Does John Kerry REALLY Want To Fight This Battle Again?
Let’s get one thing out of the way up front: John Kerry served his country during Vietnam; I honor him for that. He did not take the easy way out that so many did, and that’s to his eternal credit. Nevertheless, his actions after the war, and his somewhat active imagination concerning some of the things that took place during the war (Winter Soldier, anyone?) left him wide open for an inevitable counterattack – and the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth led a masterful campaign that delivered a tremendous bang for very little buck.
It was with some puzzlement, then, that I noted a new desire on the part of Kerry to reopen this chapter which proved so harmful to him in the 2004 election, as evidenced by this prominent NY Times article delivered last weekend. Our good friend Tom Maguire was quick out of the gate with a prominent rebuttal, and now Thomas Lipscomb, who owned this story during 2004, delivers a smackdown of epic proportions.
A small taste follows after the break, but I do suggest you read the whole thing, and don’t buy the spin that Kerry was ‘slimed’ by the Republican-funded Swift Boat group. Kerry’s accounts are widely disputed at almost every turn by virtually everyone involved.
…the facts on this are already on the record and no matter what Kerry “researchers” may come up with they should be addressed by any reporter attempting a review of the dispute. Admiral Roy Hoffman may have been head of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, but he was also in command of all the Swift Boat operations in Vietnam, directly under the commander of all sea operations in Vietnam, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt.
Any tasking for insertions of special operations troops across borders by sea, whether Seals, CIA, Army Special Forces or Vietnamese troops like CIDG had to come through his command. Hoffman stated he was never asked to handle missions for the CIA. “They had their own teams for that. And none of my Coastal Commands ever inserted any troops of this kind into Cambodia. We had some operations we ran north that I am not at liberty to discuss.”
Orders for sensitive incursion operations like this don’t appear by magic. And an individual boat commander, whether it is Kerry or anyone else, doesn’t simply head across a border with a boatful of Seals on his own. Kerry’s direct commander at An Thoi, George Elliott, has denied ever being asked to run such a mission out of his base and three of Kerry’s PCF 44 crewmen have denied ever being in Cambodia with Kerry.
Tedd Peck, accompanied Kerry’s PCF 44 on his PCF 57 from Cam Ranh down to their new assignment at An Thoi where they arrived on December 8, 1968. Peck served there with Kerry until he was wounded and med-evaced out on January 29, 1969. Douglas Brinkley states that “Kerry liked Peck.” So what does Peck have to say about secret missions out of An Thoi to Cambodia? “There never was one. And I never saw a Navy Seal at An Thoi the whole time I served there with Kerry”
What does it take to wake up a good reporter that there are some issues here besides one junior lieutenant’s latest assertions on the basis, once again, of totally undisclosed records? It isn’t simply a matter of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth “lies.” The facts recited by Kerry make no military sense, fly in direct opposition to authoritative testimony, and are yet to be backed by any records anyone has seen. And Kerry keeps changing his story.
The mission Kerry described to Laura Blumenfeld was the famous “Christmas in Cambodia” trip since disproved by Kerry’s own log. Zernike ledes with “showing the entry in a log he kept from 1969: ‘Feb 12: 0800 run to Cambodia’” and swallows it unquestioningly. The only authority that “Kerry log” has ever had is that it has been in the sole possession of John Kerry and carefully kept away from objective research that may or not have disclosed changes or heavy editing over time.
[...] Decision ‘08 Kerry Lipscomb New York Times Swift Vets Zernike Filed in: Politics | No Comments » [...]
While I’m somewhat interested in finding out why Senator Kerry thinks it’s to his advantage to discuss issues everyone else is hardily tired of, what I’d really like to know is why there was so little MSM interest in covering his SF – 180 adventures?
Quick, did he ever get around to signing the full SF – 180 releasing all his military records? Or did he sign a limited version? Or did he release only some of his records to the public? Or did he release them only to political allies? Or was that some records to some allies? Or are they being held by his biographer, Douglas Brinkley? Or was that David Brinkley?
One would think there’s a story in there somewhere.
But, apparently, it’s the official policy of the New York Times to believe each and every version.
