do bad things. Why not instead of blaming the idea we blame the people who commit the crimes.

Neserk

May 4, 2004, 10:38 PM

why do i have the feeling that sly is trying to demonstrate a left-wing bias by posting long articles from right-wing sites?

oh, the irony!

ROFL

Neserk

May 4, 2004, 10:41 PM

The difference: as Head of State, Bush has immunity.

Why? that is crazy. He acted illegaly. He should be held responsible for it...

IJ Reilly

May 4, 2004, 11:08 PM

Further proof that liberals are just as arrogant as they claim the religious right to be. You think its only people who believe in God who cause war and terror? WRONG. Look at communism. People use ideoligies to cause wars because they can manipulate people. God has nothing to do with war, and anyone who blames religion for war doesn't understand that most people who believe are against war. Just like you have environmentalist extremeists who commit crimes in the name of their cause you have people who "CLAIM" that violence is justified. We have terrorism and the war on terror because individuals make choices and use religion as an excuse for their behavior. We shouldn't discriminate against people who believe in God anymore than we should discrimate against people who believe in recycling because a few extremeists do bad things. Why not instead of blaming the idea we blame the people who commit the crimes.

I specifically directed my modest proposal towards those who claim God is on their side. As nearly as I can tell, you've imputed a more general blame being placed on religion all by yourself (which is interesting, I suppose). No, of course religion isn't the only ideology for which people will happily take up the cudgel in an unjust cause. All ideologies have this potential because the certainty that rectitude belongs to them and them alone tends to come with the package.

Krizoitz

May 4, 2004, 11:53 PM

I specifically directed my modest proposal towards those who claim God is on their side. As nearly as I can tell, you've imputed a more general blame being placed on religion all by yourself (which is interesting, I suppose). No, of course religion isn't the only ideology for which people will happily take up the cudgel in an unjust cause. All ideologies have this potential because the certainty that rectitude belongs to them and them alone tends to come with the package.

I found it offensive that you're idea for a group of people who have a set of beliefs you disagree with is shipping them off and assuming that means they will kill each other. Simply because one believes that God supports them does not make them an extremist zealot. Why limit it to God? Why don't we take any two or more groups of people whose beliefs seem to imply mutual exclusivity of the truth.

Sayhey

May 4, 2004, 11:58 PM

I found it offensive that you're idea for a group of people who have a set of beliefs you disagree with is shipping them off and assuming that means they will kill each other. Simply because one believes that God supports them does not make them an extremist zealot. Why limit it to God? Why don't we take any two or more groups of people whose beliefs seem to imply mutual exclusivity of the truth.

calm down and reread his post.

IJ Reilly

May 5, 2004, 01:30 AM

takao

May 5, 2004, 05:13 AM

Besides FOX is one in a forest of wolven liberals. One channel that actually reports the other side of the news out of all those other liberal channels. Can't we just have one? One that actually tells us the truth.

hmmm have you read my earlier post in this thread about the "FOX tönende Wochenschau" ("FOX sounding weekly news") ? where they telling the truth from 1933 to 1945 ?

they had no problem with taking money for making propaganda movies/news for a brutal regime ...

BTW:
".. We ,the people of the United States do not depend on the love or grace of other nations; we live from our own national strength. The time is long past when the USA expected its salvation from abroad. Such international help was always lacking when it was most needed during the postwar period. It appeared only when international money and stock capital believed that it could earn vast profits by helping the USA. We could simply say that Europe is far away, with a big ocean separating us. What do we care about what they think, write or say about us?..."

slyhunter would you say this opinion is OK and has a truth behind it, if a politician said this ?

numediaman

May 5, 2004, 08:17 AM

More proof of liberal bias in the media:

Oops, I posted the same story that appeared here:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=70632

How dare you guys beat me to the punch!

SlyHunter

May 6, 2004, 11:58 AM

mactastic

May 6, 2004, 12:25 PM

The other day on TV I heard the hosts interview a bunch of right wingers without any response from the left. Just more 'proof' of a conservative media bias, eh? :p

takao

May 6, 2004, 12:30 PM

SlyHunter

May 6, 2004, 12:31 PM

my aunt did the same 20 years ago ... others go to rome and held prayers in front of st. peters...
what's wrong with that ? people are doing this all the time in private life...others are reading prayers to their children ...same thing

as long as a politician doesn't talk about things like "i'm sent from god" "i receive messages from god" "kill the infidels"....religion is everybodys own business
The Democrats are saying "its a ploy" demanding an apology from Frist commenting how dare he etc. Kinda like they did when Bush landed on that aircraft carrier.

Taft

May 6, 2004, 01:06 PM

A new example I heard on the radio earlier.
Press reported a long while ago about Kerry going to Israel and he was quoted talking about standing on the mound Jesus stood and reading some prayer to those who were with him. I didn't here allot of stuff about this good or bad but I hear it was all good reporting what little there was.

Now Fist goes on that same mound and reads from the Lords Prayer I think it was and the media is having a field day about how dare he does he think he's Jesus?

Yes! You are so right! Look at the elite media working themselves into a frenzy over this issue! I can't even step out of my house without hearing about Frist "reading from the mound!"

Errrr...

Come to think of it, I've never heard this story before. And, after doing a quick search on google (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Frist++prayer&btnG=Search) and the NYTimes (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?submit=Search&submit.x=0&submit.y=0&query=frist%20prayer&date=past30days&sort=closest&date_select=past30days&srchot=s&srchst=&srcht=s&frow=20&) (supposedly the Democratic attack dogs, no?), I found nothing.

Now, I would believe that somebody, somewhere criticized Frist for this prayer. But the criticism was hardly as widespread or zealous as you implied.

So, care to give me some links to the "nasty liberals" having a field day with this prayer from Frist? Or is it safe to say you either made this "scandle" up or exxagerrated the response from the left? Let me know...

Taft

skunk

May 6, 2004, 01:07 PM

Kinda like they did when Bush landed on that aircraft carrier.
Don't remind me... :mad:

skunk

May 6, 2004, 01:08 PM

Or is it safe to say you either made this "scandle" up or exxagerrated the response from the left? Let me know...

Taft
Burning the scandle at both ends again, I see! :p

SlyHunter

May 6, 2004, 01:50 PM

Yes! You are so right! Look at the elite media working themselves into a frenzy over this issue! I can't even step out of my house without hearing about Frist "reading from the mound!"

Errrr...

Come to think of it, I've never heard this story before. And, after doing a quick search on google (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Frist++prayer&btnG=Search) and the NYTimes (http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?submit=Search&submit.x=0&submit.y=0&query=frist%20prayer&date=past30days&sort=closest&date_select=past30days&srchot=s&srchst=&srcht=s&frow=20&) (supposedly the Democratic attack dogs, no?), I found nothing.

Now, I would believe that somebody, somewhere criticized Frist for this prayer. But the criticism was hardly as widespread or zealous as you implied.

So, care to give me some links to the "nasty liberals" having a field day with this prayer from Frist? Or is it safe to say you either made this "scandle" up or exxagerrated the response from the left? Let me know...

Taft
Can't paste a link to a radio news report I heard on the radio.

Checked the site couldn't find that news report either but did find this one.

This is one of those stories that almost too good to be true...it's almost difficult to imagine how someone could be this stupid. But they are, so here we go. Wanda Baucus, wife of Democratic Senator Max Baucus, got into it at Johnson's Garden Center in Washington D.C. She wound up assaulting someone, for which she was later charged. And what was all this over?

A bag of mulch.

That's right, a bag of mulch. Apparently Mrs. Baucus was upset that someone was being served ahead of her and decided to strike the woman in the face and body several times. She must have snapped. Maybe the person was annoying. Who knows? Baucus says he is standing by his wife, and no one would expect him to do anything different.

Anyway, notice how this is being covered in the media. Outside of a passing mention here or a link there, not much coverage. What if say, it had been the wife of Republican Senator Bill Frist? Why then you know it would be top story team coverage!

Something to think about when it comes to bias in the media.

http://boortz.com/nuze/200404/04222004.html

wwworry

May 6, 2004, 05:34 PM

So you want to use Bob Woodward, a registered republican, as an example of the left-wing media bias?

And the questions asked at the press conference were all legit. The GOP is a bunch of panseys who cry foul anytime anyone asks them an even vaguely challenging question. Then they go and spread lies about their "enemies". There have been studies done to death on this and it shows there is no left wing media bias. SlyHunter and the republicans mistake factual reporting, like that Trent Lott praised the dixiecrat platform, for bias. They can't even own up to their own mistakes and would rather that that, for supposed right wing patriotism, the media did no reporting at all.

What a bunch of whiners. :rolleyes:

SlyHunter

May 6, 2004, 06:21 PM

mactastic

May 6, 2004, 06:23 PM

Show me where the factual reporting on Bob Carr's praise of a KKK guy saying he would've made a great president during the civil war. I havn't seen it on any of the liberal air waves.

Only if you show us where the factual reporting on this supposed flap over a prayer by Frist is.... :D

numediaman

May 6, 2004, 06:27 PM

While you guys have been arguing with Sly, I came across two interesting items -- one not reported by the US press, another from the British press:

First, here is an interested item concerning the $$ costs of the war in Iraq:

Nordhaus' study for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences shows the cost to American taxpayers of World War I to have been $199 billion (in 2002 dollars). *Thus, even without the emergency $25 billion appropriation for this year, by next year the adjusted cost of the Iraq War to American taxpayers will have exceeded the cost paid to wage The Great War. *

If Congress appropriates the $25 billion requested by the White House, the cost of the Iraq war will reach $174 billion.

Second, here is the cover of the next issue of that left wing financial rag:

zimv20

May 7, 2004, 01:09 AM

Second, here is the cover of the next issue of that left wing financial rag:
yes, my copy showed up yesterday. no time to read it yet.

if anyone doubts the conservative nature of the Economist, they haven't read any of the past 18 months' worth of editorials supporting bush and the invasion of iraq.

edit: i'm confused, the previous issue showed up yesterday

Krizoitz

May 7, 2004, 06:00 AM

Anyway, notice how this is being covered in the media. Outside of a passing mention here or a link there, not much coverage. What if say, it had been the wife of Republican Senator Bill Frist? Why then you know it would be top story team coverage!

Something to think about when it comes to bias in the media.

Why should this be a story? Why does the fact that she is the wife of a Democratic make it news worthy? Now MAYBE if he had done it then it would be a story. Or if she had killed someone. So she got in a fight? Let her get fined and move on.

Liberal bias? The news channels did a pretty good job of uncovering every little tid bit about the Monica Lewinski scandal.

Come on Sly. You have to offer us solid proof if you want us to believe you.

SlyHunter

May 7, 2004, 08:42 AM

Why should this be a story? Why does the fact that she is the wife of a Democratic make it news worthy? Now MAYBE if he had done it then it would be a story. Or if she had killed someone. So she got in a fight? Let her get fined and move on.

Liberal bias? The news channels did a pretty good job of uncovering every little tid bit about the Monica Lewinski scandal.

Come on Sly. You have to offer us solid proof if you want us to believe you.
Solid proof is the amount of press When Trent Lott made that stupid statement vs no press when Bob Carr just recently did the same.

Taft

May 7, 2004, 10:22 AM

Solid proof is the amount of press When Trent Lott made that stupid statement vs no press when Bob Carr just recently did the same.

First, which Bob Carr are you speaking of? Are you talking about this Bob Carr (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Carr)? He is the Premier of New South Wales.

If so, are you *#$%@&$ kidding me???? Are you really asking the question, "why was there a big uproar in America when an American senator made a questionable comment, but when the Premier of New South Wales made a similar comment, there was no uproar in America?"

I mean, sure, he's a liberal. But he is neither an American politician nor is he as prominent as Lott, given that Lott was the House Majority Leader. Can you imagine why the press would not be as interested in reporting on a less prominent figure from another flippin' country? I hope so. So maybe you should take this silly argument over the pond and try to sell it to the fine people of New South Wales. I'm sure they will be outraged to hear that their media is so biased to the left. :rolleyes:

Or, maybe you mean this Bob Carr (http://www.stennis.gov/Congressional%20Bios/bobcarr.htm)? This Bob Carr was a congressman. The only problem? He left politics in 1995.

So again, what should the media choose to report on: when the House Majority Leader makes a potentially racist comment or when a congressman who has been out of politics for 8 years makes a potentially racist comment? Seems pretty obvious to me. When was the last time you heard a piece of news about [insert a congressman who retired from politics over 8 years ago here]? You don't hear about them often. Why? Because the public simply doesn't care.

Taft

zimv20

May 7, 2004, 12:11 PM

i'm detecting a sample size problem. sly, come armed w/ a study or don't come at all.

Taft

May 7, 2004, 12:58 PM

i'm detecting a sample size problem. sly, come armed w/ a study or don't come at all.

Heck, I'd settle for actual incidences of bias. The tripe Sly has posted here certainly doesn't qualify.

Taft

SlyHunter

May 7, 2004, 01:06 PM

Taft

May 7, 2004, 02:16 PM

I got the guys name wrong. Problem is there isn't allot of publicity. A Democrat Senator stated that another Democrat Senator would be perfect for president for all ages implying including the Civil War when that senator was a member of the KKK.

This was reported on hannity's radio station and his television show Hannity and Colmes. I had to rely on memmory and I could've swore he said the guys name was Carr but it just happened not more than 2 months ago.

I actually took the effort to look it up the guys name is Chriss Dodd not blair I remembered the name wrong.
http://sportsforum.ws/showthread.html?t=131531&page=6

Its a forum I found via fox news web site about it. I still havn't found the news story yet I don't have the time to go physically looking for all this stuff.

Full text of the Dodd quote:
It has often been said that the man and the moment come together. I do not think it is an exaggeration at all to say to my friend from West Virginia that he would have been a great Senator at any moment. Some were right for the time . ROBERT C. BYRD , in my view, would have been right at any time . He would have been right at the founding of this country. He would have been in the leadership crafting this Constitution. He would have been right during the great conflict of civil war in this Nation. He would have been right at the great moments of international threat we faced in the 20th century. I cannot think of a single moment in this Nation's 220-plus year history where he would not have been a valuable asset to this country. Certainly today that is not any less true.

Full text of the Lott quote:
I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either.

I'd say there is a pretty big differenc between the two, wouldn't you?

Lott is directly referencing Thurmond's run for president. Thurmond only ran once, and he did so on a segregationist platform. Lott basically admitted to voting for a segregationist (though probably did not intentionally mean it like that). Then he went on to say that if the segregationist (aka. racist) would have won, "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

Pretty damning, even if it was a slip of the tongue.

On the other hand we have Dodd, who was generally praising Byrd's political career. While Byrd may have been a member of the KKK in the past, that was long before his political career. He never ran on a segregationist platform. In fact, his voting record on civil rights has been highly progressive. Finally, he said that Byrd "would have been right at any time." That's pretty vague. Did he mean "at any point in our country's history" or "at any point in Byrd's life?" From the rest of the quote I'd assume the former.

In one case we have a politician praising a specific divisive incident, in the other we have a politician praising another politician's general leadership ability and how that would have been valued at any point in our country's history.

I don't see the two as comparable.

Taft

mactastic

May 7, 2004, 04:12 PM

IJ Reilly

May 7, 2004, 04:42 PM

Oh and by the way, isn't the fact that Bill Clinton's sex scandal got so much more press time than the scandals of Henry Hyde, Bob Livingston, and Newt Gingrich put together kind of throw cold water on your 'liberal media' theory? If the media was so liberal, how come they didn't focus on the GOP cheaters?

To which it will be replied, "The scandal wasn't about the sex, it was about the lie about the sex."

To which I will reply, "Oh, sure it was."

Now we'd don't have to go there all over again. ;)

SlyHunter

May 7, 2004, 06:28 PM

Full text of the Dodd quote:

Full text of the Lott quote:

I'd say there is a pretty big differenc between the two, wouldn't you?

Lott is directly referencing Thurmond's run for president. Thurmond only ran once, and he did so on a segregationist platform. Lott basically admitted to voting for a segregationist (though probably did not intentionally mean it like that). Then he went on to say that if the segregationist (aka. racist) would have won, "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either."

Pretty damning, even if it was a slip of the tongue.

On the other hand we have Dodd, who was generally praising Byrd's political career. While Byrd may have been a member of the KKK in the past, that was long before his political career. He never ran on a segregationist platform. In fact, his voting record on civil rights has been highly progressive. Finally, he said that Byrd "would have been right at any time." That's pretty vague. Did he mean "at any point in our country's history" or "at any point in Byrd's life?" From the rest of the quote I'd assume the former.

In one case we have a politician praising a specific divisive incident, in the other we have a politician praising another politician's general leadership ability and how that would have been valued at any point in our country's history.

I don't see the two as comparable.

Taft
He was a member of the KKK during the civil war. And Dodd said he would've been a perfect "leader" during the civil war.

SlyHunter

May 7, 2004, 06:32 PM

Chris Dodd wasn't Senate Majority Leader either. Let's see, when Bill Clinton was accused of a sex scandal and Newt Gingrich also was, whose sex scandal got more press coverage? That's right, the higher profile one.

Oh and by the way, isn't the fact that Bill Clinton's sex scandal got so much more press time than the scandals of Henry Hyde, Bob Livingston, and Newt Gingrich put together kind of throw cold water on your 'liberal media' theory? If the media was so liberal, how come they didn't focus on the GOP cheaters?
If I were President I'd be inviteing Michelle Gellar, Allysa Myllano, the Olsen twins (after their 18th birthday of course) and others to try out the Lincoln bedroom. The only bad thing I saw about the Clinton sex escapades was he could've chose better after all he was the president for Gods sake.

I have no idea how the liberal market protrayed him I didn't pay much attention to politics until after 9/11. I do think he was wrong for committing perjury irregardless to the topic and playing games like "depends on what you mean by alone after all even when I'm alone I'm not really alone," or "depends on how you define is as." That is typical Democrat tactic that doesn't go well with me.

Krizoitz

May 7, 2004, 07:15 PM

He was a member of the KKK during the civil war. And Dodd said he would've been a perfect "leader" during the civil war.

Wait, are you saying that Senator Byrd who was born in 1917 was a member of the KKK during the civil war which ended in 1865?

Dodd is saying that Senator Byrd as he is NOW would be a great leader, not that at any point in his life he would be a great leader. Thats the difference. Lott praised Thurmonds entire career including his time as a segregationist.

numediaman

May 7, 2004, 08:32 PM

He was a member of the KKK during the civil war. And Dodd said he would've been a perfect "leader" during the civil war.

