Bushworld

Proven you say? No, I simply think people need to understand what the word proven means.

[quote]Right Side Up wrote:

How does one know that the NYTimes is leftist and not just, well, objective?[/quote]

Quality Question RSU…perhaps you should read one of the last Q&A’s with the NYT chief editor…or was it their ombudsman, you said 50% of his mail was from people who thought the NYT was too liberally slanted…his response was that they were liberally slanted.
I think BB can provide you with a link

THanks for playing.

vroom, you sort of sound like one of your heros: “What is the meaning of is.”

[quote]Right Side Up wrote:
biltritewave wrote:
and yet again maureen dowd proves that she must have sucked a lot of cock to get where she is.

LOL – hey ZEB, is what bilt said “hateful?” What would it have been if I said it?[/quote]

ZEB, I want you to acknowledge this – you run around these forums complaining how “hateful” (your favorite word) I am, yet your commrade posts this and gets a pass from ZEB, the moral authority.

It seems to me that unless you call him nasty and hateful, you’ll be a hypocrite.

[quote]vroom wrote:
The documents in Rather’s story were proved false to everyone except CBS - I guess you want CBS to be the final arbiter of the documents’ accuracy?

Proven you say? No, I simply think people need to understand what the word proven means.[/quote]

Really? What’s your opinion on the Swiftvet stuff again?

[quote]biltritewave wrote:

Quality Question RSU…perhaps you should read one of the last Q&A’s with the NYT chief editor…or was it their ombudsman, you said 50% of his mail was from people who thought the NYT was too liberally slanted…his response was that they were liberally slanted.
I think BB can provide you with a link

THanks for playing.
[/quote]

I think this is what you wanted:

Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?
By DANIEL OKRENT

Published: July 25, 2004

Of course it is.

The fattest file on my hard drive is jammed with letters from the disappointed, the dismayed and the irate who find in this newspaper a liberal bias that infects not just political coverage but a range of issues from abortion to zoology to the appointment of an admitted Democrat to be its watchdog. (That would be me.) By contrast, readers who attack The Times from the left - and there are plenty - generally confine their complaints to the paper’s coverage of electoral politics and foreign policy.

I’ll get to the politics-and-policy issues this fall (I want to watch the campaign coverage before I conclude anything), but for now my concern is the flammable stuff that ignites the right. These are the social issues: gay rights, gun control, abortion and environmental regulation, among others. And if you think The Times plays it down the middle on any of them, you’ve been reading the paper with your eyes closed.

But if you’re examining the paper’s coverage of these subjects from a perspective that is neither urban nor Northeastern nor culturally seen-it-all; if you are among the groups The Times treats as strange objects to be examined on a laboratory slide (devout Catholics, gun owners, Orthodox Jews, Texans); if your value system wouldn’t wear well on a composite New York Times journalist, then a walk through this paper can make you feel you’re traveling in a strange and forbidding world.

Start with the editorial page, so thoroughly saturated in liberal theology that when it occasionally strays from that point of view the shocked yelps from the left overwhelm even the ceaseless rumble of disapproval from the right.

Across the gutter, the Op-Ed page editors do an evenhanded job of representing a range of views in the essays from outsiders they publish - but you need an awfully heavy counterweight to balance a page that also bears the work of seven opinionated columnists, only two of whom could be classified as conservative (and, even then, of the conservative subspecies that supports legalization of gay unions and, in the case of William Safire, opposes some central provisions of the Patriot Act).

But opinion pages are opinion pages, and “balanced opinion page” is an oxymoron. So let’s move elsewhere. In the Sunday magazine, the culture-wars applause-o-meter chronically points left. On the Arts & Leisure front page every week, columnist Frank Rich slices up President Bush, Mel Gibson, John Ashcroft and other paladins of the right in prose as uncompromising as Paul Krugman’s or Maureen Dowd’s. The culture pages often feature forms of art, dance or theater that may pass for normal (or at least tolerable) in New York but might be pretty shocking in other places.

Same goes for fashion coverage, particularly in the Sunday magazine, where I’ve encountered models who look like they’re preparing to murder (or be murdered), and others arrayed in a mode you could call dominatrix chic. If you’re like Jim Chapman, one of my correspondents who has given up on The Times, you’re lost in space. Wrote Chapman, “Whatever happened to poetry that required rhyme and meter, to songs that required lyrics and tunes, to clothing ads that stressed the costume rather than the barely clothed females and slovenly dressed, slack-jawed, unshaven men?”

