The problem with conservative media? They’re lying.
This week has seen the public immolation of two prominent right-wing media provocateurs, Andrew Breitbart and Tucker Carlson.
Both were outed for disseminating “exposes” of liberal wrong-doing that turned out to be deliberately edited so as to create an outright deception.
Carlson printed parts of emails written by mainstream journalists on a private listserv, purporting to show that they wanted the government to “shut down” Fox News.
Breitbart disseminated a now-famous video that claimed to show an African American Agriculture Department staffer discriminating against a white farmer.
Turns out both were deliberately, unambiguously false. Which brings me to my problem with conservative media.
I happen to like the evolution of more ideologically-driven journalism. I still think there’s a place for “straight” news, but it’s interesting to have good reporters chasing a wide range of narratives and facts and issues.
I’m even comfortable with the Right’s conviction that most mainstream reporters (like myself) are closet-liberals.
I happen to think they’re wrong. But if that’s what motivates a conservative blogger (or editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal) to get up a little earlier and dig a little deeper, that’s great.
Unfortunately, that’s not what’s happening on the Right. Far too often, conservative journalists are pushing narratives and arguments which simply have no basis in fact.
It’s not just that they’re copping to an ideological bias and going with it. No, they’re actually telling lies.
They use the techniques of populism (when Fox News producers secretly cheerlead crowds to chant slogans) or propaganda (when videos are selectively edited) or deceptive framing (omitting important fact and context) to paint a picture of issues that are, simply and uncomplicatedly, false.
Here are some of those narratives currently being circulated:
1. White people are being victimized by people of color.
This kind of thing used to be the purview of fringe racists, but it’s now a common theme on Fox News (showing constantly recycled images of a couple of Black Panther goofs) and Rush Limbaugh.
Yes some whites have experienced discrimination in various forms. But by every accepted metric, black and Hispanic Americans face far more challenges (including racism) than their white neighbors.
2. Illegal immigration has created chaos on our southern border.
Yes, illegal immigration is a serious problem and policy fixes are needed. And yes, Mexico is wrestling with an incredible wave of drug-related violence.
But crime rates in American border cities are actually down and there is zero evidence that some kind of lawless Mad Max zone is developing in Arizona and New Mexico.
3. The President of the United States is a foreigner and perhaps a Muslim sleeper agent who has infiltrated our political system.
The conservative media has recycled this bugaboo for two years, despite conclusive evidence that Barack Obama was born in Hawaii to an American mother.
As recently as July 19th, the Washington Times ran an illustration of his Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan wearing a turban, suggesting that she — a Jew — might be planning to promote Islamic sharia law.
4. American democracy has been so debased by Democrats and liberals that armed conflict may be necessary or appropriate.
This may be the most irresponsible conservative narrative of them all. From Fox News commentator Sarah Palin to Glenn Beck, conservative media personalities have winked and nudged repeatedly at the idea that “our country” may need to be “taken back” by some means other than the ballot box.
They repeat narratives about “taxation without representation,” while side-stepping the fact that America is a nation of laws, written and approved in majority-votes by officials we have elected.
So the problem with the conservative media isn’t that it’s conservative — but rather that the most prominent TV and radio shows and blogs simply aren’t telling factual, accurate stories about American life and American problems.
Here’s how conservative writer David Frum described it in a column this week.
When people talk of the “closing of the conservative mind” this is what they mean: not that conservatives are more narrow-minded than other people — everybody can be narrow minded — but that conservatives have a unique capacity to ignore unwelcome fact.
Someday soon, conservatives will run Washington DC again — if not after this election than after another election that will follow.
Let’s hope that they’ll have better sources of information than the Limbaughs, the Hannities and the Breitbarts who are now shaping the Right’s worldview.
Don’t forget the narratives about those real scary members of the New Black Panthers or those scary muslims that want to build a mosque near ground zero or attacks against that scary, but dead, Thurgood Marshall and his living minion Elena Kagan. Gee, do any of these narratives have anything in common?
Just wait until Congress votes on a settlement of the USDA – African American farmer class action suit (Pigford Settlement). Another scary narrative waiting in the wings.
The sad thing is that the narratives are working.
