One Might Argue…
One might argue that Dick Cheney is a gutter-diving, conniving and amoral politician unworthy of the title of Vice-President of the United States, but I’m unwilling to say that.
I mean that’s one conclusion I might have drawn after finally having had the time to go over Cheney’s speech yesterday at the American Enterprise Institute. But I resisted.
Which is more than I can say about Cheney himself. What a piece of work he be. After a week of dastardly attacks from the White House and its congressional supporters, openly suggesting that critics of the Iraqi war policy are aiding and abetting the enemy, Cheney extended an olive branch…and then accused war dissenters of aiding and abetting the enemy!
Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank was there and vividly evokes the scene. First there was Bush in China feebly trying to tamp down the attack rhetoric that he himself launched on Veteran’s Day, saying debate on the war was "worthy." Then, as Milbank reports, it was the Veep’s turn:
Cheney tried to follow his boss’s edict. "I do not believe it is wrong to criticize the war on terror or any aspect thereof," he said.
But exactly three minutes later, the vice president added this caveat: "What is not legitimate, and what I will again say is dishonest and reprehensible, is the suggestion by some U.S. senators that the president . . . misled the American people on prewar intelligence." This, he said, "is revisionism of the most corrupt and shameless variety."
He floated the notion that "one might also argue that untruthful charges against the commander in chief have an insidious effect on the war effort itself" — before adding: "I’m unwilling to say that."
Oh, so that’s where I picked up that phrase! Can you imagine that some little twerp of a speech-writer somewhere in the duodenum of Cheney’s office actually wrote those words? And can you imagine how the Veep must have cracked one of his crooked smiles when he read the draft?
What’s scary about this administration is not that they are stupid. Rather, it’s how stupid they think the rest of us are. And while we’re on the subject of being scared…how is it that the Vice-President of the United States believes he is above public scrutiny and has no obligations to ever answer questions from the press? If you think that’s cute–well, you’re living in the wrong country. Perhaps you would be more comfortable in Cuba where no public official is ever asked a question other than their opinion on the annual sugar harvest. Says Milbank of Cheney’s performance:
In his 19-minute speech — aides made clear there was not even the possibility of him taking questions — he doled out the bare necessity of thanks, then stuck closely to his written text, stealing only quick glances at his largely silent audience.
David Corn also showed up to witness Cheney’s speech and was equally taken by how customary it has now become that this guy thinks he has to give no answers to anybody. Very sad, folks. That amount of arrogance is just intolerable and, ultimately, counter-productive. Into such depths of sordid ignominy is the legacy of this administration sinking. History is going to be one helluva of a judge.
November 22nd, 2005 at 3:34 am
One might argue that the dishonest and reprehensible attempt by certain Democrat senators to portray the White House as having misled us about prewar intelligence is, indeed, revisionism of the most shameless and corrupt variety. But only if one also argues that this administration’s tactic of using the WMD/Al Qaeda case for invasion, then arguing later that liberating Iraq from Saddam was the real goal, is the SECOND most shameless and corrupt variety of revisionism.
But I am unwilling to say that.
Nope.
No way are you ever gonna get it outa me.
And don’t you dare quote me out of context to make it look like you have. If you even think about doing that, I’ll find some way to maniupulate you into blowing the cover of one of our spies. Then you’ll be in a whole world of hurt.
November 22nd, 2005 at 6:25 am
One might argue that CNN is left-wing and bias, like most of the dominant media. I am willing to say that.
This is from the Drudge Report this morning, where you can go to see the actual picture from the CNN broadcast:
http://drudgereport.com/
———-
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX MON NOV 21, 2005 21:25:35 ET XXXXX
CNN MARKS CHENEY: NETWORK FLASHES ‘X’ OVER VP’S FACE DURING LIVE SPEECH
**Exclusive**
At 11:04:45 AM ET Monday CNN was airing Vice President Dick Cheney’s speech live from the American Enterprise Institute in Washington — when a large black ‘X’ repeatedly flashed over the vice president’s face!
The ‘X’ over Cheney’s face appeared each time less than a second, creating an odd subliminal effect.
As this DRUDGE REPORT screen capture reveals, while one ‘X’ flashed over Cheney’s face CNN ran a headline at the bottom of its screen: “CHENEY: I DO NOT BELIEVE IT IS WRONG TO CRITICIZE.”
One top White House source expressed concern about what was aired over CNN.
“Is someone in Atlanta trying to tell us something?”
A CNN spokesman did not return repeated calls late Monday night.
Developing…
———-
Is there any surprise that the Democrats can get away with blatant lies but that public attention and disapproval is brought on the Republicans when they expose the Democrats?
November 22nd, 2005 at 6:55 am
Woody, is this the best you can do to prove a left-wing media bias? Even if the story is true, it’s more likely a snafu or the shenanigans of some minor technician. If CNN were as rabidly anti-administration as you suggest, they’ve had ample missed opportunities in the last five years to demonstrate it.
Frankly it is unlikely that Bush’s numbers will go below the current 37% or so. It appears that the 63% majority and the 37% holdouts are living in completely separate universes accessible to one another only in portals such as these, where the tragic delusions of the few are momentarily apparent to the rest of us.
November 22nd, 2005 at 7:19 am
63%: tragic delusions of the few are momentarily apparent to
37%: the rest of us
I didn’t say it was the best I can do. It was simply timely and accurate.
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:13 am
CNN explains, Drudge *doesn’t* report. For 11 hours.
http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/cnn/the_x_lets_get_technical_28507.asp
Rightwing bias at the Drudge Report? No, just fair, balanced, timely and accurate. Always. Well, sometimes, anyway. When he gets lucky.
In all fairness (no, really), there’s still some chance this was a low-level techie prank, not reflective of any higher level decision. CNN knows better than to shoot itself in the foot in times like these.
Besides, if you want to get paranoid, wingnut reasoning can cut both ways: it might have been a techie prank by some disgruntled Cheney-lover at CNN, hoping for blowback against his bosses, unlikely as that might seem.
Hey, I’ve got a crazy idea: let’s just stick to the facts for the time being on this one. So that there will be more attentional bandwidth for my own paranoid delusional rantings about a likely Kurdistan Petrostate Quasi-Exit Strategy!
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:13 am
I have shared my initial impressions of my experiences observing here with the centrist blog I normally comment on. Presumably, my comment to them would be of interest:
“I have been reading a lefty blog regularly [trying to figure out how they can believe some of the stuff they evidently do]. The comments on this thread are illustrative of an important difference between [this centrist blog] and lefty blogs. Let me share some expertise I have acquired by observation.
On a lefty blog, it is bad form to question any negative comment about Bush or the administration. If it is incredible, so what? It was posted in a good cause. The wildest comment passes without remark [from the left] so long as it dings the Republicans. If a “wingnut†(anyone who does not follow the rules) questions something and offers proof, the proof is totally ignored and the replies are mostly ad hominem. No one is held to any proof at all, except “wingnuts†and, since no one bothers to read their links or respond directly to their contentions, other than with unsupported derisive hooting, they are always laughed out of the thread. …On most lefty blogs, no lefty commenter ever provides a link – apparently it is very bad form.
