Jamison Foser has an article comparing how the national news media is approaching McCain’s repeated lies and compares that approach to the media’s approach to Al Gore’s alleged lies in 2000. In 2000, Gore would say something that was supposedly false or exaggerated, and the media would go nuts, featuring the allegations of untruth prominently, then asking “Will Gore say anything to get elected?”
When McCain lies, the news media is more apt to repeat the lie several times, ask how Obama will respond, and somewhere toward the end of the story use some tepid, vague euphemism for “lie.”
So, is there a line at which spin transforms beyond the acceptable into flat lying; and will a candidate pay a price for crossing that line?
Sure there’s a line, it’s the line between conservative and ‘librul’ and you only pay if you are on the left side of that line. In other words, IOKIYAR (It’s OK If You Are Republican).
John McCain, who travels with a laptop, noted in July that he’s no longer computer illiterate but still has little use for e-mail.
The comes Obama’s dishonest ads.
The media made a big deal out of McCain’s ambiguity when asked if he used a PC or make, but then again they made a major story out of Clinton’s evasion of the boxers or briefs question.
Silly Democrats. Next thing you know they’ll be swiping the W key from White House computers.
John McCain, who travels with a laptop, noted in July that he’s no longer computer illiterate but still has little use for e-mail.
Then comes Obama’s dishonest ads.
The media made a big deal out of McCain’s ambiguity when asked if he used a PC or Mac, but then again they made a major story out of Clinton’s evasion of the boxers or briefs question.
Silly Democrats. Next thing you know they’ll be swiping the W keys from White House computers.
Nice dig with the “W” keys. The media, for those who don’t know, spent a week or two in January 2001 on that story which never happened.
I’m 55; old enough to remember when the electronic media was limited to three networks who isolated their news coverage to 1/2 hour of the Huntley-Brinkley report dominating the coverage, second only to Walter Cronkite. Radio was no better. Saving grace could be found in a few communities spotted across the nation fortunate enough to have people like M Stanton Evans at the helm. The so-called fairness doctrine did a fairly good job at stifling the freedom of conservatives to express themselves in the “free” press.
Standard fare in the those darkest of days (exaggerating, but only a little) were interview news-shows where panels of liberals would allow a token conservative to participate. Clearly the conservative view was in the minority, we were to believe.
Imagine the earth-shaking trauma of China’s cultural revolution that took the lives of that nation’s best and brightest by the thousands, perhaps millions; all done in the name of anti-capitalism and pro-socialism, the ideals touted by Cronkite and his cronies. No wonder it was hushed. Most Americans didn’t even know it happened; many still don’t today.
With the fairness doctrine dismantled, fairness returned. Along came Rush Limbaugh with his common sense perspectives and the fair and balanced reporting of Rupert’s Fox News Network. Now even the Wall Street Journal is starting to sound sane.
The network news monopolies are forced to compete with truth, and they’re losing. The nation’s leading liberal newspapers are staff-whacking trying keep their propagating machines afloat, barely able to churn out illusions of news.
And so, when liberals whine about media bias, I just sit back and remember those days of yore when all they would do is scoff at conservatives for daring to acknowledge the liberal-media monopoly.
Life is good.
Anyone who uses “Rush Limbaugh” and “common sense” in the same sentence instantly loses all credibility.
Besides, I thought you were one of those drug legalizing Libertarians…
It makes sense that liberals would start complaining when the shoe’s on the other foot. There’s always been slanted reporting. Quite evident in American media’s zillion reports characterizing the Boomer generation without reference to this generation in the rest of the world, China for instance.
But, to say national news outlets are competing with the truth? Uh, no. In the old days there were only newspapers and town criers. Then radio, then TV. Then satellites and cable, and then cell phones. They are competing for an audience amidst all the many forms. In those old days, the whole family would gather around the one radio to hear the news, or one TV in the house.
The TV news coverage of a local election was obviously slanted, and I asked a news man of personal acquaintance to give a viewpoint. Why did one candidate get lights-camera-action & live interviews, while the other candidate was lucky to get a quick mugshot at the end of the report? Why did one get all the attention? “Because he’s going to win,” the news man said.
George W. Bush & Co. made such an emphatic point of not getting caught under an oath to tell the truth, I’m guessing that’s sort of the standard now.
Back to 1970.
My first debates with liberals were in the cafeteria at Tech Highs School.
How well I remember: I would provide logical views, they would counter with foolish sarcasm. At first I was baffled by their buffoonery in challenging rational thinking with silliness. Then it occurred to me: They can’t tell the the difference.
For more on the importance of regulating narcotics, visit http://www.ENDiana.com and scroll down to Kenn’s Quotes.
in response to Ken Gividen,
I used to warn my students by saying that any point of view can be presented in a coherent ‘logical’ point of view,so we have to find out what the motivation is of the one(s) bundling the presentation. The facts left out are often more compelling than those facts chosen to make a case.(everyone is a lawyer for his own side.)
A current ungoing example is the debate whether Palin was ‘for’ or ‘against’ the bridge to nowhere. Fox news made a great defense of Palin,but they had to leave out that Alaska kept the 1st installment of the bridge money,and are building an access road with it.But yes, Palin ultimately was against the bridge.
Giving all facts their due can undermine anyone’s case .That’s why we have progressed so grandly as a nation as pramatic thinkers. Be wary of those who are already right before the presentation begins,and gather facts to prove it.
Sarcasm too often takes the place of solid argument, such as McCain accusing Obama of being ‘disprectful’.
Everyone should be a HS teacher for a period of time; highschoolers will teach us all what good sarcasm is,and that we must seek ways to overcome it if we want to get things accomplished.
some ideas are so foolish, so ridiculous, that they are not worth being taken seriously: for example, the idea that fox news is “fair and balanced”, that rush limbaugh has “common-sense perspectives”, or that walter cronkite was “anti-capitalism and pro-socialism”.
And these things are true, of course, because stAllio! asserts them.
You need not discuss or investigate them further.
Tune in tomorrow to obtain more of the received truth, and save yourself valuable thinking time!
Amen StAllio!
I normally ignore the ranting of these cult-like third parties. They very rarely make coherent arguments. More often though they are simply trying to put a legitimate face on extremism that the American public has dismissed as lunacy.
parker: by all means, feel free to investigate my assertions all you like, and come back with evidence that crokite was a socialist and that fox news is “fair and balanced”. i’ll be waiting.
Is McCain now using a computer? I thought Jonah Goldberg over at National Review Online said he can’t use a computer or Blackberry because of his war injuries… They should really establish whether he can use a computer before they use a “POW” on it. Otherwise he might run out of “POW”s to use.
Just kidding. He’ll never run out of those.
But I don’t need to.
You have asserted them.
And your unsupported assertions are definitive.
What more need be said?
Other than thank you, for relieving me of the tedious notion that discussion should be supported by facts or evidence.
I feel so free!
so parker, since apparently you believe everything is up for debate, where do you come down on the great heliocentrism vs geocentrism debate? personally, i’m a heliocentrist, but maybe i’m wrong, eh?
Hey, they got Galileo to back down – you think they’ll have a problem with YOU?
Note, too, that at one time your example was hotly debated – and the intellectually honest offered evidence in support of their views.
Besides, it’s just a frame of reference thing – taking a geocentric view makes the math harder, is all…
exactly: geocentrism was once a subject of debate but that debate was settled long ago. likewise, the idea that fox news is “fair and balanced” has been debunked hundreds of times by hundreds of people.
my time is too precious to waste on reinventing the wheel.