Dead wrong. The facts are clear: as John McCain said, “none of these individuals served on the boat (Kerry) commanded. Many of his crewmates have testified to his courage under fire.” Three Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star is all the proof which anyone should need. Moreover, the testimony of the Swift Boaters is inconsistent and contradictory.
http://www.factcheck.org/article231.html
John Kerry has every right to clear his name. It is evident to me that these people were bankrolled by the same types of people who bankrolled Paula Jones for the obvious reason that they could not abide by the contrast between a decorated war veteran and a President and Vice President who pulled strings to avoid serving in VietNam.
If the Democrats really wanted to win an election, they should copy GOP tactics and dig up the cops who arrested Bush and Cheney for drunk driving and paraded them in front of cameras. They should not have given Bush a free pass when he refused to answer questions about drug use. That’s what it takes to win an election these days.
Did you read the article, peter? Thomas Lipscomb was nominated for a Pulitzer for his coverage of the issue – care to rebut any of his arguments with facts?
Paula Jones was right – Clinton settled. Do you excuse Clinton’s predatory sexual antics because a Republican might have bankrolled some or all of her expenses?
Bring me facts, don’t just get all huffy…
More importantly, though, it’s a poor tactic on Kerry’s party – he’s still reliving Vietnam. At least Al Gore is focused on the future and not the past…
Rebut the argument with facts? Sure:
http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/061603.shtml
However, this is a trivial argument. Kerry volunteered for service in VietNam when he could have avoided it like Bush and Cheney. After his first tour of duty, he could have returned home, but he chose instead to return for a second tour. He received three Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star, and was universally praised by those who served under him. What more facts do you need?
As for Paula Jones and Bill Clinton: adultery is nothing new for American Presidents. FDR, Eisenhower, LBJ, and JFK all had mistresses, and Bush I and Nixon were also rumored to have had affairs. What is new is using this as a political weapon: both political parties restrained themselves out of good taste and decency from finding these women, bankrolling them, and parading them in front of cameras.
Huffy? You bet. When George Bush was a drunk, John Kerry was getting shot at in VietNam and then led a large organization to fight the war. When Bush was failing in the oil business, Kerry was a prosecutor and then a legislator. What the Republican surrogates did in 2004 was shameful. If Republicans are going to use character assassination as a means to gain office, then by all means we should do the same.
Sorry, peter, but Kerry is the liar – do a little research on ‘Christmas in Cambodia’, if you care to, though I notice now it’s ‘trivial’ – just like in the past it was trivial that all these people were adulterers.
Let’s not forget who’s bringing this back up again – it’s Kerry and his supporters. Do I take everything the Swifties say as gospel truth? No, I do not – but John Kerry stood on the floor of the Senate and said that spending Christmas day in Cambodia was ‘seared – seared’ in his memory – and there is no way in Hell he spent Christmas in Cambodia. Even the Times article that supposedly proves Kerry right claims it puts him with 35 miles of the Cambodian border. Trivial? Not at all – 35 miles is OUTSIDE of Cambodia, and thus not IN Cambodia – and when you’re talking credibility, such small details are everything…
In your attack on George W. Bush you miss the most salient point: he admitted his mistakes, got his life right, and tried to make amends.
Bill Clinton and his surrogates called Paula Jones ‘trailer park trash’, even as Clinton was boinking the help (and a young girl thirty-plus years his junior, to boot), all the while shake his finger and angrily denying it all, in a bald-faced lie that no one denies now.
You really want to keep going down this path? The facts are against you…
Peter, huff and puff all you want, but it’s Kerry who chose to bring up all this stuff now – you can’t take umbrage about that when the object of your umbrage has nothing to do with it.
1) Well, it is trivial that “all these people” were adulterers. FDR was a great President: who cares if he was philandering?
2) The fact that it is Kerry who is bringing this up is not relevant. Why shouldn’t he have a chance to clear his name?
3) The exact location of Kerry’s boat, which you correctly describe as a “small detail,” is lost in the fog of war. Since the GOP could not attack the basic story line – privileged Yale graduate volunteers for service, re-enlists, gets wounded in battle and decorated – the focus is on minutiae instead.