On another thread I challenged you to come up with proof that Kerry said he was personally a war criminal. Now I challenge you again: one, prove he was a member of the KKK during the Civil War; two, prove he was alive during the Civil War.

[edit]

screener

May 7, 2004, 09:01 PM

Give Sly a break, he hasn't been following politics long enough.
Sadly he came under Fox News' spell and Hannity's fair and balanced
views, he's right and everyone else is wrong.
Once he grows up and learns to think for himself he'll be able to see
that the truth is somewhere between opposing views.
As for the religious aspects, believe what you want and don't push it
on your neighbours.
I really can't stand holier than thou types.
Just my two cents worth.

screener

May 7, 2004, 09:57 PM

I take back, "give him a break"
Iv'e been reading some of his previous posts
which I probably should have seeing as I have
been following these threads sporadically.
[edit]

mactastic

May 7, 2004, 10:15 PM

Ok, that's a good way to get yourself banned. No name calling in this forum, no matter what you think of the person. Attack the ideas, not the person.

We're trying to make this place more civil, not less.

SlyHunter

May 7, 2004, 10:34 PM

On another thread I challenged you to come up with proof that Kerry said he was personally a war criminal. Now I challenge you again: one, prove he was a member of the KKK during the Civil War; two, prove he was alive during the Civil War.
It proves I'm not perfect.
He looks old enough to have been alive during the civil war.
Anyhow my point was relatively simple

Mr. Byrd was a member of the KKK. He was, and possibly still is, a racist. That I do not know, nor do you.
There is no difference in these situations, except in the mind of one as biased and partisan as you are. Mr. Lott made an unfortunate statement to make an old man happy on his birthday. Mr. Dodd made an unfortunate statement for whatever reason. Both statements, by themselves, were "throwaway" statements. The partisan media made a big deal about Mr. Lott's, but completely ignored Mr. Dodd's.

http://sportsforum.ws/showthread.html?t=131531&page=6

And that was the limit of my point. The press makes a big deal when a Republican isn't perfect, but comes up with excusses when a Democrat flops.

mactastic

May 7, 2004, 10:42 PM

SlyHunter

May 7, 2004, 10:55 PM

The size of the flap is in proportion to the importance of the person. Chris Dodd really isn't that high on the pecking order. Trent Lott was the leader of the Senate. Guess who got more attention?

Newt Gingrich was Speaker of the House. Bill Clinton was the POTUS. Guess who's sex scandal drew more attention?

And that aside, just because you can cite one instance of your supposed bias in the media doesn't mean you can claim that as a pattern. Everytime you start heading in this direction you come up with 'Trent Lott this, Chris Dodd that' or 'Bob Carr this, Trent Lott that'. Trent Lott seems to be the only instance you can point to for justification of your supposed 'leftist media' dung.
Other examples I've noted over time is when one station reports on Guns that has been used in violence then they all do. I sat here and switched from station to station once and they were even using the same words just offset by a couple of seconds. For weeks they harped on it. Then I went browsing on the internet and started wondering how come they never reported on people using guns to save lives. Especially one incident that happened right here on the East coast and wasn't reported even by our local news.

I notice time and time again that these stations all report the same exact news. That they purposely seem to headline news that support their or the liberal agenda and minimize any news that is contrary to that. That is what convinced me to start watching FOX news. I got tired of the same ol crap on tv.

Then one day suddenly they stop talking about (for example) gun control and start talking about birth control. Wonders of wonders everyone of them stopped talking about gun control and everyone of them started talking about how stupid abstenance is. Ok come on are they following a script or something. Why did they choose the same exact day to change topics and why did they all change to the same one. There is allot of news out there why do they all harp on the same stuff. Even the same case examples. There are hundreds of thousand of samples about anything they want to report but somehow they consistently are all talking about the same 3 or 4. Its almost liek they are lazy and there is only one team of investigative journalist who all sell their stories to all of the stations.
You know on average there is at least one bank robbery a week going on in Central Florida. I know this because I work for the banks. They do their best to keep it quiet but its public record. Right now the press is ignoring it. Not more than a year ago they were all reporting on it like it was an epidemic. Ok did that epidemic suddenly go away? No, they got board of reporting it and moved on. All at the same time. They all report the same crap.

FOX is unique they don't follow the herd.

mactastic

May 7, 2004, 11:02 PM

FOX is unique all right....

SlyHunter

May 7, 2004, 11:07 PM

FOX is unique all right....
And yes I have busted them once a long time ago in pressing their own agenda and completly ignoring a fact that was opposite of their position. I wish my memmory was good enough that I could lay it properly out but I can't. They didn't lie, they just ignored the fact that opposed their point of view just like the other channels. Means they aint perfect either.

Had something to do with a grown man went to jail for statutory rape of a girl who was 17 years of age. Hannity kept stating he should be flogged for kidnapping the girl. Problem is the fact was the girl ran away and considers that man to be her boyfriend. He did not kidnap her. Yes its still statutory rape and it was still a jailable offense. But you are talking about a 22 year old not a 50 year old pedophile. Doesn't matter Hannity kept calling the girl sweet and innocent while totally ignoring the fact that the girl ran away from home they guy didn't even help her. She showed up at his house and then he was wrong after words but she most deffinitely wasn't innocent.

Wasn't a big deal that they ignored that tidbit. Its the only mistake I've caught them on and compared to those other channels its nothing.

zimv20

May 8, 2004, 12:19 AM

FOX is unique all right....
ah, yes, the media source that's been shown to have the most misinformed viewers.

SlyHunter

May 8, 2004, 12:29 AM

ah, yes, the media source that's been shown to have the most misinformed viewers.

In this poll, people were given three statements to respond to as true or false.

Saddam Hussein was actively supporting Al Quaeda.
Saddam Hussein was deploying weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
The U.S. invaded Iraq with the full support of the international community.
At the time of the poll there was ample evidence that all three statements were known to be false.

More than half of those polled believed statement number one. At least a third believed number two and number three.

The study revealed that while only 23% of those who relied on NPR or PBS for news believed one or more of the propositions, 55% of those who relied on CNN did and 80% of those who relied on Fox News did.

Back in early November when I was in DC I saw a small piece in the Washington Post that related to this poll. It was not headline news, but buried somewhere in section A of the paper. The focus of the article was not the poll results, but that a Fox News vice president was upset because the poll made Fox look bad. As I recall, more than 50% of the ABC, NBC and CBS news viewers polled accepted one or two of the statements as true. They didn't do that much better than Fox viewers.

What I find most disconcerting about these poll results is that after they were published no media outlet, not CNN, not NPR, or CBS or ABC or NBC or Fox, no major newspaper like the Washington Post or the New York Times took the poll results and accepted the responsibility of informing the public that it was laboring under false beliefs. Why wasn't every network and every major newspaper in the country blaring headlines in huge print to point out that these beliefs were verifiably wrong? Just where does the media's responsibility to the public lie? The only direct statement that I saw published was a Doonesbury cartoon in which its author, Gary Trudeau, skipped the usual daily sequence and used the cartoon space to announce in big bold print that there were no WMDs.

My principal distress with the publication of these poll results is not that more than half the nation was misinformed by the propaganda machine, but that when the poll made it irrefutably obvious that the majority of the public was misinformed the media saw absolutely no obligation to rectify the situation with accurate factual information that was readily available and thereby failed to respond. I acknowledge that the absence of any significant response to that poll from the corporate media was a sin of omission, not of commission. (Yes, I did see the child drowning in the pool, but I didn't want to get my good clothes wet, so there was nothing I could do.) The corporate media reneged on its principal responsibility to the public it alleges to serve.

http://www.callipygia600.com/growingold/media.htm

Krizoitz

May 8, 2004, 01:25 AM

Saddam Hussein was actively supporting Al Quaeda.
Saddam Hussein was deploying weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
The U.S. invaded Iraq with the full support of the international community.

At the time of the poll there was ample evidence that all three statements were known to be false.

More than half of those polled believed statement number one. At least a third believed number two and number three.

The study revealed that while only 23% of those who relied on NPR or PBS for news believed one or more of the propositions, 55% of those who relied on CNN did and 80% of those who relied on Fox News did.

Dosn't this prove that Fox is the most misleading source? I don't get your point.

Krizoitz

May 8, 2004, 01:32 AM

And that was the limit of my point. The press makes a big deal when a Republican isn't perfect, but comes up with excusses when a Democrat flops.

Trent Lott: Stated that Sen. Thurmond would have been a great candidate at any point in his career including when he supported the segregationist platform.

Bob Carr: Stated that Sen. Byrd as he is NOW would have been a great leader at any time in history.

The difference being Lott voiced support (possibly unintentional of what he was saying) for a person that included his racists beliefs. Carr voiced support for a person who is no longer racist and only as that person is NOW.

Is it any clearer? THAT is why its different.

IJ Reilly

May 8, 2004, 01:35 AM

Dosn't this prove that Fox is the most misleading source? I don't get your point.

His point must be that some people actually prefer to be misled. Or possibly that these other news sources provide their audiences with the truth, and since this is not beneficial to the administration, it is therefore undesirable.

That's all I can think of now. Or at least, it's all I can think of now that won't cause me to be chastised by the moderators.

Doctor Q

May 8, 2004, 02:44 AM

That's all I can think of now. Or at least, it's all I can think of now that won't cause me to be chastised by the moderators.Thank you, IJ.

To everyone: Discuss media bias to your heart's content, but please omit the personal insults. Thank you.

Voltron

May 10, 2004, 09:51 PM

Media Research Center has done some research and reported on this.
http://www.mediaresearch.org/archive/realitycheck/welcome.asp
April 21
The TV Elite Downplays Kerry vs. Russert
Papers Highlight Kerry Backing Away from Vietnam “Atrocity” Claims, But TV Networks Stay Quiet

April 15
Hyping Bush Bashers, Ignoring Bush Backers
MRC Study: Throughout the Hearings, Networks Favored a Handful of 9/11 Relatives Who Fault Bush

April 08
NBC Trumps Rice With Anti-Bush Widows
NBC and MSNBC Allowed No Pro-Bush Mourners to Express Their Feelings About Condi Testimony

March 31
Liberal Media vs. Conservative Talk Radio
Media Elites Show Their Bias as They Gleefully Push Liberal Talk Radio “Network” With Few Stations

March 25
Credible Clarke vs. Ferocious White House
Network Reporters Treat the Former Anti-Terrorism Advisor¡¯s Testimony As Authoritative, Not Biased

March 23
Kerry Gaffes in Front of the Press, But They Don't Notice?
Only FNC Covered Kerry's $87 Billion Flub the Day He Said It

March 10
ABC Can’t Stop Blabbing About Kerry-McCain “Dream Ticket”
Why Won’t ABC Ask McCain About Democrats Subverting McCain-Feingold Law With Their New Anti-Bush Ads?

March 03
A Liberal Candidate Gets Media Makeover
Study: Networks Portray Kerry’s Liberalism as a Partisan GOP Charge, Not a Well-Documented Fact

February 24
Anti-Bush Anecdotes Trump Pro-Bush Poll
While CBS’s Poll Shows Huge GOP Majorities Backing Bush, CBS Reporter Finds a “Fury” on the Right

February 23
Networks to Nader: Drop Out!
ABC, NBC Flay Nader as Spoiler of Gore’s 2000 Victory, Suggest He’s Only Running to Stoke “Enormous Ego”

February 17
Kerry’s Partisan Partners in Smearing Bush
ABC, CBS and NBC Give Bush "AWOL" Charge Double the 1992 Coverage of Clinton's Draft Dodging

February 11
Partisan Tools, Not Objective Observers
ABC, CBS, NBC Pound Bush, But Protected Draft-Dodging Clinton from the “Willie Horton Crowd”

February 05
DNC “Warning Shot” Feisty, Not Dirty?
Was Bush “AWOL” From the National Guard? Reporters Find Accuracy and Civility Not the Point

January 27
Dan Rather Makes Nice, Not News
Sixteen Years After Yelling at Bush The First, CBS Anchor Stays Mellow with Democratic Contenders

January 21
“Red Meat” Previews “Angry Campaign”
Reporters Rebuke Tone and Substance of State of the Union While Inviting Democrats to Castigate Bush

January 07
Morning Donations to Democratic Dreams
MRC Study: Dean and Clark Get Most Network Airtime; Reporters’ Questions Favor a Liberal Agenda

Each one of those above has a link on that page that further describes what they are talking about. These are for this year alone. At bottom of page they also have for previous years.

Their main page http://www.mediaresearch.org/

zimv20

May 10, 2004, 10:18 PM

and from a paper in the normally conservative IL/Wisconson border, we have this (http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/news/archive/opinion_15959053.shtml)

Editorial: We need more letters to achieve a balance

Letters to the editor, a staple of The Post-Crescent’s Views pages, are a way to take the political and social temperature of the Valley. A well-written letter allows readers to ponder different points of view, perhaps made more poignant because the author is someone you might know. At best, they should offer a full spectrum of beliefs and topics.

Recently, though, as the race for president heats up, we’ve been dealing with this quandary: How can we balance the perspectives and topics of our letters when many of our submissions have been coming only from one side?

We’ve been getting more letters critical of President Bush than those that support him. We’re not sure why, nor do we want to guess. But in today’s increasingly polarized political environment, we would prefer our offering to put forward a better sense of balance.

Since we depend upon you, our readers, to supply our letters, that goal can be difficult. We can’t run letters that we don’t have.

Finally, a myth to dispel: We don’t give our letters any sort of political litmus test to determine if they make it into print. If that were so, we wouldn’t run letters that take swings at who we are and what we print.

If you would like to help us “balance” things out, send us a letter, make a call or punch out an e-mail. Read the handy box at the bottom of the page for more information. We’d love to hear from you.

Ugg

May 10, 2004, 10:35 PM

and from a paper in the normally conservative IL/Wisconson border, we have this (http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/news/archive/opinion_15959053.shtml)

That's pretty sad when a paper has to solicit pro-Bush comments. Maybe the outrage is starting to build in middle-America. I hope so.

screener

May 10, 2004, 10:46 PM

Does anyone on the left have someone like Ann Colter?

Krizoitz

May 10, 2004, 11:20 PM

Voltron

May 10, 2004, 11:27 PM

Here's a question. Why is it that the media reporting alot of bad stuff about Bush is necessarilly a media bias? Isn't it quite possible that they are reporting alot of bad stuff because there IS a lot of bad stuff? Just a thought...
That might've been true however.

April 21
The TV Elite Downplays Kerry vs. Russert
Papers Highlight Kerry Backing Away from Vietnam “Atrocity” Claims, But TV Networks Stay Quiet

April 15
Hyping Bush Bashers, Ignoring Bush Backers
MRC Study: Throughout the Hearings, Networks Favored a Handful of 9/11 Relatives Who Fault Bush

these examples don't include that. That list I put up wasn't inclusive but simply the headers of much larger stories which you could've read had you gone to that web site. http://www.mediaresearch.org/archive/realitycheck/welcome.asp
I didn't think I should post the stories themselves being that those who were interested in reading them would go to the site and do so.

In the last few weeks, almost all of the TV news scrutiny has flowed in Bush's direction. Nothing Kerry has said or done – unless it figures into the media attack on Bush – gains any traction. Take, for example, Kerry's Sunday appearance on NBC's Meet the Press. This could have been a high-profile news story which resulted in much pundit evaluation, as President Bush’s grilling from Russert was in February. But only NBC found the interview worth a whole story, with a summarizing story on Sunday's Nightly News and a shorter piece on Monday's Today.

In the Sunday night story, NBC’s Carl Quintanilla focused on Iraq, but also noted Kerry “supported Israel's actions against Hamas, bristled at suggestions his wife release her tax returns, and once again refused to name those now- infamous foreign leaders he says wanted him elected.”

Quintanilla added: “Kerry may also be dogged by his stance on another war, Vietnam.” Asked about a 1971 Meet the Press interview in which the young Vietnam vet claimed to have seen and committed war atrocities, Kerry backed away from his wildest claims, vaguely telling Russert “I'd have framed some of that differently.” Quintanilla finished: “That issue is likely to get more play this week as his Senate testimony against the war marks its 33rd anniversary.”

more of this story at http://www.mediaresearch.org/realitycheck/2004/fax20040421.asp
and that second story

But the 9/11 relatives invited on to the broadcast networks interview programs were hugely lopsided in favor of those who blame President Bush and his administration for somehow allowing the attacks, while relatives who’ve publicly backed the administration were shunned by the networks, according to a new Media Research Center study.

MRC analysts reviewed all interview segments on ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS’s The Early Show and NBC’s Today from March 23 through this morning (April 15). Nine guests, with a total of 20 appearances, were critics of the President, compared with only three interviews with two Bush supporters. (None of the relatives were neutral or ambiguous in their comments about the Bush administration’s supposed negligence.)

Neither ABC nor CBS featured any morning interviews with pro-Bush relatives, while NBC squeezed in two Bush backers: Jim Boyle, the father of a New York firefighter killed on 9/11, appeared twice on the Today show, while Deborah Burlingame, the sister of one of the pilots on American Airlines Flight 77, appeared once. But they were hardly alone in their views; Boyle was one of 40 9/11 relatives who signed a public letter praising Condoleezza Rice and rejecting the charge the President ignored obvious signs that the horrible terrorist attacks were coming, according to the April 14 New York Post.

But such views were minimized on the networks, who have preferred to train their cameras on those relatives who blame the Bush administration for not thwarting the attacks.

http://www.mediaresearch.org/realitycheck/2004/fax20040415.asp
And I think the emphasis was is that there were just as many pro Bush and anti bush but the press only concentrated on the anti Bush.

And that is just the first two stories on that list. And that list is just for this year. That site has allot of stuff on it for those who wish to take a look. http://www.mediaresearch.org/archive/realitycheck/welcome.asp

Neserk

May 10, 2004, 11:29 PM

That's pretty sad when a paper has to solicit pro-Bush comments. Maybe the outrage is starting to build in middle-America. I hope so.

Ha! That is great news...

Ugg

May 10, 2004, 11:29 PM

Here's a question. Why is it that the media reporting alot of bad stuff about Bush is necessarilly a media bias? Isn't it quite possible that they are reporting alot of bad stuff because there IS a lot of bad stuff? Just a thought...

No, that simply can't be. gw and his policies are the best possible things that have happened to this country since the founding fathers wrote the constitution. Anyone who disbelieves that is a terrorist.

