I told Rick I would write a response to this long post of his, so here goes.
First, let’s acknowledge where we agree. We are both Republicans, Steelers are the greatest sports franchise on the planet and my recent rants are a defection from recent party orthodoxy, but not the principles the party used to hold.
Now, on to the rest. Rick writes the following in response to my long post on Hugh claiming that the media is launching a cover-up for Newsweek:
First, I hardly think it
David Rossie
I’m surprised that the bloggers whom you criticized didn’t really respond. But I don’t think conservatives can indefinitely ignore what appears to be a cracking wartime coalition (not just you, but I think this whole truth vs. partianship dispute along with the filibuster “outrage” with moderates is foreshadowing battles to come).
Simon
Damn John! Well said. Finally, a logical conservative points out the absurdity of the right wing victim complex that has been overplayed for far too long. I don’t think it will make much of a difference though, as this is the bread and butter of riling up the base. Strangely, it also happens to be in heavy use by certain evangelical Christians.
Adam
I think it’s a bit early to be talking about the coalition “cracking”, but what instapundit prophesied may be coming true; that is the war going well enough that the democrat’s loonyness on security matters isn’t enough to keep people who are disgusted by the right’s behavior to not vote for them. If it does shatter it’ll be the fault of people like La Shawn Barber for scaring the hell out of the more moderate people in the party.
Kimmitt
The idea that the fanatics need any excuse at all to kill us
I agree with you on this, but I think you’re mischaracterizing the Left’s position. We all agree that fanatics don’t need excuses to do what they do. But people need excuses to become fanatics — or, at least, some of them do.
Stormy70
If a nutbag needs an excuse to be a fanatic, that is not my problem. And as a member of the Republican party, I have no victim complex, even when we were out of power. The Media has grown complacent over the years, and a little harshing on their mellow is a good thing, since they will now be more careful with their reporting.
Steelers are of the devil, and no real Christian would have any truck with them, John. Plus, they are victimizing the Cowboys.
submandave
“Follow the necessary logic to get to this laughable implication of treason.”
And, looking from the other side at what I do perceive to be generally anti-military coverage, or at the very least a predisposition to assume the worst about the military to the extent of automatically giving the benefit of the doubt to anyone speaking against the military, even avowed enemied of the Nation, I see a similar chain of illogic.
For example, in order for one to believe the abuses of Abu Ghraib stem from DoD-level leadership problems carries the assumption that similar acts must be happening throughout the military. This assumption, if not explicitly stated, is certainly part of the narrative framework of much reporting on the matter. In order, then, to reconcile this assumption of rampant abuse with the absence of evidence requires a belief in a cover-up and complicity on behalf of tens if not hundreds of thousands of service members. Basically a belief that all of these service members, from Private to General, are either so morally bankrupt, brainwashed or cowed that their silence is assured. A belief that the single shift of a single watch section on which all the documented abuse occurred was exceptional not in that the abuse happened but in that it was reported. Because it must be remembered that it was not an investigative, questioning or adversarial press that broke the Abu Ghraib story, but rather an internal Army investigation resulting from a claim by a single soldier who didn’t think it was right. But the narrative frame of the “rampant abuse” meme requires one to believe that the moral strength shown by that soldier is an exception in the military.
That, my friend, represents an illogical line of thought to me.
Halffasthero
Good counter-punch John. As for the Steelers, well, I have to part ways with you there. I am not going to call the of the devil as Stormy70 does. As a diehard Vikings fan, I consider the Packers to be of the devil. They along with their rabid drunken, loud, obnoxious fans are a bane on my existence. That and the fact they have rubbed their superbowls in my face for years. I live 20 minutes from Wisconsin so you can imagine my life come football season.
ballooner
for one to believe the abuses of Abu Ghraib stem from DoD-level leadership problems carries the assumption that similar acts must be happening throughout the military.
I would not agree that there is no evidence of such rampant abuse. (To wit the recent revelations about torture in Afganistan.) However, the DoD and the WH could go a long ways toward defusing the accusations if just one official would say “The buck stops here. This happened on my watch, and I’ll make sure it’s investigated and prevented from happening again.” Any such statements that have been made in the last three years have been mumbly and weak-kneed at best.