4) As for Bush and his amends: I don’t have any problem with redemption, and I don’t ask that Presidents be saints. However, having surrogates denigrate the character of your opponent in his youth when you have had some very obvious character flaws of your own is hypocritical. If he who is without sin can’t cast the first stone, get someone else to do it for you.
5) As for our priapic President: I’m not about to make excuses for straying from Hillary to pursue all of those big hair women, but I don’t think it is especially relevant to whether he was a good President or not. Nor do I think that Newt Gingrich, Strom Thurman, Dan Burton, Henry Hyde, or all of the other adulterers who sanctimoniously lectured Clinton would have behaved any differently if they had to testify under oath or in a press conference about their pasts. My point is until the vast right wing conspiracy (I’m joking here) used adultery as a political weapon, it was something which prior generations saw fit to ignre.
“However, having surrogates denigrate the character of your opponent in his youth when you have had some very obvious character flaws of your own is hypocritical.”
The DNC made it very clear that they were going to go after Bush’s past medical (read: drug use) and armed services history from the get – go: if that’s not using surrogates to do your dirty work, then what is?
It also bears mentioning the the Swift Boat guys have been after Kerry since he first made his statements to Congress regarding troop actions back when he was discharged, and again when he ran for Senator. Nothing new on that front – but it’s surprising that after Kerry promised to release his records almost two years ago (on the Meet the Press show with Russert), only now is he getting around to it. Why the long wait here?
It could be my foggy memory (I can barely remember where I parked my car at the mall these day), but I don’t recall any DNC effort to go after Bush’s National Guard service or alleged drug use. Bush avoided serving in VietNam by using his father’s connections to get in the National Guard – that’s part of the public record, and I don’t think that the DNC ever used it (although I can’t prove a negative). As for the cocaine story: ditto. Kitty Kelly is not, to my knowledge, a Democratic surrogate.
Why the wait? In 2004, Kerry evidently felt that getting down in the mud to dispute the Swift Boaters would dignify their position and get more media attention. It’s like answering the question “when did you stop beating your wife.” As a tactical matter, he was wrong. He now would like to have their libel disproven for once and for all. What’s wrong with that?
Let me save you some time here. Kerry was/is a joke. Find one other idiot running around Vietnam recording himself with a video camera. Please.
peter, give me a break – the swift boaters were not the RNC, so your ‘no similar DNC’ analogy doesn’t even lift off. As for nobody going after Bush’s guard service – BWAAAHAAAAHAAAA! Apparently, you’ve already forgotten RatherGate.
As for the drug use – don’t you even consider the possibility that there is nothing to substantiate the rumors, so the story was dropped?
Oh, come now, Peter – you’re far too intelligent to give the “I don’t recall” defense here. I’ll help you out, in any event –
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/06/politics/main641481.shtml
Kerry’s own campaign workers have admitted their deep involvement in this case – that is not an arguable point at this time. Dirty tricks were/are used by both sides these days – it just depends on whose ox is being gored.
Peter regarding the swift boat vets. It really is based on who you believe.
Is it A John Kerry who was a highly decorated junior officer who served 4 months in combat in Vietnam but is also a proven liar (christmas in Cambodia) (his attending a Vietnam Vets against the war meeting where it was suggested that several US senators be assasinated). A man who was also running for public office and had much to loose if the truth came out.
Or over 2 dozen highly decorated men who served full tours or multiple tours in Vietnam many who stayed in the military with at least one achieving the rank of Admiral, who had nothing to gain from defeating John Kerry’s candidacy and much to loose by putting their own history in the public eye. The swift boat vets were not a partisan group with several registered Democrats among them.
I’m sorry common sense dictates you take the word of 2 dozen over 1 when you know nothing else about them. When their history, and current motivations enters the discussion it’s a no brainer. John Kerry was and is lying about what he did in and after Vietnam.
Now if you can give me a good reason why I should believe the word of one man a proven liar over these other honorable and highly decorated veterans I would love to hear it.
What is John Kerry Thinking?
Then I read this post at Decision08 that has links to several posts further debunking, or reiterating the absurdity of many of John Kerry’s war stories.