How shocked lefty visitors to [this centrist blog] must be to have other commenters actually question their bald assertions. Of course, they are totally unprepared to provide links to back up their assertions. They don’t know how to find them or to enter them in a comment if someone pointed a good source of proof out to them.
Well, you might say, if what you say is true, readers of such blogs would end up believing incredible things and would not be able to put together anything remotely resembling a thoughtful political philosophy.
Exactly.
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:34 am
Why haven’t our agents in the left-wing media enacted the plan to broadcast big black X’s over Cheney’s face before? It’s a brilliant way of ramping up the administration’s disapproval ratings and will rally the masses to our side. A bit of covert propaganda that is unparalleled since days when the KGB used to overlay those painfully high-pitched sounds every time that traitor Trotsky went on the radio to rally his faction of wreckers and subversives with secret coded messages. The fact that it’s taken the Atlanta comrades this long proves to me that they are only half-hearted members of our conspiracy and don’t deserve their rations this week. At the next meeting I’m going to ask that they engage in a round of self-criticism and begin to immediately replace Cheney’s image with a flickering skull-and-cross-bones and brand Bush’s face with the words “I’m an idiot!” or else we’re going to send these weak, revisionist bastards back to the re-education camps they came from.
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:59 am
CNN spokeswoman Laurie Goldberg emails: “We concluded this was a technological malfunction not an issue of operator error. A portion of the switcher experienced a momentary glitch. We obviously regret that it happened and are working on the equipment to ensure it is not repeated.”
Why we see “X’s” over images all the time! They just happen only when Republican leaders are speaking. Just a weird coincidence.
reg, you can ridicule this if you want, but that is simply to deflect attention away from the issue rather than to address media bias–in this case with the V.P., which is the subject here. Bias reveals itself in many, many ways and it has gone on ever since I began following the news as a kid.
Bias also distorts public perceptions, which is a goal of the left–because distortion suits its purposes while truth hurts them. Give the full truth and watch the poll numbers reverse. That is one reason why the Republicans do better in elections. Between elections, the Democratic media attacks without Republican ads to correct them. During elections, the Republicans inform the public and the truth causes Democrats to lose.
northerbob2, it didn’t take you long to learn.
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:17 am
Yeah Woody it’s another Bible Code.
“Is there any surprise that the Democrats can get away with blatant lies but that public attention and disapproval is brought on the Republicans when they expose the Democrats?”
Uh Democrats have not been exposed at anything, but your people sure have. Timely and dead on accurate, unlike the winged crap you post and support.
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:18 am
Well Woody re the 63% who disaprove of these clown’s performance I guess the Bush Administration has lost conficdence in the electorate and will now have to go out and find another.
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:19 am
I wasn’t trying to deflect from the issue…if our people had broadcast X’s over Bush during the debates, Kerry would be President.
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:20 am
No bob a wingnut is someone who doean’t follow the rules of Aristotlian logic in discussing politics. It exposes bias alright. Yours.
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:24 am
Woody, Woody, Woody… it’s sad to see you walk down the ol’ dusty conspiracy road. You’re already practicing the defeatist role with pages straight from the Dem book, and we still have a year until the 2006 elections! Hang on, we’ll get there soon enough.
deja vu:
“It sounds like happy hour at the Gore campaign lasted a little too long,” said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer. And, referring to decades-old buzz about a Beatles song, he added: “If you play the ad backward, you hear the words `Paul is dead.”‘
http://graphics.boston.com/news/politics/campaign2000/news/Democrats_smell_a_rat_in_GOP_ad.shtml
Ahh, sweet memories…
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:26 am
I saw Joe Scarborough today on the Today Show. He said that Bush is sending Cheney out to appeal to Bush’s base as the base loves Cheney. Scarborough said that Bush is losing his base.
Joe Scarborough said this, not Howard Dean, not Hillary, not MOVE, not ANSWER, not Harry Reid.
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:27 am
Incidentally, the New York Times giving over about a third of it’s front page yesterday to a series of silly photos proving that Bush has no “exit strategy” was the best thing those dithering fellow-travelers have done in years – probably since Walter Duranty praised the Five Year Plan. Comrade Krugman’s columns are too hard for most people to read – at least among the 37% who still support Bush. We need more funny pictures of Bush and big black X’s if we’re going to drive his approval numbers down into the twenties.
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:58 am
On all the treasure maps I have, ‘X’ marks the spot where the treasure is located. Good thing I don’t have cable and don’t watch CNN, otherwise I might start getting a subliminally positive image of the snarling dweller of undisclosed locations.
For now I’ll continue to mainline Lucky Charms marshmallows and wait to see how irrelevant the GOP can make themselves.
November 22nd, 2005 at 10:08 am
Well, go ahead and eat your Lucky Charms, but best stay away from the Alpha-Bits: they’re secretly programmed by the liberal media to mysteriously arrange themselves to spell out pro-Democrat slogans while you’re buttering your English muffin.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
November 22nd, 2005 at 11:17 am
Woody… if one pays attention, one MIGHT see that the entire trend at CNN under its new chief is to push the channel closer and closer to the model of Fox TV.
For those of us who actually work in the media, we know that CNN has been on a conscious campaign to move rightward and downward.
Please note that its prime time star, Paula Zahn comes straight out of Fox. Please note that prime time at CNN Headline News has been turned over en toto to Nancy Grace, a hard right-winger who spends all of her time bashing liberals, centrists and people who can read and write.
the liberalish Aaron Brown has been replaced by the apolitical, at best, Anderson Cooper (no relaytion– Im not a Vanderbilt).
The gal who does the morning news, Daryn Kagan, is Rush Limbaugh’s girl friend! The other lady, Kyra Phillips (is that her name) is also an unabashed pro-war conservative.
Then there’s MSNBC: Matthews is tough on the admin, but he’;s a CONSERBATIVE Catholic Democrat. Ron Reagan is considered a liberal thoig I hear he comes from a conservative family. Everyone else there is a conservative: Monica Crowley worked for Nixon, Tucker Carlson works for Satan, I think; Scarborough represented the Redneck Riviera in Congress; and Rita Cosby, lately of Fox, works to prove that ANYBODY can get on TV if they have enough chutzpah.
Big poo-bah Brian Williams is anything but a liberal.
Some left wing conspiracy you got there.
WTF are u smoking?
November 22nd, 2005 at 12:18 pm
Cheney and the X-Files”
November 22nd, 2005 at 12:29 pm
President John F. Kennedy was shot and died almost exactly 42 years ago. Remember how easily he used to handle press conferences…like they were the high point of his day? He didn’t hide from them, or look for the nearest exit (as in China yesterday) when he couldn’t think of an answer, or treat his most consistent antagonist, Sarah McClendon, like an agent of Al Qaeda (or KGB or…). Yes, I know, the press is tougher now, but when you actually see the press conferences, they certainly aren’t much tougher. And if the journalists had a chance to actually question the president or vice-president on a frequent, periodic basis, perhaps they would actually ask questions designed to elicit information citizens really want and need to know.
November 22nd, 2005 at 12:31 pm
“Tucker Carlson works for Satan, I think”
Satan terminated his contract because nobody was paying attention…
November 22nd, 2005 at 1:55 pm
Marc, I don’t look at the resumes of CNN’s hosts. I listen to what they say and how they say it. Their reporters have their orders, and they follow the liberal scripts. Also, CNN was founded by brain damaged Ted Turner who pledged $1 Billion to U.N. causes, was inspired by Castro, and says whatever idiot leftist idea comes to his head.
