ArthurKirkland:
…seven-year drift in Afghanistan…

Strange. I go seven years without seeing that particular wording “drift in…”, and the same day I read a quote from President Obama using that same phrasing, here it appears in the comments on the VC.

How many American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are you assuming?

The most recent figures I find put the number to date at around 5000, which includes almost a year during which Obama has been CIC.

Giving Bush 6 years (2002 to 2008) and crediting him with all the deaths, that’s 2 to 3 letters a day.

I doubt that would cause any one’s hand to cramp.

Just because you think something would be difficult doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

Mac: Bush, met with every family of a fallen service member and did so without cameras.

Every family? I’m really gonna need a source for this, My googling only finds that Dan Bartlett supposedly said he writes a note to each family, and I’m having trouble finding a reliable source even for that. It’s pretty hard to believe that even that is true, unless we’re counting a form letter with a photocopied signature as having been “personally written”. If it is true, I don’t envy Bush’s hand cramps.

Bush, met with every family of a fallen service member and did so without cameras.

I doubt Bush met with every family, but he met with a large number. Cindy Sheehan is one well-known example. He also frequently met with wounded soldiers in Walter Reed, without cameras.

Bush never made it a photo op. Cameras were forbidden.

Unlike Reagan.

That’s assuming Bush ever went. I’ve seen no evidence of that. Perhaps there’s a photo…

If Professor McConnell is right, the problem should be addressed.

David Welker: I think the issue with alerting readers to every change is that it would not be aesthetically pleasing, especially as I believe there are probably a lot of changes made at an outfit like the NYTimes.com.

Wikipedia has even more changes, and there’s no aesthetic problem at all. There’s just a button on the page for accessing previous versions. If you’re simply not interested in previous versions, you never have to click on that button. However, the minority of people who might want to see how the page was changed can do so. There’s no reason why big media organizations couldn’t do the same.

It’s just a shame they can’t disappear even more news that isn’t real news, like the ACORN scandals.

Bush was criticized for not changing the policy of not allowing photos, because it was seen as not allowing the press to visually depict the losses of the war. Whether you agree or not, it was for this reason that Obama changed the policy. I don’t think many people believe that he changed it so that he could do photo ops.

Really? Why did he even ask the families if he could get his picture taken with the caskets then? The policy was changed, yes, but the families have to give permission for photos. They denied him that permission, at least, all but one did. That should tell you something. Bush managed to meet the families without turning it into a photo op. One would think Obama could as well.

Mac wrote:

Bush, met with every family of a fallen service member and did so without cameras.Has Obama bothered?I don’t know.Have not heard one way or the other.Does anyone know?

TNeloms says:

Your logic is funny here. You complain about the press covering these types of things, and then you say that you haven’t heard one way or another whether Obama has done it. So you recognize the importance of the government allowing the media to cover things, and also the importance of the media covering this particular thing?

Are you deliberately being obtuse? My logic is not funny. We knew Bush did these things even though there were no photos. There was a press before there were cameras, you know. I don’t need a picture of Obama with grieving family members and caskets to know whether or not he is meeting with the families. Simple words will suffice. No words have been written, to my knowledge, on the subject. I was asking if anyone else knew. Or do you think we only “read” comic books and without pictures, nothing really happens?

I continue to find the motivation for the change more of a question than the change itself. I do think they should have explained it. To not do so looks bad.
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And honestly, I could live without some of the alerts about updates and edits by bloggers too. I don’t really care to be alerted for most corrections. If I was reading Eugene Volokh’s book, Academic Legal Writing, I only care to see the final version, although I am absolutely sure he absolutely screwed up somewhere and had to edit something important before the final version was ready.

I suppose this is all about how you conceptualize what your doing when you publish a blog post. Is it a finished product, or a work in progress? I would say a work in progress, at least for a while. I wouldn’t want the NYTimes.com to be editing articles from a week or a year ago, because those are finished products. But I really don’t care if the article changes on the same day it comes out, because it is a work in progress.

Has it ever not been common practice? Even the dead tree versions of newspaper articles often change without notice between various editions or print runs.