Just shut your yap and you can be the Senior Senator from MA as soon as Ted Kennedy is entomb…
Um, yeah for me this issue is one of press fairness. They went up Bush’s ass with a fibercamera on his “missing” pay records from the AL guard. When these 30 year old documents turned up it was all, “Nevermind.” And that is all fair enough. Read the Lipscomb piece right after the NYT item and the divergence could not be more stark. As the wise man said, you are entitled to your own opinions but you are not entitled to your own facts. Stick your nose into EVERYTHING across the board, filter it through those old J-school ethics, print what survives and let the chips fall.
On Jones et al and that old VRWC with all its machinations, folks who would malign and slander these people as liars, especially the women who have been brutalized by Clinton over the years need to tread carefully and look into the facts. Clinton is a rapist many times over. Don’t believe it? Okay. Is it your habit to call women reporting rapes liars a priori? No? Good, why is this different? Broaderick, Jones, Willey, Browning, Gracen. Google that string although you might check the spelling on Juanita.
1) “The swift boaters were not the RNC:” there was an arm’s length relationship with the RNC, so they could both benefit from the libel and also disavow any knowledge a la Mission Impossible. However, the group was funded and supported by long time Republican operatives:
http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/conason/2004/05/04/swift/index.html
Their ties to the RNC date back at least as far as when John O’Neill was involved in dirty tricks for the Nixon campaign:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200405050004
2) It is certainly possible that George Bush has no prior drug history, and in any event I don’t think it is a relevant or fair question. It is beyond dispute that both Bush and Cheney had multiple drunk driving arrests, which in my opinion is much worse than being familiar with the business end of a bong. Regardless, my point is that for at least the past generation, the Republicans have used venom and character assassination to nearly the extent which the Democrats have, if indeed they have used it at all. I think the Willie Horton ad marked a turning point in the debasement of American politics from which we may never recover.
3) If you have a problem with the CBS News story – which was accurate in essence but not in details – then take it up with them. They are entirely separate from the DNC. Joe Lockhart spoke on the phone with Bill Burkett? Big deal.
4) Why believe Kerry and not the Swift Boaters? First, they weren’t on the boat with him. Secondly, those who actually were with Kerry have uniformly praised his leadership. Thirdly, there is no proof that Kerry lied — e.g., regarding Cambodia:
“Kerry’s researcher, using Vietnam-era military maps and spot reports from the naval archives showing coordinates for his boat, traced his path from Ha Tien toward Cambodia on a mission that records say was to insert Navy Seals.” I think it is only fair to allow him to present his evidence before calling him a liar.
Fourth, some statements made by the Swift Boaters have been retracted and are inconsistent. Fifth, some early members of the group have renounced them:
“The mantra was just ‘We want to set the record straight’,” Hayes said this month. “It became clear to me that it was morphing from an organization to set the record straight into a highly political vendetta. They knew it was not the truth.”
Hayes broke with the group, ending a 35-year friendship with Franke, and voted for Kerry. He has provided a long interview to Kerry’s supporters, backing their version of the incident for which Kerry received the Bronze Star.
Both above quotes from this source – it may be a transcription of the Times article:
http://freeinternetpress.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=7026
Sixth, there is nothing else in Kerry’s career which indicates dishonesty (as opposed, for example, to doing dirty tricks for Nixon).
Most importantly, I use common sense: you may disagree with his policies, but Kerry was a decorated soldier who volunteered for service, reenlisted, and had a long career afterwards in public service. The people who slimed him are the same ilk as those who slimed other decorated war veterans like Max Cleland, John McCain, and (now) John Murtha. This is truly a no-brainer.
Spoken like a true apologist for the Democrats – I’m not going to go through line by line – maybe later – but we most assuredly did have a problem with the idea of ‘fake but accurate’ and we did take it up with CBS, and Dan Rather lost his job as a result.