Anderson Cooper of CNN is an idiot who went along with CNN’s instructions to hosts and guests to act angry and outraged at the administration over the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. When I watched his feigned anger, I wondered what was his problem until I found out that he was being a good liberal soldier by sticking to their script, which was exposed–so, I went back to FOX. When he interviewed Cindy Sheehan, one had to wonder if he had left all his tough questions at home.
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews a conservative????!!!!!!!! He worked in the Carter administration. Also, anyone who elicits a challenge to a duel by Zell Miller has gone over the left field line into foul territory.
Marc, an accurate measure of CNN’s liberal bias is to talk to regular people, who have turned it off in droves–the same people canceling newspaper subscriptions. Media buddies may know each other in person, but they don’t know how normal people perceive them, which is overwhelming leftist and Democratic. Marc, this is not an insult, but you’re closer to FOX than is CNN.
Let’s take a vote from normal people here.
CNN…Conservative or Liberal?
My vote: Liberal
November 22nd, 2005 at 2:13 pm
Let’s take a vote from normal people here.
And you have the nerve to criticize others for their tone.
You’re unbelievable – in every possible meaning of that word.
November 22nd, 2005 at 2:17 pm
I get it, normal is so wacked out biased that everything looks liberal by comparison. Yeah facts never get in Woody’s way, especially when you have the story a priori. Why even look?
November 22nd, 2005 at 2:27 pm
This should provide needed information that the White House seems to lack:
Acclaimed Middle Eastern journalist Zaki Chehab has gone where Western journalists fear to tread–into the heart of the Iraqi resistance. His account of his travels in Iraq, Inside the Resistance, just published by Nation Books–describes Chehab’s dramatic and terrifying journey into the Sunni Triangle and beyond, where he gained unparalleled access to scores of resistance fighters. http://www.nationbooks.org/book.mhtml?t=chehab
Alternating between the perspectives of a local insider and an international observer, Chehab is an invaluable guide through the seminal events of the occupation of Iraq–the bombing of the UN headquarters, the Najaf uprising, the battle for Fallujah and the shame of Abu Ghraib. He offers a startling anatomy of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, and provides critical insights into the complex motivations driving the Iraqi insurgency.
Described by Kirkus Reviews as, “Evenhanded and carefully reported; a close-to-homegrown rejoinder to George Packer’s The AssassinÂ’s Gate and other journalistic views of the war,” Inside the Resistance is essential reading for all those who want to better understand what’s going on in Iraq and why.
November 22nd, 2005 at 2:30 pm
CNN…Conservative or Liberal?
My vote: Liberal
–liberally supported the invasion of Iraq, the WMD lies, relies primarily on generals for analysis of whether or not to go to war, underestimates size of opposition to wars, relies largely on official government sources, relies on business sources during strikes, ….
a funny kind of liberal…
Chris Matthews worked for Moynihan and largely shared his views, which were not exactly ones not endorsed by most corporate CEOs of the day…very pro-capitalism, pro-empire building,…
November 22nd, 2005 at 2:37 pm
Wow Woody. Usually your comments are worthy of consideration (even if I rarely agree), but you seem to have blown a gasket today.
I love this canard about liberal bias in the media that the right constantly hacks on about. It must be so comforting to have a villian like this, now that you don’t have Communists to kick around anymore.
I’ll be incapable of moving you on this topic, but the bias, if anything, is slightly right-center with a heavy dose of buy-in to the reigning Washington orthodoxy, which is essentially conservative. Why is this? It’s a complex mixture of factors, but one of the main one, I believe, is the corporate bloodletting that happened 10-20 years ago in news rooms that downsized their international reporting presence, and thus expertise, and now rely more and more uncritically on administration sources. The next one is the push for the businessman’s holy grail, more profit. So the news becomes both more vacuous and more standard at the same time. I find most news in this country to be unwatchable, but not because it is liberal, but because it is bad and shallow. The standard ought to be Frontline–it’s hard, usually balanced, fairly deep in it’s analysis and consistently interesting.
It might be useful to explicate the criteria by which we would measure bias. It would have to include, inches or time devoted to subjects, the foundations or parties that guests are affiliated with, among others. I’m interested in your suggestions…how do we evaluate? On the two I mention, the dice aren’t coming up as you hope. (I would add, the many topics that just NEVER come up would be a pretty damning piece against your claim).
November 22nd, 2005 at 2:56 pm
Heard much about this from the ‘liberal’ CNN?
Iraq’s Oil: The Spoils of War
by Philip Thornton
Iraqis face the dire prospect of losing up to $200bn (£116bn) of the wealth of their country if an American-inspired plan to hand over development of its oil reserves to US and British multinationals comes into force next year. A report produced by American and British pressure groups warns Iraq will be caught in an “old colonial trap” if it allows foreign companies to take a share of its vast energy reserves. The report is certain to reawaken fears that the real purpose of the 2003 war on Iraq was to ensure its oil came under Western control.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1122-03.htm
November 22nd, 2005 at 2:57 pm
uh-oh…my dangerous words and quotes must be moderated again…
November 22nd, 2005 at 2:59 pm
I don’t watch CNN any more – the were so liberal that every story dealing with politics was presented with the liberal frame. Same goes for Matthews. Same goes for most of the MSM. When they refused to cover the SwiftVets – right or wrong it was the biggest story of the presidential campaign – their failure was evident for all to see. Like the LAT they are all trying, more or less, to regain some credibility. Most Liberals can only see that as “moving to the right”. There is a lot of room for them to move before they even get to the center, much less the right. Venture out of the MSM, NYT liberal cocoon and you will find many, many “righties” (to cocooned liberals) many of whom are actually in the center.
November 22nd, 2005 at 3:04 pm
Woody… “normal people” is whoever one spends their time with. Im trying to figure out WHY a news channel like CNN would be liberal? Its a major corp whose board is tasked with producing max profit for its shareholders. Care to do a bio searc of the CNN board? Dollars to donuts they are 3 to 1 Republicans.
You might also be interested to know that back in the laate 80;s, there was a “scare” among liberals when Ted Turner was playing footsie to buy CBS. The libs saw Turner as a southern redneck republican. So one’s perceptions always delude one. I would say as one person.
Problem in ur narrative oody is that you can provide no motive for ur theories. Why would rich businessmen who control the media companies and who benefit directly from all of the tax and regulatory policies of the GOP support those socialistic Dems. There is NO answer btw.
As to Matthews… u dont believe u can be Democrat and a conservative> Go no further than Zell MIller, He’s always been a conservative dixiecrat. His politics havent changed. He merely shed his Dem party label so he’d have a gimmich with which to sell books.
November 22nd, 2005 at 3:07 pm
Reading Notherbob and Woody, Im struck how similar their arguments about the media are to hard left critics of the same. Both extremes in this case see a monolithic conspiracy– and both are wrong. But woody, notherbob, you might want to check out the webiste of FAIR and see how their language is so similar to yours. Just substitute the word “corporate” for “liberal” and it’s indentical. That ought to tel u something.