To me, the most troubling mantra out there is “We want our country back.”
If anyone has a right to that phrase, it would be the Native Americans. And I’m sure those who use the phrase would never want to give back what their and our ancestors stole.
What frightens me most is not so much that people believe this garbage, but that so many want to believe it.
And, while spewing their garbage, they accuse the SCLM of ignoring these important stories, keeping the “facts” from the public.
Amen. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan (I believe) said, “Everyone’s entitled to their own opinions, not to their own facts.”
Or, as some immortalized in “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them” might say: “Everyone’s entitled to an opinion: Mine”.
this entire piece is filled with lies, half truths, making this conservative bashing, liberal reporter and his sycophant commenters no different than those he and they accuse of lies, and half truths. He seems to be walking in Joan Walsh’s footsteps – a progressive editor for Salon Magazine – who was outed by fellow progressive journalist, Chris Hayes for her piece about Tucker’s Journo-list expose.
And for the asshat who doesn’t think the New Black Panthers are aracist bigoted criminals who are in fact dangerous to ALL ‘crackers’ – guess again boy loser. They pose a real threat – unlike the Tea Party who dems have demonized with a narrative of fear & lies which rises to a new low.
and lets not forget that Shirley Sherrod has laid the blame for her firing COMPLETELY on the NAACP with their unfounded attacks on the tea party movment.—- Even Shirley knows the truth — dems/libs will LIE when it suits their narrative and then lie some more when their initial lies are exposed!
Juliana 3:14–
As a newcomer to The In Box, please make your point without needless vulgarity and name-calling. We have a civility policy and will remove comments that use obscenity, regardless of the point of view.
Dale Hobson
NCPR web manager
The New Black Panthers may well be an unattractive group but, at present, their membership appears to be about two (2).
And the liberal media doesn’t lie? You are betraying your liberal bias by only singling out the conservative media.
No is claiming the New Black Panthers are not racist…they are a SPLC identified hate group. But they are a fringe group with little power. The point is that the GOP is clearly using race to divide our country. No American should stand for that.
Juliana –
I agree with Dale about civility. But your comment also speaks to my original post in that it is factually, verifiably wrong.
I’m not suggesting that you are lying, only that you are — apparently — receiving your information from a source that is (if I’m correct) deliberately misleading you.
1. Ms. Sherrod has been scathing in her comments about the Obama administration and the NAACP, but she has also singled out in unambiguous terms the role of Fox News, Andrew Breitbart and conservative bloggers. As have many other commentators, including conservatives and Republican leaders.
2. The New Black Panthers barely exist outside of Fox News’ spin cycle. Are there racist black people? Yes. Have they formed an organized movement capable of “stealing” elections? No. Unambiguously, factually no.
3. I’m sure that the liberal media displays bias from time to time. I would expect the conservative media to do the same. People are human. But this is different. This is a deliberate effort to deceive the very people and audiences that conservative journalists claim to be serving.
–Brian, NCPR
Was Dan Rather lying, or did he not do his job correctly? The old saying; “Money walks, and you know the rest’ has been turned on its head by the entertainers(who probably believe there own words) There are no more(as in zero) news outlets I trust. That may be sad of me but it is the way I feel. I believe jerimiah wright spewed hate and obama listened for it to many years, that dick cheney holds others to a higher standard then he holds himself. But I don’t believe it because some single outlet tells me this I believe it because I checked double checked and confirmed independently for myself. In this 24 hour news world we live in it makes it very difficult to keep up. The only one I trust is my golden retriever and he’s so sure about me.
I agree, media-bias is rampant.
Edit to previous post: Money talks and you know the rest’ We regret the typo
Boring, boring, boring. Everyone moans and groans. Everyone points a finger at whatever media they choose (name your paper or your blog), then goes on to say, “But not the media I like and agree with.”
It’s always the other guy, the other paper, the other reporter or talk show host, who is the lier. How do we know this? Obviously because you are a good person of high standing moral values who would never lie.
As long as we remain in this us good guys against those bad guys mode, the world will remain as messed up as we want it to be.
Why do we do this? First of all, its fun. People who live lives of quiet desperation sometimes need to yell and scream to make themselves feel better. It’s called a temper tantrum.