In the Sunday Styles section, there are gay wedding announcements, of course, but also downtown sex clubs and T-shirts bearing the slogan, “I’m afraid of Americans.” The findings of racial-equity reformer Richard Lapchick have been appearing in the sports pages for decades (“Since when is diversity a sport?” one e-mail complainant grumbled). The front page of the Metro section has featured a long piece best described by its subhead, “Cross-Dressers Gladly Pay to Get in Touch with Their Feminine Side.” And a creationist will find no comfort in Science Times.

Not that creationists should expect to find comfort in Science Times. Newspapers have the right to decide what’s important and what’s not. But their editors must also expect that some readers will think: “This does not represent me or my interests. In fact, it represents my enemy.” So is it any wonder that the offended or befuddled reader might consider everything else in the paper - including, say, campaign coverage - suspicious as well?

Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. doesn’t think this walk through The Times is a tour of liberalism. He prefers to call the paper’s viewpoint “urban.” He says that the tumultuous, polyglot metropolitan environment The Times occupies means “We’re less easily shocked,” and that the paper reflects “a value system that recognizes the power of flexibility.”

He’s right; living in New York makes a lot of people think that way, and a lot of people who think that way find their way to New York (me, for one). The Times has chosen to be an unashamed product of the city whose name it bears, a condition magnified by the been-there-done-that irony afflicting too many journalists. Articles containing the word “postmodern” have appeared in The Times an average of four times a week this year - true fact! - and if that doesn’t reflect a Manhattan sensibility, I’m Noam Chomsky.

But it’s one thing to make the paper’s pages a congenial home for editorial polemicists, conceptual artists, the fashion-forward or other like-minded souls (European papers, aligned with specific political parties, have been doing it for centuries), and quite another to tell only the side of the story your co-religionists wish to hear. I don’t think it’s intentional when The Times does this. But negligence doesn’t have to be intentional.

The gay marriage issue provides a perfect example. Set aside the editorial page, the columnists or the lengthy article in the magazine (“Toward a More Perfect Union,” by David J. Garrow, May 9) that compared the lawyers who won the Massachusetts same-sex marriage lawsuit to Thurgood Marshall and Martin Luther King. That’s all fine, especially for those of us who believe that homosexual couples should have precisely the same civil rights as heterosexuals.

But for those who also believe the news pages cannot retain their credibility unless all aspects of an issue are subject to robust examination, it’s disappointing to see The Times present the social and cultural aspects of same-sex marriage in a tone that approaches cheerleading. So far this year, front-page headlines have told me that “For Children of Gays, Marriage Brings Joy,” (March 19, 2004); that the family of “Two Fathers, With One Happy to Stay at Home,” (Jan. 12, 2004) is a new archetype; and that “Gay Couples Seek Unions in God’s Eyes,” (Jan. 30, 2004). I’ve learned where gay couples go to celebrate their marriages; I’ve met gay couples picking out bridal dresses; I’ve been introduced to couples who have been together for decades and have now sanctified their vows in Canada, couples who have successfully integrated the world of competitive ballroom dancing, couples whose lives are the platonic model of suburban stability.

Every one of these articles was perfectly legitimate. Cumulatively, though, they would make a very effective ad campaign for the gay marriage cause. You wouldn’t even need the articles: run the headlines over the invariably sunny pictures of invariably happy people that ran with most of these pieces, and you’d have the makings of a life insurance commercial.

This implicit advocacy is underscored by what hasn’t appeared. Apart from one excursion into the legal ramifications of custody battles (“Split Gay Couples Face Custody Hurdles,” by Adam Liptak and Pam Belluck, March 24), potentially nettlesome effects of gay marriage have been virtually absent from The Times since the issue exploded last winter.

The San Francisco Chronicle runs an uninflected article about Congressional testimony from a Stanford scholar making the case that gay marriage in the Netherlands has had a deleterious effect on heterosexual marriage. The Boston Globe explores the potential impact of same-sex marriage on tax revenues, and the paucity of reliable research on child-rearing in gay families. But in The Times, I have learned next to nothing about these issues, nor about partner abuse in the gay community, about any social difficulties that might be encountered by children of gay couples or about divorce rates (or causes, or consequences) among the 7,000 couples legally joined in Vermont since civil union was established there four years ago.

On a topic that has produced one of the defining debates of our time, Times editors have failed to provide the three-dimensional perspective balanced journalism requires. This has not occurred because of management fiat, but because getting outside one’s own value system takes a great deal of self-questioning. Six years ago, the ownership of this sophisticated New York institution decided to make it a truly national paper. Today, only 50 percent of The Times’s readership resides in metropolitan New York, but the paper’s heart, mind and habits remain embedded here. You can take the paper out of the city, but without an effort to take the city and all its attendant provocations, experiments and attitudes out of the paper, readers with a different worldview will find The Times an alien beast.