November 22nd, 2005 at 3:40 pm
OK, fair enough. I haven’t read the FAIR website, although I plan to take a look at it. The liberal bias in the media has been documented. Now I know that doesn’t make any sense to liberals. They still have trouble believing the overwhelming liberal bias on most college campuses, much less in the MSM. When I say documented, I am not saying proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. That level of proof will never be obtained on such an issue.
Try some common sense. If one is a liberal and one has discretion to bias one’s writing or speaking, in which direction will one do so? If one has an unconscious bias; which direction will it be? Liberals would have us believe that, despite the overwhelming number of liberals on campus and in the media, these folks do not allow their beliefs to bias their actions, writing and speaking. At the same time, these same liberals are telling us (as in the reference to FAIR) that those “on the right†are captives of their bias and totally incapable of appreciating their bias, and totally incapable of judging whether or not there exists a liberal bias.
So, must we believe that right bias is a totally different creature from left bias? We must if we are to believe the liberals. Because if they are the same, the overwhelming number of liberals in the media will result in ..[wait for it] liberal media bias!
Common sense and human experience tells us that human bias operates pretty much the same way, no matter if we study it in the case of politics or in other spheres – yes or no?
Marc is correct insofar as the owners of various media are looking at the shrinking circulation and viewing figures and jerking chains on the employees who are letting their bias cost the media half or more of their potential viewers/readers. Having gone so far left, being jerked back to the center is, indeed, being forced by management to the right.
Nice try, marc, with the strawman “monlithic consipiracy†charge. I said no such thing. Simple human nature. Many like-minded people making many great and small decisions influenced by their bias. That is what I said.
November 22nd, 2005 at 3:56 pm
Gosh, Marc should be a CNN commentator with the FAIR=AIM business. 1, the corporate media can be shown with empirical evidence that it is in fact corporate of course, 2) conspiracy is not part of the FAIR language, 3) their studies on the media are of a much higher quality that the nonsense statistical distortions that MRC or AIM put out…
November 22nd, 2005 at 4:11 pm
Normal people ?? Frankly Woody, based on the half-cracked comments you’ve made here to day, you don’t qualify.
(I particularly loved the “anyone who would elicit a challenge to a duel by Zell Miller” line as evidence of Mathews – rather than Mad-as-Hell Zell – being, shall we say, “unbalanced”. Best laugh on the thread and I had thought some of my stuff was pretty funny.)
November 22nd, 2005 at 4:12 pm
notherbob: Can you direct me to some place that actually shows that the decline in readership, etc. is a result of bias, as opposed to say some other more proximate cause like, say, the interweb?
(And, by the way, as an aside, I work with several Brits who, regardless of any bias we might argue over, are absolutely appalled at the quality of TV news here. Some Americans were recently shocked to discover that places exist beyond those that we are bombing or are thinking about bombing in the near future).
November 22nd, 2005 at 4:28 pm
“Mathews worked for Moynihan”….I think Mathews worked for Tip O’Neill and Russert worked for Moynihan.
“right or wrong (Swift Boats) was the biggest story of the presidential campaign” sez nutterbob2 – one of the most bizarre assertions I’ve read to date about the 2004 election. Talk about people who are locked in their “cocoons”…
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:03 pm
What’s normal?
Marc, my friends are “normal” people. They don’t necessarily have political agendas, they have jobs that are not part of politics or covering politics, aren’t ashamed of showing patriotism, spend time with family and at church, like to attend ball games, etc. They don’t sit around in college lounges or coffee houses solving the problems of the world for the rest of us with impractical ideas and disdain for the “common man” and our nation. Some of your friends are “normal,” but I suspect a lot lower percentage than mine and lower than the percentage of people who live in the heart of America–the red states. (Exps: Arianna is NOT normal, but your fishing buddies might be.)
Liberal Motivations of Businessmen
Businessmen care about the profit–not the message. If Walter Cronkite delivered the viewers, it didn’t matter about his liberal political persuasion. If profit is the primary motive, then how it is achieved is of little matter.
But, to some, profit is secondary. At some point, power and influence override the desire for money–especially once a sufficient amount is obtained. That would explain why Ted Kennedy is in politics. If Ted Turner cared about profits then he wouldn’t have pledged $1 Bil to the U.N. rathole. His psychic income of feeling important is more important than adding dollars to his bank account. If Cox Enterprises were solely concerned about profits, then they would ignore the family’s involvement in Democratic politics and Catherine Cox Chambers wouldn’t be one of the biggest contributors to Democrats. If Greenpeace and The Sierra Club, presumably run by businessmen, focused on profits then they wouldn’t waste as much time and money on squirrelly social goals.
Profit is only one goal of businesses or motivation for the management, and that profit or other goals can be achieved with, and in spite of, liberal leanings.
While that explains the “motives” for liberal organizations, we should admit that sometimes people do stupid things without clearly defined motives–so motives cannot be used to explain all cases. (Exp. My trying to convince anyone on this site of media liberal bias.)
Statistical Evidence of Liberal Media
This out today:
http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2005/cyb20051122.asp
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=1016
The news media elite are to the left of the public in several policy areas related to the war on terrorism, a poll “of opinion leaders and the general public conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press in collaboration with the Council on Foreign Relations,” found. While 56 percent of the public believes “efforts to establish a stable democracy” in Iraq will succeed, 63 percent of the news media elite think it will fail; a plurality of 48 percent of the public think going to war in Iraq was correct, but 71 percent of the news media elite consider it a bad decision; the public is split evenly at 44 percent on whether the Iraq war has helped or hurt the war on terrorism, but an overwhelming 68 percent of the news media elite say it has hurt; and 46 percent of the public believe torture of terrorist suspects is often or sometimes “justified,” 78 percent of the news media elite contend it is “rarely” or “never” justified. Plus, news media elite approval of Bush’s job performance — at a lowly 21 percent — is half that of the public’s.
Also, this site on how the media voted:
http://www.mrc.org/biasbasics/biasbasics3.asp
In March and April 2005, the University of Connecticut’s Department of Public Policy surveyed 300 journalists nationwide — 120 who worked in the television industry and 180 who worked at newspapers and asked for whom they voted in the 2004 presidential election. In a report released May 16, 2005, the researchers disclosed that the journalists they surveyed selected Democratic challenger John Kerry over incumbent Republican President George W. Bush by a wide margin, 52 percent to 19 percent (with 1 percent choosing far-left independent candidate Ralph Nader). One out of five journalists (21 percent) refused to disclose their vote, while another six percent either didn’t vote or said they did not know for whom they voted.
FAIR
I haven’t read it, but I will…and, I’ll be back.
P.S.
Marc, fix the comment submission so that we can preview before posting.
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:36 pm
Marc, I just checked out FAIR, which I have never seen before. The difference between FAIR and myself (and Media Research Center) is that FAIR represents extremists and activists closely working with a disreputable organization, MoveOn, for the purpose of influencing elections, while I (and MRC) simply report and expose the denied liberal bias of the media without the intent of influencing elections but more for the purpose of disseminating correct information. Further, FAIR’s statement of purpose does not agree with its actions.
