On Friday, the Washington Post ran this story about Gov. Sarah Palin's speech before a brigade of soldiers bound for Iraq -- at least, that link is to the story that is on the Post's web page. But this is not the story as it originally appeared. As Bill Kristol notes here, the second paragraph of the story was rewritten -- and an entire sentence replaced -- to fix a gross error that dramatically distorted what Palin had said. Most egregiously, there is no indication on the web-version of the story that it was corrected, not even a note at the end of the piece. Whatever one thinks of the Post's reporting here, it should at least acknowledge that it changed the story's text to fix an error. If we bloggers are expected to disclose substantive revisions to our blog posts, shouldn't the MSM be held to the same standard?
The Post Gets a Rewrite (But Doesn't Tell Its Readers):
The Post was on a roll yesterday. Kurtz's Media Notes column praised Gisbon for pressing on the 'task from God' comment, failing to note that Gibson was misquoting her. They never even ran a correction, although Kurtz did mock Fox News for objecting to the misquotation, without explaining that she had been misquoted.
They're going to Iraq. Iraq was not at all responsible for 9/11. The current administration doesn't even say this stuff any more.
I know you are being deliberately obtuse, but al-Qaeda went into Iraq after we did and caused a lot of the mahem there. You knew that, I'm sure, but wanted to make your talking point.
Really, there is a reason that a lot of people think that Iraq played a significant role in the 9/11 attacks. Stuff like this definitely reinforces the connection.
I think a better description of what happened is that a group calling itself "Al Qaeda in Iraq" formed from the ashes of the country after our invasion. The conservative version where Al Qaeda is some sort of McDonald's-like corporation that seeds franchises all over the world reminds me of a recent Onion column in which Al Qaeda's corporate headquarters is fretting over the Baghdad franchises mysterious and unpopular campaign. Al Qaeda Corporate is so worried that it threatens to audit the local Iraq branch.
It actually formed from non-Iraqi Arabs who were not part of the ashes. They refer to themselves as the Mujahadin.
Since al-Qaeda in Iraq has pledged itself to the larger al-Qaeda organization, it is a bit more than saying that al-Qaeda in Iraq "formed from the ashes" as if it were completely homegrown, homogenious group with no ties at all to al-Qaeda.
I would also note that Gov. Palin made her comments on September 11. Thus, her comments to the troops reminding them of what happened on 9/11/01, even as they were heading for Iraq and not Afghanistan, seem appropriate.
They are Pravda.
So, as I see it, it was foreseeable consequence of the invasion that al Qaeda was going to be freed in Iraq to carry out attacks in ways they could NOT do before the attack. As a foreseeable consequence the Bush administration is partially responsible for the attacks. So at best Palin can argue that more troops are being sent to Iraq to try and undo some of the damage caused by our intervention. Of course their presence there creates other problems but that is expected from government. Intervention in foreign affairs, like that in economics, always leads to unintended consequences which require yet further interventions and so the cycle the goes.
The MSM? Next you will be expecting them to "tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth."
In any case, the biggest dishonesty here by the Post is to fail to note that this was not a policy address or a press conference with the media, but a ceremony for departing troops. The claim, "You're going to Iraq which is the wrong war which was based on lies and deception by Bush and doesn't have anything to do with national security and in fact is probably making us less safe, and is pointless," even if it were true, would not have been appropriate.
Neither Bill Kristol nor anyone else here disputes that Palin told an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans." This transparently resurrects the discredited Bush administration lie that there was a connection between Iraq and the attacks of September 11, 2001.
No, I hear defenders of Palin say. She didn't mean that Iraq was responsible for 9/11, she meant that Al Qaeda in Iraq is associated with Al Qaeda, which was behind the attacks of 9/11.
I don't think so. I think Palin was trying to conflate Iraq with 9/11, because otherwise there would be no reason for the United States to have embarked on this fool's errand.
There was no Al Qaeda and no Al Qaeda in Iraq until the Bush administration stirred up the hornet's nest in America's greatest international blunder in a generation or more. So even if Palin was talking about Al Qaeda in Iraq, she's talking about a consequence of something that she's gung-ho for. She's using the Bush administration's SNAFU as an excuse for more of the same.
Both the original and the modified Washington Post articles were entirely true and correct. It was not a correction, but a decision to spotlight different facts. As it was not a correction, no correction notice was called for.