Heavy sarcasm intended.

wwworry

May 10, 2004, 11:47 PM

For at least a year after 9/11 Bush was not questioned about anything. It went as far as people saying that to question the president was somehow un-American, up-patriotic and almost treasonous. Now that we have seen that most of the justifying claims of the Iraq war turned out to be false the media has started to question the president again. However, it it nothing like the attention given to the Lewinsky affair. Remember when all the talk was about the blue dress and not naked Iraqis being tortured by American troops?

At the beginning of the war, didn't every major network have big banners and graphics of American flags and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" or whatever it was called plastered all over the screen? When did it become the media's roll to promote war? Why name it "Iraqi Freedom" when that is just exactly what the administration wants us to call it? I think they should have called it "Operation Corrupt No-Bid Contracts for Halliburton".

The news should have called it something more neutral.

skunk

May 11, 2004, 05:21 AM

At the beginning of the war, didn't every major network have big banners and graphics of American flags and "Operation Iraqi Freedom" or whatever it was called plastered all over the screen? When did it become the media's roll to promote war? Why name it "Iraqi Freedom" when that is just exactly what the administration wants us to call it? I think they should have called it "Operation Corrupt No-Bid Contracts for Halliburton".

The news should have called it something more neutral.
Very true. That's the point, isn't it? One "operation" after another, one "initiative" after another is given some ludicrously tilted name in order to predispose the reader or listener toward the administration's angle. Every time the press mindlessly repeats the name of the "operation" it is reinforcing that bias. Every time the press quotes the Pentagon in saying "terrorists" or "foreign nationals", they are uncritically repeating that bias. The Administration is trying to define the language of the debate. When was the last time a mainstream paper referred to the US army as terrorists?

Taft

May 11, 2004, 09:49 AM

Media Research Center has done some research and reported on this.
http://www.mediaresearch.org/archive/realitycheck/welcome.asp

Each one of those above has a link on that page that further describes what they are talking about. These are for this year alone. At bottom of page they also have for previous years.

Their main page http://www.mediaresearch.org/

That isn't research. Research papers don't contain lines like: "The TV Elite Downplays Kerry vs. Russert" Research isn't supposed to pre-suppose what the outcome of the research will be. Why? Because it indicates bias on the part of the researchers.

If a person came out and said, "I believe that the population as a whole supports communist ideals," then that person went around collecting all of the incidences they could find of persons acting in a "communist" way, their results would be a foregone conclusion. The "researcher" was looking for what he believed. That isn't valid research.

Why doesn't this site list news stories favorable to the left that were passed over by the media? There are a lot out there, I'm sure, but mediaresearch.com doesn't list a single one. Why? [From their site:] "On October 1, 1987, a group of young determined conservatives set out to not only prove - through sound scientific research - that liberal bias in the media does exist and undermines traditional American values, but also to neutralize its impact on the American political scene."

They are conservatives who set out to prove the media is biased to the left. See a problem with this? They claim to use "sound scientific research," yet they fail to use a comprehensive data set containing ALL incidences of bias. How can that research possibly be valid?

And, just as you link to sites "proving" a liberal bias in the media, I can link to sites "proving" a conservative bias in the media. Here ya go:

http://www.dailyhowler.com/
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Media/031004Arvey/031004arvey.html
http://www.rushlimbaughonline.com/articles/mediabias.htm
http://mediamatters.org/
http://www.whatliberalmedia.com/
http://www.radford.edu/~kmagee/Research/Conservative.html

Want more? These are only from the first page and a half of google hits. Only about 270,000 more to go...

Taft

trebblekicked

May 11, 2004, 10:07 AM

hey taft,

Voltron is the new account for SlyHunter.

just fyi.

Sayhey

May 11, 2004, 11:39 AM

IJ Reilly

May 11, 2004, 12:14 PM

I find the Media Matters (http://mediamatters.org/) site very helpful in keeping up with the latest right-wing talking points. David Brock, for those that don't know, the guy behind the site - is a former right-wing writer involved with the "Arkansas project" who grew so disgusted with the lies and tactics he moved away from the "dark side." As an insider to the world of Limbaugh/Hannity/et al he has some very good insights.

And some very interesting quotes, like this one from Limbaugh:

Even this latest picture of a dog and a nude Iraqi -- you seen that one? A couple of Americans are holding -- it looks like German Shepherd, some kind of vicious big dogs, the dogs are barking, bow wow arf arf arf, this big dog -- you know and the Iraqi prisoner is cowering there in fear, he's all nude. And the picture caption "Dog attacks Iraqi." No, the dog isn't attacking anyone, the dog's on a leash. The dog is scaring an Iraqi prisoner. [gasp] "No! We're scaring them, too? Is that allowed in the Geneva Convention?! We're scaring then with dogs?" Yes, my friends we are. The dog didn't attack anybody. The dog's not attacking anybody. The dog's on a leash. Both of them are. I've seen the pictures. ...

And people listen to this creep?

mactastic

May 11, 2004, 12:23 PM

So let's give Rush a taste of the medicine he's been advocating doling out to drug users over the years. I can't see why he'd be immune to that. Oh wait, 'cuz this time it would be HIS hide, so I'm sure there's some justification he can dig up to show why everyone else who illegally buys and uses drugs should do time but not him.

toontra

May 11, 2004, 12:24 PM

[QUOTE=IJ ReillyAnd people listen to this creep?[/QUOTE]

If he'd checked his facts before spouting his filth he'd have known that there are indeed photos showing prisoners with serious dog bite wounds sitting in the WH.

People like that would be funny if it weren't for the fact that they're injecting poison into the public, whom have already been rendered susceptible by a xenophobic and intentionally deceptive government. Hence polls showing majority beleiving Iraq has WMD, was responsible for 9/11 and thinking Bush is a patriot.

IJ Reilly

May 11, 2004, 12:30 PM

People like that would be funny if it weren't for the fact that they're injecting poison into the public, whom have already been rendered susceptible by a xenophobic and intentionally deceptive government. Hence polls showing majority beleiving Iraq has WMD, was responsible for 9/11 and thinking Bush is a patriot.

You may not be exposed to them the way we are in the US. I don't find people like Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, Drudge and Coulter to be in the least bit funny. They are the gross polluters of the national dialog.

mactastic

May 11, 2004, 12:35 PM

Ah yes, the great national pastime of talking past and shouting down your opponent is alive and well...

trebblekicked

May 11, 2004, 12:40 PM

People like that would be funny if it weren't for the fact that they're injecting poison into the public, whom have already been rendered susceptible by a xenophobic and intentionally deceptive government.

it's okay. there's a widely available antidote (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1565117972/104-5920336-3686322?v=glance)

Ugg

May 11, 2004, 12:43 PM

And some very interesting quotes, like this one from Limbaugh:

Even this latest picture of a dog and a nude Iraqi -- you seen that one? A couple of Americans are holding -- it looks like German Shepherd, some kind of vicious big dogs, the dogs are barking, bow wow arf arf arf, this big dog -- you know and the Iraqi prisoner is cowering there in fear, he's all nude. And the picture caption "Dog attacks Iraqi." No, the dog isn't attacking anyone, the dog's on a leash. The dog is scaring an Iraqi prisoner. [gasp] "No! We're scaring them, too? Is that allowed in the Geneva Convention?! We're scaring then with dogs?" Yes, my friends we are. The dog didn't attack anybody. The dog's not attacking anybody. The dog's on a leash. Both of them are. I've seen the pictures. ...

And people listen to this creep?

What rush has failed to mention was the next photo in the series showing the guy on the ground with blood flowing from apparent bite marks on his legs. Rush is sick.

skunk

May 11, 2004, 12:52 PM

What rush has failed to mention was the next photo in the series showing the guy on the ground with blood flowing from apparent bite marks on his legs.
Probably self-inflicted. Those Eye-raqis will do anything!

IJ Reilly

May 11, 2004, 01:15 PM

What rush has failed to mention was the next photo in the series showing the guy on the ground with blood flowing from apparent bite marks on his legs. Rush is sick.

Later in the show, Limbaugh corrected his characterization of the dog incident, and Mediamatters quotes the retraction as well. Half-hearted though it may have been, ultimately he did confess to an error, which in itself is a rarity. I think the heat is on him to not lie in such obvious ways, but clearly he's going to continue to perpetuate falsehoods whenever it suits his purposes and whenever he thinks he can get away with it. Ultimately (IMO) he doesn't care whether he's telling the truth, because his audience laps this stuff up and it's all about Arbitron ratings anyway. Bottom line is, he's paid to be a demagogue.

Taft

May 11, 2004, 02:38 PM

Today, Salon ran an excerpt from "The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How it Corrupts Democracy" by David Brock. Brock is actually an ex-right-wing journalist who has recently (1997) come out against the right propoganda machine. Here is the excerpt for all of you to enjoy.

The mighty windbags
Thirty years ago, conservatives embarked on a plan to subvert journalism and skew America to the right. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By David Brock

May 11, 2004 | Since defecting from the Republican Party in the latter half of the 1990s and publishing a confessional memoir in 2002, I've discussed my right-wing past with politicians, political activists and strategists, academic scholars, student groups, fellow writers, and hundreds of readers of my book "Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative." I'm rarely asked anymore why I changed, or about the baroque intricacies of the anti-Clinton movement, which I once participated in and then renounced and exposed. After a presidential election decided by the Supreme Court, the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, and the war with Iraq, politics has moved to a different place.

Nowadays, when I talk about "Blinded by the Right," people want to know not how I was blinded by the Right, but how so much of the country seems to be in that position. For the first time since 1929, the Republican Party controls all three branches of government. Fewer people identify with the Democratic Party today than at any time since the New Deal. Conservatism seems the prevailing political and intellectual current, while liberalism seems a fringe dispensation of a few aging professors and Hollywood celebrities. People ask me, a former insider, how the Republican Right has won political and ideological power with such seeming ease and why Democrats, despite winning the most votes in the last three presidential elections, seem to be caught in a downward spiral, still able to win at the ballot box but steadily losing the battle for hearts and minds.

While it is not the only answer, my answer is: It's the media, stupid.

When I say this, in a more respectful way, to folks outside the right wing, I usually get either of two responses. Those who receive their news from the New York Times and National Public Radio give me blank stares. They are living in a rarefied media culture -- one that prizes accuracy, fairness, and civility -- that is no longer representative of the media as a whole. Those who have heard snippets of Rush Limbaugh's radio show, have caught a glimpse of Bill O'Reilly's temper tantrums on the FOX News Channel, or occasionally peruse the editorials in the Wall Street Journal think I'm a Cassandra. They view this media as self-discrediting and therefore irrelevant. They are living in a vacuum of denial.

Those who understand what I mean are either members of the media itself, have read media-criticism books or Internet sites devoted to the subject, or are in the political trenches every day dealing with the media. The gap between those who recognize right-wing media power for what it is and those who don't is wide and deep, as if they inhabit parallel universes. The gap is dangerous to democracy and needs to be closed.

When I came to Washington fresh out of college in 1986, I got a job at the Washington Times, the right-wing newspaper bankrolled by Reverend Sun Myung Moon, the Korean-born leader of a religious cult called the Unification Church. Though Moon's paper was said to be read in the Reagan White House, nobody paid much attention to it. We were the proverbial voice in the wilderness. Considering that the paper was governed by a calculatedly unfair political bias and that its journalistic ethics were close to nil, this was a good thing. That was eighteen years ago. Today, the most important sectors of the political media -- most of cable TV news, the majority of popular op-ed columns, almost all of talk radio, a substantial chunk of the book market, and many of the most highly trafficked Web sites -- reflect more closely the political and journalistic values of the Washington Times than those of the New York Times. That is, they are powerful propaganda organs of the Republican Party. For our politics, this development in the media represents a structural change: a structural advantage for the GOP and conservatism, and, I believe, the greatest structural obstacle facing opponents of the right wing. I therefore think it is one of the most important political stories of the era. I have sought to tell this story in "The Republican Noise Machine: Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy."

I know there is a Republican Noise Machine because I was once part of it. From the Washington Times, to a stint as a "research fellow" at the Heritage Foundation (the Right's premier think tank), to a position as an "investigative writer" at the muckraking magazine The American Spectator, and as the author of a best-selling right-wing book, I forwarded the right-wing agenda not as an open political operative or advocate but under the guise of journalism and punditry, fueled by huge sums of money from right-wing billionaires, foundations, and self-interested corporations.

By the time I said good-bye to the right wing in 1997, what was once a voice in the wilderness was drowning out competing voices across all media channels. The most influential political commentator in America, Rush Limbaugh, and his hundreds of imitators saturated every media market in the country, providing 22 percent of Americans -- not only conservatives but independent swing voters -- with their primary source of news. Conservatives had changed the face of the cable news business with the establishment of the top-rated FOX News Channel, a slicker broadcast version of the Moonie Washington Times. Pundit Ann Coulter and her fanatical ilk topped the best-seller lists, becoming superstars in the world of political punditry. The Spectator juggernaut -- which had a circulation of three hundred thousand per month at its height in the early 1990s -- had been replaced by Internet gossip Matt Drudge, who gets more than 6.5 million visitors to his site every day. Although enormous subsidies were still being pumped into right-wing media that did not turn a profit, right-wing media also had become a multibillion-dollar business, a development that powerfully affected all other commercial media.

The lies, smears, and vicious caricatures leveled against Bill and Hillary Clinton by this right-wing media, and then repeated in virtually every media venue in the country, have now been well documented, not least in "Blinded by the Right." In that book, I compared the anti-Clinton propaganda to a virus as it seeped off the pages of the Spectator into the minds of every sentient American. My memoir ended in 2000; what I did not fully comprehend then, but what is apparent to me now as I have watched the politics of the last few years unfold, is that the virus was not Clinton-specific. In fact, it had nothing to do with the Clintons per se; rather, in different strains, it would afflict any and every political opponent of the right wing, including Al Gore, Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, and the mourners of Senator Paul Wellstone, every major Democrat seeking the presidency in 2004, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, and the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org. What we have here, as a criminal investigator might say, is a pattern.

continued...

Taft

May 11, 2004, 02:39 PM

continued...

In the 2000 presidential campaign, the Republican Noise Machine, which worked for years to convince Americans that the Clintons were criminally minded, used the same techniques of character assassination to turn the Democratic standard-bearer, Al Gore, for many years seen as an overly earnest Boy Scout, into a liar. When Republican National Committee polling showed that the Republicans would lose the election to the Democrats on the issues, a "skillful and sustained 18-month campaign by Republicans to portray the vice president as flawed and untrustworthy" was adopted, the New York Times reported. Republicans accused Gore of saying things he never said -- most infamously, that he "invented" the Internet, a claim he never made that was first attributed to him in a GOP press release before it coursed through the media. Actually, Gore had said, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet," a claim that even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich verified as true.

The right-wing media broadcast this attack and similar attacks relentlessly, in effect giving the GOP countless hours of free political advertising every day for months leading up to the election. "Albert Arnold Gore Jr. is a habitual liar," William Bennett, a Cabinet secretary in the Reagan and first Bush administrations, announced in the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal. "... Gore lies because he can't help himself," neoconservative pamphleteer David Horowitz wrote. "LIAR, LIAR," screamed Rupert Murdoch's New York Post. The conservative columnist George F. Will pointed to Gore's "serial mendacity" and warned that he is a "dangerous man." "Gore may be quietly going nuts," National Review's Byron York concluded. The Washington Times agreed: "The real question is how to react to Mr. Gore's increasingly bizarre utterings. Webster's New World Dictionary defines 'delusion' thusly: 'The apparent perception, in a nervous or mental disorder, of some thing external that is not actually present ... a belief in something that is contrary to fact or reality, resulting from deception, misconception, or a mental disorder.'"

This impugning of Gore's character and the questioning of his mental fitness soon surfaced in the regular media. The New York Times ran an article headlined "Tendency to embellish fact snags Gore," while the Boston Globe weighed in with "Gore seen as 'misleading.'" On ABC's "This Week," former Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos referred to Gore's "Pinocchio problem." For National Journal's Stuart Taylor, the issue was "the Clintonization of Al Gore, who increasingly apes his boss in fictionalizing his life story and mangling the truth for political gain." Washington Post editor Bob Woodward raised the question of whether Gore "could comprehend reality," while MSNBC's Chris Matthews compared Gore to "Zelig" and insisted, "Isn't it getting to be delusionary?"

The well-orchestrated media cacophony had its intended effect: The election was far more competitive than it should have been -- and, indeed, was decided before the Supreme Court stepped in -- because of negative voter perceptions of Gore's honesty and trustworthiness. In the final polls before the election and in exit polls on Election Day, voters said they favored Gore's program over George W. Bush's. Gore won substantial majorities not only for his position on most specific issues but also for his overall thrust. The conservative Bush theme of tax cuts and small government was rejected by voters in favor of the more liberal Gore theme of extending prosperity more broadly and standing up to corporate interests. Yet while Bush shaded the truth and misstated facts throughout the campaign on everything from the size of Gore's federal spending proposals to his own record as governor of Texas, by substantial margins voters thought Bush was more truthful than Gore. According to an ABC exit poll, of personal qualities that mattered most to voters, 24 percent ranked "honest/trustworthy" first -- and they went for Bush over Gore by a margin of 80 percent to 15 percent. Seventy-four percent of voters said "Gore would say anything," while 58 percent thought Bush would. Among white, college-educated, male voters, Gore's "untruthfulness" was cited overwhelmingly as a reason not to vote for him, far more than any other reason.

Two years after the election, Gore gave an extraordinary interview to the New York Observer that could be read as an explanation of what happened to his presidential campaign. Gore charged that conservatives in the media, operating under journalistic cover, are loyal not to the standards and conventions of journalism but, rather, to politics and party. Gore said:

"The media is kind of weird these days on politics, and there are some major institutional voices that are, truthfully speaking, part and parcel of the Republican Party. Fox News Network, the Washington Times, Rush Limbaugh -- there's a bunch of them, and some of them are financed by wealthy ultra-conservative billionaires who make political deals with Republican administrations and the rest of the media.... Most of the media [has] been slow to recognize the pervasive impact of this Fifth Column in their ranks -- that is, day after day, injecting the daily Republican talking points into the definition of what's objective as stated by the news media as a whole....

Something will start at the Republican National Committee, inside the building, and it will explode the next day on the right-wing talk-show network and on Fox News and in the newspapers that play this game, the Washington Times and the others. And then they'll create a little echo chamber, and pretty soon they all start baiting the mainstream media for allegedly ignoring the story they've pushed into the zeitgeist. And then pretty soon the mainstream media goes out and disingenuously takes a so-called objective sampling, and lo and behold, these RNC talking points are woven into the fabric of the zeitgeist...."