I particularly liked this statement that they proudly put on their site:
A fall 2002 study of NPR affiliates by the progressive media-watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found a “dominance of white male voices” that it called “troubling.”
Change that to black, female, etc. and see how it sounds. “A study found a dominance of black males in the NBA and women in teaching as troubling.”
And, all I found troubling were liberals in the media–of any race or gender.
There are few similarities between FAIR, on the one hand, and conservatives pointing out liberal bias, on the other. Maybe the word “radical” is the separating word that applies just to them.
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:41 pm
Look, those sources are as biased as the ones you cited on global warming. Wingnut is as wingnut does. Cocoon indeed, inside a bubble of unreality.
Rich people aren’t normal, the Bushes are rich, therefore aren’t normal.
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:41 pm
P.S. Tomorrow is my birthday for all you well-wishers. Rather than gifts, which I know you might plan, try to be nice to a conservative for that day instead. In fact, we can make November 23rd of every year as “Be Nice to a Conservative Day.” On Marc’s birthday I’ll be nice to fishermen.
November 22nd, 2005 at 5:44 pm
No Woody radical applies to you.
November 22nd, 2005 at 6:06 pm
Here’s a study of the cited MRC study. If it ain’t Republican spin it’s biased.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200505110005
November 22nd, 2005 at 6:17 pm
Woody – the king of unintentional comedy.
November 22nd, 2005 at 6:20 pm
“If a “wingnut†(anyone who does not follow the rules) questions something and offers proof, [asWoody now has] the proof is totally ignored [as all lefty commenters are now doing] and the replies are mostly ad hominem.[ "No Woody radical applies to you. "] No one is held to any proof at all, except “wingnuts†and, since no one bothers to read their links [anyone read Woody's?] or respond directly to their contentions, [anyone?] other than with unsupported derisive hooting…”
I rest my case.
Dan O: I don’t have a link on that point handy – and given the treatment it would likely receive here…well, one feels a little foolish working something up that people won’t read and respond to. Frankly, I am more influenced by actions like the LAT dumping their knee jerk libeal columnist. For me, that is better than a study or a survey.
November 22nd, 2005 at 6:25 pm
they have jobs that are not part of politics or covering politics, aren’t ashamed of showing patriotism, spend time with family and at church, like to attend ball games, etc.
What really galls me about you Woody is your presumptiousness.
My Dad was a civilian employee of the US Army for 37 years. He was also unashamedly liberal. Most of my friends growing up were the sons of career military people. If you want to find a really good way to love your country, try living outside your country and spend time convincing people that not all of us are jingoistic firebreathing warmongers. I have probably done nothing more patriotic for my country than shattering stereotypes about it.
I go to mass every Sunday. I see the Knicks and Rangers when I can afford it. Go ahead and try to pigeonhole me and everyone else in whatever fashion you wish, Woody, if it gives you the warm tinglies. I know and everyone who knows me know that it’s a bunch of crap.
Happy birthday.
November 22nd, 2005 at 6:36 pm
Marc you forgot Keith Olberman who has been a favorite of mine since his sportscasting days at CNN and who will be coanchoring the “Dan Patrick Show” on ESPN Radio starting monday. Funny, literate, and (sorry Woody) Liberal.
You know the so-called Liberal Media is so old that I get bored even writing about it. But to all you who believe this let me just point out that none other a right winger than Bill Kristol has said publicly that the charge is phony and was used to “work the refs.” And work it has. Think Bill Clinton got a free ride? Think if he had an interest in Haarkon Energy that led to an SEC probe it wouldn’t be news? And of course Al Gore got great coverage didn’t he? Remembers his “lies” about touring a disaster area with James Lee Witt? Funny I don’t recall candidate Bush being called on his whopper that the proposed tax cut would give 75% of the benefits to working familirs.
But enough of that. You people go to FOX for “Fair and Balanced” news and treat Drudge as the new Diogenes. I’ll try to struggle along with sources in the reality-based community.
November 22nd, 2005 at 6:52 pm
“Businessmen care about the profit–not the message.”
You mean GE never cared about the message when they owned NBC? That’s not true, especially as it related to their own interests. Was there direct control? No. Was it exerted when necessary? Yes.
Woody’s theory can only be seen as a conspiracy theory though since it requires us to believe that the media owners would somehow have an interest in the downfall of American capitalism or that somehow the left has infiltrated the media, which there is little evidence of, especially at the highest levels of decisionmaking, i.e. editorial staff and management of media.
Now, to the extent that owners of media have an interest in convincing the public that their media are independent of government control and critical, they tolerate a certain frame of debate. Thus in the run up to the official invasion of Iraq by the US, the debate on whether to go to war or not was very narrow and the overwhelming majority of voices heard were war supporters or those who felt the US should wait a little bit or use another means to intervene in Iraq. Hardly the kind of thing one would expect of a ‘liberal’ media if Woody’s conspiracy theory were true.
Indeed, that is the huge difference between FAIR and Woody, FAIR doesn’t subscribe to a conspiracy theory, they don’t claim the media is right leaning or out to promote a rightwing agenda, merely that they do what one would expect a corporate owned media to do, promote the interests of the corporate elite. Right wing and liberal views both work to that end, it’s actually left wing views that are consistently left out of the media frame. The Iraq war is an excellent example of that. When is the last time that one has seen a leftist on the TV programs discussing the war. Michael Klare? Chomsky? Veterans for Peace? Phyliss Bennis? The most ‘liberal’ you’ll find on TV is Ken Pollack, who supported the invasion and only after the occupation was clearly going to fail did he take a critical stand of how the occupation was handled, which is hardly a left stance of course.
November 22nd, 2005 at 7:06 pm
I have to say that anyone who brings Brent Bozell into play in order to prove other people’s “bias” has jumped off a cliff. Woody made a completely bizarre proposition to set this brouhaha off and now he’s trying to “prove” a case by linking to one of the most dishonest right-wing hacks on the planet – a man who’s been proven a serial liar many times over, like his claiming that Ken Lay spent 13 nights in the Lincoln Bedroom when Clinton was President.
The Pew Poll, which Bozell with his usual intellectual rigor uses as a reductionist talking point, is interesting – aside from showing how badly Bush is screwing up in the eyes of most “opinion leaders”. According to Pew, scientists and engineers are far more critical on certain key issues than the media and just about everybody else. On certain issues like NAFTA, all of the “elite” opinion polled is fairly far to the right of the general public. Interesting, if you actually read it (and, like one should with all polls, with a grain of salt).
I would be loathe, incidentally, to start invoking “the norm” these days as some arbiter of what is Good and True if I were a Bushnik. Rep. Murtha looked to me about as “normal” as one can get, if the measure of “normal” is the stereotype of guy’s Richard Cicero tried to avoid spending long hours drinking beer with by failing to join his local VFW post. Dick Cheney, incidentally, is one of the least “normal” personages I’ve ever seen. He comes across with that special unbridled arrogance that guys who’ve spent most of their lives riding in private jets generally do a bad job of disguising when they are forced by circumstance to put themselves before the public. One last word to Woody…I’m going to go out on a bit of a limb before this crowd – and with apologies to Randy – and suggest that “normal people” don’t blog. “Normal people” don’t even spend much time reading blogs, much less obsessively posting on them. Ask my wife. Nuff said…
November 22nd, 2005 at 7:08 pm
Two last words on the genesis and credibility of the “Liberal Media Bias” thesis – Spiro Agnew!