The other reason is as old as the Sun. It’s difficult to elevate yourself but so easy to create the illusion by putting other people down.
You know as the Germans used to say (and some still do), “Hitler did some good.”
The same might be said of both sides in any debate: Republicans, Democrats, the biased media of the left and the right, whatever.
Hurrah, Brian. Very well put.
I don’t have a problem with media bias. As long as they are fair with the information they have and don’t use facts selectively, or leave out facts that would disprove their point. Everyone has bias. It seems to me that a reporter should try to be aware of their bias and use that awareness as a way to investigate other points of view.
But points of view aren’t all equal. As we’ve seen with the Great Climate Change Debate or with Evolution Vs Creationism Vs Intelligent Design, too often ideas without much real merit have been given just as much credence as well thought out and scientifically researched ideas.
The idea that a reporter should get one voice on one side of a story and one voice on “the other” side of the story hasn’t worked out so well in creating an informed electorate. Often there are dozens of sides that make up the whole. But that is inconvenient for a reporter on a deadline.
I used to enjoy reading old-fashioned conservative opinion. I thought it made me smarter and honed my ability to think by understanding a different side of an argument. These days it seems like it conservative media just makes you less well informed. And there is some actual scientific research that shows that.
If I say, “Rush is a bloviating conservative propagandist”, I’m expressing a biased opinion.
If I say, “Rush is an Oxycontic addicted liar”, I’m expressing conventional myth as fact.
If I say, “Rush is a FARQ agent dedicated to the overthrow of the US government”, I’m lying.
See the difference?
Oh my. Brian I want to be clear, so what I’m addressing is your allegation that “right” side news organizations and commentators are somehow…what was the word?…lying. I listened to the entire, unedited Sherrod clip. She did say that she was biased and didn’t want to help the white guy and the crowd did cheer wildly at every racist remark she made. That’s lying? She’s a bigot, a racist and she let that affect her job.
And your statement that the “liberal media displays bias from time to time”. Please, you yourself have displayed a consistent bias against the Tea Party and conservative ideals in general, from your “rural whites” (ie-trailer trash) to your bias in this post. And you certainly aren’t alone-
“If you were in the presence of a man having a heart attack, how would you respond? As he clutched his chest in desperation and pain, would you call 911? Would you try to save him from dying? Of course you would.
But if that man was Rush Limbaugh, and you were Sarah Spitz, a producer for National Public Radio, that isn’t what you’d do at all.
In a post to the list-serv Journolist, an online meeting place for liberal journalists, Spitz wrote that she would “Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out” as Limbaugh writhed in torment.
In boasting that she would gleefully watch a man die in front of her eyes, Spitz seemed to shock even herself. “I never knew I had this much hate in me,” she wrote. “But he deserves it.”
Nice, no bias there. And lies? The liberal left media constantly ignores the message behind the Tea Party- TAXES. No, they go with racism, violence, etc. You do it yourself with no basis for that allegation. You mention Glenn Beck who has repeatedly stressed violence will only make things worse. But you wouldn’t know that because you don’t listen. I imagine you take sound bites sent to you or referred to you by like minded thinkers and take what is said OUT OF CONTEXT, just as you charge Breitbart did. Same thing the media did when Limbaugh said he hoped Obama failed, they took that out of context. He said he hoped he failed because his policies were harmful to the nation. But no one reports that.
The list lies, distortions and out of context statements the liberal media (you added the qualifier of conservative, so the rest must be liberal, right?) has reported is huge. Your own charge that the southwestern border is as peaceful as could be is false. Talk to the people who live there, who have had friends and family hurt, kidnapped or murdered. To say no problems exists or it’s all in the minds of those lying conservatives is just not true. I don’t know where you get your facts, but start hitting the local news stories along the Arizona border and see how peaceful it is.
I don;t know if this is your version of pot stirring or if you are so blind as to believe the liberal media is snowy white and pure, but it’s exactly the word you used- a lie.
People seem to be having a hard time distinguishing between media bias and intentional, deliberate media lies.
A good case could be made that all media outlets suffer from the former in one way or another. The latter is what this post is about. That people are jumping to defend this when it happens, just because it happened to be their “side” that was doing it, is pretty disturbing (and telling).
