Another fine example of how...

[The Ressurrected One]

...the leftist media is deliberately characterizing war on terrorism as a losing proposition when they have facts to counter their own argument.

Earlier this week, the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content//article/2005/04/26/AR2005042601623.html) — specifically noting a comment by former senior State Department counterterrorism official Larry Johnson — quoted:

"They [The administration and Bush State Department] are deliberately trying to withhold data because it shows that as far as the war on terrorism internationally, we're losing."

Now, let's look at Larry Johnson's (yes, the same Larry Johnson) blog (http://counterterror.typepad.com/the_counterterrorism_blog/2005/04/goodby_patterns.html) from April 14, 2005:


"It is tough to argue we are winning the war on terrorism when the numbers in the official Government report will show the largest number of incidents ever recorded since the State Department started reporting on terrorist incidents. In the Secretary's defense, however, the sharp jump in numbers has more to do with a change in methodololgy of counting rather that an actual surge in Islamic extremist activity. In fact, if you take time to parse the numbers, the actual scope of terrorism by Islamic extremists in 2004 appeared to decline relative to the attacks during 2003 (except for Iraq)."

The Washington Post is to be commended :rolleyes for burying the line, "...administration aides sought to explain the rise in attacks as the result of more inclusive methodology in counting incidents, which they argued made year-to-year comparisons 'increasingly problematic,' sources said..." way down in the ninth paragraph, of a story headlined, "U.S. Figures Show Sharp Global Rise In Terrorism," while at the same time failing to note that the figure who gave them their most confirmatory quote actually agrees with the "administration aides."

Can't let those inconvenient facts get in the way of the "we're losing the war on terror" storyline, can we?

[Nbadan]

Can't let those inconvenient facts get in the way of the "we're losing the war on terror" storyline, can we?

What facts? You imply that the methodology of counting is wrong (a first for Republicans by the way), but you fail to provide any real facts to back up your, and Larry Johnsons (whoever the fuck he is) assertions. Why shouldn't terror attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan not be included?

[The Ressurrected One]

What facts? You imply that the methodology of counting is wrong (a first for Republicans by the way), but you fail to provide any real facts to back up your, and Larry Johnsons (whoever the fuck he is) assertions. Why shouldn't terror attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan not be included?
Actually, Nbadan, the point of the post was to show that the Washington Post intentionally misrepresented Mr. Johnson's quotes on the issue and did so in support of a false premise.

Iraq is a war zone you idiot.

And, Larry Johnson is the Post's expert upon which they relied to sell the story. Let them explain who he is. But, particularly, let them explain why all of his quote was used...

[CommanderMcBragg]

When our boys and girls stop dying and come home is when I'll be satisfied.

[Duff McCartney]

Can't let those inconvenient facts get in the way of the "we're losing the war on terror" storyline, can we?

Here's an inconvenient fact....

http://www.kaumudi.com/news/042905/world.stm#1


Terrorist attacks across the world has shown a sharp rise last year, with over 625 strikes causing upto 2000 deaths, according to data released by the U.S. Government.

[Nbadan]

Iraq is a war zone you idiot.

Sorry, but I thought the war was over - remember the whole 'Mission Accomplished' banner on the air craft carrier, and the major combat operations are over speech W gave that same day? What was that? 2 years and about 1,400 of our finest ago?

[The Ressurrected One]

Well, if you don't know the difference between the fall of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime and a war on terrorist/insurgent elements filling the void, I can't help you.

[The Ressurrected One]

I'd bet that if you hooked Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, and Peter Jennings up to a lie detector and asked them if there's a liberal bias on their newscasts, they'd all say ‘no’ and they'd all pass the test...

That leaves at least one other possibility. They don't even know what liberal bias is. I concede this is hard to believe, but I'm convinced it's why we keep getting these ridiculous denials from the media and those who would defend them.

The problem is that these guys and their defenders think that liberal bias means just one thing: going hard on Republicans and easy on Democrats. But real media bias comes not so much from what party they attack. Liberal bias is the result of how they see the world. And, it is this inability to see liberal views as liberal that is at the heart of the entire problem. This is why Phyllis Schlafly is reported as the conservative woman who heads that conservative organization but Patricia Ireland is merely the head of NOW. No liberal labels necessary. Robert Bork is the conservative judge. Laurence Tribe is the noted Harvard law professor. Conservatives must be identified because the audience needs to know these are people with axes to grind. But liberals don't need to be identified because their views on all the big social issues -- from abortion and gun control to the death penalty and affirmative action -- aren't liberal views at all. They're simply reasonable views, shared by all the reasonable people the media elites mingle with at all their reasonable dinner parties in Manhattan and Georgetown.