November 22nd, 2005 at 7:14 pm
As for Woody’s birthday wish, I’ll be sure to send a message of good cheer to my libertarian, Goldwater-loving, Ayn Rand-reading, Democrat-hating brother-in-law down in the Ozarks. It will be something to the effect of “Bush is tanking and isn’t it wonderful?” He loathes the SOB as much as I do and will appreciate the thought (in honor of our Woodman, of course.)
November 22nd, 2005 at 7:15 pm
To Mark A. York:
Well, if you can do that, so can I:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/articles/readarticle.asp?ID=15409&p=1
The Center for American Progress (CAP) is widely understood to be what one inside source called, “the official Hillary Clinton think tank .to enhance her prestige as a potential presidential candidate.
Robert Dreyfuss reports in the March 1, 2004 edition of The Nation: “The idea for the Center began with discussions in 2002 between [Morton] Halperin and George Soros, the billionaire investor. …
CAP helped launch Media Matters for America, a 501(c)(03) public charity better known for its Web site MediaMatters.org, which opened for business on May 3, 2004. Brock told The New York Times that he conferred with Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Tom Daschle and former Vice President Al Gore before launching his Web site.
In its short life, Media Matters has already acquired a reputation for zombie-like partisanship and reckless disregard for the truth.
Among Brock’s high-priority projects is a campaign to pressure Congress and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to ban Rush Limbaugh from American Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS) – thus depriving our troops in Iraq of one of the few radio programs they are allowed to hear that wholeheartedly supports them and the cause for which they fight.
Admit it. Liberal “watch dogs” are political hacks of Democrats while conservatives involve themselves in such activities simply because the left controls the media and distorts the truth and we feel wronged by such.
To Randy Paul:
Thank you for the birthday wishes! I hope that you find a conservative to be nice to tomorrow.
When someone criticized the U.S. for being a warmonger, I hope you set them straight and puched him in the mouth.
Randy, I didn’t say that normal people couldn’t be liberals. My sisters are normal but they wasted their votes on Kerry. Your dad was normal. Really. You might be normal when on medications. Okay, I’m just kidding. But, people who aren’t “normal” are the elitists who think of themselves as having superior reasoning for which none of their ideas are practical, reasonable, and typically fail when put to the test.
Now, you’re going to really like this one–and, reg will die when he reads it.
Let’s consider the words of one who was disliked and hounded by the press, someone whose words should be separated from his deeds and considered for their value alone. These words touch on what I consider people who are “not normal.”
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/spiro_agnew.pdf
On November 13, 1969, Vice President Spiro Agnew became a household word when he vehemently denounced television news broadcasters as a biased “unelected elite” who subjected President Richard M. Nixon’s speeches to instant analysis. The president had a right to communicate directly with the people, Agnew asserted, without having his words “characterized through the prejudices of hostile critics.” Agnew raised the possibility of greater government regulation of this “virtual monopoly,” a suggestion that the veteran television newscaster Walter Cronkite took as “an implied threat to freedom of speech in this country.” But Agnew’s words rang true to those whom Nixon called the Silent Majority.
Agnew already had some hard-hitting speeches under his belt. On October 20, 1969, at a dinner in Jackson, Mississippi, he had attacked “liberal intellectuals” for their “masochistic compulsion to destroy their country’s strength.” On October 30 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, he called student radicals and other critics of the war “impudent snobs.” On November 11 in Philadelphia he decried the “intolerant clamor and cacophony” that raged in society.
Agnew “could take the texts prepared in the President’s speechwriting shop, change a phrase here and there, and hit the road to attack the effete corps of impudent snobs.” His colorful phrases, like “nattering nabobs of negativism,” and “radiclibs” (for radical liberals) were compiled and published as “commonsense quotations.” “I have refused to `cool it’—to use the vernacular,” Agnew declared, “until the self-righteous lower their voice a few decibels. . . . I intend to be heard over the din even if it means raising my voice.”
Agnew wasn’t normal, but the liberal people he described weren’t either, and he described them well. It’s been over 35 years since he used those phrases, and it’s amazing that they still apply today.
To Jimmi Fox:
…who wrote: “Woody’s theory can only be seen as a conspiracy theory though since it requires us to believe that the media owners would somehow have an interest in the downfall of American capitalism or that somehow the left has infiltrated the media….”
No, you’ve got it wrong. Are you conspiring to distort my words?
Media owners, if they act as reasonable and prudent businessmen, care about profits. Businessmen typically studied …well, business, in school and are traditionally conservative. On the other hand, they have jobs for journalists to fill, and journalists studied journalism and are traditionally liberal–having a need to “change the world” before “making a buck.” Most people would agree that is true.
There is no conspiracy. It’s simply the choices that people make in finding jobs that suit their personalities and skills. If businessmen get stuck with a bunch of leftists in the editiorial rooms, then it’s because conservatives chose not to enter that field. So, the businessmen make the dollars and the journalists make the headlines, and everyone is happy until the public finally gets tired of the left-wing bias and quits subscribing to the L.A. Times and watching CNN.
Goodnight
Okay, I have to get my beauty rest for a big day tomorrow. Anyway, Marc doesn’t pay me to outrage the liberals over here, so I’ve gone that extra mile today.
To all you “normal people,” have a good night. To the rest of you, don’t waste your time with what you’re thinking.
Remember, November 23rd is “Be Nice to a Conservative Day.” Enjoy the day.
November 22nd, 2005 at 7:21 pm
I’m not dying, Woody…I’m laughing. If you want to associate yourself with an ignorant sack of shit, fine by me. My comment on Agnew was irony. Your dredging him up was embarrassing….
November 22nd, 2005 at 7:52 pm
My last comment for the evening (really) is to put in a good word for Dewar’s 12 Year Old Reserve.
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:00 pm
Okay, I lied. Big deal. Here’s a piece on Murtha’s proposal that anybody who really gives a shit oughta read. Fred Kaplan – smart guy:
http://www.slate.com/id/2130794/nav/tap2/
Murtha=watershed. Rumsfeld really screwed the pooch.
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:37 pm
“Admit it. Liberal “watch dogs†are political hacks of Democrats while conservatives involve themselves in such activities simply because the left controls the media and distorts the truth and we feel wronged by such.”
What a marvelous equivocation. One that only a wingnut could hold. The key word here is feel. Feeling and thinking are very different. People feel things that aren’t real as in this case.
As for patriotism, sir, my father, a Democrat, still alive, will be interviewed next week for the LOC veterans oral history project. He served on D-Day as a medic and marched through the Battle of the Bulge, earned the Silver Star at a bridge in the Hurtgen Forest with Ernest Hemingway; marched into Germany and was with the force that Edward R. Murrow reported about liberating Buchenwald.
My ancestors who first arrived in 1635 were in 1775 and later Jeffersonian republicans e.g. Democrats and liberals against the oppression of England, fought in the American Revolution maiking me qualified for membership in SAR. We financed the March to Quebec in 1775 for which I’ve written a yet to be published book and screenplay. We drove Tories like you and Bush back to England but they bought their way back in.