True to form, the right-wing media greeted this factual description with yet another frenzy of repetitive messaging portraying Gore as crazy. Speaking of Gore on FOX News, The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes said, "This is nutty. This is along the lines with, you know, President Bush killed Paul Wellstone, and the White House knew before 9/11 that the attacks were going to happen. This is -- I mean, this is conspiratorial stuff." Also on FOX, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer said of Gore, "I'm a psychiatrist. I don't usually practice on camera. But this is the edge of looniness, this idea that there's a vast conspiracy, it sits in a building, it emanates, it has these tentacles, is really at the edge. He could use a little help." "It could be he's just nuts," Rush Limbaugh said of Gore. "Tipper Gore's issue is what? Mental health. Right? It could be closer to home than we know." "He [Gore] said it's a conspiracy," Tucker Carlson said on CNN's "Crossfire." "I actually think he's coming a little unhinged," The Weekly Standard's David Brooks, now at the New York Times, said of Gore on PBS.

As Gore's experience demonstrated, Democrats ignore these attacks at their peril: Not only do such attacks confirm the preconceptions of Republicans but they shape the thinking of undecided voters and even of Democrats. One of the most frightening experiences I have had in recent years in talking with rank-and-file Democrats is the extent to which they unconsciously internalize right-wing propaganda. To add insult to injury, too many Democrats have a tendency to blame the victims of these smears -- their own leaders -- rather than addressing the root of the problem. For instance, when Senator Daschle made the factual statement that "failed" diplomacy had led to war with Iraq, right-wing media accused him of siding with Saddam Hussein. The ensuing controversy caused many Democrats to think Daschle had put his foot in his mouth.

With the right-wing media now a seemingly permanent and defining feature of the media landscape, if Democrats cut through the propaganda and win back the White House in 2004, they still face the prospect of being brutally slammed and systematically slandered in such a way that will make governing exceedingly difficult. There should be no doubt that the right-wing media's wildings of 1993 -- which led to Clinton's impeachment four years later -- will be replayed over and over again until its capacities to spread filth are somehow eradicated.

continued...

Taft

May 11, 2004, 02:39 PM

continued...
Ironically, though not coincidentally, this radical transformation of the media has been obscured by conservative charges of "liberal media bias" that are believed by the vast majority of the public, including about half of Democrats. I'm all too familiar with the claim. From my very first days at the Washington Times, I was schooled to invoke "liberal bias" to deflect attention from my own biases and journalistic lapses and as a rationale to justify my presence in the mainstream media conversation in the name of providing "balance" or "the other side." We sold a lot of books and magazines and commanded lavish attention for our propaganda outside the right wing by using this cover story. As I showed in "Blinded by the Right," the truth was that my work as a right-wing journalist and commentator -- in particular, my American Spectator exposés on Anita Hill and the Clintons -- did not deserve the attention they received. I was delivering a truckload of nonfacts, half-truths, and innuendos, not "balance" or "the other side." What I show in "The Republican Noise Machine" is that my experience was not the exception but the rule.

The "liberal media" mantra aside, if one looks and listens closely to what the right wing says when it thinks others may not be paying attention, there should be no doubt that it has made potent political gains not despite the media but through it. Rush Limbaugh says his program has "redefined the media" and refers to the "Limbaugh echo chamber syndrome," by which messaging originating on his show drives the twenty-four-hour news cycle. "The radical Left," he says, "is furious that liberals no longer set the agenda in the national media." "'New media' outlets pound establishment," the Washington Times announced in an op-ed by right-wing publicist Craig Shirley. In a column explaining why the "outing" in the press of the identity of a covert CIA operative by senior Bush administration officials -- a possibly criminal act committed to harm a Bush critic -- did not spark a major political scandal, Tod Lindberg of the Hoover Institution explained in the Washington Times, "The media culture has changed. Conservatives and GOP partisans now have more than adequate means to offer an exculpatory counter-narrative." When CBS announced the cancellation of a biopic that was deemed unflattering toward the Reagans, Matt Drudge appeared on MSNBC, on a show hosted by a former Republican member of Congress, to announce the "beginning of a second media century .... It was the Internet, it was talk radio, it was cable that put pressure on CBS, and heretofore, there's never been this kind of pressure applied to one of the big titans, one of the big three." Brian C. Anderson, writing on OpinionJournal.com, a right-wing Web site published by the Wall Street Journal, in late 2003, informed conservatives, "[w]e're not losing anymore" and attributed this fact to a media "revolution." "Everything has changed," he wrote.

In a syndicated column titled "Culture War Signals," John Leo of U.S. News & World Report argued that "a corner has been turned" in the "culture wars" with the "rise of a large crop of commentators the left has not been able to match" and "conservative gains in new media" like the FOX News Channel. Conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks has written that the conservative media have "cohered to form a dazzlingly efficient ideology delivery system that swamps liberal efforts to get their ideas out." MSNBC's Matthews, interviewing Bernard Goldberg, the author of an attack book on the "liberal media" titled "Bias," got the author to agree with his view that the cable news industry -- whose total news audience is growing while that of the traditional broadcast news networks is declining -- is biased all right, though in favor of the right wing. According to Bill O'Reilly, "For decades, [liberals] controlled the agenda on TV news. That's over." In an interview with PBS, Tony Blankley, the former Newt Gingrich flack turned editorial page editor of the Washington Times and "McLaughlin Group" panelist, said:

"Starting in 1994, with the Republican election of Congress, I think Limbaugh made the difference in electing the Republican majority. In the following three elections, he made the difference holding the majority. And in 2000, in the presidential race in Florida, he was the difference between Gore and Bush winning Florida, and thus the presidency."

Commenting on the media while interviewing Ann Coulter about her book "Treason: Liberal Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism," right-wing radio host Sean Hannity crowed, "We've basically taken over!" Coulter, who has made millions off the charge of "liberal media bias" while maintaining a career as perhaps the most biased right-wing voice in the media, laughed in agreement. A young writer for Rupert Murdoch's neoconservative Weekly Standard named Matt Labash -- whom I hired into right-wing journalism at The American Spectator -- was probably laughing, too, when he was interviewed by Columbia Journalism Review partner Web site JournalismJobs.com. The interviewer asked, "Why have conservative media outlets like The Weekly Standard and FOX News Channel become more popular in recent years?" In his answer, Labash conceded that conservatives reject in their own media the standards of fairness, accuracy, and unbiased coverage that they demand from the "liberal media." He unmasked the hypocrisy at the heart of these endeavors:

"Because they feed the rage. We bring pain to the liberal media. I say that mockingly but it's true somewhat ... While these hand-wringing Freedom Forum types talk about objectivity, the conservative media like to rap the liberal media on the knuckles for not being objective. We've created this cottage industry in which it pays to be un-objective ... It's a great way to have your cake and eat it too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you want. It's a great little racket."
continued...

Taft

May 11, 2004, 02:40 PM

continued...

Matt Labash's "great little racket" is the subject of "The Republican Noise Machine." This is a book about the explicitly right-wing media and about how mainstream media, sometimes under the direction of executives who are conservative Republicans, has succumbed to an undue conservative influence and tilt. It is about the right-wing media's history, its reach, its appeal, its practices, its methods, and its financing. It is also about the beliefs of those who populate right-wing media and the beliefs that people derive from it. My conclusion is that right-wing media is a massive fraud, victimizing its own audience and corrupting the broader political dialogue with the tacit permission of established media authorities who should, and probably do, know better.

I argue, moreover, that the creation of right-wing media, and of the strategies by which the right wing has penetrated, pressured, co-opted, and subdued the mainstream media into accommodating conservatism, was not an accident. Once upon a time, right-wing strategists, operatives, and financiers believed that they could never win political hegemony in the United States unless they won domination of the country's political discourse. Toward this end, a deliberate, well-financed, and expressly acknowledged communications and deregulatory plan was pursued by the right wing for more than thirty years -- in close coordination with Republican Party leaders -- to subvert and subsume journalism and reshape the national consciousness through the media, with the intention of skewing American politics sharply to the right. The plan has succeeded spectacularly.

The implications of this right-wing media incursion extend well beyond particular political outcomes to the heart of our democracy. Democracy depends on an informed citizenry. The conscious effort by the right wing to misinform the American citizenry -- to collapse the distinction between journalism and propaganda -- is thus an assault on democracy itself.

The problem is really not so much one of "bias," to use the Right's favored terminology, as it is where bias leads: In the biased right-wing media, among biased right-wing commentators, and in a mainstream media susceptible to right-wing scripting, it leads to verifiable journalistic malpractice, to the publication of misinformation, and to ethical malfeasance. At a deeper level, the existence and influence of the right-wing media as presently constituted is an affront to logic, rationality, and the maintenance of a shared knowledge base from which political consensus and correct public policy choices can be forged. While the right wing cleverly has achieved its greatest gains in mainstream media sectors that ostensibly present opinion -- columns, TV punditry, talk radio, and books -- this opinion is predicated on a raft of distortions, misrepresentations, and outright lies presented to readers and viewers as fact. To further confuse the picture, the right wing has funded an array of its own media institutions, including newspapers, magazines, Internet sites, and a cable news channel, that produce a large volume of "news" that is not only offensive and unfair but misleading and often false.

Because technological advances and the race for ratings and sales have made the wall between right-wing media and the rest of the media permeable, the American media as a whole has become a powerful conveyor belt for conservative-generated "news," commentary, story lines, jargon, and spin. It is now possible to watch a lie move from a disreputable right-wing Web site onto the afternoon talk radio shows, to several cable chat shows throughout the evening, and into the next morning's Washington Post -- all in twenty-four hours. This media food chain moves phony information and GOP talking points -- manufactured by and for conservatives, often bought and paid for by conservative political interests, and disseminated through an unabashedly biased right-wing media apparatus that follows no rules or professional norms -- into every family dining room, every workplace, and every Internet chat room in America.

Equally troubling is that the cable and radio talkers who shape the national political conversation have the ability to censor news that does not serve the interests of the right wing. Every day, professional news organizations, primarily in the prestige print press, report facts, across a broad range of subjects, that are essential to an informed view of politics and policy. More often than not, these stories die on the page and never reach most Americans, owing to right-wing command of the new media "echo chamber."

The right-wing drive for media power must also be understood as an overturning of the First Amendment, which posits that good information will drive out bad information given diversity in the marketplace of ideas. As I will show, the Right's premeditated undermining of the media as a public trust in favor of crass commercial values, its coordinated attacks on noncommercial media, and the Republican-led drive for greater consolidation of media ownership have all but wiped out liberal and left-wing views and voices in entire sectors of the American media. Perhaps most ominous, right-wing verbal brownshirts of late have used their mighty media platforms to chill the free speech of their political adversaries and to neuter aggressive journalistic fact-finding that threatens Republican power.

My view is that unchecked right-wing media power means that in the United States today, no issue can be honestly debated and no election can be fairly decided. If California voters recall their governor in the belief that the state budget deficit is four times higher than it actually is, if Americans think Saddam Hussein was behind September 11 before hearing any evidence, if 19 percent of the public thinks it is in the top 1 percent tax bracket, if Americans view criticism of the government's national security policies as tantamount to treason -- thank the right-wing media and those who abet it.

Taft

Taft

May 11, 2004, 02:42 PM

PS, because I feel bad about posting their content...

If you liked the article, please consider subscribing to Salon.com. Its cheap and has lots of good content.

Taft

Sayhey

May 11, 2004, 02:59 PM

PS, because I feel bad about posting their content...

If you liked the article, please consider subscribing to Salon.com. Its cheap and has lots of good content.

Taft

Salon has a free one day pass that allows non-subscribers to read articles. Not saying people shouldn't pay for a subscription, but if you can't afford it articles like this are still available.

Taft

May 11, 2004, 03:02 PM

Salon has a free one day pass that allows non-subscribers to read articles. Not saying people shouldn't pay for a subscription, but if you can't afford it articles like this are still available.

I didn't know that. I started subscribing during their "cash crunch" days, and have been one ever since. Is it a one day only thing, or can you somehow view content every day?

Taft

blackfox

May 11, 2004, 03:04 PM

Thanks Taft...Good article...depressing...but good. I truly feel sorry for Kerry (and his chances) in the face of this media machine...where will it end? Will things get so bad, that eventually people will wake up to a more balanced truth? Because in spite of this media blitz, there are alot of pissed off people in the US right now, perhaps not a majority, but as conditions worsen for more and more people, we could see the most polarized country of recent memory...

zimv20

May 11, 2004, 03:33 PM

oh, salon.com? just more liberal whining from a liberal site. they do control the media, after all.

j/k. they already have my money. good article.

Sayhey

May 11, 2004, 04:09 PM

I didn't know that. I started subscribing during their "cash crunch" days, and have been one ever since. Is it a one day only thing, or can you somehow view content every day?

Taft

You can do it over and over. At least I haven't found a limit yet.

IJ Reilly

May 11, 2004, 04:29 PM

oh, salon.com? just more liberal whining from a liberal site. they do control the media, after all.

Well of course, and we all know Brock is whiner who only left the Washington Times because he was passed over for a promotion.

Neserk

May 12, 2004, 09:51 AM

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040511/ap_on_el_pr/bush_newspaper_letters

They are back peddaling now saying that isn't what they meant...

Try again... I fixed it.

Voltron

May 12, 2004, 09:57 AM

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...wspaper_letters

They are back peddaling now saying that isn't what they meant...
That addy doesn't work -- might have something to do with the ... imbedded in it.

Neserk

May 12, 2004, 10:00 AM

That addy doesn't work -- might have something to do with the ... imbedded in it.

I copied and moved it from another thread. I fixed it, try again!

Voltron

May 16, 2004, 11:03 PM

In perhaps the most distorted coverage of the brutal murder of a pregnant Israeli mother and her four young daughters, NPR’s Julie McCarthy blamed the victims for their own slaughter. In the atrocity in Gaza on May 2, the gunmen reportedly fired on the family’s car from 20 yards away. When 34-year-old Tali, a social worker who was in her last trimester of pregnancy, lost control of the vehicle, the Palestinian terrorists approached the vehicle and executed Tali and her daughters — Hila, 11; Hadar, 9; Roni, 7 and Merav, 2 — one by one at close range. According to press reports, the younger children were still strapped into their car seats, the car was blood-soaked, and it took the ZAKA recovery crew a long time to extract all of the bullets and collect the body parts.

Julie McCarthy’s egregious statement on “Morning Edition” today came at the end of a report about Ariel Sharon's referendum loss on his “disengagement" plan. McCarthy reported:

The settlers rallied support saying Israel was withdrawing under fire. But there was ample evidence yesterday to show that their continued presence in Gaza is provoking bloodshed. Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian gunmen after the men ambushed mother and her four small daughters outside the Gaza settlement of Gush Katif. The family was shot and killed on their way to the Israeli city of Ashkelon where they intended to campaign against Ariel Sharon and his plan to uproot them from Gaza. Julie McCarthy, NPR news, Jerusalem.

BLAMING THE VICTIM
McCarthy’s editorializing that the Jewish community’s “continued presence in Gaza is provoking bloodshed” is consistent with the Palestinian Authority view that the killing of settlers is a natural and legitimate outgrowth of the fact that Jews dare to inhabit territory that the Palestinians claim as their own. According to Ha'aretz, “A senior Palestinian source said he thought there was no chance the Palestinian Authority would express reservations, since every settler was considered an integral part of the occupation against which action must be taken” (Danny Rubinstein, 5/3/04).

Of course, though, there is no justification whatsoever within international law that justifies the killing of civilians simply because they live in territory which others claim as their own. Unfortunately, McCarthy's report suggests justification where there is none.’

REVERSING CAUSE AND EFFECT
McCarthy further distorts the killing of the Hatuel family members by reversing the chronology of events. She states: “Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian gunmen after the men ambushed a mother and her four small daughters outside the Gaza settlement of Gush Katif.” Why is the Israeli response mentioned before the Palestinian murder? The result is that the defensive Israeli action is amplified while the Palestinians’ barbarous act is de-emphasized.

SOFT-PEDALLING THE MURDER
McCarthy's sanitized description of the Hatuels’ murder employs equivalent language to describe Israel’s shooting of murderers and the murderers’ butchering of young children and their mother. Thus, “Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian gunmen,” “the men ambushed a mother and her four small daughters,” and “the family was shot and killed.” From these indistinguishable descriptions, listeners would have no clue as to the brutality of the execution of a mother and four children whose bodies were riddled by dozens of bullets shot at point blank range.

In response to a deluge of complaints received about Julie McCarthy’s May 3 report on the killing of the Hatuel family, NPR distributed the following statement and posted it on their Web site:

In a story that aired Monday, May 3, on the political setback to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to disengage from Gaza, correspondent Julie McCarthy reported on the killing of an Israeli mother and her four daughters outside a Gaza settlement by Palestinian gunmen who were later shot dead by Israeli troops. However, in the report McCarthy said "... there was ample evidence yesterday to show that their [the settlers'] continued presence in Gaza is provoking bloodshed." The purpose of the report was to take note of the continuing violence. The story in no way meant to suggest that the killings were justified. NPR regrets that the report made any such implication.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13385

skunk

May 17, 2004, 05:05 AM

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13385
Yet another load of opinionated drivel. Thanks.

Voltron

May 17, 2004, 08:31 AM

Yet another load of opinionated drivel. Thanks.
The fact that NPR plays down the deaths of Israelis by Palestinians and plays up the deaths of the Palestinian terrorists by Israelis and thus is another example of at least NPR's left wing biased is nothing but drivel. Not an opinion I can agree with.

And the fact that you simply said "another load of opinionated drivel" doesn't make it not true and isn't really a valid counter argument.

Taft

May 17, 2004, 09:26 AM

The fact that NPR plays down the deaths of Israelis by Palestinians and plays up the deaths of the Palestinian terrorists by Israelis and thus is another example of at least NPR's left wing biased is nothing but drivel. Not an opinion I can agree with.

And the fact that you simply said "another load of opinionated drivel" doesn't make it not true and isn't really a valid counter argument.

Ah, but it IS a load of balogna.

They claim,
McCarthy further distorts the killing of the Hatuel family members by reversing the chronology of events. She states: “Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian gunmen after the men ambushed a mother and her four small daughters outside the Gaza settlement of Gush Katif.” Why is the Israeli response mentioned before the Palestinian murder? The result is that the defensive Israeli action is amplified while the Palestinians’ barbarous act is de-emphasized.