Taking the New York out of The New York Times would be a really bad idea. But a determination by the editors to be mindful of the weight of its hometown’s presence would not.

?

With that, I’m leaving town. Next week, letters from readers; after that, this space will be occupied by my polymathic pal Jack Rosenthal, a former Times writer and editor whose name appeared on the masthead for 25 years. I’m going to spend August in a deck chair and see if I can once again read The Times like a civilian. See you after Labor Day.

The public editor is the readers’ representative. His opinions and conclusions are his own. His column appears at least twice monthly in this section.

[quote]biltritewave wrote:

Quality Question RSU…perhaps you should read one of the last Q&A’s with the NYT chief editor…or was it their ombudsman, you said 50% of his mail was from people who thought the NYT was too liberally slanted…his response was that they were liberally slanted.
I think BB can provide you with a link

THanks for playing.
[/quote]

THis is also good - I like the comparison to that known publication of conservative kow-towers, the Washington Post:

Meanwhile, Over At “All The News”

Adam Nagourney warns us that both sides are making stong charges before the upcoming debate.

Apparently, the Dems are planning to raise the question of responsible dissent and what they see as Republican attempts to stifle a free debate:

“A senior Kerry adviser, Joe Lockhart, laid out what Democrats said would most likely be another major theme for Mr. Kerry leading up to the debate, as he accused Mr. Bush of “using the war on terror as a political tool and a political weapon” in seeking to silence dissent.”

We hope to have more on this soon. However, a quick point - folks who rely exclusively on the NY Times for their news may not know just how far the Kerry campaign side has pushed the boundaries of what we suppose they consider to be responsible dissent.

First, the Times has zero coverage of Joe Lockhart’s infamous quote describing Allawi as a Bush puppet.
http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?srcht=a&srchot=a&query=%2Ballawi+%2Bpuppet&field=body&mon0=09&day0=27&year0=2004&daterange=period&mon1=09&day1=21&year1=2004&mon2=09&day2=27&year2=2004&cre=The+New+York+Times&sort=closest&sources=all&submit.x=27&submit.y=11
For comparison, we find 1,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50521-2004Sep25.html
2,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46901-2004Sep24.html
3
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46048-2004Sep24.html
Lockhart citings in the Washington Post.

Secondly, the Times has zero coverage of Diana Kerry’s appalling comments in Australia,
http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?srcht=s&srchst=&vendor=&query=%2Bdiana+%2Bkerry&date_select=past30days&submit.x=28&submit.y=3
made as a representative of Americans Overseas for Kerry.

Fair and balanced.

The Times Public Editor is Daniel Okrent - public@nytimes.com

MORE: MoDo picks up Lockhart’s “puppet” theme; Belgravitas picks up MoDo.
http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/archives/001557.html
He also sends us to Bill Kristol.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/672upfks.asp?pg=1

RSU:

It seems to me that you want to engage me in all sorts of debate. However, you run when confronted with my challenge. What’s a T-Man to think?

You talk the talk, but won’t walk the walk!

BB,

If CBS made this shit up, obviously a forgone conclusion to you, then it is just as reprehensible.

If CBS was duped, then this shows them stupid, but not reprehensible.

However, CBS has apologized for using the material. As a news organization it’s purpose is to go with stories, mistakes can be made. At least they know how to admit a mistake.

The purpose of the SwiftVets is to malign Kerry. These turkeys generally engage in tricky innuendo which gets amplifies as it is spun by pundits and media into wild claims – now repeated as fact by tons of Bush sheeple. There are no supporting documents, fake or otherwise.

I honestly don’t know what CBS did or did not do. I’ll probably never know. If you can’t square my opinion on these issues… I don’t care. However, I don’t think you are trying very hard.

[quote]
biltritewave wrote:
and yet again maureen dowd proves that she must have sucked a lot of cock to get where she is.

Right Side Up wrote:
LOL – hey ZEB, is what bilt said “hateful?” What would it have been if I said it?

Right Side Up wrote:
ZEB, I want you to acknowledge this – you run around these forums complaining how “hateful” (your favorite word) I am, yet your commrade posts this and gets a pass from ZEB, the moral authority.

It seems to me that unless you call him nasty and hateful, you’ll be a hypocrite.[/quote]

Did he answer me directly?

[quote]ZEB wrote:
RSU:

It seems to me that you want to engage me in all sorts of debate. However, you run when confronted with my challenge. What’s a T-Man to think?