In short go f- yourself.
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:44 pm
I like this bit in the Pew report cited by Woody:
“In addition to measuring public attitudes about America’s place in the world, the survey also gauged basic public knowledge about international political issues. For example, when asked what issue has been the focus of international talks with North Korea, 57% correctly identified nuclear weapons. Other questions were less widely known. Just under half (46%) could named Israel as the country that recently ceded control of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians, and 37% could recall Vladimir Putin as the name of Russia’s president. Overall, 28% answered all three questions correctly, while 38% could answer one or two of the questions correctly, and 34% got none of the questions right.”
In short, “normal people” in America tend to be staggeringly ignorant of foreign affairs.
Frankly, I’m not going to bother asking “normal people” whether they think CNN is a left-wing operation, because it appears that an awful lot of “normal people” have no clue about what CNN is reporting about half the time.
Here’s another good bit:
“There is one aspect of Iraq policy where knowledgeable and less knowledgeable Americans disagree, and the knowledgeable share the view of opinion leaders. While two-thirds of low-knowledge Americans favor removing either some or all troops from Iraq now, just 45% of the knowledgeable agree – the same as the share of influentials overall who take this position.”
America’s opinion leaders — a hotbed of lefty-isolationist peaceniks!
Can we stop talking about liberal bias in the media and start talking about stupidity/ignorance bias in the media? That’s a far more dangerous trend.
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:44 pm
“Okay, I’m just kidding. But, people who aren’t “normal†are the elitists who think of themselves as having superior reasoning for which none of their ideas are practical, reasonable, and typically fail when put to the test.”
Look straight into mirror: We’ve conducted the test. It’s failed. All of them have, all five years of the up-is-downism. What worked was the ones Bush replaced: Clinton’s.
Wild Turkey reg. Hunter had it right on that one.
November 22nd, 2005 at 8:57 pm
I’m partial to Makers Mark. But I don’t want to make the perfect the enemy of the good.
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:32 pm
“Media owners, if they act as reasonable and prudent businessmen, care about profits.”
Yes, and they have a vested interest in hiring people who support that power. The war is the perfect example of it, you don’t find critics of capitalism discussing the war on CNN or much of anything actually. You find rightwingers and liberals who support capitalism and the right to empire. the conspiracy theory you believe in would have us believe that somehow, despite the vested interest of corporate capitalists who own the media to make sure people they hire support capitalism and reproduce its dominant ideologies [be they conservative or liberal in content]. To think that something else has happened, that somehow leftists have infiltrated and taken over the media despite that structural orientation of media ownership and management and finance can only be conspiracy theory. How else could it have happened?
I mean, lets just use your theory w/regard to the reporting of the economy. If the ‘leftist’ editors who have taken over CNN were so left, how is it they hire and promote a Lou Dobbs or Cafferty to talk about things economic? A Ken Pollack to talk about war issues or military leaders? Your theory makes no sense when we look at such indicative trends. Somehow the conspirators took over CNN and the best they can do is promote such pro-capitalist talking heads?
November 22nd, 2005 at 9:52 pm
Maker’s is good too.
November 23rd, 2005 at 12:02 am
How did Woody change the conversation from “Cheney is a deceitful bureaucrat†to “media moguls are socialist!†?
November 23rd, 2005 at 2:00 am
OK.. How about we END this thread here? Seems like a good place. On Thanksgiving day we will dedicate the post to alcohol only… for real.
Woody’s a good sport, I have to say.l And you liberals and radicals here ought to take note how ONE guy can get u all cranked up. Must make Woody feel pretty darn good. Consider that your birthday present, Woodster.
Also.. for the record.. there we some implications made earlier in this thread that I was moderating the comments. You got to be kidding me! I’ve got much better things to do than that… had a good lunch with some colleagues at a totally liberale, elite effete frech restaurant 100 feet of Hollywood Blvd. Then went over to UCLA to meet my daughter and attend a panel discussion with her.
November 23rd, 2005 at 4:30 am
“Why we see ‘X’s’ over images all the time! They just happen only when Republican leaders are speaking. Just a weird coincidence.”
Please back up your assertion that this has happened multiple times and only when Republicans were speaking.
“Bias also distorts public perceptions, which is a goal of the left”
You really need to stop it with that fucking shit, Woody. Your starting to make me regret having ever defended you. You know, you can’t insult a large swathe of the population (a third-to-half of it in this case, depending on how you want to divide the political spectrum) and not expect to be insulted in return. If you sow ad homina, so shall ye reap.
“Marc, an accurate measure of CNN’s liberal bias is to talk to regular people, who have turned it off in droves–the same people canceling newspaper subscriptions.”
You are committing an appeal to authority fallacy here, Woody. You are proposing an elite of your choosing, composed of people with undefined characteristics (except for apparently sharing the neatly circular trait of agreeing with you), who’s opinion is supposed to carry more weight than that of that other elite you decry. In order to make a legitimate appeal to authority, the authority in question has to know what they are talking about and, as Michael Turner pointed out, your elite group of “normal people” doesn’t seem to fare very well in this regard.
“FAIR
I haven’t read it”
So I guess that means you missed the post I made back in October. It’s too bad, really, because I made a rather pointed observation that I think you really need to hear: Both sides like to argue that the mainstream media is biased in favor of their opponents. I have no idea which side, if any, is right about media bias but it sure is a nice way to avoid taking responsibility for their political failure, don’t you think?
“FAIR represents extremists and activists closely working with a disreputable organization, MoveOn”
First, you need to back up your assertion that FAIR works closely with MoveOn. Second, even if true you’re committing an ad hominem attack here by dismissing an argument because the arguer is (supposedly) associated with a group you don’t care for. What you seem to be missing here is that an argument stands or falls on its own merits, not on the merits of the arguer. If an argument stands or falls based on the merits of the person making the argument then we are in a strange situation where an argument can be simultaneously both true and false: true when a “good” arguer makes it and yet false when a “bad” one does. Surely you see the problem with that? Now, it is legitimate to suggest that an arguer may be lying about certain facts (statistics, incidents, etc.) that are used in the argument but that still requires some sort of engagement with the actual argument, something you haven’t done here.
“Maybe the word ‘radical’ is the separating word that applies just to them.”
This is largely in the eye of the beholder (and need I remind you that we all have splinters in our eyes?) and is irrelevant anyway– whatever label you choose to apply to an arguer has nothing to do with his argument.
“But, people who aren’t ‘normal’ are the elitists who think of themselves as having superior reasoning”
I know this is politically incorrect and all but some people do have better reasoning skills than others. By the way, psychology plays the biggest role in rational thinking, more so than IQ or familiarity with Aristotelian logic, and no one is free from the distortion that psychology brings to the realm of cognition… but still we are not all the same in every way– each individual has their own strengths and weaknesses
November 23rd, 2005 at 7:14 am
We can’t end the thread — I’ve just posted that:
Rita Skeeter helped to kill Sirius Black!
Which, in the JKR Harry Potter world, I believe to be true. She shows a good example of media bias.
The Leftist media bias Woody knows about, but can’t demonstrate, is based more on what the media does NOT show:
where are the pictures of the 200 000 or so Jordanians demonstrating against terrorism?