Watch the evening news...see how many times a liberal is identified as liberal and a conservative is identified as conservative. That's one of the most glaring examples of bias. Followed by derisive editorializing on negative stories involving Republicans.

[The Ressurrected One]

Admissions of Liberal bias -- by the media:

* "I thought he [former CBS News correspondent Bernard Goldberg] made some very good points. There is just no question that I, among others, have a liberal bias. I mean, I'm consistently liberal in my opinions. And I think some of the, I think Dan [Rather] is transparently liberal. Now, he may not like to hear me say that. I always agree with him, too, but I think he should be more careful."
-- CBS's 60 Minutes commentator Andy Rooney on Goldberg's book, Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News, on CNN's Larry King Live, June 5, 2002

* "Most of the time I really think responsible journalists, of which I hope I'm counted as one, leave our bias at the side of the table. Now it is true, historically in the media, it has been more of a liberal persuasion for many years. It has taken us a long time, too long in my view, to have vigorous conservative voices heard as widely in the media as they now are. And so I think yes, on occasion, there is a liberal instinct in the media which we need to keep our eye on, if you will."
-- ABC anchor Peter Jennings appearing on CNN's Larry King Live, April 10, 2002

* "[Journalists] have a certain worldview based on being in Manhattan...that isn’t per se liberal, but if you look at people there, they lean’ in that direction." — Columbia Journalism Review publisher David Laventhol, as reported in "Leaning on the Media" by Mark Jurkowitz, The Boston Globe, January 17, 2002.

* "There is a liberal bias. It’s demonstrable. You look at some statistics. About 85 percent of the reporters who cover the White House vote Democratic, they have for a long time. There is a, particularly at the networks, at the lower levels, among the editors and the so-called infrastructure, there is a liberal bias. There is a liberal bias at Newsweek, the magazine I work for —- most of the people who work at Newsweek live on the upper West Side in New York and they have a liberal bias....[ABC White House reporter] Brit Hume’s bosses are liberal and they’re always quietly denouncing him as being a right-wing nut." — Newsweek Washington Bureau Chief Evan Thomas in an admission on Inside Washington, May 12, 1996.

* "Everybody knows that there's a liberal, that there's a heavy liberal persuasion among correspondents.....Anybody who has to live with the people, who covers police stations, covers county courts, brought up that way, has to have a degree of humanity that people who do not have that exposure don't have, and some people interpret that to be liberal. It's not a liberal, it's humanitarian and that's a vastly different thing." –- Walter Cronkite, March 21, 1996 Radio & TV Correspondents Dinner.

* "There are lots of reasons fewer people are watching network news, and one of them, I’m more convinced than ever, is that our viewers simply don’t trust us. And for good reason. The old argument that the networks and other `media elites’ have a liberal bias is so blatantly true that it’s hardly worth discussing anymore. No, we don’t sit around in dark corners and plan strategies on how we’re going to slant the news. We don’t have to. It comes naturally to most reporters.....Mr. Engberg’s report set new standards for bias....Can you imagine, in your wildest dreams, a network news reporter calling Hillary Clinton’s health care plan 'wacky?’...
"‘Reality Check’ suggests the viewers are going to get the facts. And then they can make up their mind. As Mr. Engberg might put it: `Time Out!’ You’d have a better chance of getting the facts someplace else -- like Albania." — CBS reporter Bernard Goldberg on an anti-flat tax story by CBS reporter Eric Engberg, February 13, 1996 Wall Street Journal op-ed.

* "I think this is another reflection of the overwhelming journalistic tilt towards liberalism and those programs. Now the question is whether that’s bad or not, and that’s another debate. But the idea that many of us, and my colleagues deny that there is this kind of bias is nuts, because there is in our world. I forget what the surveys show but most of us are Democratic and probably most of us line up in the fairly liberal world." — Time Washington contributing editor Hugh Sidey responding to a caller who asked if journalists are in favor of affirmative action, July 21, 1995 C-SPAN Washington Journal.