Of course unlike Breitbart, Sarah Spitz apologized for her remarks.
Odd that her apology wasn’t mentioned?
Gee, PNElba, I don’t find that odd at all.
Bias an’ all, y’know.
Classic republican playbook. Tell a lie enough times and people will believe it. This time they were caught quickly. However, the correction never gets the same play. I do watch Cavuto and he did slam the video pretty harshly. I also listened to Sherrod’s entire speach and it was about a lesson learned when she attempted to be racist. She found that it isn’t a race thing, but a rich poor thing. She eventually helped the white farmer when the white lawyer wasn’t helping. Corporations (rich) decide what stories are run, when, and how often.
Have they found those darn WMDs yet?
Dave, isn’t it just possible that the difference between what seems to be a deliberate lie on one sides part (Tea Party members are all racists and violent for instance) might be interpreted as simple unintentional media bias in another persons view?
Brett, that is certainly possible, and probably happens on a fairly regular basis. When the issue of whether or not Bush went AWOL from TANG became a story about the kern in the memo, I thought it was a deliberate attempt to sidestep the facts. Others may have seen it as unintentional media bias. That doesn’t mean we should give those who intentionally twist the truth, on either side or for whatever reason, a pass.
I think the problem with the tea party is their convenience of timing. Where was the outrage when Bush bailed out the banks? It only started when Obama became president and he actually cut taxes for +/-80% of Americans. What else is different? I’m not saying the members are racist, I don’t believe that at all. But I can see where someone could get that impression just from the rhetoric of its members. Continually calling Obama a socialist, Maoist or a Nazi; give me a break. That kind of rhetoric is out of line and factually false.
Bret,
That is an interesting question, but no, I don’t think so.
I think there is a clear distinction.
The deliberate lies we are talking about here are when you intentionally say something is true when you know it to be false… or, when you intentionally edit a story to mislead people.
That is very different from bias as I think of it, and as we are talking about here.
If I am biased against the Tea Party, I might report more often about racist and violent acts by them… but I wouldn’t completely make up things and say they happened when they didn’t, and I wouldn’t intentionally edit a story to make it seem like it happened a different way than it actually did.
Conservative news sources are being outed for doing the latter right now, not just the former. And that is something we should all be upset about.
And the problem with the example you use, that one side is saying “Tea Party members are ALL racists and violent”, is that I have never heard anyone say that – or even imply it. And I’ve certainly never seen anything deliberately falsified to try to make that point.
Sure, I’ve heard people suggest that there are racist and violent people in the Tea Party, and that conservative political leaders are encouraging and rallying these elements of the movement. But I have never heard anyone say that all Tea Partiers are racist and violent. That would be a ridiculous statement and if a news source said it, or – more to the point of this discussion – if a news source fabricated facts to try to support it, I would be just as upset as you would.
Actually the genesis of the Tea Party and similar organizations came when it became clear Bush wasn’t a conservative and was spending like a drunken sailor. If I could find the recordings you’d hear Glenn Beck railing about this very thing 3-4 years ago. But since most people don’t care to know that many of us came to a sudden realization years before Obama came on scene and since I don’t have exact dates that such and such a thing happened I will have to ask you to take my solemn word for it. The Tea Party would have appeared even if McCain had won, of that I can assure you. Some of the rhetoric would have differed because McCain is not the same politician Obama is, but he’s just as much a tax and borrow/spender as Obama.
Beyond that, it seems to me that there’s a lot of subjective judgment on both sides of this discussion. I hear the Sherrod clip or the Black Panthers or SEIU or some of the news reports and I hear clear racism, bigotry, bias and out and out lies. Every time I hear someone say Glenn Beck, for instance, advocates violence I know it’s a lie because I have never heard anything of the sort and I would have to hear any “proof”, in context, to even begin to imagine it could be true. When I hear people say other things that are completely opposite what I heard then I have to question if we even listened to the same report. An example would be the allegation that the Bush Administration did nothing while NO drowned. Funny that the MSM never did too much work exposing Mayor Nagans blunders and Gov Landreaus refusals to do anything or where the funds for levy repair went (a sports-plex IIRC) and they ignore the fact that Federa personel were on scene faster than they were in other recent disaster situations. I looka t the current debacle in the gulf and wonder why the same people still raving about NO aren’t raving about Obamas snail like pace in responding to this disaster, his taking vacations while the oil gushed.
