Check this video of ABC News reporter Dean Reynolds trying to solicit Bush-bashing from a (black) New Orleans resident and getting totally shut down. This is media bias, pure and simple.
Check this video of ABC News reporter Dean Reynolds trying to solicit Bush-bashing from a (black) New Orleans resident and getting totally shut down.
This is media bias, pure and simple.
The real story of Katrina is the mainstream media riot: What is the real story of Katrina is (I suggest) not so much that nature wrought fury on land, water, people, property, and animals, not at all anything about racism, not much about federal government incompetence. The real story is that the mainstream media rioted. … Continue reading “Rioting in New Orleans”
The real story of Katrina is the mainstream media riot:
What is the real story of Katrina is (I suggest) not so much that nature wrought fury on land, water, people, property, and animals, not at all anything about racism, not much about federal government incompetence. The real story is that the mainstream media rioted.
They used the storm and its attendant sorrows to continue their endless attack on George W. Bush. Wildly inflated stories about the number of dead and missing, totally made up old wives’ tales of racism, breathless accounts of Bush’s neglect that are utterly devoid of truth and of historical context — this is what the mainstream media gave us. The use of floating corpses, of horror stories of plagues, the sad faces of refugees, the long-faced phony accusations of intentional neglect and racism — anything is grist for the media’s endless attempts to undermine the electorate’s choice last November. It is sad, but true that the media will use even the most heart breaking truths — and then add total inventions — to try to weaken and then evict from office a man who has done nothing wrong, but has instead turned himself inside out to help the real victims.
Let’s hope this narrative replaces the official one in the days to come.
See related observations by Jeff Goldstein, Jim Pinkerton, John Cole, and Knoxville’s answer to Lewis and Clark professor Jack Bogdanski, Glenn Reynolds.
Jeff Goldstein tells the truth about Katrina coverage, and Kevin Drum lies like a rug. The national shame regarding Katrina begins with local government in Louisiana and ends with the shoddiest journalism I’ve seen in my lifetime.
Jeff Goldstein tells the truth about Katrina coverage, and Kevin Drum lies like a rug.
The national shame regarding Katrina begins with local government in Louisiana and ends with the shoddiest journalism I’ve seen in my lifetime.
Greg Gutfeld can be so mean to the wankers.
Greg Gutfeld can be so mean to the wankers.
Some people think Cindy Sheehan is America’s Mom, and some think she’s daffy as a duck. She lays it all out here: Well, George and I are leaving Crawford today. George is finished playing golf and telling his fables in San Diego, so he will be heading to Louisiana to see the devastation that his … Continue reading “Cindy Sheehan explains hurricanes”
Some people think Cindy Sheehan is America’s Mom, and some think she’s daffy as a duck. She lays it all out here:
Well, George and I are leaving Crawford today. George is finished playing golf and telling his fables in San Diego, so he will be heading to Louisiana to see the devastation that his environmental policies and his killing policies have caused. Recovery would be easier and much quicker if almost ½ of the three states involved National Guard were not in Iraq. All of the National Guard’s equipment is in Iraq, also. Plus, with the 2 billion dollars a week that the private contractors are siphoning from our treasury, how are we going to pay for helping our own citizens in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama? And, should I dare say “global warming?” and be branded as a “conspiracy theorist” on top of everything else the right-wingers say about me.
Sheehan’s not alone in politicizing this tragedy: it’s almost a cottage industry by now.
What would happen if somebody made a really, really bad movie and instead of showing it in theaters before selling it on DVD, they just skipped the movie house phase completely and sold it direct to consumers with a blog as a marketing tool? I suppose some people would buy it just to support the … Continue reading “Blowing Smoke out your ass”
What would happen if somebody made a really, really bad movie and instead of showing it in theaters before selling it on DVD, they just skipped the movie house phase completely and sold it direct to consumers with a blog as a marketing tool? I suppose some people would buy it just to support the experiment, but they would be suckers.