BumperStickerist
By the jutting jaw of Bill Cowher, well said, John.
The press isn’t ‘anti-military’ per se, they’re just profoundly ignorant of the subject they’re covering.
Ignorant of the culture, ignorant of the terminology, ignorant of the basic rules that govern the conduct of the people involved, and, worse, they don’t care.
A rough analogy would be a paper that assigned a business reporter who didn’t understand the distinction between a lock-out and a strike to cover a labor dispute.
jdm
Nice job, John C. When you avoid your “dark side” of emotional rants, you are a devastating writer.
I don’t agree with everything you wrote in this post, but you’ve made me think in ways that your “fucking idiots” posts never do.
neil
Thank you, John, I truly wondered whether you could be a conservative in this day and age without the victimization complex. Let me just say that I hope that it is not long before we can disagree about politics again…
I just wanted to mention one tangent from Rick’s post that annoyed me. Describing Arabs as ’10th century peasants’ is ignorant and insulting. In the 10th century, and for the next 500 years, the Arabs had a far more literate, technologically advanced society than the Europeans. How do you think they managed to win the Crusades? This sort of trope is utterly common in right-wing blather — the image of Arabs as ignorant, illiterate peons. Why? It’s barely a step away from describing them as subhuman (think I’m exaggerating? Read this from Orson Scott Card). It’s just frustrating.
Darrell
The media is not, as an institution, anti-military
Not according to Terry Moran, Chief White House Correspondent for ABC News:
“There is, Hugh, I agree with you, a deep anti-military bias in the media. One that begins from the premise that the military must be lying, and that American projection of power around the world must be wrong”
BTW, how many news reports have you seen on the military building schools and hospitals in Iraq? How many news stories on the charities run by soldiers themselves and/or their families? Just curious. Literally months of non-stop hand wringing “news” coverage of Abu Ghraib though. And as was pointed out above, a media willing to give our enemies the benefit of the doubt while deeply skeptical of anything coming out ofour military. Nah, no anti-military bias in the media.. Just move along folks, nothing to see here.
John Cole
Gee, Darrell. Why is that quote so familiar?
How bout you read the damn post, Bubba, rather than coming here with your pre-packaged comments?
Darrell
I may be guilty of scanning too quickly over your long post, but not of “prepackaged” comments. Sorry about overlooking the Moran quote in your piece, but can we agree that Moran has a bit more experience with the MSM mindset than you?
Again, seen many news reports on hospitals and schools being built by the military? No? How about military sponsored charities or other such activities which may reflect well on our military? Seriously. Overall I see very few examples of these “flag waving” reporters you refer to
I think Terry Moran had it exactly right
Kimmitt
How about military sponsored charities or other such activities which may reflect well on our military?
The local “Toys for tots” program run by the Marines is always heavily covered during Christmastime.
willyb
With all your rants about the religious right, why do you devote so much energy to a topic that involves another religion? Since when is it “torture” to treat a book with disrespect? Who gives a shit about the mental anguish of people that actually do torture, maim, and kill innocents? I mean really, who are these people that care?
The NYT is a shit-rag, that takes every opportunity it can to mangle the truth to make the U.S. government look bad (that is, unless there is a Democrat in the White House). All these reports do is diminish the moral authority of this country, and give ammunition to the enemies of a strong America (the list is nearly endless). And you think rehashing old news about a Koran-flushing is a good thing? What was the NYT’s purpose for running these pieces?
Libertine
This is what happens when someone deviates from “the program”. I run into the same thing on liberal blogs when I stand up and say that the Dems attacks on the 2nd amendment is both unconstitutional and dangerous.
Libertine
Oh and btw John…
The Patriots own the Steelers.
Let the football flame wars begin, LOL!!
Halffasthero
“Oh and btw John…
The Patriots own the Steelers.
Let the football flame wars begin, LOL!!”
Patriots fan…they are getting worse than than the Packers so I stand corrected. Thank God I at least don’t have to live next door to them. : )
(all in fun of course)
Chris Rasmussen
To back up Libertine:
John, I occasionally vehemently disagree with you but I must say that I’m very impressed. Not just because I *happen* to agree with you on this vital and, yes, moral issue.