Of course, if you’re comfortable with that standard – (accurate in essence but not in details! Wow!)…
Just a little something that may or may not mean anything to you – Media Matters is a Democratic organ, through and through – you’re not going to get far with a Republican citing them as a source…
And yes, you quoted the Times article to support the Times article…
1) I’m not comfortable with the CBS standard, and of course heads did roll – but there is a world of difference between sloppy reporting and willful misstatement of fact (the Swift Boaters). It is far-fetched to paint this as a conspiracy between CBS and the DNC to deliberately run a false story about Kerry. Also, CBS had nothing to gain and much to lose with a poor reporting job. By contrast, the Swift Boaters had an obvious interest in promulgating their falsehoods (O’Neill has made a career of antagonizing Kerry, and had a book to sell. I strongly suspect that the others who “corroborated” his claims were paid to do so. What’s a few hundred thousand dollars if you can sway an election?).
2) Media Matters is supported by George Soros, and for all I know they also are connected to the DNC. However, everything on the site is meticulously cited – there is always a verbatim transcript and there is usually a video to go along with it. So while there is an obvious slant to what they do, I don’t think you can find a single instance of something which has been inaccurately reported. Why shouldn’t this “get far with a Republican?” Aren’t you interested in the truth?
sorry, to deliberately run a false story about Bush
A better answer is in the following, rather lengthy, essay:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200606030001
Partisan? You bet. Meticulously cited? Absolutely.
“It is far – fetched to paint this as a conspiracy between CBS and the DNC to deliberately run a false story about Kerry.”
Rather’s own former colleagues do not agree with your assertion here:
http://www.nypost.com/gossip/pagesix/pagesix.htm
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/389653p-330618c.html
Rather and Mapes have been disgraced, and have never offered credible justifications for their actions. Don Hewitt has also said on many occasions that the timing of the story was especially egregious, and was clearly a biased attempt to slant the election in the worst possible way against Bush. Daniel Orkent (former Public Ombudsman of the NYT) has also made statements about the apparent connections between his former employer and the DNC, while the Times has never attempted to respond to his allegations.
Silence speaks volumes in this matter – mostly because these actions are indefensible.
The continuing silence and refusal to answer questions
Whoops, strike out that last sentence – bad editing on my part.
The two cites in post 24 show that there was animosity to Rather from his colleagues, but not that there was collusion with the DNC, which is not even mentioned in either article.
I’m not here to defend bad journalism, CBS News, or Dan Rather — but there is nothing in the post to indicate a conspiracy.
If you really want to know who gets a better deal from the press, then I suggest you take a look at the cite in post 23.
I don’t think Media Mattes is objective by any measure – Soros’ open hostility and actions make their “news value” highly speculative indeed:
http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/042005/soros.html
This is akin to me linking something to the Washington Times or Fox News, something I never do here. Also, it’s instructive to note that MSM’s rarely link to anything from Media Matters. Wonder why?
[...] Then I read this post at Decision08 that has links to several posts further debunking, or reiterating the absurdity of many of John Kerry’s war stories including this post by Thomas Lipscomb at Real Clear Politics. Zernike appears to have made no effort to look at any record besides listing Kerry’s latest assertions with obligatory quotes from the usual Swiftie suspects to provide “balance.” She doesn’t appear to be aware of the hilarious inconsistency of the Kerry hat story she recites dutifully as if this was the very first time the hat had appeared in print. As the clips should have shown her, Kerry first pulled the famous hat out of a “secret compartment” for Washington Post reporter Laura Blumenfeld’s feature story in 2003. “My good luck hat,” Kerry told Blumenfeld, “given to me by a CIA guy.” Now he tells Zernike a “special operations team” member gave it to him on a secret “mission that records say was to insert Navy Seals” in February. [...]
Re Media Matters:
George Soros is a liberal (gasp!) and he funds organizations with a similar mindset.
Needless to say, he’s been slimed by the GOP for this, as the story from the same website reports:
http://www.hillnews.com/news/090104/soros.aspx
However, that does not invalidate what Media Matters has to say or make it “highly speculative” — as noted, it is based solely on verbatim transcripts. Since you are unable to point to anything incorrect or misleading in Media Matters, you are left to point to the fact that it is funded by partisans. Regrettably, it’s one of the few publications which gathers evidence to show, among other things, the persistent right wing bias in the media. You may disagree with them, but the fact that Soros (among others) funds them proves nothing.
The persistent right wing bias in the media? peter, for God’s sake, I understand you’re a liberal – but for your own good, drop the self-delusion.