You talk the talk, but won’t walk the walk![/quote]

NO! He ducks my simple question because he knows the response will either make him criticize his compadre (his criticism is reserved for, well, me!) or just be a hypocrite.

To boot, he claims I’m running in the same post he’s ducking a question!

It’s the same as FOX saying their Fair and Balanced – saying it is enough, doing it doesn’t matter.

BTW, again, where’d you go to college and what did you study?

You’re very afraid of this question, aren’t you, as it’s been about 2 weeks of me asking it!

[quote]Vegita wrote:
RSU - I am so sick of people saying fox news isn’t fair and balanced. You are a moron plain and simple and yes that was a personal attack because you are flat out lying or stupid. (sorry everyone for the anger here.)

Watch fox news for one day and tell me how many times they interview a republican or a conservative without also hearing the other side from a liberal or a democrat. That is what they do, Show both sides and let us decide. That is what O’reilly prides himself on. He will admit he is right leaning [/quote] Actuall, on 60 minutes the other night, he said he’s further left on issues and went down the list – I was quite surprised, as you may have been.[quote]but he says it up front, he then bring people who disagree with him on and argues with them. Sometimes he wins the arguments sometimes he looses. For instance, I thought jenna jameson tore bill up and down when he was trying to tell her what a terrible life she was living and what a bad role model to her kid she was. She totally crushed him.
[/quote]So did Michael Moore at the DNC.[quote]
If you ever see a one sided argument on fox they always state “such and such was asked to appear or comment but they declined” Which usually means they don’t have a leg to stand on.

Luckily the other news orginazations are sick of getting the shit kicked out of them by fox so now they too are starting to have both sides comment or argue a point. This is good for all stations. Unfortunately there are still a lot of people that hear catch phrases and repeat them like a parrot untill they are blue in the face.

One other point RSU, if Fox is so right leaning as you say, then certainly you will agree that CNN is left leaning and the two balance eachother out? Which to a democrat who loves freedom of speach and balance should be a great thing? The only other problem I can see is who is there to balance out the left leanings of ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN Headline News, The people who can only get the first three because of no cable tv service don’t even have the option to watch a “right wing” nes station as you would call it.

Vegita ~ Prince of all Sayajins[/quote]

My response will surely be inadequate, but what the hell!

The first problem might be that you can’t see it on your own! FOX’s bias jumps from the TV with it’s mic louder than everyone else’s, tells everyone to shut the fuck up, and proceeds to bludgeon its viewers with conservative propaganda.

  1. This looks at Special Report with Brit Hume:
    http://www.fair.org/extra/0407/special-report.html

  2. FOX in general:
    http://www.fair.org/extra/0108/fox-main.html

  3. And for fun, MoveOn sponsored “OutFOXed” – a film on Fox’s bias.

Check them out and enjoy (and change the channel from time to time!)

O’Reilly beat moore in their debate, in my opinion.

[quote]vroom wrote:
Really? What’s your opinion on the Swiftvet stuff again?

BB,

If CBS made this shit up, obviously a forgone conclusion to you, then it is just as reprehensible.

If CBS was duped, then this shows them stupid, but not reprehensible.

However, CBS has apologized for using the material. As a news organization it’s purpose is to go with stories, mistakes can be made. At least they know how to admit a mistake.

The purpose of the SwiftVets is to malign Kerry. These turkeys generally engage in tricky innuendo which gets amplifies as it is spun by pundits and media into wild claims – now repeated as fact by tons of Bush sheeple. There are no supporting documents, fake or otherwise.

I honestly don’t know what CBS did or did not do. I’ll probably never know. If you can’t square my opinion on these issues… I don’t care. However, I don’t think you are trying very hard.[/quote]

That’s all well and good, but how does that work with “disproved” the way you used it w/r/t the Swiftvet stuff?

[Addendum, for clarity: The comparison is between the eyewitness testimony presented by the Swiftvets, which you have described as discredited and disproved, and the CBS memos, which you have described as “questioned.” The comparison is not between CBS and the Swiftvets - not between a network news program and a political 527 organization.]

RSU:

Some where along the line you got confused (this seems to happen regularly with you). You actually thought that I wanted to share my personal information with you. Once again, you are wrong kid.

Your efforts to side step my challenge will not work. You can grumble. You can bluster, You can even whine, but the challenge will still be there!

I think it’s high time you took me up on it like a good T-Man should! Look in the mirror take a deep breath and say these words: “I’m not afraid of the challenge.” Say them over and over again. Then hop on your keyboard and actually type something that will make us all happy. Accept my challenge!