That is idiotic. McCarthy didn't "reverse the chronology of events." She said, "Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian gunmen after the men ambushed mother and her four small daughters outside the Gaza settlement of Gush Katif." (Emphasis mine) She made it clear the order in which the events happened.

Further, she calls the Palestinians "gunmen," indicating they were a hostile force. Further yet, frontpagemag (a great right wing rag, BTW) assumes that McCarthy is editorializing when she says that Isreal's presence in the region is provoking bloodshed. Of course it is. That is the entire reason why the Palestinians are attacking Isreal in the first place. Now you may disagree with the Palestinian's actions (I certainly do), but you cannot deny that Isreal's continued presence in the settlements, etc. is a major contributing factor to this violence.

The problem with this entire article is that it is completely biased in favor of Isreal. They are basically saying, "No one should question Isreal. They are doing right and the Palestinians are evil. If your reporting indicates anything but this, you must be a biased, left-leaning, Palestine-loving commie." They implicate bias while holding a position which is completely biased. Its ridiculous.

I could go either way on whether McCarthy was biased in her reporting. She certainly wasn't pro-Isreal, but the piece didn't strike me as pro-Palestine, either. What really caught my eye was the extrodinary level of bias in FrontPageMag's reporting.

But then, should we be surprised from a man who is trying to get this opinion laden drivel (https://www.donationreport.com/csimages/upload/images/FPM_Middle_East.pdf) published on all of America's campuses. Sickening "hate speech" if I've ever seen it.

Taft

Voltron

May 17, 2004, 09:33 AM

Taft

May 17, 2004, 11:51 AM

Simply because civilians live in Gaza strip who aren't "Arabs" isn't an acceptable excuss for those "Arabs" who call themselves Palestinians to kill any of em. And those who think so are deffinitely in my mind left leaning.

So, when extremists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun_Zvai-Leumi) within the Jewish settlers in Palestine used terrorism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre) to acheive an independent Israeli state 60 years ago, do you feel that was justified? I certainly don't think it was. But they did use terrorism to acheive their goals. Yet history seems to conveniently forget that fact.

So from this history, I make this bold statement: the fact that extremists from one side engage in terrorism does not invalidate the position of that side. If it did, Israel would never have been formed. They engaged in terrorism prior to the formation of the Israeli state. Did that invalidate the position of the Jews who wanted a Jewish state? No. Does the fact that some extremists from the Palestinian side use terrorist tactics to achevei their goals invalidate the desire of the average Palestinian to have their own land? I don't think so. Do you?

Also, you have completely misrepresented the position of most Palestinians and you completely misrepresent the reason many people in this country are simpathetic to the Palestinian's plight. Your simplistic view does not support the reality of the situation. Neither side is perfect. To say so is disingenuous and biased.

You also have stubbornly refused to admit that being sympathetic to the Palestinian's plight does not equate to being against Israel. I am both sympathetic to the Palestinians and sympathetic to Israel's situation. That does not mean that I support all of the actions of both groups. I think the terrorism from the Palestinian side is horrible. I also think that the Israel-sponsored settlements and the violence used to maintain those settlements is horrible. The Palestinian extremists have given the Israeli government no reason to trust them and the Israeli government has given the Palestinians no reason to hope for the future.

So am I anti-Israel? Am I a shill for the left? Am I biased? It seems to me that my position is much more balanced than anything you have put forth to date.

Please respond to all the points that I made. Please do not cherry-pick lines and reply only to those.

Taft

IJ Reilly

May 17, 2004, 12:29 PM

Taft

May 17, 2004, 01:01 PM

What we have here is a failure to communicate. Long ago, the hard right adopted the dogmatic position that all sources of information that fail to make their case exclusively are biased and inherently unreliable. Once a person accepts this premise, their mind becomes wide open to being propagandized. Discussion and debate beyond this point is almost impossible.

Call me an optimist, but I keep hoping--wishing, expecting, whatever--that this isn't true. Because if it is, all hope of rational debate is lost.

Bias needs to be turned into an easily quantifiable thing. The fact that a person is or isn't biased should be just that: a fact. Not an opinion, not subject to interpretation, etc. It should be a easy to prove fact. We need a "bias detecting machine." Input all the statements a person has ever made, plus any necessary contextual information, pull out a printout of whether that person is biased. Use only statistics and scientific methods in the analysis.

Without some clear and easy to determine benchmark of bias, each side will continue to play the "world is biased against me" card until that position has lost all meaning. Unfortunately, without a huge amount of funding, no serious and objective research into this area will ever happen.

Taft

Voltron

May 17, 2004, 01:06 PM

So, when extremists (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun_Zvai-Leumi) within the Jewish settlers in Palestine used terrorism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre) to acheive an independent Israeli state 60 years ago, do you feel that was justified? I certainly don't think it was. But they did use terrorism to acheive their goals. Yet history seems to conveniently forget that fact.

We can't fix the past we can only work on the present and the future.
If we justify things being done in the present based on things that have been done in the past how far back to we go before stopping?
I believed that Israel gained possession of Gaza when they were attacked by Egypt and I think Syria. Israel won that war and part of the peace agreement was turning over Gaza and the West bank to Israel. Thus it wasn't terrorism that gained them this land anyhow.

So from this history, I make this bold statement: the fact that extremists from one side engage in terrorism does not invalidate the position of that side. If it did, Israel would never have been formed. They engaged in terrorism prior to the formation of the Israeli state. Did that invalidate the position of the Jews who wanted a Jewish state? No. Does the fact that some extremists from the Palestinian side use terrorist tactics to achevei their goals invalidate the desire of the average Palestinian to have their own land? I don't think so. Do you?

It does until you solve the more important problem of getting rid of terrorism. It is my position that as long as one side is using terrorism to achieve their goals, even if their failing in the process, that nothing is more important or matters except removing that terrorism. Therefore if the Palestinians wish to move to a more peaceful solution they must first help Israel get rid of Hamas and the other terroristic groups. Then and only then you worry about the other stuff.

Also, you have completely misrepresented the position of most Palestinians and you completely misrepresent the reason many people in this country are simpathetic to the Palestinian's plight. Your simplistic view does not support the reality of the situation. Neither side is perfect. To say so is disingenuous and biased.

I realize that the majority of Palestinians are peaceful. Or actually I hope they are for I don't really know that to be a fact. However the peaceful Palestinians aren't the problem right now. The Militant ones are, so when I tend to generalize and talk about "Palestinians" I'm only talking about the ones that are being the problems. PLO, Hamas, Ji-had, Al-zera (even tho they claim to be journalist), and some other groups. I am not saying Israel is perfect or isn't even wrong in some aspects. I personally find it tough siding with a side that in my opinion is a theocracy. But I realize there are room in this world for all types of governments and philosophy's and I don't have to agree with all of them. I'm not on Israels side because I necessarily think they are right, but because suicide bombers are strapping bombs about their wastes and blowing up movie theaters. As long as that is going on I don't care about the other stuff. In fact allot of the other stuff is justified because of the terrorists.

You also have stubbornly refused to admit that being sympathetic to the Palestinian's plight does not equate to being against Israel. I am both sympathetic to the Palestinians and sympathetic to Israel's situation. That does not mean that I support all of the actions of both groups. I think the terrorism from the Palestinian side is horrible. I also think that the Israel-sponsored settlements and the violence used to maintain those settlements is horrible. The Palestinian extremists have given the Israeli government no reason to trust them and the Israeli government has given the Palestinians no reason to hope for the future.

I have problems sympathizing with those who allow their terrorist factions to have public parades in masks with guns and fake suicide bombs basically advertising that they are terrorists and then doing nothing about it. If I was in charge of Israel that would be a time to do carpet bombing. Not to kill all Palestinians like some would claim I want, but to kill allot of people who think terrorism is a valid means to an end.

Because of the situation as it is now. I believe the only viable option is the wall between Palestine and Israel and to disallow anyone from one side to ever cross over to the other side for at least a period of 5 to 10 years. Anyone who tries should be executed. Such a harsh penalty hopefully will minimize the number of people who will try and thus minimize the number of deaths resulting from trying to by pass the wall.

That means Palestinians are going to have to lead themselves including police, fire, medical, etc and not rely on the Israelites infrastracture. It also means Israel can't retaliate against suicide bombers but then there shouldn't be any coming accross that border. And yes maybe it would be better that UN soldiers were the guards on that border and not Israelites.

Please respond to all the points that I made. Please do not cherry-pick lines and reply only to those.

Taft
I cherry pick lines for a couple of reasons.
1. I don't know everything and as such I don't have an answer for everything.
or
2. I don't have time to answer everything you care about me answering but I make time answering or posting those things I care about me answering or posting.

Taft

May 17, 2004, 02:04 PM

It does until you solve the more important problem of getting rid of terrorism. It is my position that as long as one side is using terrorism to achieve their goals, even if their failing in the process, that nothing is more important or matters except removing that terrorism. Therefore if the Palestinians wish to move to a more peaceful solution they must first help Israel get rid of Hamas and the other terroristic groups. Then and only then you worry about the other stuff.

OK, I understand where you are coming from. I don't agree with your positions, but I understand where you are coming from. So now lets move away from the issue of Palestinians vs. Israel and back to the original topic.

You personal opinions on the subject aside, can you agree to the following statements:

1. It is not universally established that one side is doing the right thing and the other side is doing the wrong thing. There is much debate about both the cause of and the solution to the violence.

2. Whether or not their behavior is justified, Israel is committing acts of violence in the region, which is a contributing factor to the cycle of violence in the region.

3. Whether or not their position is justified, Palestinian extremists have identified Israel's occupation as a motivating reason for their violent acts.

If you can agree that all three of these statements are true, then I believe you understand that this issue is a complicated one, regardless of the position you, individually, take in the matter. If that is true, then how can you utter these words:

Simply because civilians live in Gaza strip who aren't "Arabs" isn't an acceptable excuss for those "Arabs" who call themselves Palestinians to kill any of em. And those who think so are deffinitely in my mind left leaning.

I read this, in the context of the larger discussion, as: anyone who reports on the underlying reasons of Palestinian violence is biased to the left.

How do you go from having a nuanced vew of the situation to saying that a person who reports news contrary to your opinion is biased? Do you see the problem here?

The article you linked purports editorializing on the part of the author. Where is that opinion in the article? Palestinians say the Israeli occupation is the motivating factor behind extremist violence. Wouldn't evidence of that statement be contained in continued violence against Israelis in the Gaza strip? Is that not fact? Or do you consider it morally wrong to report on news which comments on the viewpoint of terrorists?

I fail to see a bias toward the Palestinian side here. I also fail to see a connection between this purported bias and the left in this country. Any thoughts you had on the matter would be appreciated.

Taft

Voltron

May 17, 2004, 07:03 PM

OK, I understand where you are coming from. I don't agree with your positions, but I understand where you are coming from. So now lets move away from the issue of Palestinians vs. Israel and back to the original topic.

You personal opinions on the subject aside, can you agree to the following statements:

1. It is not universally established that one side is doing the right thing and the other side is doing the wrong thing. There is much debate about both the cause of and the solution to the violence.

Sure, however it does not justify suicide bombers. It does not justify the the terrorist acts against Israel. Suicide bombers do justify missile attacks against terrorist organizations even if those attacks leave collateral damage. Personally I think the problem would'nt of been as big as it is if Israel had taken off the kid gloves a long time ago took out Arafat, napalmed parades of masked gunmen bragging about being suicide bombers, missiled Hamas members while they were on camera announcing to the world that they were giving orders to kill Israelis thru the use of suicide bombers.

2. Whether or not their behavior is justified, Israel is committing acts of violence in the region, which is a contributing factor to the cycle of violence in the region.

So, when someone robs my house I'll commit an act of violence by blowing him away. Justified violence is just that justified.

3. Whether or not their position is justified, Palestinian extremists have identified Israel's occupation as a motivating reason for their violent acts.

And there are folks that blame rich people for them being poor doesn't give them a right to go blow up Bill Gates home in California or wherever it is at. This is a pointless point. Drug users use their dependance on drugs to justify mugging people I don't read allot of press about how we are being too hard on muggers?

If you can agree that all three of these statements are true, then I believe you understand that this issue is a complicated one, regardless of the position you, individually, take in the matter. If that is true, then how can you utter these words:

Simply because civilians live in Gaza strip who aren't "Arabs" isn't an acceptable excuss for those "Arabs" who call themselves Palestinians to kill any of em. And those who think so are deffinitely in my mind left leaning.

Just because people own SUV's doesn't give Environmentalist the right to blow them away. Just because people have more money than you doesn't give you the right to steal it. And just because civilians live in the Gaza strip given to Israel as a token of peace does not give the right for Arabs to blow away civilians.

If America declared war on Mexico and Mexico won. Mexico might decide not to try and rule America, instead we'll just take Texas that way if you decide to attack us again we'll have a buffer zone. Now it is Mexico's right to remove all Americans from Texas even if they have to execute them to do so. If the Texans deserve any recompensation for the loss of their property it would be up to the US of A to pay it, who gave it away, and not up to those who received it.

I read this, in the context of the larger discussion, as: anyone who reports on the underlying reasons of Palestinian violence is biased to the left.

How do you go from having a nuanced vew of the situation to saying that a person who reports news contrary to your opinion is biased? Do you see the problem here?

Those who ignore terrorists and suicide bombers and report more harshly on the retaliation are biased. Suicide bombing is wrong. That is a non partician statement. Simple.

mactastic

May 17, 2004, 07:08 PM

Are suicide bombings wrong when the target(s) are military?

Voltron

May 17, 2004, 07:21 PM

Are suicide bombings wrong when the target(s) are military?
I don't like suicide missions period. I have a hard time understanding someone who values his own life so little to not have a chance to live thru the encounter by providing an escape route for himself.

I am not going to go for the argument that all those who live in Gaza are military targets. Using that logic every citizen in Israel would be consider a military target for every citizen in Israel could potentially be called up to fight as an emergency infantry unit.

If thats the logic you plan on throwing at me if I answered your question "no" then remember the logic goes both direction all Palestinians are potential Hamas members. Something I don't actually believe just like I don't believe all Israelites are viable military targets.

Sayhey

May 17, 2004, 08:00 PM

Are suicide bombings wrong when the target(s) are military?

I don't know if they are "wrong" (depends in what cause you believe is right), but they aren't terrorism.

skunk

May 17, 2004, 08:07 PM

I don't know if they are "wrong" (depends in what cause you believe is right), but they aren't terrorism.
That's right: nobody called kamikaze pilots "terrorists". Mind you, thinking about it, the word probably didn't exist back then... :rolleyes:

Voltron

May 17, 2004, 09:05 PM

deleted.

blackfox

May 17, 2004, 10:04 PM

Sly...are you able to divorce your personal opinions to look at an argument? Are you unwilling to allow for the possibility that even though your ideas and opinion make sense to you, that they might be wrong? Or more likely underinformed in terms of context? Can you conceive of the fact that many people, intelligent people, hold conflicting opinions and that their opinions are as valid as yours?
The point of this is not to single you out, but to remind you that while you are entitled to your opinion, it may not be based in facts, or complex or nuanced enough to deal with reality. I am nearly 30, and I have been wrong more times than I can count...and then I move on...it is called "learning" and treated with the proper sense of humility might possibly lead to Wisdom. I have become smart enough to know that I am basically an idiot by most measures.
Problems such as Isreal/Palestine are of such a paradoxical and complicated nature, that it is necessary to listen to and understand/empathize with ALL sides of the issue to begin to understand the situation/problem. Otherwise, your thinking is, by definition, incomplete. This may not lend itself to possible answers that you will agree with, or a tidy answer at all and it may cause you great discomfort...but this issue has little to do with you, personally. Although you may identify with the Isreali position, and your perception of their morality, you are doing so based on faith, not on a factual reality...which should lead you to investigate the opposite viewpoint all the more thoroughly.
It is such a rigid attitude, even a well-backed one, that precludes any solution, as it denys a whole range of possibilities. It also precludes any sense of forgiveness, which is also a prerequisite for any lasting solution. It is selfish on a personal or aggregate level, to deny a course of action because you perceive it as unfair, or an inequity...these big issues affect the lives of millions of people who deserve a solution, and they have sacrificed much to this end, and often do not have the luxury of being able to divorce themselves from the situation to discuss moral platitudes...they are imperfect people in an imperfect world, as are we, although theirs is often w/o subtlety. Yet we refuse to act in certain ways, or even consider them (this includes you) because we think we might "lose face", indignant that we might have to admit we were wrong, even if the other side seems more so. You wait around waiting for a "sorry", because you feel you deserve one, and feel you must not be the first to say it. It is childish and more importantly, it is Prideful...which is a Cardinal Sin for a reason.
Again, I am not trying to be unfair to you Sly, but I notice that you never seem to admit that your position is wrong, or that there are other viable alternatives. This is Ironic in the context of this thread/issue...for that very behavior is what got this mess started and prevents its' resolution. You have made some good posts, Sly, and please, I ask you to try and llay down your pride and justifications of your opinions and really listen to and consider the many alternatives provided out there. If you are uninterested in facts, and are more interested in making and winning rhetorical arguments(which is valid), I would advise you to also heed this advice, as it will help to tighten up the logic of your arguments.
In closing, as far as the advocation of extreme violence (in this case by the Isreali military) to solve the Palestianian problem, I would like to remind you of three things:
1) It has been tried in comparable situations throughout history, and has a poor track record. Even in the rare case where it has (temporarily) solved the problem, it is a hollow victory for the victors...ask Truman.
2) Violence should always be the last result, as it requires the least thought, and is morally repugnant.
3) When I was little, when I got frustrated with the complexities/intracacies of building my model airplanes, or broke a small piece...I would smash it with a hammer. I would feel good for about five seconds until I realized that I put my time, money and creative effort into something only to be left with nothing but crap, because I was unwilling to be patient enough...I was seven.

pseudobrit

May 17, 2004, 10:27 PM

That's right: nobody called kamikaze pilots "terrorists". Mind you, thinking about it, the word probably didn't exist back then... :rolleyes:

It did; read Solzhenitsyn's August 1914 and Bogrov is referred to throughout as a terrorist rather than assasin. He shot Stolypin in the chest with a pistol. Perhaps the Russians have a looser definition of the word.

I think the old union activists used to be called terrorists also, or dynamiters.