My God – the persistent right wing bias in the media, indeed!…
Here’s an MIT study showing Democratic bias at the NY Times (as if any sentient being could doubt it!).
Here’s a study showing fewer positive economic stories when the Republicans are in charge.
Here’s the famous UCLA study showing not just liberal bias, but strong liberal bias, in almost every major media outlet.
Here’s a study that says the persistent liberal media bias may be because the owners are typically lefties.
Shall I continue? It won’t be difficult…
Oh man, Mark.
I haven’t looked at the other studies (I will, if forced to), but the Lott-Hassett “study” is so full of holes, it’s practically transparent.
Here’s one dissection of their study. And it’s hardly the only one.
Let’s put it this way: there’s a reason their study was never submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.
Peter:
Kerry was drafted. He received a couple college deferments and when he was turned down for another, he enlisted the Navy. In those days, if you were drafted, and preferred a specific branch of the armed services, you enlisted. It was a 6-year commission that he 1) did not complete or 2) committed treason. There was no re-enlistment. There most certainly was a discharge, the question is when was the discharge and what type of discharge was it. All he has to do is sign and release a SF-180, complete and unaltered.
Kerry did not serve two tours of duty in Vietnam. Back in the Vietnam era, a “tour of duty” consisted of 13 months for Marines and 12 months for everyone else. Kerry “served” less than 4 months in Vietnam. Medals? LOL!
Kerry made reference to 1968 and Nixon’s war. The dumbass doesn’t even know Nixon was not President until 1969.
The Swift Boat Vets did serve with him, which is why they were vehemently opposed to his becoming Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Over 200 signed the initial letter, IIRC.
There is a photo displayed in the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City with sKerry pictured with former General Secretary of the Communist Party, Do Muoi. The photo is part of an exhibit honoring heroes that assisted the Vietnamese communists in winning the war.
Kerry went to Paris to “negotiate” a peace treaty with Madame Binah. The problem was, he was a snot nosed kid with no authority, especially as a commissioned officer in the United States Navy, to negotiate jack crap with an enemy that the United States was still at war. In case you do not understand the implication of this action, it is called treason.
Is he planning on running in ’08? Bring it On!
Peter, you’re not being honest about this argument, as least in my humble opinion. I try not to quote sources that are obviously ideologically – biased towards my own viewpoint, while you continue to insist that a partisan news site is completely objective. That’s not logical – you’re too intelligent to insist otherwise.
Well, Jacques, look at the flip side – how many academic studies are you aware of that argue for a right-wing tilt in the media? I’d be interested in seeing those…
Did I say that there was such a tilt?
I mean look: one the one side, we have Fox News; on the other, we have the Pacifica Radio Network.
Seems pretty balanced to me.
No, you didn’t say there was such a tilt, but that was the context of the discussion. I realize your Pacifica thing is tongue in cheek – a more apt comparison would be on one side, we have Fox News, on the other ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and MSNBC…
dmac: Why not hop over to mediamatters, look at 20 or so stories and document evidence of being blatantly partisan? It shouldn’t be hard as they’re lefty and thus dishonest in their stories. It’s a slam dunk.
mikebdot, Media Matters IS blatantly partisan. It’s self-evident – their mission is to document ‘right-wing’ media bias – and you think they’re non-partisan?
Here’s just one example of how their ‘methods’ reach their desired conclusions…
With a “fair and balanced” definition of “side” that would be apt.
Personally, I’ll stick with the Pacifica Radio comparison.
Mark, switch around “partisan” and “dishonest” in my post and that is what I actually intended to say. What beef have you in their reporting? Besides partisanship? How does that effect the specific points they make? I mean, they serve the same function as “AIM”, but, AIM is full of straight up opinion.
So, I know they’re partisan, but how does this make them dishonest? If you link to an article of theirs that makes a point, why is that a problem? I mean, it’s like you linking to any other rightie blog, isn’t it?
Re post 31: the cites prove nothing.