Maybe it’s all in where you stand politically. I don’t go for twisting the truth either. Give me the story, give it all to me and give me both sides of it. Let me decide. I’m sure many of us would like that.
I hate to be a conspiracy theorist but let’s take this Sherrod business for an example. Why was this video held and released at this time?
“(AP) WASHINGTON (AP) – Black farmers, due $1.2 billion for a legacy of discrimination by the Agriculture Department, suffered a new and disheartening setback this week, despite the national spotlight provided by the quickly disavowed firing of a black department worker.
The Senate refused again to pay the bill…Late Thursday, the Senate stripped $1.2 billion for the claims from an emergency spending bill, along with $3.4 billion in long-overdue funding for a settlement with American Indians who say they were swindled out of royalties by the federal government.” Date july 23.
So was it simply bad reporting, was it trying to push an agenda or was it something worse?
Here are a few examples of the lefts over top bias and lies. While the right may also do similar things, why do people claim the left doesn’t?
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/mark-finkelstein/2010/06/02/matthews-msnbc-promo-implies-tea-party-seeks-violent-overthrow-gov
Gee, a whole site devoted to exposing leftist media bias- http://newsbusters.org/
And another- http://www.mrc.org/public/default.aspx
And please, don’t tell me those sites are garbage and Media Matters is pure and righteous.
Even UCLA agrees- http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx
Bernard Goldberg wrote a book about it- http://books.google.com/books?id=vOrLY-HXnzYC&printsec=frontcover&dq=liberal+media+bias&source=bl&ots=NqpDfmNuYw&sig=hl4prc2ogQO04piEKVA6ZMKFwnI&hl=en&ei=8BBKTLqZHMepnQfaqOWvDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBkQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=liberal%20media%20bias&f=false
An interesting slant on a complex issue- http://politics.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/sam-dealey/2009/01/14/racial-media-bias-meets-liberal-media-bias_print.html
I wish I had the foresight to have made notes over the last 25 or 30 years of the untruths told in media, but I didn’t. I remember one of the networks planting explosives to get a supposedly unsafe truck to burn. I remember Al Gores illegal deal with the Russians involving arms sales to Iran, but you never heard a word about it. I recall the NY Times having to fire staff for lying, but only after they got caught with their pants down. Of course some of that pales in comparison to your standard Republican screw ups. But the bias is evident- George Bush “smirked”, but the media ignored Bill Clintons laughing to solemn sad hound dog look in .00023 nano-seconds when he spotted the camera at one Ron Browns funeral. If that had been Bush or Cheny the press would have been all over it.
Bret, is that all you got? I don’t think you know what real liberal media even is.
Go find a copy of Mother Jones, or listen to DemocracyNow, or pick up a copy of International Socialist Review. Turn on, tune in, drop out.
Knuck, I don’t think the vast majority of our media is socialist/Marxist. IMO they are just biased towards the left, not on a conscious crusade to bring the Peoples Communist Paradise to the USA.
Bret, I’m sure “the genesis of the Tea Party and similar organizations came when it became clear Bush wasn’t a conservative and was spending like a drunken sailor.” But don’t be so sure that “the Tea Party would have appeared even if McCain had won.”
The “Tea Party” was the creation of Bush-supporting, establishment Republicans who exploited this disillusionment among right-wingers and turned it against a Democratic administration to advance their own selfish agenda:
“Most of the money that funded Armey’s activism in the past was provided by tobacco, pharmaceutical and banking interests – and there is no reason to think that has changed.”
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090415_obamas_cup_of_tea/
Notice how Bret always makes sure we understand that he himself is unbiased. The Republicans were just as bad. Look at me! I’m the only unbiased person here!
I guess I could cite a meta-analysis of 59 statistical studies done in 2000 that shows media are pretty much centrist overall. But really, what good would it do? It’s not going to convince Bret, his narrative is carved in stone.