The word terrorist didn't quite take on its "killing innocent people on purpose" meaning until lately.

mactastic

May 18, 2004, 10:27 AM

I don't like suicide missions period. I have a hard time understanding someone who values his own life so little to not have a chance to live thru the encounter by providing an escape route for himself.

I am not going to go for the argument that all those who live in Gaza are military targets. Using that logic every citizen in Israel would be consider a military target for every citizen in Israel could potentially be called up to fight as an emergency infantry unit.

If thats the logic you plan on throwing at me if I answered your question "no" then remember the logic goes both direction all Palestinians are potential Hamas members. Something I don't actually believe just like I don't believe all Israelites are viable military targets.

So IOW, your answer depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is? :eek: :D

Taft

May 18, 2004, 10:52 AM

So, when extremists within the Jewish settlers in Palestine used terrorism to acheive an independent Israeli state 60 years ago, do you feel that was justified? I certainly don't think it was. But they did use terrorism to acheive their goals. Yet history seems to conveniently forget that fact.

And just because civilians live in the Gaza strip given to Israel as a token of peace does not give the right for Arabs to blow away civilians.

Sorry, Sly, but I'm done arguing with you. You ignore my points, try to reframe the debate, and generally act in bad faith in these forums.

Look at the two quotes above. Despite your assertion, the Gaza strip, the settlements, and even Israel itself were all formed out of violence, not as a "token of peace." Jews were willing to move to Jerusalem and attack Palestinians and the British outposts in the region to get their state formed. That doesn't sound very peaceful to me.

Your constant refusal to admit that Israel plays even a small role in the continued violence in the mideast will live in these forums as a testiment to your horrible and unadmitted bias.

As will your constant refusal to acknowledge quality reporting which addresses all sides of a story rather than just your side.

As will your continuous stream of quotes, stories and pseudo-research from unabashedly conservative sources. (Admittance of bias is not a virtue, it's reason for skepticism.)

Your flawed analogies, tendency toward over-simplification, and habit of misrepresenting opponents' arguments will live in these forums as a testiment to your ability, or lack thereof, to rationally discuss issues.

As a final plea for sanity, I invite you to read up on the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Israeli-Palestinian_conflict). The history of the 750,000 Palestinian refugees and their abandonment by the surrounding Arab nations is a sad tale which you seem to ignore. Also, the complicated conditions of the Six Day War and Israel's handling of the additional 300,000 Palestinian refugees created by that war shouldn't be overlooked.

Ignored.

Taft

Voltron

May 18, 2004, 12:43 PM

Suicide bombers/terrorists are bad plain and simple. You don't solve the problem of stopping suicide bombers by talking to them. They tried that during a peace meeting with Arafat in attendance suicide bombers blew up a bus stop full of kids. Excuss me were over here talking peace with your leaders and you are demostrating to us that you don't want peace by that action. Now if the leader of Palestinians actually wanted peace then they would've gone after the organizations that caused that suicide bombing. But no they ignored it.

I am biased against suicide bombers and terrorists.
BTW Israel did not take Gaza strip. It was given to Israel. Egypt and Syria attacked Israel and lost the war. By all rights of war far that made their entire countries posessions of Israel. The fact that Israel only took two small pieces of land as the price for peace should've meant something.

Anyhow back to liberal biased.

If you were listening to talk radio yesterday, or if you happened to be watching the Fox News Channel, you learned that Iraqi insurgents tried to use an artillery shell containing Sarin gas in a roadside explosive devise. A small amount of the deadly gas was released and a few American troops were treated for exposure.

There are two interesting aspects to this story. As of late yesterday afternoon, the media was virtually ignoring the find. Second, the appeasement crowd was quick to try to downplay the significance of the find.

I don't watch ABC, CBS or NBC news with any regularity. Every night it's Special Report with Brit Hume, and in the mornings it's CNN Daybreak with Carol Costello. I can tell you that as of last night my listeners were reporting that they never did see the Sarin gas story show up on CNN or on the CNN website, though it was featured on Fox all afternoon long.

I don't think that the media is going to be able to completely ignore this story, but they sure will try to downplay it. Remember the template: If the story benefits Bush, downplay. If the story hurts Bush ... run it hard. That's why the Nick Berg beheading had such a short lifetime, while the prison abuse story is still on the front pages today.

As for the appeasement crowd? Well, it didn't take long. Up until now the cry was that we had found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Now that some of those weapons have been discovered (mustard gas last week -- didn't hear about that one either, did you), the appeasement crowd is saying that these are just isolated old weapons being found ... and it doesn't mean there's a stockpile somewhere. No matter what we find...Hans Blix and his terrorist-appeasing, dictator-loving, Saddam apologist friends at the U.N. will never admit we were right. After all, to them, Saddam could do no wrong. It's all our fault, you know.
Just great. Last week the charge was that no WMDs were found. This week Blix is saying that no "stockpile" has been found. Find some more weapons and we can argue with the weenies over just what the definition of "stockpile" is. Pathetic.

Oh yeah ... and you're also going to hear that this was an old shell. Not a new one. The theory here, I guess, is that only new WMDs count, not the old ones. Once they start finding new WMDs in Iraq the left will come up with another excuse.

One thing is for certain. The leftist argument that Saddam didn't have any WMDs is now dead. What's next?

I want to know where are the news reports for the Mustard gas. however that is only a small part of it. I want to know where the rest of those shells are being stock piles so we can find out how many more of them have Sarin gas in them. So we can stop their future use. One problem with reporting the news is now they know they got them themselves.

Voltron

May 18, 2004, 12:45 PM

As a final plea for sanity, I invite you to read up on the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Israeli-Palestinian_conflict). The history of the 750,000 Palestinian refugees and their abandonment by the surrounding Arab nations is a sad tale which you seem to ignore. Also, the complicated conditions of the Six Day War and Israel's handling of the additional 300,000 Palestinian refugees created by that war shouldn't be overlooked.

Ignored.

Taft
The fact that Arab community disowned or abandoned these Palestinians don't give them the right to suicide bomb Israelites. If anything they should be suicide bombing the arabs that abandoned them.

It is not Israels responsibility to take care of those outside of their own country. It is not the US responsibility to take care of those outside of our own borders. When we do so its compassion and charity that doesn't give the right to those who receive to demand or expect it.

blackfox

May 18, 2004, 03:43 PM

The fact that Arab community disowned or abandoned these Palestinians don't give them the right to suicide bomb Israelites. If anything they should be suicide bombing the arabs that abandoned them.
I could of sworn that you earlier stated that suicide bombing was not justified period. Are you changing your tune, is it ok as long as it is "lowly" arabs being blown up...and BTW, there are suicide bombings against Isreal since that land used to belong to the Palestinians as Palestine, and the fact that Isreal has superior resources and firepower and uses them daily against them. The fact that the Arab world abandoned them years ago as refugees has little to do with anything.
It is not Israels responsibility to take care of those outside of their own country. It is not the US responsibility to take care of those outside of our own borders. When we do so its compassion and charity that doesn't give the right to those who receive to demand or expect it.
While your first sentance is basically true, it ignores the fact that Isreal bears some responsibility for these peoples' fate, but more to the point, it is in their interests to solve this problem fairly in the interest of the stability, security and welfare of the region and of themselves. As for the rest of your statement (concerning the US)...are you SERIOUS? When the US acts on the world outside of its' own borders it is most often for its' own interests...are we in Iraq because of charity and compassion? Why aren't we in Africa, then? Or the myriad of other places where people are brutalized and desparately poor...for the love of christ, Sly...

skunk

May 18, 2004, 03:48 PM

It is not the US responsibility to take care of those outside of our own borders. When we do so its compassion and charity that doesn't give the right to those who receive to demand or expect it.
Hmmm. I must remember that. It's priceless.

mactastic

May 18, 2004, 10:07 PM

I assume he means 'take care of' the way a mafia don might use it. 'Take care of him, OK Vinny?' :D

IJ Reilly

May 18, 2004, 10:10 PM

We made Saddam an offer he couldn't refuse.

Voltron

May 19, 2004, 01:00 PM

The news of Nicholas Berg's gruesome murder came urgently in mid-afternoon on Fox News Channel. Anchor Shepard Smith didn't -- couldn't -- show the video that had hit the Internet. He handled it gravely, correctly. He explained the deadly facts, how masked Muslim fanatics screamed praise to Allah as they savagely sawed off Berg's head -- the head of an American who came to Iraq to help it rebuild.

How would this story grab the American news media? How would it change the media's obsession with much less graphic photos of sexual humiliation of prisoners? Many suggested that since the media wanted to make such a show out of the Abu Ghraib pictures, they ought to do the same with the Berg murder. An endless spiral into more and more gory images isn't the best way to run a news business -- or a foreign policy. But it's instructive that after news reports had touted the public's "right to know" about Abu Ghraib, to see every picture, suddenly, some images weren't supposed to stick in the public mind.

But there's more to this double-standard story. While NBC aired 58 stories on U.S. prison abuse in the first few weeks of that story, NBC aired only five stories over 16 months on the discovery of Saddam's mass graves. Abu Ghraib holds 1,500 prisoners, a fraction of whom were abused. Saddam's graves held as many as 300,000 people, all of whom were murdered. How is Abu Ghraib 10 times more important than that?

Sadly, the distortions continued. With few exceptions, the Berg beheading was at best a two-day TV story, an obstacle to get around, a white-noise distraction from The Scandal. Berg died. The media's take: sad, but so what? That shouldn't register in public opinion. On the very night the Berg story emerged, ABC's "Nightline" couldn't spend more than a few minutes on Berg before Ted Koppel was back to soliciting John McCain to explain what horrific treatment Americans might dish out next.

By the second night, even though NBC was showing the Berg photo in the show's introduction (sitting in front of his captors), but the newscast itself was sticking to prison abuse, prison abuse, prison abuse. Dan Rather was touting a new CBS poll showing "public support for the war in Iraq has fallen to its lowest level yet" and "the president's overall job approval rating in the latest poll is at a new low, 44 percent."

One wishes Rather had not skipped the other salient points about the CBS poll. By 57 to 37 percent, Americans surveyed didn't want any more prison abuse pictures to be released. And 49 percent said the media have spent too much time on the prison abuse story, compared to a mere 6 percent who think it's been undercovered. Not only were those poll results not aired, they don't seem to have caused anyone to put the brakes on the careening Abu Ghraib Express.

When it came time to sum up the week, the Sunday morning TV shows were predictably harping on prison abuse and mostly left the Berg story out. The weekly news magazines glossed over Berg in varying degrees. U.S. News & World Report's cover read "Inside the Iraq Prison Scandal. The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib. Why the System Broke. The Psychology of Torture." Inside the magazine carried 10 pages of Abu Ghraib coverage but gave just about three-fourths of a page to the Berg killing. Time carried a Bush/Iraq cover with no mention of Berg. It carried five different Abu Ghraib articles and one sidebar on Berg.

Newsweek was the worst of all. The cover carried the hot authors of the evangelical "Left Behind" novel series on the cover, with a top-of-cover plug for "The Truth About (U.S.) Torture." Inside the magazine, there was no Berg article. None. They carried an almost two-page sidebar on Iraqi insurgents, profiling young Mohammed, who sought to kill American infidels "living on bread and Pepsi," but no Berg article. In a political analysis, Howard Fineman mentioned in passing, "Officials pointed out to the beheading of Nick Berg in Iraq as proof that the Middle East needs to be cleansed of the likes of Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda." Berg's life was reduced to a Bush strategy of prison-abuse damage control to "declare American righteousness."

The Berg story was not a slam-dunk pro-Bush angle, as anyone who saw Berg's Bush-blaming father could attest. But it did show that somewhere in the world, there is someone morally lower than the Americans. Apparently that's a truth that our news media somehow cannot stomach.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/brentbozell/bb20040519.shtml

Now truthfully I no longer have time to go browsing around a variety of news sources so I don't know what ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC etc are playing. I barely know what Fox is showing. But I have no reason to think this Bozell guy is lieing.

BTW Why are they covering up polls that go agenst the liberal agenda like the one I darkened in red above? Or what about the statistics I listed in Blue above? Sounds like news source left wing biased to me.

They choose what they wish to report and only report those things that fits their agenda. Doesn't matter if its gun support, Education, the President, other politics, or the war on terrorism. They always seem to press hard of the left wing side of things and ignore the right. For example they report allot, before the war, on innocent victims of guns. But how many times have they reported on those who used guns to defend themselves from criminals? Not many, in fact not any. And you can spout all these statistics you want that just goes to show that they the ones who use guns to defend themselves aren't being properly represented in the press. And its not just guns.

mactastic

May 19, 2004, 02:16 PM

Link (http://www.progressive.org/webex04/wx050104.html)

This is Media Bias

This is what we mean by rightwing media bias.

It's not about the personal views of this reporter or that anchor. It's about the power of the corporate owner to dictate what appears on the public airwaves.

When the Sinclair Broadcast Group prohibited its affiliates from airing the April 30 Nightline program in which Ted Koppel recited the names of 721 U.S. servicemen and women killed in the Iraq War, that company was engaging in corporate censorship.

It was trying to deprive viewers in eight cities--St. Louis, Jacksonville, Charleston, Winston-Salem, Pensacola, Asheville, Springfield, Massachusetts, and Columbus, Ohio--from watching the program. (Sinclair, according to The New York Times, "owns 62 television stations in 39 markets.")

And it did so based on political content, saying the program "appears to be motivated by a political agenda designed to undermine the efforts of the United States in Iraq."

Here was an owner censoring probably the most distinguished network journalist in America because the owner could not tolerate even the reading of the names of the American war dead.

By the way, USA Today and The Washington Post ran photos of the war dead that same week. If Sinclair had owned them, they might have been censored, too.

Senator John McCain sent off a blistering letter to David Smith, president and CEO of Sinclair.

"Your decision to deny your viewers an opportunity to be reminded of war's terrible costs, in all their heartbreaking detail, is a gross disservice to the public, and to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces," McCain wrote. "It is, in short, sir, unpatriotic. I hope it meets with the public opprobrium it most certainly deserves."

CNN reports that the local Sinclair affiliates did receive "angry calls from the public."

This wasn't the first time Sinclair acted like a crude, jingoistic cheerleader. After September 11, "it ordered news personnel at its Baltimore station to read patriotic statements supporting President Bush," The New York Times reported.

The media reform group Free Press has announced its intention to challenge Sinclair's license renewal applications.

"What we see in Sinclair Broadcasting, with its cozy and corrupt relationship to the Bush Administration, is TV journalism that is anything but independent of the government," said Robert McChesney, the media scholar and president of Free Press. "It is a commercial version of Pravda, and it is an outrageous and entirely unacceptable use of the public's airwaves."

mactastic

May 19, 2004, 02:17 PM

"I admit it -- the liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures."
William Kristol, as reported by the New Yorker, 5/22/95

mactastic

May 19, 2004, 02:21 PM

Clear Channel, rejecting Howard Stern's claims that he was canned for slamming President Bush, says its radio network does not have a political agenda.

But new political contribution data tell a different story about Clear Channel (CCU) executives. They have given $42,200 to Bush, vs. $1,750 to likely Democratic nominee John Kerry in the 2004 race.

What's more, the executives and Clear Channel's political action committee gave 77% of their $334,501 in federal contributions to Republicans. That's a bigger share than any other entertainment company, says the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.

Voltron

May 25, 2004, 01:50 PM

Voltron

Jun 1, 2004, 01:09 PM

News media bias is at least as often evident in the stories that are not reported, or are underreported, than in actual manipulation of the facts in stories that are reported.

Right now, there are a number of truly important news stories that are receiving vastly less coverage than they deserve, including the United Nations Oil For Food Program scandal, the vitriolic opposition to John Kerry by a majority of the officers who served in his boat squadron in Vietnam and Al Gore's hate-filled speech at MoveOn.org – which has been treated as a one-day story (on interior pages in both the NY Times and Washington Post, with the most inflammatory parts left out.) The truth is that Gore's manic remarks are at least as over the top as were those of his friend Howard Dean on the night of the Iowa primary.

But that was then, this is now, and don't look for the mainstream press to do anything that might help George W. Bush.

The mother of all underreported stories is the growing evidence for a conspiracy between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda.

There is probably no greater divide between those who support President Bush and his administration on Iraq than this question: is the War in Iraq a component of the War on Terrorism, or is it a distraction from the War on Terrorism? For the Administration and its supporters, the first view is fundamental; with Iraq in the hands of Saddam Hussein, the War on Terrorism could never be won. This is not quite the same thing as saying that Saddam and al-Qaeda were in cahoots, but if they were, then the case is made ipso facto. If moreover, Saddam was somehow implicated in 9/11, the case is not only made, it becomes of the utmost importance.

Liberal orthodoxy holds that there was no connection. Saddam was a secularist; Osama and his followers are among the most extreme theists who have ever lived. They are, therefore, natural enemies. So, over and over, the media – expressing the liberal view – has refused to give any credence whatsoever to the proposition that however different the two men may be on many issues, Osama and Saddam nonetheless fit under at least one tent quite nicely, and that tent, from at least 1991, has been the one with the sign that reads "Hate America."

At least two separate lines of evidence point to a pre-9/11 Saddam-Osama axis of evil. The Czechs have always maintained that 9/11 mastermind Mohammad Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence officer, Ahmad Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani, in Prague in April, 2001. The CIA, on the other hand, has maintained Atta was in the US at the time. But in fact, Atta's whereabouts cannot be established between April 5 and 11, and on the 4th, he and another of the 9/11 hijackers cashed an $8,000 check in Virginia Beach, VA.

Atta and al-Ani also apparently met in May and June of 2000 after which Atta flew from Prague to Newark. It all sounds like Atta was an Iraqi intelligence "asset," and al-Ani was his handler. Newsweek is now claiming that the whole story was a fiction made up by Ahmed Chalabi (wasn't everything?) but people who've followed the trail closely aren't buying it.

Newsweek may not believe in an Iraq/al-Qaeda connection now, but they used to. In their January 11, 1999 issue, they wrote: "Saddam Hussein, who has a long record of supporting terrorism, is trying to rebuild his intelligence network overseas-- assets that would allow him to establish a terrorism network. U.S. sources say he is reaching out to Islamic terrorists, including some who may be linked to Osama bin Laden, the wealthy Saudi exile accused of masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa last summer." Well, as I said once before in this article, that was then, this is now. Then, the Clinton Administration wanted a connection, and even that paragon of honesty, Richard Clarke, told the Washington Post there were links, a statement the Post would duly print in January of 1999. Now, with a Republican administration, Clarke will not admit, and the media establishment will not publish, anything suggesting a connection.