Back in the Carter administration, a story went out with the headline, “Mush from the Wimp”. In later editions, it was changed to something banal.

Mac: Bush nevermade it a photo op.Cameras were forbidden.Obama only got one family to agree to a picture, out of 18, I believe it was.Why was he even asking?Can’t he do something as Commander-in-Chief that he should do without getting his picture taken?It is repugnant that he even asked.

Bush was criticized for not changing the policy of not allowing photos, because it was seen as not allowing the press to visually depict the losses of the war. Whether you agree or not, it was for this reason that Obama changed the policy. I don’t think many people believe that he changed it so that he could do photo ops.

Bush, met with every family of a fallen service member and did so without cameras.Has Obama bothered?I don’t know.Have not heard one way or the other.Does anyone know?

Your logic is funny here. You complain about the press covering these types of things, and then you say that you haven’t heard one way or another whether Obama has done it. So you recognize the importance of the government allowing the media to cover things, and also the importance of the media covering this particular thing?

which solemnity is belied by the overt publicity surrounding the event and the anti-war rhetoric of many, many voices in the current administration and in the President’s party

Pro-war rhetoric — particularly involving an attack against the wrong country, or a botched occupation, or a half-baked, seven-year drift in Afghanistan — has little to do with solemnity. If anything, the pro-war voices have been cavalier about death, dismemberment, families stretched to limits, and the other costs of mishandled military action.

Newspapers have changed content between editions for decades, if not centuries.

Kevin: Has it ever not been common practice? Even the dead tree versions of newspaper articles often change without notice between various editions or print runs. Why does this continue to surprise anyone? Should it really bother you?

That perhaps explains why it’s commonly done, but it doesn’t excuse it. When a dead-tree newspaper put out a new edition, the old one didn’t suddenly disappear, but that’s what happens with online newspapers, unless somebody just happens to preserve a copy. There’s no good reason that I can think of why online media shouldn’t archive all previous versions of an article, available from the article’s page. Wikipedia does that now.

If you think of the NYT as a news website, revisions without comment may seem irresponsible, but they most likely think of themselves as a newspaper with a web site, which makes revisions before going to print seem perfectly reasonable.

I don’t have any right to expect honesty from the media, why should I expect self-consistency?

It’s a tempest in an inkwell.

As to the thread, it seems they should acknowledge the change and explain why it happened. It leads to suspicion that the White House or someone else with an agenda was involved to change the story to cast Obama in a more favorable light. With this White House, one wonders if they threatened the NY Times with being “cut off” and “punished” like Fox News?

And the CAMERAS! my God, it’s like they are just following the President around, and his every word, event, utterance, signature, decision, pretzel, and hot dog are all of some interest to the 300 million people he leads…

2 : to produce or cause to happen for public view or public effect

The only part that you’ve argued is “staged” is the President’s attendance.

I would have the press be made aware of it, down to having them watch the President’s salute to the coffins, so it could be reported that for the first time, a President had attended the Dover ceremonies of returning war dead. I would have photographs and video recording of the event taken, to use later in political circumstances, effectively using dead US servicemen as props for the President. I would publicize the President’s visit heavily, to present the appearance of solemn recognition of the war dead, which solemnity is belied by the overt publicity surrounding the event and the anti-war rhetoric of many, many voices in the current administration and in the President’s party.

Too bad none of that would change the actual event.

I would have the press be made aware of it, down to having them watch the President’s salute to the coffins, so it could be reported that for the first time, a President had attended the Dover ceremonies of returning war dead. I would have photographs and video recording of the event taken, to use later in political circumstances, effectively using dead US servicemen as props for the President. I would publicize the President’s visit heavily, to present the appearance of solemn recognition of the war dead, which solemnity is belied by the overt publicity surrounding the event and the anti-war rhetoric of many, many voices in the current administration and in the President’s party.

Any more questions?

Is this now common practice?

Has it ever not been common practice? Even the dead tree versions of newspaper articles often change without notice between various editions or print runs. Why does this continue to surprise anyone? Should it really bother you?