Anything short of that in your next post will simply be another dodge!

Vroom come on man?

"If CBS made this shit up, obviously a forgone conclusion to you, then it is just as reprehensible.

If CBS was duped, then this shows them stupid, but not reprehensible.

However, CBS has apologized for using the material. As a news organization it’s purpose is to go with stories, mistakes can be made. At least they know how to admit a mistake."

This is the equivalent of hacking your arm off with a chainsaw. This is the type of mistake that makes one say, WTF? how did they actually achieve that level of stupidity and left wing froth. You know that if a story about kerries medals or some other crap broke, they would report it but it would be all, “allegations” “possibilities” and “questions that need further review”.

These bush fakes came out and they were like well we have an anchor on the air in 10 minutes lets get em out there!

It’s plain and simple bull.

RSU - obviously you can’t read, telling me to turn the other channel? Did you miss the whole part about the other news orginazations taking fox’s lead? Yea well that would imply that I watch the other news networks. DUH! Go have another donught and a duffs HOMER.

AND… O’rielly crushed Moore, moore didn’t even make sense. It was pathetic. He actually did leave bill speechless once or twice but that was because bill couldn’t figure out what the hell he was trying to say.

I know all you guys think i’m some big republican and I don’t have an enlightened view as you do. I’m telling you straight up, I am probably more liberal than you on many issues, Energy, Social issues, Environment. I just think the other side has the RIGHT stuff for the BIG issues of TODAY. i’m not saying i’ll always vote conservative, but it makes sense to do so now regardless of what you brainwashed liberals think. (and the liberal part wasn’t the slam)

Vegita ~ Prince of all Sayajins

[quote]Vegita wrote:

RSU - obviously you can’t read, telling me to turn the other channel? Did you miss the whole part about the other news orginazations taking fox’s lead? Yea well that would imply that I watch the other news networks. DUH! Go have another donught and a duffs HOMER.

[/quote]

Nice job addressing the issue I was responding to as you posed it to me: FOX’s bias. Did you read my links, which offered information that might serve as an answer to your tempered query?

[quote]ZEB wrote:
RSU:

Some where along the line you got confused (this seems to happen regularly with you). You actually thought that I wanted to share my personal information with you. Once again, you are wrong kid.[/quote]

Damn, you can’t even make something up – no degree, huh? What’s your story, Double - O - ZEB? What are you hiding? What’s the extent of your education, at least – will you answer that?

[quote]
Anything short of that in your next post will simply be another dodge![/quote]

Blaming me for dodging as you fail to acknowledge my question about Bilt’s remarks for the THIRD TIME! Who’s dodging?

It must be tough arguing with me – I don’t let you off the hook for anything…stop your bullshit and answer the question.

Veg, you might be right. However, I’m still leaning towards the “CBS were idiots” camp as opposed to “CBS acted reprehensibly”.

So, similar to your comment, Veg, come on. I’m slamming them either way! I just haven’t come to the conclusion that they were a participant in the creation of what appears to be false information. Maybe new information will eventually come out to clear that part up.

RSU:

All you have to do is say these words: “Zeb I take you up on your challenge.” I will then answer your questions.

Now isn’t that easy kid?

Just do it! (Just like the old Nike commercial)

Vroom, I agree that they really didn’t have a hand in forging these documents. The major problem from my point of view is that they were so eager to call it NEWS even when people within the orginization were throwing all sorts of red flags up. Then Rather contended for at least a week that CBS stands behind these documents and bla bla bla. This once again proves that at least CBS has a liberal madia Bias, to the point of active dishonesty.

What pisses me off is that you guys bash fox for being conservative, yet a liberal station makes this typ of blunder and everyone is already ready to forgive them. It’s just like how the UN can’t back up it’s own resolutions, so Now they are irrelivant, Now CBS is irrelivant.

RSU - I was on topic, you made a comment like, better get back to watching your fox news. Implying that I only watch fox and am far less sophisticated in my news gathering abilities than you are. I know you don’t think so but after a year or two of reading your posts I can really pick up on what you mean even when you don’t come right out and say it. So you try to take a stab at me for something that isn’t even true, and not only is it nonsense to imply that i only watch fox news, my post to you had evidence in it that I in fact do get my news from many sources. I’m really not trying to be a dick I just hope you can see why it is hard to debate with you guys sometimes.

I would appreciate that if in the future you see any posts of mine that dodge a direct issue or I somehow misrepresent you in any way please call me on it.

Vegita ~ Prince of all Sayajins