BTW, at least I try not to cite articles from liberal websites written by liberal reporters or bloggers because I know Bret would take me down immediately. Bret wants us to accept his citations from the conservative MRC but we need to be sure we don’t cite media matters.
Notice the bias that Bret has used on at least two occasions in the last couple of days. One pointing out that Sarah Spitz made ugly comments carefully leaving out her apology and second, using remarkable mental gymnastics to prove that Plame “outed” herself by listing herself as a CIA agent in Who’s Who.
What I said was that if you’re going to take me to ask for using Newsbusters and Media Research if you aren’t going to do the same for Media Matters. At least try and be somewhat accurate. Look at your own bias. Why is mine any more wrong than yours? I see things from my point of view and you from yours. I never claimed to be unbiased, that’s something you came up with. I’ve said repeatedly that I’m a conservative, I’m commenting on what I see that you apparently either don’t or disagree with my conclusion. I find some of your mental gymnastics equally as incredible as you find mine.
Don’tbefooled- Some may think as you do, but the TP types I’m associated with aren’t Bush holdovers. I can only think it’s some of the people I’ve heard of that want to “co-opt” the TP into the Republican circle. The problem is the Republicans aren’t what the TP wants.
I like to think my bias is based on, at least, some facts. Yet again, above, you didn’t really address the facts. 1) anyone can find a statistical study supporting their view, 2) Spitz apologized (that puts a different slant on your narrative), 3) Plame did not list herself as a CIA agent in Who’s Who. Those are facts that I think should be pointed out or taken into consideration in coming to a conclusion.
Now we can add the Gore secret illegal deal with Russia. Was it a secret? Well it wasn’t a secret from the liberal media that reported it. Was it illegal? Well, I guess that’s debatable. In the eyes of some Republicans in Congress it was. But anyone that actually reads about the deal (somewhere other than WND…..say at nonpartisan armscontrol.org) might come to other conclusions.
I noticed you didn’t recall another past event where the USA actually sold arms to Iran. Something that an independent counsel, appointed by a conservative, actually found to be illegal. Who sold Iraq precursor chemicals to make poison gas? Who sold Iraq a virulent strain of Bacillus anthracis?
What do we call that, something like IOIRDI.
I call it wrong, and people carry on about to this day. The difference is that those with your bias, based on the “facts” you choose to use, see that as a major sin. But you don’t see the illegal Gore deal (http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/13/world/despite-a-secret-pact-by-gore-in-95-russian-arms-sales-to-iran-go-on.html) as a problem. It received very little attention and the only reason I caught it was because a caller to a radio show mentioned he’d seen it in the Times. That’s the ONLY place I ever heard of it. Same thing for Clinton and his campaign $$$ for arms tech game, it’s a non-story to those with your bias, using your “facts”. Why was Reagans deal wrong and Clinton/Gores inconsequential?
Look, I don’t expect you to change your mind. The left has it’s views and the right it’s views, as it should be. But when Brian M. says the conservative media is lying, or when you say I’m cherry picking my facts then I have to ask myself if you guys ever stepped back and took a look at some of the people and policies you support, and if you did I wonder how you can say the other side is “more wrong”. The left will say something like, “The right is in bed with big business.” Yet they ignore the fact that the left is too. They’ll say, the right is full of all those Wall St types.” And yet they’ll ignore Mr. Big On The Left George Soros, a Nazi collaborator, hedge fund investor/billionaire, a man that comes pretty close to the definition of evil. Or the left will go on and on and on about Fox News. Well, news flash! So does the extreme right that says Fox is just a liberal mouth piece for Rupert Murdock! Meanwhile the left ignores the obvious leftist slant of all the other news outlets! I mean, come on, if you’re going to accuse the right of slanted journalism because of one news outlet when the all the others have a leftist slant…..how does that compute? Watch Olbermann or Madow on the most blatant of channels MSNBC and tell me they are somehow more “correct”than Fox. If taking a different slant on a story, that is going beyond the facts of the story and putting opinion into it is wrong then all your media outlets are guilty too.