Writer Stephen Hayes of the Weekly Standard, has (in addition to digging out the 1999 quotes above) detailed the second piece of evidence for an Iraq/al-Qaeda conspiracy , which centers on another probable Iraqi intelligence officer named Ahmed Hikmat Shakir, who was present at an al-Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on January 5-8, 2000. At least three of the 9/11 hijackers were also present at that meeting. On September 17, 2001, Shakir was arrested in Qatar and had in his possession contact information for known al-Qaeda terrorists, including some with 9/11 connections. He was released, arrested again when his plane to Baghdad stopped in Jordan. Jordanian intelligence thought they'd struck a counterintelligence deal with him and sent him on his way to Baghdad. He has not been heard from since, according to Hayes.

Finding and publicizing an Iraq/al-Qaeda connection is probably even more important than finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We know why the Kerrybacking news media won't print it, and probably the only way to get them to do so is for a top-level Bush Administration figure to speak out. There may be vital security interests inhibiting such a statement, or the evidence may still need shoring up.

Or else they're waiting for the right political moment, which I humbly suggest is now.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/jaybryant/jb20040601.shtml

Thanatoast

Jun 1, 2004, 03:12 PM

More media biased reported but this its not the news media. Hollywood will make a total of 7 so called documentaries before November, I think they are including Moore's film in that number and guess how many are anti-Bush. They swear its not politically motivated just bad timing.

This after that report about how there are something like 34% democrat journalists and only 7% republicans yet 54% "moderate" which is well known that most liberals think they are moderate. When they ran the poll for the journalist opinions vs the public opinions the jounalist opinions went much further left than the general public on a variety of topics. I don't have the time to go exploring the internet like I use to but both of these was reported on tv today and yesterday.
on social issues journalists trend left. on monetary issues they trend right. kinda like non-nutso libertarians. also, just because someone supports one side or another, it does not mean they can't report neutrally on both sides.

if there are seven anti-bush documentaries coming out, and no pro-bush documentaries coming out, then maybe bush should take a second look at his policy decisions. all the documentaries just *happen* to be anti-bush because he's done a lot of *really* stupid **** the last four years.

IJ Reilly

Jun 1, 2004, 03:27 PM

on social issues journalists trend left. on monetary issues they trend right. kinda like non-nutso libertarians. also, just because someone supports one side or another, it does not mean they can't report neutrally on both sides.

Correct, and this is where we find many conservatives engaging in major acts of deconstruction. They make the huge leap of logic from things like voting and party registration to bias in reporting. Where is the evidence of actual bias? Mainly in these endless anecdotal references to "a lot of negative stories," about politicians and issues conservatives care about, but no hard, credible, statistical evidence.

Voltron

Jun 1, 2004, 10:46 PM

Correct, and this is where we find many conservatives engaging in major acts of deconstruction. They make the huge leap of logic from things like voting and party registration to bias in reporting. Where is the evidence of actual bias? Mainly in these endless anecdotal references to "a lot of negative stories," about politicians and issues conservatives care about, but no hard, credible, statistical evidence.
perhaps you missed this statement as well as several posts I've already made here.

News media bias is at least as often evident in the stories that are not reported, or are underreported, than in actual manipulation of the facts in stories that are reported.

blackfox

Jun 1, 2004, 11:56 PM

News media bias is at least as often evident in the stories that are not reported, or are underreported, than in actual manipulation of the facts in stories that are reported.

What does this prove? This is true regardless of politics, and is often a reflection of business interests (which tend to be more conservative economically, but not always).

Also, I might add that the non-reporting and underreporting of specific stories, IS manipulating the facts, both in general and with regard to specific story content (ie context)...I think you need to try harder than that to refute IJs' comment(s)

Try again...

mcfudd

Jun 2, 2004, 01:50 AM

I am glad the journalists are biased to the left. This way I get to read more articles about how much of a total jerk Bush is. The more the better. :)

Voltron

Jun 3, 2004, 12:46 PM

What does this prove? This is true regardless of politics, and is often a reflection of business interests (which tend to be more conservative economically, but not always).

Also, I might add that the non-reporting and underreporting of specific stories, IS manipulating the facts, both in general and with regard to specific story content (ie context)...I think you need to try harder than that to refute IJs' comment(s)

Try again...

Iraq's new Prime Minister Allawi held a news conference on Tuesday. During that news conference he switched to English to say "I would like to thank the coalition, led by the United States, for the sacrifices they have provided in the process of the liberation of Iraq." Then President Bush had a news conference in Washington. Three times during that conference Bush said that he appreciated Allawi's words of thanks to the American people. According to Fox News Channel as of Wednesday evening not one major American newspaper had reported Allawi's remarks. Not one. The only thing you could find was a story in the New York Times reporting that a Bush spokesman had said that Allawi had issued those remarks. The Times was at the Allawi press conference .. why didn't they report the expression of gratitude? You know why, don't you. Because when the new Prime Minister of Iraq thanks the people of the United States for their sacrifices in the liberation of his country, that story helps George Bush. I will guarantee you that if Allawi had made some negative comments about the American presence in Iraq that would have made the Times front page. Ditto for the Washington Post.

Again, folks. It's the template. You don't have to actually lie in writing your stories. Just follow the stories. If the story would help George Bush, bury it. If the story would hurt George Bush ... run it until the presses melt down.

http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html

There are a multitude of examples you would have to be blind to not see them. However I am limiting myself to new examples only so as not to flood the forums. Plus the reality that I have a limited amount of time to spend on this forum.
http://boortz.com/images/funny/mallard_1.gif
http://boortz.com/images/funny/mallard_2.gif

skunk

Jun 3, 2004, 01:12 PM

There are a multitude of examples you would have to be blind to not see them.
It might be more significant if Allawi wasn't an American appointee.

No doubt you noticed that he spoke this bit in English so his own people would not hear it.

Voltron

Jun 3, 2004, 01:25 PM

It might be more significant if Allawi wasn't an American appointee.

No doubt you noticed that he spoke this bit in English so his own people would not hear it.
And that would be why the major left wing media biased outlets didn't report it? :cool:

skunk

Jun 3, 2004, 01:37 PM

And that would be why the major left wing media biased outlets didn't report it? :cool:
No, that would be why his comments were not noteworthy.

Voltron

Jun 4, 2004, 12:58 PM

If D-Day Had Been Reported On Today

by William A. Mayer

Tragic French Offensive Stalled on Beaches (Normandy, France - June 6, 1944) - Pandemonium, shock and sheer terror predominate today's events in Europe.

In an as yet unfolding apparent fiasco, Supreme Allied Commander, Gen. Dwight David Eisenhower's troops got a rude awakening this morning at Omaha Beach here in Normandy.

Due to insufficient planning and lack of a workable entrance strategy, soldiers of the 1st and 29th Infantry as well as Army Rangers are now bogged down and sustaining heavy casualties inflicted on them by dug-in insurgent positions located 170 feet above them on cliffs overlooking the beaches which now resemble blood soaked killing fields at the time of this mid-morning filing.

Bodies, parts of bodies, and blood are the order of the day here, the screams of the dying and the stillness of the dead mingle in testament to this terrible event.

Morale can only be described as extremely poor--in some companies all the officers have been either killed or incapacitated, leaving only poorly trained privates to fend for themselves.

Things appear to be going so poorly that Lt. General Omar Bradley has been rumored to be considering breaking off the attack entirely. As we go to press embattled U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt's
spokesman has not made himself available for comment at all, fueling fires that something has gone disastrously awry.

The government at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is in a distinct lock-down mode and the Vice President's location is presently and officially undisclosed.

Whether the second in command should have gone into hiding during such a crisis will have to be answered at some future time, but many agree it does not send a good signal.

Miles behind the beaches and adding to the chaos, U.S. Naval gunships have inflicted many friendly fire casualties, as huge high explosive projectiles rain death and destruction on unsuspecting Allied positions.
The lack of training of Naval gunners has been called into question numerous times before and today's demonstration seems to underlie those concerns.

At Utah Beach the situation is also grim, elements of the 82nd and 101st Airborne seemed to be in disarray as they missed their primary drop zones behind the area believed to comprise the militant's front lines. Errant paratroopers have been hung up in trees, breaking arms and legs, rendering themselves easy targets for those defending this territory.

On the beach front itself the landing area was missed, catapulting U.S. forces nearly 2,000 yards South of the intended coordinates, thus placing them that much farther away from the German insurgents and unable to direct covering fire or materially add to the operation.

Casualties at day's end are nothing short of horrific; at least 8,000 and possibly as many as 9,000 were wounded in the haphazardly coordinated attack, which seems to have no unifying purpose or intent. Of this number at least 3,000 have been estimated as having been killed, making June 6th by far, the worst single day of the war which has dragged on now--with no exit strategy in sight--as the American economy still struggles to recover from Herbert Hoover's depression and its 25% unemployment.

Military spending has skyrocketed the national debt into uncharted regions, lending another cause for concern. When and if the current hostilities finally end it may take generations for the huge debt to be repaid.

On the planning end of things, experts wonder privately if enough troops were committed to the initial offensive and whether at least another 100,000 troops should have been added to the force structure before such an audacious undertaking. Communication problems also have made their presence felt making that an area for further investigation by the appropriate governmental committees.

On the home front, questions and concern have been voiced. A telephone poll has shown dwindling support for the wheel-chair bound Commander In Chief, which might indicate a further erosion of support for his now three year-old global war.

Of course, the President's precarious health has always been a question. He has just recently recovered from pneumonia and speculation persists whether or not he has sufficient stamina to properly sustain the war effort. This remains a topic of furious discussion among those questioning his competency.

Today's costly and chaotic landing compounds the President's already large credibility problem.

More darkly, this phase of the war, commencing less than six months before the next general election, gives some the impression that Roosevelt may be using this offensive simply as a means to secure re-election in the fall.

Underlining the less than effective Allied attack, German casualties--most of them innocent and hapless conscripts--seem not to be as severe as would be imagined. A German minister who requested anonymity stated categorically that "the aggressors were being driven back into the sea amidst heavy casualties, the German people seek no wider war."

"The news couldn't be better," Adolph Hitler said when he was first informed of the D-Day assault earlier this afternoon.

"As long as they were in Britain we couldn't get at them. Now we have them where we can destroy them."

German minister Goebbels had been told of the Allied airborne landings at 0400 hours.

"Thank God, at last," he said. "This is the final round."

http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html

mactastic

Jun 4, 2004, 01:23 PM

FOX News managing editor and chief Washington correspondent Brit Hume attempted to put a pro-Bush spin on data reported by The Washington Post; the data indicates that President George W. Bush's reelection campaign is airing more attack ads than is Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign. While Hume criticized the Post for failing to include in its count the thousands of negative ads aired by the Kerry campaign during the Democratic primaries, the information the Post omitted is even less favorable to Bush.

From the June 2 edition of FOX News Channel's Special Report with Brit Hume:

HUME: The Washington Post has reported that the Bush re-election campaign is using, quote, "unprecedented negativity against John Kerry." The Post says Kerry has so far aired only 13,300 ads in major media markets, while Bush-Cheney has aired more than 49,000. But the Post is only counting ads from the period since March 4, when the Bush-Cheney '04 team began its ad campaign. The Post fails to note that more than 15,300 negative ads that Kerry ran during the primary season, which means that Kerry ran nearly 29,000 negative ads, more than twice as many as the Post noted.

Pushing back the start date of the Post's survey only emphasizes how much more negative Bush's campaign has been: Bush has run 71 percent more negative ads than has Kerry (49,000 negative ads from Bush versus 29,000 from Kerry) in one-third of the time (three months since March 4, 2004, versus nine months since Kerry ran his first negative ad on September 4, 2003). Indeed, if Bush had been running ads at his current pace since Kerry ran his first ad, his current negative ad total would be approximately 147,000 -- 413 percent greater than Kerry's current total.

Link (http://mediamatters.org/items/200406030006)

blackfox

Jun 4, 2004, 01:25 PM

apples and oranges Sly, apples and oranges...

numediaman

Jun 4, 2004, 01:42 PM

apples and oranges Sly, apples and oranges...

But don't you think Boortz and Goebbels share a lot in common?

blackfox

Jun 4, 2004, 02:47 PM

But don't you think Boortz and Goebbels share a lot in common?
I didn't really want to go there, since I was having such a good morning...but...well, you were being rhetorical anyway...yes

Neserk

Jun 4, 2004, 11:25 PM

It is an op-ed piece but this is probably one of the most balanced writings I've seen.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=679&ncid=742&e=1&u=/usatoday/20040604/cm_usatoday/bushkerrypoliticaladscanthandlethetruth

Voltron

Jun 7, 2004, 12:50 PM

AS PREDICTED, PRESS TIES ABU GHRAIB TO D-DAY

You might have thought with the 60th anniversary of D-Day coinciding with the news coverage of Ronald Reagan's passing, that the media had briefly set aside their Abu Ghraib obsession. Of course not. Examples are not hard to find, but here's just a few:

The Seattle Times: "The picture of the six Marines raising the flag on Mount Suribachi, the most-reproduced image in the history of war photography, was evoked again by Tom Franklin's photograph of firemen raising a flag atop the rubble of New York's Twin Towers after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "It said, 'Look, we're the same people who won that war, and we're going to survive this too,' " said Buell. "It crossed generations." Then came Abu Ghraib.

USA Today: "I am alive today thanks to the Americans and the English," says Marcellin, a French Jew who spent three years hiding from the Nazis in the South of France. His gratitude has not faded since June 6, 1944, when Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy to drive out the Germans. What about the war in Iraq? "America may be right, it may be wrong," he says. The abuse of prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison? "The French did the same thing in the war with Algeria."

The LA Times: "In both Italy and France, Bush found himself on the defensive over the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad"
The media can't help themselves. They must follow the template. What went on at Abu Ghraib prison last year has absolutely nothing to do with the celebration of the 60th anniversary of D-Day. That doesn't matter...any news that hurts George Bush must be repeated over and over. You'll keep hearing it endlessly until election day.

Told you so.
http://boortz.com/nuze/index.html

BTW when I say biased media I am not talking about biased shows like Rush Limbaugh, Neal Boorts, etc. I am talking about news shows who are suppose to be playing the news not brain washing the world into becoming left wing pundits.

mactastic

Jun 7, 2004, 12:58 PM

You mean like FAUX? That 'Fair and Balanced' source of purportedly unbiased news?

And, as predicted, George W. Bush shamelessly connected himself and his WOT to D-Day. Told ya so.

screener

Jun 7, 2004, 01:03 PM

You mean like FAUX? That 'Fair and Balanced' source of purportedly unbiased news?

And, as predicted, George W. Bush shamelessly connected himself and his WOT on terror to D-Day. Told ya so.

Bush must be seething that Reagan died during this trip, than maybe not.
As for FAUX, I'll PAS.

takao

Jun 7, 2004, 02:09 PM

You mean like FAUX? That 'Fair and Balanced' source of purportedly unbiased news?

And, as predicted, George W. Bush shamelessly connected himself and his WOT to D-Day. Told ya so.

http://images.derstandard.at/20040607/gleichung.jpg

Voltron

Jun 14, 2004, 01:53 PM

I most deffinitely mean Fox for they reported this.

Pallestinian terrorists attack Israelites. When they took off to escape they all hopped into the back of a UN Red Cross van driven by a UN employee. All of it was caught on tape by Reuters. I'm waiting for ABC, CBS, NBC, PMSNBC, CNN, to report on this BIG news. Since I don't watch them I can't say for sure they aren't reporting it but I wouldn't be surprised. Too new for it to be on the internet yet I guess for Drudge hasn't reported either. :eek:

The UN claims that the driver was held under gun point.

BTW they showed the gun men piling into the van on tv.

numediaman

Jun 14, 2004, 03:44 PM

wwworry

Jun 14, 2004, 03:45 PM

Lets arrest those damn pilots who handed over the jets that crashed into the WTC too. :confused:

blackfox

Jun 14, 2004, 05:49 PM

What does the story below have to do with the subject of this thread? No idea. But here goes:

Bush welcomes Clintons for portrait unveiling

Monday, June 14, 2004 Posted: 2:13 PM EDT (1813 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush praised his predecessor's "energy and joy" Monday as the official portraits of former President Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton were unveiled in a lighthearted ceremony at the White House.

The Clintons received a standing ovation from guests in the East Room of the executive mansion before the paintings by artist Simmie Knox were revealed.

"President Clinton and Sen. Clinton, welcome home," Bush said.

Clinton said it was a great honor for him, his wife -- now a U.S. senator from New York -- and their family to return to "this wonderful place we called home for eight years."

Bush's introduction, he said, "made me feel like a pickle stepping into history."

A pickle? Oh well.
Numedia, I believe Sly was trying to say that any tacit support of the Palestinians (even by gunpoint) makes the Red Cross a liberally-biased institution, which of course destroys it's credibility in asking for adherence to International Law in regards to US detainees, which of course ignores the fact, that the RC, by nature helps both/any sides in conflicts, in terms of care for sick and wounded. Tunnel-vision, I suppose...

As far as Clinton goes, here is the best attempt at context for the "pickle" comment:
Mr. President, I had mixed feelings coming here today, and they were only confirmed by all those kind and generous things you said. Made me feel like I was a pickle stepping into history.
The full transcript is linked below:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40670-2004Jun14.html

Also kind of amusing is this quote about the event:

Bush left Clinton laughing so hard that his face turned red with a jibe about Clinton's optimism in campaigning in Texas for George McGovern in 1972.

IJ Reilly

Jun 14, 2004, 06:52 PM

Right, like you've never felt like a pickle in history...

zimv20

Jun 14, 2004, 07:25 PM

Right, like you've never felt like a pickle in history...
only socially

Voltron

Jun 14, 2004, 09:12 PM

Numedia, I believe Sly was trying to say that any tacit support of the Palestinians (even by gunpoint) makes the Red Cross a liberally-biased institution, which of course destroys it's credibility in asking for adherence to International Law in regards to US detainees, which of course ignores the fact, that the RC, by nature helps both/any sides in conflicts, in terms of care for sick and wounded. Tunnel-vision, I suppose...

:
Don't forget they also provide getaway vehicles for terrorist.

skunk

Jun 14, 2004, 09:24 PM

Don't forget they also provide getaway vehicles for terrorist.
Allegedly...