Here’s the thing about the blogosphere: when a writer from a political viewpoint deviates from traditional talking points, they get flamed from their own side.
For all the talk about the “triumph” of the “new media”, often the blogosphere becomes as insulated and navel-gazing as traditional media. And yes, you also see this tendency on the left-leaning blogosphere.
It exhibits original thought — and, yes, some intellectual bravery and honesty — to do what you’re doing.
Libertine
Patriots fan…they are getting worse than than the Packers so I stand corrected. Thank God I at least don’t have to live next door to them. : )
(all in fun of course)
Definitely all in good fun Halffasthero. :-)
But you are right…us Patriots fans are full of ourselves after 3 Superbowls in 4 years. It is nice to be disliked instead of ridiculed… ;-)
Ben Regenspan
I thought when I read his post that what he was accusing you of was having lefties among your readership, and was playing the guilt-by-association card on that angle. Which is, of course, probably even more ridiculous than how you interpreted it.
bp
John, you said:
To the first half of that, we have one network, the left has two plus the Big Three broadcast nets. To the second half, name one paper with a right-leaning editorial board that has a tenth of the influence of the NY Times. I took the lack of specificity in that rant of yours to be interesting.
You also said:
Specifics? It doesn’t seem to have become any more difficult for Rep. Conyers to introduce crazy bills to protect the sanctity of the Koran today than it was yesterday.
You also said:
Again, specifics? Name one reporter that fits that description. What I recall are Dan Rather and Peter Jennings announcing that if faced with a choice of getting a story or warning our troops of an ambush against them, these sainted reporters would get the story and let our troops die. I also remember Walter Cronkite writing in his autobiography that once he’d turned against Vietnam he vowed to use his bully pulpit to denounce it. That’s not reporting anymore–it’s bending the news to fit an agenda. I remember two years worth of stories from Iraq, 95% negative, countering the very real progress being made there daily. I remember a press that ignores Afghanistan until something goes wrong, and I remember a press that tried in the waning days of the election last year to smear President Bush six ways from Sunday. I somehow missed the flag-waving jingoism in all that. So help me out here, m’kay.
One thing you consistently fail to mention in all of your rants is that intercepted terrorist training manual that specifically instruct terrorists to fabricate charges of mistreatment against the US military. Don’t you think that’s relevant to the uncorroborated stories the FBI has encountered at Gitmo? And you consistently fail to note that much of the buzz about Koran flushing and related tales of abuse is being generated on purpose by the ACLU via FOIA requests and selective releases of documents to the press. That is a key part of this story that you seem to have just checked out on. And who is funding all of that ACLU activity, anyway?
Frankly, I just don’t get where you’re coming from on this at all. “Fake but plausible” still means “fake.” There are all kinds of plausible things that never happen–it’s plausible that Glenn Reynolds really does drink blended puppies. Can you prove he doesn’t? By Newsweek’s new standard, one you seem to have embraced, it’s perfectly acceptable to report that Glenn Reynolds drinks blended puppies because you can’t prove that he doesn’t. Since when is it up to the accused to prove a negative? But that’s the standard now, thanks to the ACLU and this retracted Newsweek story. It goes against everything the press is supposed to stand for and everything our legal system is built upon.
That’s just nuts. But when it comes to this story, it seems the whole world has gone nuts.
JDL
bp,
name one paper with a right-leaning editorial board that has a tenth of the influence of the NY Times
The Wall Street Journal.
And you consistently fail to note that much of the buzz about Koran flushing and related tales of abuse is being generated on purpose by the ACLU via FOIA requests and selective releases of documents to the press.
Leaving the Koran aside, the tales of abuse are being reported without need of the ACLU. Beyond the photos of Abu Gharib, we also have this lovely article for fun in the Afghan sun.
(my apologies for the fact I could not seem to get the URL to actually link … tried a few times and then gave up).
Is this the MSM being anti-military? Perhaps. Is this behavior that we should condone in our military? No.