Why were all 13 of 13 first debate questions about/ against Bush?
What WAS Kerry’s “plan” — on anything?
Oops, yep — Higher Taxes (on the rich!)(punish those suckers for hiring & exploiting so many folk in their successful businesses; we want a gov’t that only supports failure!)
Where are the facts about men and women and 800 Math scores on the SAT?
Where are the facts about blacks and whites and the 2-4% average difference in IQ tests? (And what this means for policy?)
Where are the translations of speeches given by Muslim immams?
The main poll that matters is the election, but lies by Leftists about how Bush lied are bad for the country.
Walter Cronkite was against the Vietnam war — meaning he wanted the US to leave; which resulted in N. Vietnamese commies winning. And killing hundreds of thousands of NON-FIGHTING civilians. (Cronkite favored commie victory at least as much as neo-cons favored terrorist fighting in Iraq. )
How much media coverage was there on the bloodbath aftermath?
Oh I remember; the media that was against imperfect America’s fighting, totally ran away from the commies who, implicitly, they had supported in winning. Supporting the victory of a fear-culture is despicable.
The choice on Rwanda was war-intervention or genocide. Clinton chose (see no) genocide.
I’m enraged by the shallow lack of an examination of alternatives. All policies have good and bad points. Taking out Saddam was a great point of Bush’s invasion. How often is that discussed? Not enough to even get to the question, was it worth it?
Stopping genocide is worth how many American lives? Stopping Saddam is worth how many? These difficult, deep questions should be the focus of any media; they’re not though.
Happy B-day Woody.
November 23rd, 2005 at 7:44 am
Ah…the Charles Murray-black IQ-Bell Curve thing (which nobody’s ever heard of because the media won’t report it). In any event, exactly what DOES that mean for “policy” ? You’ve dragged out the bag of shit. Now it would be fun to watch you step in it.
November 23rd, 2005 at 8:32 am
MOVEON is extremist? They’re deathly afraid of calling for troops out they’re so ‘extremist’. They’re the liberal wing of the Democratic Party and actively promote its programs. What’s so extreme about that?
DC–you’re mistaken about FAIR. Their argument is not that the right wing is favored by the media. Their argument is corporate capital’s perspective on how the world should be run is favored by the media, reporters and editors alike. That’s far different from AIM or MRC or Woody’s faith in the idea that a band of ‘lefitsts’ have taken over CNN and gotten cooshy jobs for fellow leftists like Wolf Blitzer, Lou Dobbs, Cafferty, Kagan, Scheider, Larry King, etc….
November 23rd, 2005 at 9:45 am
Marc Cooper: “But woody, notherbob, you might want to check out the webiste of FAIR and see how their language is so similar to yours.”
Good to know that FAIR and Extra! now belong in the same category as wonderfully enlightening sites like FreeRepublic.com, FrontPageMag and WorldNutDaily.
I guess that clearly marks them as being beyond the … pale. Something which one can never say about certain “centrist” blogs.
As far as the great crime committed against Cheney by some unknown hero at CNN (who in all likelihood has already been fired), what he said.
November 23rd, 2005 at 10:04 am
So Woody, you took a crack at explaining liberal media bias. These two quotes seems to be the nuts of your diagnosis.
“Media owners, if they act as reasonable and prudent businessmen, care about profits. Businessmen typically studied …well, business, in school and are traditionally conservative. On the other hand, they have jobs for journalists to fill, and journalists studied journalism and are traditionally liberal–having a need to “change the world†before “making a buck.†Most people would agree that is true.â€
“Marc, I don’t look at the resumes of CNN’s hosts. I listen to what they say and how they say it. Their reporters have their orders, and they follow the liberal scripts.â€
So either it’s an aggregate of lift-leaning media writers who slant the news against conservatives or, when Marc names some specifically not conservative writers, they must be getting their marching orders from some liberal bosses. Too many excuses and not enough real thinking here.
p.s. conservatives are nice! (I’m following the rules)
November 23rd, 2005 at 10:07 am
“Walter Cronkite was against the Vietnam war — meaning he wanted the US to leave; which resulted in N. Vietnamese commies winning.”
False cause fallacy.
As sniper wisely points out all of the conservo talking points and reasoning paths are textbook logical fallacies. It’s all they have: wrong and proud of it. Or clueless or both.
November 23rd, 2005 at 10:16 am
Abbas, you hit the nail on the head, Marc and Woody are both wrong to equate FAIR with AIM or MRC. FAIR’s studies are far more rigorously done than the statistical farces that AIM or MRC put out and I suspect Marc knows that.
And Woody would need to explain why CNN hasn’t hired a single actual live breathing leftist to be a talking head? Lou Dobbs, Daryl Kagan, Paula Zahn, Larry King, Cafferty, Bill AEI Schneider,…where are these influential ‘leftists’ that are opposed to corporate capital or empire? How is it this leftist cabal is not able to get a single leftist as a talking head?
November 23rd, 2005 at 10:53 am
Abbas, thanks to your posting the link to LGF, I now have completely lost my caffeinated morning vigor and my mind has turned to mush. Say what you want about the value in attracting commenters to a blog, but I much prefer drinking in some 10-20 thought-provoking comments here–whatever their political persuasion–than feeling my eyes glaze over after reading yet another “nuke the towel heads” comment in LGF. Try sifting through 400+ of these! Well, more coffee for me…
November 23rd, 2005 at 12:14 pm
sorry about posting that kaplan link after it was the centerpiece of marc’s last post…duh!
November 23rd, 2005 at 3:35 pm
“DC–you’re mistaken about FAIR. Their argument is not that the right wing is favored by the media. Their argument is corporate capital’s perspective on how the world should be run is favored by the media, reporters and editors alike.”
The difference being? Corporate capital’s perspective is right-wing, is it not, at least on economic issues? FAIR also suggest there exists conservative bias on social/cultural issues. Prior to the purges, I used to listen to Counterspin on KPFK all the time and I even read one of their books so I don’t believe I’m mistaken here.
He he he, Spinsanity on media watchdog groups. You gotta love Sheldon Rampton’s counterattack though that Spinsanity was trying ” to score political points against FAIR.” How he right he turned out to be as Spinsanity have been revealed as… wait for it… fascist tools of Bushitler
November 23rd, 2005 at 3:41 pm
Marc, what’s with this “Your comment is awaiting moderation” thing?
November 23rd, 2005 at 5:37 pm
“The MRC’s “media reality check” on the issue is headlined “ABC, CBS and NBC Promote Liberal Critics, Pretend Dissent Over Global Warming No Longer Exists.” But in the broadcasts cited, critics of the plan were quoted as many times as those who supported the report’s findings (if not its recommendations), and reporters and anchors on all three networks explained the anti-regulation conclusions of the report. Yet, by only providing quotes critical of the Bush administration, MRC is creating a false impression of what these networks actually reported. ”
This what imbalanced means and it’s all the right wing groups do. Context is deliberately skewed.
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DC, corporate capital is not right wing, there are plenty of corporate capitalists who exploit the moses out of workers and they vote Democrat. You’ve not read FAIR carefully enough since they go out of their way to clarify that the problem is not that the media is right wing. It need not be to be supportive of a corporate agenda or the agenda of empire for that matter.
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