The Democrats Gloat Thread

Stated another way ... Questions critical to Bush = good; Questions favorable to Bush = bad.

Call an ideology, philosophy, statement, conclusion, opinion, or position stupid - fine. Call a member here any of that - not fine.

dlowan wrote:

Oy! US TV "news", as far as I was able to gather, is actually worse than ours, in general, except for a few real gems, of course.

But I had thought there was reasonable critiquing in some print media (NO print media could be worse than ours!), especially after they realised how they had been scammed re Iraq.

Perhaps it's no longer "mainstream" for Americans to get their news in print? Having revealed myself as an elitist European supremacist pig by asking this question, I may as well go on and insult the American public in general. From reading the liberal New York Times and the conservative Wall Street Journal, I find that every American who wanted to know how reliable the evidence for WMDs was, could read about the serious doubts in either of those papers. Every American who wanted to know how shaky the case for war in Iraq was, could read it in either place too. And every American who wanted to know whether Bush's plans for tax- and social security reforms added up, could read in either newspaper that they did not. (In the case of the Wall Street Journal, admittedly, the reader had to decide that the trusted their reporting over their commentary.)

If many Americans today are surprised to learn that they have been governed by a Potemkin facade of a president for the last five years, it's not because the information wasn't there. It's because they didn't want to know. These people have no one to blame but themselves. It was them who shot the messenger with the bad news, by switching to another channel or buying second rate papers instead of first rate ones. But to acknowledge this is to criticize yourself and the people you work and play with. It's so much easier to blame everything on "the media corporations", or on some other convenient abstraction. Hence the scapegoating we see in the article blatham cited over in that other thread.

dlowan wrote:

Oy! US TV "news", as far as I was able to gather, is actually worse than ours, in general, except for a few real gems, of course.

But I had thought there was reasonable critiquing in some print media (NO print media could be worse than ours!), especially after they realised how they had been scammed re Iraq.

Perhaps it's no longer "mainstream" for Americans to get their news in print? Having revealed myself as an elitist European supremacist pig by asking this question, I may as well go on and insult the American public in general. From reading the liberal New York Times and the conservative Wall Street Journal, I find that every American who wanted to know how reliable the evidence for WMDs was, could read about the serious doubts in either of those papers. Every American who wanted to know how shaky the case for war in Iraq was, could read it in either place too. And every American who wanted to know whether Bush's plans for tax- and social security reforms added up, could read in either newspaper that they did not. (In the case of the Wall Street Journal, admittedly, the reader had to decide that the trusted their reporting over their commentary.)

If many Americans today are surprised to learn that they have been governed by a Potemkin facade of a president for the last five years, it's not because the information wasn't there. It's because they didn't want to know. These people have no one to blame but themselves. It was them who shot the messenger with the bad news, by switching to another channel or buying second rate papers instead of first rate ones. But to acknowledge this is to criticize yourself and the people you work and play with. It's so much easier to blame everything on "the media corporations", or on some other convenient abstraction. Hence the scapegoating we see in the article blatham cited over in that other thread.

The WSJ news room is as liberal as the Times ...

Walter, just once please try to go with what I said instead of what you want me to have said.

All you have to go on though is what you read in the papers, see on television, hear on the radio, find on the internet.

We are indeed at the mercy of the media and if the media wants us to see something in a certain way, they are going to structure their opening paragraphs, their headlines, the photos they use, the sidebars, etc. to accomplish that as much as possible. And those who don't have a very good eye for bias and a healthy skepticism will fall for it every time.

Re the WMD, I go back to a Michael Kinsley piece I posted earlier this week. Hindsight is 20 20. I have a very strong skepticism whenever I read "I knew it all along" after the fact. And while I respect THomas very much and would like to call him friend, all that skepticism simply was not in the newspapers, etc. before the fact.

And while I respect THomas very much and would like to call him friend, all that skepticism simply was not in the newspapers, etc. before the fact.

Thanks for the invite, Lola, I've been appreciating reading along with both posts here and following links.

I have tried to phrase my immediate reaction a few times and have had a hard time with it. Basically, my experience in management is telling me that there is one story behind closed doors, another for public consumption. Experience in management isn't necessary to see that, but that's what really jumps out at me, especially in the Washington Post article by the two Danas. Ari is saying one thing, Condi is saying something else, Bush is saying something else entirely.

What that says to me is that they are saying one thing in private, the "real" reasons, agreeing that they should say something else to the public, but are not coordinated enough in figuring out what their message IS. It's NOT _____, they're all agreed on that, but they spent too much time on _____ to adequately prepare the not-_____ message.

I was especially struck by the fact that Bush has shown no apparent remorse or displeasure with the fact that he said something inaccurate, while Ari is saying, ""I assure you, the president is not pleased... The president, of course, would not be pleased if he said something in the State of the Union that may or may not have been true and should not have risen to his level."

My own opinion is that Bush wanted Saddam out of power for some decent reasons (he's an all-around bad guy) and some not-decent reasons (SOME kind of decisive action post-9/11, etc.) The WMD thing came late in the game, and was used as a way to justify doing what he wanted to do anyway. The reports were cobbled together quickly, not as a basis for the decision to go to war (which had been made), but as a marketing tool. As a marketing tool, they served their purpose, and as a marketing tool, it didn't matter if they were factual. Bush is unperturbed. Ari sees a few steps further, sees the cynicism behind Bush being unperturbed, and tries to color it differently. Forgot to tell the boss to adhere to the script, though.

No, you're right, the skepticism wasn't there, but the facts were. That eye for bias and healthy skepticism would have come in really handy.