Criticism of the media (in the case of Newsweek failing to uphold journalism standards) is good. Using that as a cover to ignore things that should not be happening is not. Unless you believe the US Army is also being funded by the same parties as those that are funding the ACLU.
BTW, it seems hypocritical to call John Cole to task for unsubstantiated arguments, and then drop “And who is funding all of that ACLU activity, anyway?” in the midst of your argument.
ppgaz
BP, you cannot be serious. “The left has two (cable channels) ….”
Even for someone who reads a lot of blogs and keeps up with the trashomatic engines of what passes for political speech in this country … that just takes my breath away.
Have you WATCHED Wolf Blitzer? Have you SEEN MSNBC except when Keith Olbermann is on? Those whipped dogs couldn’t hold a Bush Administration official accountable for anything if their lives depended on it. They fawn and scrape before power, they restate boilerplate “out there” factoids (assertions represented as fact, but which are not) mostly from government sources. Did you SEE Tim Russert’s interview of GWB last year? Russert looked like an advance agent, for crissakes.
Bush: WMD? Well, they could have been moved to another country.
Real Journalist: WTF?!?!? Fifteen years of watching every vehicle movement in the country and you can make an outrageous claim like that? People are dying because you said WMD were there!
Russert: Okay. Next question …
Excuse me, I have to wash my hands. Even typing a paraphrase of Russert makes me feel dirty.
Shalimar
BP doesn’t seem to have actually watched anything other than FoxNews in the last few years, or he would realize that the other TV news channels are indistinguishable copies now. Watch CNN for a few days and try to spot the minuscule ways it is different from FoxNews.
Rob
Beautiful post. Eloquent, sharp and well-reasoned. If you’re interested, I’ve been soliciting comments from reporters about alleged media bias, anonymous sourcing and the Newsweek fiasco. The latest installment was an email interview with Raw Story’s Larisa Alexandrovna, in two parts.
Jules Siegel
submandave wrote:
Unfortunately for your case, the story was broken by CBS on Apr. 28. Bush, Rumsfeld and Meyers responded by saying that this was the first time they had seen the pictures.
Darrell
Oh my, bp’s comments seem to have ruffled feathers. I love how leftists assume so matter of factly that Fox News suffers from conservative bias (Fox actually IS fair and balanced for the most part), yet scream like stuck pigs when anyone truthfully points out that overall, there is leftist bias at CNN, MSNBC or the alphabet news channels which really do tilt left. I think it’s fair to say that Fox News tilts less to the right than the above mentioned tilt to the left, but you’ll have to talk to Dan Rather about that.
Let’s see, CNN actually had made a deal with Saddam to alter their reporting of his murderous regime in exchange for keeping their Bahgdad bureau open. Anything on Fox which comes anywhere close to that? Think about it. CNN willingly cut deals to alter reporting just to have “access” to Saddam’s henchmen. And of course, the entire media bandwagon EXCEPT for Fox jumped all over the Jenin massacre lies by Palestinians which have been proven to be BS by UN and other investigations. Why did they fall for the Jenin lies? Because they were predisposed to believe them. There are countless other examples.
As for the Wall Street Journal editorial page having a fraction the influence of the NY Times, what a joke. What’s more, the NY Times ‘news’ stories are often leftist editorials masquerading as news stories. That’s a major problem, in that biases affect the choice of what to report and what not to report, and reports seem disinclined to report ‘just the facts’ without putting their spin on stories
I agree w/ppgaz that Wolf Blitzer may not be ‘extremely’ biased, but I remember how he openly pleaded with Ralph Nadar to withdraw from the race because it would hurt his boy Kerry’s chances, and he seems to always have more pointed questions for Republicans, but that’s just me..
Sorry, but bp had it right. Conservatives may have Fox, but leftists really do for the most part have the other cable channels + the alphabets + the New York Times, LA Times, Newsweek and most major city papers. It’s more than simply a matter of opinion that the media is dominated by the left. Survey after survey shows that those in the media are overwhelmingly Democrat and hold views to the left of the average American.