The first cite posits that the Times gives more play to “Democratic issues” (e.g., the environment, health care, etc.) when Republicans are in office. It then concludes that “this is consistent with the hypothesis that the New York Times has a Democratic partisanship” because Republicans are “weak” on those issues. Huh? If the Times runs a story on civil rights when a Republican is in office, it’s a deliberate attempt to make Republicans look bad? The Times is supposed to allocate its stories so civil rights gets the same number of column inches in a Republican administration as a Democratic administration? To quote Chief Justice Marshall: this is an absurdity too gross to be insisted upon.
The second cite compares Republican and Democratic administrations. The problem is that we’ve had one Democratic President since 1980, so basically they are comparing the coverage Clinton received with what the GOP got. Well, the economy was pretty good under Clinton – in fact, better under Clinton than any Republican administration since Eisenhower. Why shouldn’t he get positive coverage in the press?
As for the third cite, I’ll let Jacques’s post speak for itself. Moreover, it seems to have the same methodology as your Media Matters cite in post 39 – they do the same thing and come up with opposite results.
As for the fourth cite: there may very well be a correlation between journalists, media owners, and ideology, and I wouldn’t dispute that they tilt left. (By and large, they’re pretty intelligent people, so I would expect them to be liberals. Just kidding.) However, I think that the inference which is drawn (i.e., that it leads to liberal coverage) is completely incorrect. Rather, I think that most journalists bend over backwards to avoid a liberal tilt in their reporting and go too far in the other direction. Hence I think the end result – what you see on TV and read in newspapers – averages out to tilt right.
If the media tilted left: why did Al Gore and John Kerry get such a hard time in their campaigns, when Bush more or less got a free pass? And do you seriously think that Bill Clinton got a fair shake from the press – and especially the New York Times?
As for Media Matters: it is most definitely a partisan outlet (although no more so than the American Enterprise Institute cited in post 31), and it has the stated aim of exposing the conservative bias in the media. I don’t expect them to go looking for stories showing how Keith Olbermann uses his eyebrows the same way Brit Hume does (except with a GOP target). However, I think they are very useful in compiling a copious assortment of examples which, taken in their totality, show a very definite right wing tilt in the media. Moreover, the verbatim transcripts are indisputable. The fact that they are polemicists does not negate the facts they assemble.
I give you four academic studies, you say they mean nothing, and say a paragraph or so, and I’m supposed to weigh that equally.
Peter, if you want to kid yourself there’s not a prominent leftward bias in the media, then do so, by all means…clearly, nothing I show you will change your mind, so why beat my head against the wall?
Meanwhile, in the real world, the sun still rises and sets…
I did go to the site, and here’s what got my attention immediately – Duncan Black is listed as a “Senior Fellow” at Media Matters. Shall we see how he feels about the media in general? (scroll down a little):
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2004_10_24_atrios_archive.html#109914577799608335
Does that statement appear to be from someone who’s taking an objective approach to his work here?
Now we have this from the Media Matters mission statement:
“Conservative misinformation is defined as news or commentary presented in the media that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda.”
Huh? They’re out to expose “unreliable conservative commentary” in the media? Isn’t that why it’s called “commentary?” I believe we were talking about bias in actual news stories and reporting, not bloviating talking heads.
Also from their site, here’s a book recently published by Media Matters that summarizes their MO:
http://mediamattersactionnetwork.org/book/
Again, this book is out to attack “commentary” by right – wing pundits, not actual news stories. Who among us takes idiots like Limbaugh, Coulter and Hannity seriously here? Again, isn’t commentary by it’s very definition biased?
This is similar to me quoting something from Brent Bozell, who’s stated goal is to counter the liberal press. I won’t do it, because it’s patently obvious where his sympathies lie on this issue.
dmac, you read my mind – see my latest post…
[...] I asked previously if John Kerry REALLY wanted to reopen this whole can of worms, but open it he did, and he’ll live to regret it. Thomas Lipscomb has part two of his reply to the new ‘Swift Boat’ counterattack by Kerry supporters: As the Kate Zernike front page Memorial Day weekend New York Times story indicates, a number of Kerry supporters were disappointed that Kerry had not vigorously defended himself against the charges of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004 Presidential campaign. According to Zernike some “are compiling a dossier that they say will expose every one of the Swift boat group’s charges as a lie and put to rest any question about Mr. Kerry’s valor in combat.” [...]