* "As much as we try to think otherwise, when you’re covering some- one like yourself, and your position in life is insecure, she’s your mascot. Something in you roots for her. You’re rooting for your team. I try to get that bias out, but for many of us it’s there." — Time Senior Writer Margaret Carlson quoted in The Washington Post, March 7, 1994.

*

"I think liberalism lives — the notion that we don’t have to stay where we are as a society, we have promises to keep, and it is liberalism, whether people like it or not, which has animated all the years of my life. What on Earth did conservatism ever accomplish for our country? It was people who wanted to change things for the better." — Charles Kuralt talking with Morley Safer on the CBS special, One for the Road with Charles Kuralt, May 5, 1994.

*

"I won't make any pretense that the American Agenda is totally neutral. We do take a position. And I think the public wants us now to take a position. If you give both sides and 'Well, on the one hand this and on the other that'--I think people kind of really want you to help direct their thinking on some issues." — ABC News reporter Carole Simpson on CNBC's Equal Time, August 9, 1994.

* "I think we are aware, as everybody who works in the media is, that the old stereotype of the liberal bent happens to be true, and we’re making a concerted effort to really look for more from the other, without being ponderous or lecturing or trying to convert people to another way of thinking." — ABC World News Tonight Executive Producer Emily Rooney, September 27, 1993 Electronic Media.

* "The group of people I’ll call The Press — by which I mean several dozen political journalists of my acquaintance, many of whom the Buchanan administration may someday round up on suspicion of having Democratic or even liberal sympathies — was of one mind as the season’s first primary campaign shuddered toward its finish. I asked each of them, one after another, this question: If you were a New Hampshire Democrat, whom would you vote for? The answer was always the same; and the answer was always Clinton. In this group, in my experience, such unanimity is unprecedented....
"Almost none is due to calculations about Clinton being ‘electable’...and none at all is due to belief in Clinton’s denials in the Flowers business, because no one believes these denials. No, the real reason members of The Press like Clinton is simple, and surprisingly uncynical: they think he would make a very good, perhaps a great, President. Several told me they were convinced that Clinton is the most talented presidential candidate they have ever encountered, JFK included." — New Republic Senior Editor Hendrik Hertzberg, March 9, 1992 issue.

* "We’re unpopular because the press tends to be liberal, and I don’t think we can run away from that. And I think we’re unpopular with a lot of conservatives and Republicans this time because the White House press corps by and large detested George Bush, probably for good and sufficient reason, they certainly can cite chapter and verse. But their real contempt for him showed through in their reporting in a way that I think got up the nose of the American people." — Time writer William A. Henry III on the PBS November 4, 1992 election-night special The Finish Line.

* "Indeed, coverage of the campaign vindicated exactly what conservatives have been saying for years about liberal bias in the media. In their defense, journalists say that though they may have their personal opinions, as professionals they are able to correct for them when they write. Sounds nice, but I’m not buying any." — Former Newsweek reporter Jacob Weisberg in The New Republic, November 23, 1992 issue.

* "There is no such thing as objective reporting...I've become even more crafty about finding the voices to say the things I think are true. That's my subversive mission." — Boston Globe environmental reporter Dianne Dumanoski at an Utne Reader symposium May 17-20, 1990. Quoted by Micah Morrison in the July 1990 American Spectator.

* "I do have an axe to grind...I want to be the little subversive person in television."
— Barbara Pyle, CNN Environmental Editor and Turner Broadcasting Vice President for Environmental Policy, as quoted by David Brooks in the July 1990 American Spectator.

* "I'm not sure it's useful to include every single point of view simply in order to cover every base because you can come up with a program that's virtually impossible for the audience to sort out." — PBS Senior Producer Linda Harrar commenting on PBS's ten-part series, Race to Save The Planet, to MRC and reported in the December 1990 MediaWatch.

* "As the science editor at Time I would freely admit that on this issue we have crossed the boundary from news reporting to advocacy." — Time Science Editor Charles Alexander at a September 16, 1989 global warming conference at the Smithsonian Institution as quoted by David Brooks in an October 5, 1989 Wall Street Journal Journal column.

* "Clearly the networks have made that decision now, where you'd have to call it [global warming stories] advocacy." — NBC News Capitol Hill correspondent Andrea Mitchell at a September 16, 1989 global warming conference at the Smithsonian Institution as quoted by David Brooks in an October 5, 1989 Wall Street Journal Journal column.