The fact that moveon.org types say the media is not anti-military or left leaning says more about how extreme they are rather than anything about the media
Lee
When one starts from the null hypothesis, “the media is liberal,” then one would naturally come to the conclusion that anything not proven to be right-leaning (fox) is liberal. What CNN and MSNBC are, it seems to me, is impotent. Nonstop coverage of Jacko? Now, we all know the dems were impotent in the 04 elections. A shared impotency doesn’t mean we should equate the two.
Laura
I wish more conservatives were as open-minded and fair as you are John.
laurence haughton
Posted on The Daily Kos http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/5/27/221122/347: kos has made a recent habit of citing conservative war supporter John Cole, and with good reason. The man understands that honest disagreement is not treason:
They then quote part of your long post:
… Follow the necessary logic to get to this laughable implication of treason. First, you must believe that the media is anti-military. Not just anti-military, but anti-American. Not just anti-American, but willing accomplices of the enemy, and thus, treasonous. Second, you must believe that defending the right of the those treasonous media types to report freely is also treasonous. It is, at its worst, an argument of treason by insinuation, and its absurdity is matched only by its offensiveness … I reject all of this.
This is all quoted to support their conclusion that “honest disagreement is not treason.”
My question is “What does honest mean in disagreements?” And do you think that the media (and Kos since they brought it up) mostly offers “honest” disagreement?
I personally don’t like the word treasonous. It’s out of proportion to the offense.
But I see plenty of dishonest disagreement and it cries out for exposure and condemnation of some kind.
http://www.businessblogcasting.com/mt-tb.cgi/12
Archimedes Jr.
I was very impressed by Mr. Cole post, and to be honest he sounds like the Republicans I grew up with in Kansas – fair, honest, smart, and not willing to conceed a point until it is proven but honest when it is, and gracious in agreement as well as disagreement.
As for the media being left or right, I remember two things. One, if it bleeds it leads, and two, don’t piss on my head and tell me it is raining.
Whether local or national news, who among us would watch news that told of a new dam, or a new school, or a pipeline being opened? I know these things happen, but a) viewership goes up on news of action, and b) the attacks need to be covered. I am not saying there couldn’t be more feelgood coverage, but things are not going well, and that is what they are gonna lead with.
As for don’t piss on my head & tell me it is raining, I agree with Mr. Cole. The military, and by this I think he and I would agree we mean the leaders and bureaucrats rather than frontline and lower ranked soldiers, has and does lie to and mislead the press. It is the nature of the beast. All governments, corporations, and organizations want good spin out, and bad spin in. The press has always been, to one extent or the other, an opponent of the “approved” line. It is actually what they are supposed to do. They know there are things that powerful folks do not want reported. And they get told things are fine all the time, and they turn out not to be.
And as for independence, don’t forget that the days of the independent news organization are nearly over. ALL are owned by some larger corporation or another, and each megacorp has its own interests that wil keep limits on the press organizations they own. Some use their news organizations to manipulate the news, such as Disney and ABE, Murdoch and his papers, Moon and the Washington Times.
A lot of powerful people have stakes in what is reported, how it is reported and when. Both sides can be hypocritical about press abuses and spin, and are.
BinkyBoy
Wingers, on either side, need to realize that when everything looks opposite, maybe you’re too far to one side. The only people screaming “liberal media” right now are lefties making fun of righties. There is bias in both directions, even within the NYT.
So to paraphrase: If you think Fox News is “fair and balanced” you might be too far right.
BinkyBoy
Wingers, on either side, need to realize that when everything looks opposite, maybe you’re too far to one side. The only people screaming “liberal media” right now are lefties making fun of righties. There is bias in both directions, even within the NYT.
So to paraphrase: If you think Fox News is “fair and balanced” you might be too far right.
filkertom
Count me on the side of your recent fans. I’ve been reading your stuff off and on for about six months, and, while I disagree with some of your basic premises (only to be expected, I’m an admitted liberal/progressive nutbar), the eloquence and fairness of your analyses are breaths of fresh air. I wish to God that more of us, left and right, would remember that the point of government is to serve the people, all of them as much as is possible, and that partisan victories may come and go but the truth will nail you in the teeth every time.