Voltron

Jun 14, 2004, 09:39 PM

also left wing biased in academic culture, although I must admit as a student today I see none of the crap I use to see when I was a student back in 1992. But then I'm judging by 4 instructors, in the now example, and that isn't enough of a sample even for me yet.

Frontpage Interview's guest today is James Miller, an economics teacher at Smith College who was almost denied tenure for espousing conservative viewpoints. He is currently running as a Republican for the Massachusetts State Senate.

FP: Prof. Miller, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Miller: My pleasure Jamie.

FP: Tell us about the political discrimination that was the cause of some members of your department voting against you for tenure.

Miller: When I came up for reappointment at Smith College in April 2000 I had a relatively weak record, having published only one academic article. My department, however, decided to make the best possible case for me and voted 11-0-1 in favor of recommending my reappointment. I was very productive over the following two and a half years, publishing five additional academic articles and a book. Yet in Fall 2002, by a vote of 6-3-1, my department voted to fire me by denying me tenure. What changed between my reappointment and tenure review, I believe, was that I started writing conservative op-ed pieces.

I appealed my tenure denial to Smith's five-person Grievance Committee. They unanimously ruled that two members of my department had violated my academic freedom during my tenure review. One department member, in explaining why she had voted against giving me tenure, expressed disappointment at the conservative views I had expressed in a National Review Online article. The article is available at the following address:

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=13765

if you go to this site http://www.noindoctrination.org/ you will find case histories of students having been prejudiced by a left leaning college or university establishment. This guy goes on speaking tours throughout the countries. One of his case studies he uses in his speech, and one of the case studies documented on his site is me. He didn't take my word for it I gave him the info he did his research and now uses me and what happened to me back in 1992 as further evidence of left prejudices in the University and College systems.

FYI the link on that page leads to this page http://www.noindoctrination.org/view.shtml which in turn allows you to view all of the case examples. I am not alone.

addendum -- I rereviewed his site, my case is no longer on there. Apparently he's deleted everything older than 2002.

Voltron

Jun 14, 2004, 10:39 PM

screener

Jun 14, 2004, 10:56 PM

Voltron

Jun 14, 2004, 11:06 PM

"I have not been able to find the news story anywhere on the internet including Reuters own web site."

So Fox ran a clip that you can't verify the authenticity of other than Fox saying it was a Reuters original. Hmm. I guess Fox had to run it otherwise they would look like fools.
Only using your argument, the parts I wanted to, from the "Tell me again why we are here thread"
oopsie, guess I wasn't using the proper search criteria

The United Nations and Red Cross have been providing cover for terrorists -- literally. And American taxpayers are footing some of the bill.

Last week, an Israeli television station aired footage of armed Arab terrorists in southern Gaza using an ambulance owned and operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Palestinian gunmen used the UNRWA emergency vehicle as getaway transportation after murdering six Israeli soldiers in Gaza City on May 11. The footage shows two ambulances with flashing lights pull onto a street. Shots and shouts ring out during the nighttime raid. A gang of militants piles into one of the supposedly neutral ambulances, clearly marked "U.N." with the agency's blue flag flying from the roof, which then speeds away from the scene.

According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (CSS), senior UNRWA employee Nahed Rashid Ahmed Attalah confessed to using his official U.N. vehicle to bypass security and smuggle arms, explosives, and terrorists to and from attacks. He was in charge of distributing food supplies to Palestinian refugees. Nidal 'Abd al-Fataah 'Abdallah Nizal, a Hamas activist, worked as an UNRWA ambulance driver and admitted he had used an emergency vehicle to transport munitions to terrorists.

U.N. vehicles aren't the only ones being used by terrorists. An intensive care ambulance carrying the acronym of the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) was used to deliver an explosive belt found underneath a stretcher on which a sick child was lying in spring 2002. Female suicide bomber Wafa Idris, who blew herself up in a January 2002 attack in Jerusalem, was a medical secretary for the PRCS. Her recruiter was an ambulance driver for the same organization. PRCS receives financial support from governments and organizations around the world, including the American Red Cross and International Committee of the Red Cross.

The UNRWA has long been suspected of providing aid and comfort to terrorists. Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, recently documented how "buildings and warehouses under UNRWA supervision are allegedly being used as storage areas for Palestinian ammunition and counterfeit currency factories." Cantor's 2002 report also noted that UNRWA hosts summer camps in martyrdom for young terrorists-in-training. Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., has also lobbied for increased scrutiny of UNRWA funding, which has been used to publish anti-Semitic textbooks and posters in schools that "glorify homicide bombers and the slaughter of innocents."

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/mm20040602.shtml

Voltron

Jun 14, 2004, 11:11 PM

The United Nations and Red Cross have been providing cover for terrorists -- literally. And American taxpayers are footing some of the bill.
Last week, an Israeli television station aired footage of armed Arab terrorists in southern Gaza using an ambulance owned and operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Palestinian gunmen used the UNRWA emergency vehicle as getaway transportation after murdering six Israeli soldiers in Gaza City May 11. The footage shows two ambulances with flashing lights pull onto a street. Shots and shouts ring out during the nighttime raid. A gang of militants piles into one of the supposedly neutral ambulances, clearly marked "U.N." with blue flag flying, which then speeds from the scene.
AccessMiddleEast.org, a nonprofit global news monitoring service, posted the video (shot by a Reuters TV cameraman) on its Web site last week. (It's available at e.tln0.com/ame/archives/ reuters?UN?amblulances?11?may?04.wmv).
http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20040602-085820-1021r

http://www.unitedjerusalem.org/index2.asp?id=447373

[B]The actual video of them using the UN vehicle is contained here
http://www.accessmiddleeast.org/
Video addy is below.
http://e.tln0.com/ame/archives/reuters_UN_amblulances_11_may_04.wmv

armed militants. * This footage was shot by Reuters on May 11 -- the day 6 IDF soldiers were killed when their armored personnel carrier was blown up -- but only aired two weeks later. * Click

Ugg

Jun 14, 2004, 11:36 PM

Link (http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1239094,00.html)

Fox News, the US news network owned by Rupert Murdoch, has been found in breach of British broadcasting rules for an on-air tirade that accused the BBC of "frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism".

Television regulators said the broadcaster failed to show "respect for truth" in a strongly worded opinion item, broadcast on the day the Hutton report was published, which also accused BBC executives of giving reporters a "right to lie".

Ofcom, which licenses commercial channels shown in Britain regardless of where they are based, received 24 complaints about the remarks. In a ruling published yesterday, it described the offending item as a "damning critique" but said it did not stand up to scrutiny.

It is the third ruling by British regulators against Fox News, which is available in Britain to Sky Digital customers, in the past year.

Well, at least the Brits are willing to stand up against the Murdochs.

Taft

Jun 15, 2004, 09:32 AM

Link (http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1239094,00.html)

Well, at least the Brits are willing to stand up against the Murdochs.

You mean libel isn't considered protected speech?!?! Fox is going to have to change their whole strategy!

Taft

wwworry

Jun 15, 2004, 10:42 AM

Voltron, Sly Hunter, whatever is quick to point out that Iraqi militants are obtaining US military clothing to torture people in order to create a anti-american backlash. However they would never do this with the UN???

Voltron, Sly Hunter, whatever knows that American Airline pilots were killed and hijacked so that terrorists (not Iraqi terrorists BTW) could crash the plane into the WTC. However, they would never do this with a UN vehicle???

???

numediaman

Jun 15, 2004, 11:39 AM

Interesting little story in the WaPo:

Va. Tells Men: No Sex With Young Girls

The Associated Press
Monday, June 14, 2004; 1:57 PM

RICHMOND, Va. - The state is posting billboards with messages such as "Isn't she a little young?" as part of a campaign to dissuade men from having sex with underage girls.

The campaign is aimed at reducing the number of young girls who have children with older men, the Virginia Department of Health said Monday.

In 1999 and 2000 in Virginia, men over 18 were responsible for 219 births involving girls who were 13 and 14, the department said.

Messages such as "Isn't she a little young?" and "Sex with a minor, don't go there" also appear on posters, coasters and napkins in bars, restaurants and stores in five cities.

"We encourage adult men to talk to their peers and discourage them from pursuing teenagers. What they are doing is unhealthy and against the law," said Robert Franklin, a health department official.

Quiz time: what is Virginia's state motto (used for marketing purposes)?

IJ Reilly

Jun 15, 2004, 11:48 AM

Quiz time: what is Virginia's state motto (used for marketing purposes)?

I come up with "Sic Semper Tyrannis" (Thus Always to Tyrants), though based on your question I was expecting something about marrying your cousin.

numediaman

Jun 15, 2004, 11:53 AM

I come up with "Sic Semper Tyrannis" (Thus Always to Tyrants), though based on your question I was expecting something about marrying your cousin.

It's right there on the home page (http://www.virginia.org/home.asp?Try=Yes)

mactastic

Jun 15, 2004, 12:37 PM

Virginia is for lovers, correct? As long as you're straight and roughly the same age of course.. ;)

Voltron

Jun 15, 2004, 01:15 PM

blackfox

Jun 15, 2004, 05:27 PM

Even if your right, it doesn't explain why the major news media outlets aren't reporting it.
Well Sly, In the first case, it is fairly obvious that it was actually US forces doing the torturing, as we have pictures of identifiable US military personnel...even, if to play devil's advocate, there was some dress-up involved, as the mock-ups in the UK a while back prove, it is often difficult to accurately gear up in the same fashion as the original forces...from how you tie your laces, to how you wear your equipment...which brings me to the second case...

There is a little something in responsible Journalism called checking your facts and sources before rushing to Press, but perhaps you are unfamiliar with such etiquette from Boortz and Faux News...to a respectable paper it is quite damaging to have to issue an apology/retraction as the NYT did a few months ago...something I have yet to see Faux do...

Voltron

Jun 15, 2004, 07:14 PM

Well Sly, In the first case, it is fairly obvious that it was actually US forces doing the torturing, as we have pictures of identifiable US military personnel...even, if to play devil's advocate, there was some dress-up involved, as the mock-ups in the UK a while back prove, it is often difficult to accurately gear up in the same fashion as the original forces...from how you tie your laces, to how you wear your equipment...which brings me to the second case...

There is a little something in responsible Journalism called checking your facts and sources before rushing to Press, but perhaps you are unfamiliar with such etiquette from Boortz and Faux News...to a respectable paper it is quite damaging to have to issue an apology/retraction as the NYT did a few months ago...something I have yet to see Faux do...

What does actual us torturing have to do with terrorist stricking in Israel, using UN vehicles to do it, and the press not reporting it?

Voltron

Jun 15, 2004, 07:19 PM

NEW YORK -- Instead of road trips, beach vacations and barbecues, thousands of anti-Bush demonstrators are headed to summer school to learn how to stage successful sit-ins and what to do if pepper spray burns their eyes.

Welcome to Convention Protesting 101.

Before GOP convention begins Aug. 30, veteran activists will train protesters in street tactics, legal issues, public relations and first aid in an effort they say is the largest of its kind. The aim: to create a force of well-schooled demonstrators who will carry out safe and organized protests instead of riots that obscure their message.

With city officials this week weighing which protest groups will get permits for official events, activists throughout the city are quietly learning how to block doorways or street intersections, and when to use passive body language _ such as sitting down _ to impede arrest.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ny-bc-ny--gopprotests0615jun15,0,23373,print.story?coll=ny-ap-regional-wire
"The Republicans would love to have images coming out of New York City that make them look like the reasonable ones, like they're about responsibility and law and order and creating a safe society, and that the left was unreasonable and violent," said John Sellers, director of the Ruckus Society, a California-based group that trains activists.

"If we don't recognize that, then we're not being very strategic," he added.

The instruction even includes skills for responding to rogue protesters intent on causing lawlessness, because veterans realize that thousands of untrained demonstrators are likely to swarm city streets that week.

The Ruckus Society, founded in 1995, will hold at least one weekend training camp this summer. Using many of the same principles, local activists are already teaching classes in churches, homes and public spaces.

"It's not just that we train a few thousand people over the summer," said Jeff Senter, a legal training coordinator. "They go and tell their friends, so the effect is multiplied several times over."

Organizers won't publicly disclose their plans for civil disobedience. But activists describe sit-ins and blockades at delegate hotels, pie-throwing at high-level officials, and street theater outside Broadway shows attended by convention-goers. A man who calls himself Jonny America plans to mimic Paul Revere's ride along Lexington Avenue, shouting "the Republicans are coming, the Republicans are coming!"

Activists have declared Aug. 31 as an official day of civil disobedience, calling for all protesters to sit down and refuse to move in the streets around convention headquarters at Madison Square Garden and other sites throughout the city.

some people don't believe in letting the democratic process work.

mactastic

Jun 15, 2004, 07:50 PM

some people don't believe in letting the democratic process work.

I know. Thus the need for the protesters. Duh. :D

Voltron

Jun 15, 2004, 07:55 PM

I know. Thus the need for the protesters. Duh. :D
Protesting and purposely blocking doorways and crap so the democratic process can continue to move are two different things.

mactastic

Jun 15, 2004, 08:00 PM

Protesting and purposely blocking doorways and crap so the democratic process can continue to move are two different things.

Yeah, passive resistance is so 20th century huh.... :D

Voltron

Jun 15, 2004, 08:03 PM

Yeah, passive resistance is so 20th century huh.... :D
What would you have been saying had Republican organizers decided to put up human road blocks in front of the Democrat convention. It just aint right.

mactastic

Jun 15, 2004, 08:06 PM

What would you have been saying had Republican organizers decided to put up human road blocks in front of the Democrat convention. It just aint right.

How do you know what I'd say? Are you clairavoyant? Besides, Republicans do plenty of this kind of thing outside Planned Parenthood clinics, no?

Voltron

Jun 15, 2004, 08:19 PM

How do you know what I'd say? Are you clairavoyant? Besides, Republicans do plenty of this kind of thing outside Planned Parenthood clinics, no?
Republicans organize protestors to block planned parenthood clinics? I did not know that I thought idiots with too much time on their hands did so not official members of the Republican party? Besides I could care less I'm against that too.

mactastic

Jun 15, 2004, 08:25 PM

Republicans organize protestors to block planned parenthood clinics? I did not know that I thought idiots with too much time on their hands did so not official members of the Republican party? Besides I could care less I'm against that too.

And did that article say that official members of the Democratic party were organizing these training sessions? Yet you made that assertion. :rolleyes:

Voltron

Jun 15, 2004, 08:54 PM

And did that article say that official members of the Democratic party were organizing these training sessions? Yet you made that assertion. :rolleyes:

The Ruckus Society, founded in 1995, will hold at least one weekend training camp this summer. Using many of the same principles, local activists are already teaching classes in churches, homes and public spaces.

They sound like Democrats to me.
Just like the protestors of Planned Parenthood sound like Republicans to you. :p

mactastic

Jun 15, 2004, 10:11 PM

They sound like Democrats to me.
Just like the protestors of Planned Parenthood sound like Republicans to you. :p

Indeed. I'm glad you caught on to that Sly. Nothing slips by you! :D

screener

Jun 15, 2004, 10:52 PM

What would you people do without Voltron, Sly, the next incarnation.
I mean my e-mail keeps pinging before I even finish my typing and sure enough, there he is again.

Sayhey

Jun 15, 2004, 11:22 PM

What would you people do without Voltron, Sly, the next incarnation.
I mean my e-mail keeps pinging before I even finish my typing and sure enough, there he is again.

I put him on my ignore list long ago. It's much nicer in here without him. ;)

Voltron

Jun 16, 2004, 07:57 AM

MORE MEDIA BIAS EXPOSED IN POLL

Remember last week's LA Times poll that came out of nowhere showing The Poodle had surged ahead of Bush by seven points? Well guess what...according to Roll Call, not counting independents, the poll's results were calculated based on a sample of 38% Democrats and 25% Republicans. Well, no wonder sKerry was ahead by 7 points! To get that result, they had to ask 13% more Democrats! In other words, the media skewed the results on purpose.

All polls are suspect, but that should give you pause the next time you hear the media trumpeting some poll. Remember the template...any story that presents President Bush in a negative light gets the most coverage, while any story presenting the president in a positive light gets buried.

Now the media is forging poll results to make the president look bad. Hopefully you aren't surprised.

So is Boortz lieing, or is the press?

screener

Jun 16, 2004, 08:27 AM

Boortz

Voltron

Jun 21, 2004, 08:27 PM

Why have the media continued to report, obsess and revel in the same old humiliation photos from U.S.-controlled Abu Ghraib even as they ignore never-before-aired videotape that documents the hacking, maiming and bloody torture that took place at Abu Ghraib under Saddam Hussein?

When the New York Post's Deborah Orin posed this excellent question to terror expert Michael Ledeen, he responded that "most journalists want Bush to lose." Former Defense Department official Richard Perle also blames "faint hearts in the administration" who believe it's "politically incorrect" to showcase the savage reality of Saddam Hussein's regime. Orin offers another explanation: "We highlight U.S. prisoner abuse because the photos aren't too offensive to show. We downplay Saddam's abuse precisely because it's far worse -- so we can't use the photos."

More than anything else, the emanations of Abu Ghraib have enveloped opponents of the Iraqi war policy in a vacuum-packed morality, a cocoon of virtuousness from which they judge the world as it should be, not the world as it is. In their never-never land, there is never, never cause for mistreatment of any kind. This condition may feel good, particularly as it eliminates the need to weigh the well-being of suspected terrorists against the well-being of unsuspecting victims, and act accordingly. Indeed, there is no need to act, period -- except, that is, on the urge to "feel good about yourself." In pursuit of this essentially selfish experience, terrorism and defeat become interchangeable with security and victory.

Maybe it is this fear of the faux pas that prevented the media -- with the notable exception of FrontPageMag.com's Ben Johnson -- from pointing out that Mohammad Magid, the imam invited to Ronald Reagan's funeral at the National Cathedral, has "disturbing ties to suspected terrorists." Across the pond, a similar reticence characterized the BBC's reporting on Sheikh Abdur-Rahman al Sudais, the Saudi-appointed imam of Mecca's Grand Mosque who recently visited London to open a massive new Islamic center.

Describing the sheikh as "one of Islam's most renowned imams," the BBC failed to mention his well-documented record of poisonous invective toward Jews, Christians and Hindus.

External threats aside, Western civ appears to be threatened from within by a paralyzing attack of terminally good manners: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil (except Abu Ghraib). This may be one way to ride out the war on Islamic terrorism. It's no way to win it.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/dianawest/dw20040621.shtml