Lets remember something else that demonstrates the difference- the nasty NPR lady, Spitz I guess her name is, I’ve heard all sorts of “how dare they publish private emails/they violated her privacy” type comments. That’s odd, remember that nice retired Democrat couple that just somehow happened to be in the right spot at the right time to completely innocently catch a conversation between some Republican big wigs on their cell phone, and then just somehow happened to have the means to record said conversation as they motored down the highway and then just had to turn that recording over to the Democrats because….well, that’s just public spirit, right Well, why where was the outcry against that little invasion of privacy from the left? I don’t recall exactly what it was the recording revealed, but would a simple apology from the Republicans at it’s center have satisfied you? Why was Bush the biggest bumbling idiot in human history for mispronouncing nuclear, but Obama is a freakin’ genius when he thinks we have 57 states or makes jokes about Special Olympics kids!!! People on the left still spit on Newt Gingrich but they can somehow support that blithering idiot Speaker we have now that actually said Unemployment payments spur growth….and then the left defends that! When Bush pushed “Faith Based Initiatives” it was a clear violation of church/state, when Pelosi is recorded telling Catholic leaders to preach in support of her policies it was another non-story.
Hey, think what you want. I’m sure this is wasted, but I don’t see a awful lot of difference in levels of slant, lies or “facts” between right and left. It’s all in your perception.
The funny thing about Bret is that he is the kind of guy in an old movie who the resistance is trying to save from the evil fascists or communists, but who takes the first opportunity to turn in the people who are trying to save him.
You shouldn’t bother trying to save him. He will just turn on you in the end.
Now THAT was insulting.
Bret, can we agree on one thing? No where in the article you cite or the one I cited above does it prove the Gore secret deal with Russia was illegal. It may have been, it may not have been. There was no special prosecutor, there was no special investigation, there was only partisan accusations. The Reagan’ “deal” was wrong because a Republican appointed special prosecutor investigated, and made a finding that it was illegal. I don’t understand how you don’t see the difference. I’m fully willing to admit there was a Gore secret deal with Russia that went bad, but sorry, I don’t see where it was proven illegal or even that the basis of the deal was bad to begin with (other than trusting the Russians).
Again, rather than addressing the secret Iran/Contra scandal you change the subject and bring up the Nazi collaborator George Soros. And, again you don’t provide all the facts. Do you actually know the specifics of the “Nazi collaborator” accusations or are you just taking Ann Coulter’s word?
As for the “left” being in bed with big business, I assume everyone knows that. Why do you think many on the left were upset with the recent Supreme court decision verifying “personhood” on corporations? Which party supported the Bipartisan Campaign Finance reform bill? I’ve come to be in favor of complete public funding for certain political campaigns. We have to get big money out of politics and, yes, that includes evil George Soros money too.
Last I heard Maddow and Olbermann were opinion shows.
The Ms. Spitz affair…you bring up yet another strawman argument. I never complained how Spitz’s comments made it into the public domain. I simply pointed out the fact that she regretted her comments and apologized for them. Something you conveniently left out.
I suspect we agree are far more than we disagree on. But for some reason you feel you have to demonize “leftists” at every point. I’ve come to expect that, but I just find that you tend to be a bit loose with the facts when it comes to your demonizations (ie. George Soros the Nazi). Some us of “leftists” have decided that we are sick of being beat up by conservatives. We’ve decided to use the same conservative play book. I draw the line, however, at using blame the victim tactics.
Not trying to insult you Bret, I kind of like your cantankerousness. But, truthfully, if it came down to it I think you would turn me in before I would turn you in. Sad.
You have to look a little further-
http://brownback.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id=175821
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/14/world/bush-leads-gop-criticism-of-gore-over-russian-arms.html
There was stink made, but it never went further, why I don’t know. I was under the assumption that it was due to the 2000 election, sort of a “fer cryin’ out loud guys, we’ve got enough irons in the fire already” type of thing. The point is that the media pretty much considered this a non-story but the players in the Reagan years got creamed. In my view it wasn’t so much that one was guilty and the other innocent as both were guilty but one had so much other garbage going it was dropped. I find it hard to accept it was all hunky-dory when the guy that wrote the bill says it wasn’t.