Blowing Smoke totally sucks. It features cliched dialog, wooden acting, a plot that’s so predictable you can see the climax at the first sign of life, feeble man-hating, and a breast count of zero. Joe Bob says save your money.
If you’re inclined to purchase just because you like Jim Treacher’s blog, then cut out the middle-man and give your money to him direct. You’ll add 90 minutes to your life.
(PS: The last five minutes was excellent.)
It’s day two of the blogstorm occasioned by Paul Krugman’s claim, following Andrew Gumbel, that: Two different news media consortia reviewed Florida’s ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the [2000] election to Mr. Gore. Mickey Kaus picks it up today, paying careful attention to Krugman’s wording: The discomfiting truth is … Continue reading “Andrew Gumbel’s Big Florida Lie”
It’s day two of the blogstorm occasioned by Paul Krugman’s claim, following Andrew Gumbel, that:
Two different news media consortia reviewed Florida’s ballots; both found that a full manual recount would have given the [2000] election to Mr. Gore.
Mickey Kaus picks it up today, paying careful attention to Krugman’s wording:
The discomfiting truth is that, if you also recounted overvotes, the NORC media recount, under several “certainty” standards, showed Gore the winner.
Using the most inclusive standards, Bush actually gained more votes than Gore — about 300 net — from the examination of the undervote ballots. But Gore picked up 885 more votes than Bush from the examination of overvote ballots, 662 of those from optical scan ballots.
What’s more, there’s strong, near-smoking evidence that if the recount had been allowed to proceed overvotes would have been counted (despite the Gore camp’s revealingly idiotic, self-defeating focus on the “undervotes”).
Gumbel himself makes this claim on Amy Alkon’s blog (in comments:)
Re the media consortia recounts, yes, they suggested the outcome was inconclusive IF RESTRICTED TO THE FOUR SOUTHERN FLORIDA COUNTIES THE GORE CAMPAIGN WANTED RECOUNTED. Had the whole state been recounted, Gore would have won by any standard. [emphasis added]
But the claim is false. The Washington Post article that Kaus links says that ambiguity remains even when the overvotes were counted, the outcome depending on what standard is used to review the ballots:
But this is one case where disagreements among the reviewers affected the outcome. Gore won under this scenario when two of the reviewers agree on the markings. Under a standard in which all three were required to agree, Bush won by 219 votes.
Gumbel claims that Rick Hasen backs up his claim in this comment:
It is true that the NORC study found that had all the state’s undervotes and overvotes been counted, Al Gore would have come out ahead of George Bush.
…but Hasen makes this remark rather off-hand in the context of a posting arguing that the election was a statistical tie.
And this is in fact what the recounts showed. It’s impossible to perfectly create the same scenarios in an audited recount that prevail in a real election. The auditors used panels of three neutral parties to review ballots, and found that voter intent was hard to discern, hence the discrepancy between the 2-out-of-3 standard of review and the 3-out-of-3 standard. While one can certainly argue that voter intent in the real world is discerned by 2-out-of-3 canvassers, it’s not the same system as canvassers are partisans, so in effect 2 out of every 3 canvassers represent the majority party in that county.
But that being as it is, the fact remains that we can’t say that a full manual recount of all the ballots rejected by Florida voting machines in 2000 would have conclusively given the election to Gore. Including all uncounted votes – undervotes, overvotes, and absentees – the outcome depends on the standard for discerning voter intent, and that’s what both consortia found.
Krugman lied, Gumbel lied, and Kaus’ claim differs from theirs. Kaus says: under several “certainty” standards; Krugman’s boy Gumbel says under any standard. This is not the same claim at all, of course. Kaus puts it correctly, but Gumbel doesn’t.
(And BTW, how comfortable are we with elections in which the outcome is determined by a handful of people who can’t mark a ballot so that a voting machine can read it properly? If it were up to me, there would be no manual recounts because people are more prone to error and bias than machines. But that’s another point for another blog.)
More at the James B.