Soros- http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/14700
Now, I’ll admit some of the language in that piece is a bit melodramatic, but it appears factual according to Soros own statements at other places and times. I was unaware Ann Coulter had done anything on Soros. I’ll have to look it up, Ann’s a hoot!
I’m glad you recognize that the lefts association with big business is just as wrong as the rights. While I don’t look at all corporate entities
as works of Satan, I also don’t think that corporations and unions should be “owning” any politicians. But isn’t that part of the larger problem of our corrupt 2 party system? Term limits and prison terms would solve some of that issue.
Maddow and Olbermann are “opinion” shows? Really, so I guess Chris Mathews and the “tingle up my leg” are just opinion and the attacks by liberal media outlets on Sarah Palins family for instance are just opinion? Come on, if “it’s opinion” is the defense then the left can stop tearing into Rush and Glenn too, right? Sure, that’ll happen. I’m sorry, but “that’s opinion” isn’t an adequate defense for an entire industry that reports things from the same perspective. I don’t care what the perspective is, but at least have the backbone to admit the perspective exists.
Spitz only regretted getting caught. Maybe you aren’t making charges of an invasion of privacy, but some people on your side are. And the blogs I read from those folks? Not a one of them is disagreeing in any way with her, only that she got found out. What was the guys name that got convicted of dog fighting? Michael Vink or something? He apologized too. Did you believe him?
I’m sure we do agree on a lot. And I’m sure we agree on many things Republicans do that drive both of us equally nuts. And I’m also sick of getting beat up, only it’s the left and center that have been kicking my shins for 30 some years. Just be glad we (the conservatives) don’t use the lefts playbook. Bill Ayers recommends blowing things up and killing people…
Bret,
The Nazi collaborator thing is really, really wrong. You should apologize for that. Seriously.
They all tell have the truth. Where are the Walter Cronkite’s of journalism hiding? Seems more like the local gossip channels of where the story is told over and over again until it reaches bigger than life. Each side is as guilty as the other.
My father in law calls CNN the Communist News Channel. I watch both CNN and fox and after watching some of these newscasts and how the host and reporter seem to push their own views in the reporting was actually shocking. Honestly…I don’t care what you think, I would like the news given and let me decide my own views.
Most of our military and a growing group of citizens now watch the BBC instead to see reporting from all sides. Its kind of sad when our networks are more interested in pushing agendas verses actual news stories.
How is it that talk show hosts are constantly bashed for what they say? Last I knew, they weren’t a news networks and more for entertainment. I actually enjoy listening to Rush and he is kind of funny at times…but he is trying to gain as much an audience for his sponsors as possible and it seems that political camps have decided to help his ratings from both the left and right.
He will say and do whatever it takes to please his sponsors. But when you see the likes of Wolf doing the same for CNN or Katie for CBS…then its not right because they are suppose to be giving an unbiased reporting verses a very biased dialog from Rush.
Did I mention I was a democrat?
Did you read the article?
Eric, much of what you wrote echoes my own thoughts. I suppose much of what we consider “opinion” vs. “fact” depends on our perspective. I don’t know how to get around that anymore.
Bret, I have to respectfully disagree. There is a vast difference between opinion and fact. One’s opinion should result from an analysis of facts.
Based on your comments, my opinion is that you’re a pretty intelligent guy, biased in a direction different from my own. I don’t know enough about you to express that as a fact.
i do agree that a lot of commentators play on the reality that many people don’t differentiate between fact and opinion.
Well said Dan. It would be nice if opinion could be left out of news and if the blending of news and opinion wasn’t so prevalent. But straight news doesn’t sell very well. So when we’re presented with “facts” in a news story we’re faced with trusting the source or doing more research on our own to see how much opinion is injected into the story. I don’t currently know of anyway to move beyond that problem.
Good points, Bret. I believe the problem is based on the needs of outlets to come up with 24 hours of “news”…there just ain’t that much. If Lilo isn’t flipping off the judge, leBron isn’t driving his fans crazy, etc., they just don’t know what to do. If they whip the crowd into a frenzy with some half-truths and opinion masquerading as fact, it gives them some mileage.
I do miss the days of Walter C., David and Chet, and a few others. An hour in the evening, with the occassional bulletins, pretty much covered the real news.