UPDATE: Krugman builds a wall and hides behind it.
Krugman colleague Nick Kristoff has to face libel charges after all, per an Appeals Court decision in the Hatfill case: A.T.C.F.k.: They laughed when kf argued that the New York Times was “massively exposed” in the Steven Hatfill libel suit against op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof. … They paid no attention when, after a lower-court federal … Continue reading “Another New York Times columnist in trouble”
Krugman colleague Nick Kristoff has to face libel charges after all, per an Appeals Court decision in the Hatfill case:
A.T.C.F.k.: They laughed when kf argued that the New York Times was “massively exposed” in the Steven Hatfill libel suit against op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof. … They paid no attention when, after a lower-court federal judge threw the Hatfill suit out, kf wrote:
Maybe I’m missing something, but if I were Kristof, I wouldn’t crow too loudly. Lower court decisions are made to be reversed. …
They are not laughing now! Haftill’s suit has been reinstated on appeal. … P.S.: Kristof reported that Hatfill had “failed three successive polygraph examinations” in connection with the anthrax mailings of 2001. How could that, if it isn’t true, not be libelous? … 11:23 P.M.
We predict Kristoff and the Times will lose big. Kristoff’s slander of Hatfill was mean-spirited, beyond the pale, and generally bogus.
I saw Jeff Jarvis on CNBC’s Big Idea show last week with a pack of dogs going after Bernie Goldberg. Yesterday, on C-Span, I saw a speech Rupert Murdoch (God himself) gave to the American Society of Newspaper Editors where he quoted Jarvis: They want to question, to probe, to offer a different angle. Think … Continue reading “All Jarvis, all the time”
I saw Jeff Jarvis on CNBC’s Big Idea show last week with a pack of dogs going after Bernie Goldberg. Yesterday, on C-Span, I saw a speech Rupert Murdoch (God himself) gave to the American Society of Newspaper Editors where he quoted Jarvis:
They want to question, to probe, to offer a different angle. Think about how blogs and message boards revealed that Kryptonite bicycle locks were vulnerable to a Bic pen. Or the Swiftboat incident. Or the swift departure of Dan Rather from CBS. One commentator, Jeff Jarvis, puts it this way: give the people control of media, they will use it. Don’t give people control of media, and you will lose them.
And today I saw Jarvis on CNN’s Reliable Sources.
America has become Jarvis Culture, the rest of us are merely guests. Let us hope he uses his powers for good.
I never did thank Air America for re-electing President Bush, so here we go, better late than never. I believe Air America is secretly directed by a cabal of Republican Party insiders who use it as a tool to discredit the Democrats. Here’s why*: 1. Splitting the Democrat vote worked for the Reeps in 2000, … Continue reading “Thank you, Air America”
I never did thank Air America for re-electing President Bush, so here we go, better late than never.
I believe Air America is secretly directed by a cabal of Republican Party insiders who use it as a tool to discredit the Democrats. Here’s why*:
1. Splitting the Democrat vote worked for the Reeps in 2000, with Nader draining-off enough votes to hand the victory to Bush.
2. Democrats are a bit slow, but they eventually catch on, so they vowed en masse not to support Nader in 2004, and the Reeps needed a new strategy. So along came Air America, the Loud Voice of the Loony Left, complete with a full battery of political hacks, failed comedians, and radio amateurs, Johnny on the spot.
3. Air America alienated enough centrist voters to hand a substantial victory to Bush and his party as people asked this question: Do I want somebody in the White House who turns to Stuart Smalley and Janeane Garofalo and Lizz Winstead for policy advice? Do the hosts on Air America reinforce the Left’s claim that it deeply analyzes problems and appreciates nuance and subtlety? Are they smart, well-informed people?
Most Americans don’t see teaching Saddam to do Daily Affirmations as a viable strategy for rooting out the terrorists or extinguishing their hatred for the Western way of life, so here we are.
(*Take off your tin-foil hat before reading this.)