Please explain why FDR attached the French in North Africa as his first move in the European theater in WWII.
That would be keen.
Somehow, I don't think the proponents of the FD expect it to work like that.
So your theory is that our soldiers are currently fighting Iraq? I thought that part was over with the whole Curious George flies an Airplane thing. Whether you agree that they should be there or not (I'd rather they hadn't been sent there in the first place, given a President who hemorrhages cash like the trust-funder he is), to claim that they are not fighting violent Muslim terrorists (with the Al Qaeda brand foremost among them, until we - the forces on the democracy side - captured most of their market share) is at odds with the facts on the ground.
The failures in basic logic and grasp of facts among Palin's critics makes me wonder about their qualifications...
Can't it be homegrown and tied to Al Qaeda? I honestly don't know what the exact connection is between AQI and Al Qaeda. They share similar goals and a similar name. Is there a lot of back and forth collaboration? Hard to say. My guess is not, simply because there is no need for there to be any. Still, it is not at all difficult to figure out why people believe Iraq was responsible for 9/11. Palin's comments could, if you did not know the entire history of the conflict, lead one to that conclusion.
And there you go. The Post knows full well how to post a correction - when it WANTS to acknowledge it has changed something.
By NOT following its usual procedure, WaPo is lying to its readers. It is portraying the article as if it were the original article, and unchanged since its posting.
The "why" of this is no doubt well apparent to most Volokh readers.
Has it occurred to ANY of the MSM, or the thousands of Obama Backers and Palin haters, that what she was referring to was:
"You'll be there to defend the innocent [Iraqi civilians] from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the deaths of thousands of Americans [i.e., the thousands of American Troops who have died in Iraq at the hands of Al Quaeda-Iraq militants and terrorists]," Palin told the departing soldiers.
In just what way is that either stupid or inaccurate, or a political gaffe?
It's an intentionally deceptive strategy. They count on people skimming headlines, but not bothering to read through entire articles.
Would the Fairness Doctrine require ABC to run the entire interview, including the parts they edited out?
That would be keen.
They could just make the whole thing available for download and/or streaming. Ideally it would be better than their fiasco of Olympic coverage, but it would be a start.
The way to deal with things like this is to highlight the reporters' names, something this post doesn't do. And, leave comments on their posts calling them on their reporting when possible. And, write to the paper, in this case it's: ombudsman *at* washpost.com
But the short answer to your one and only question is that it makes little sense to simply assume that the MSM, whatever that actually is, should be held to the same standards as the blogosphere, and vice versa. As much as bloggers like to belittle them, and as true as it is that they are hardly perfect error-correction devices, a gauntlet of reporting and editing requirements face journalists in any news organization of any decent size, and that most certainly includes the Post. That includes the quite stringent educational and experiential requirements involved in getting a post at a choice paper, the various reportorial norms that apply, and most certainly -- and at times painfully in my experience -- a series of editors, all of whom ask probing questions about the piece and often force rewriting and rereporting. All of these are very lightly, but genuinely, backed up by a legal standard of actual malice that, while intended to give the press breathing room, also in effect reinforces and enforces a broad norm of non-negligent professionalism. The very reason good bloggers have come to develop a norm of real-time correction and commentary is that it serves as a substitute for these myriad (and expensive and time-consuming) professional constraints on journalism.
None of this, I should add against the nay-sayers, is intended to absolve the Post in this or any other instance. I wouldn't want to idealize the press any more than I would want to demonize it, although the latter seems to be a popular hobby online. The same goes for the blogosphere, to which I am a happy contributor despite its own manifest flaws. Perhaps we should demand even higher standards from both institutions. The point is that the standards that develop around each institution should reflect the needs, concerns, practices, and capabilities of the institution involved; they shouldn't, and needn't be expected to, simply ape each other.
Wouldn't it be interesting if campaigns took control of the actual videography of interviews? Say they call on a third-party interviewer--perhaps a journalist, but maybe even a blogger or professor (!)--come and talk to their candidate. How hard would it be to have the campaign tape the thing and have the campaign put the thing on their web site? Hopefully some agreement would be reached where the video would need to be posted in its entirety so that no one could accuse anyone of selective editing.
Palin sometimes leaves us guessing. One thing that is reasonably clear, however, is that while AQI may be dangerous, it is not responsible for thousands of deaths of American troops. It was not until October of 2004 that Zarqawi pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda, thus beginning the AQI period. Even after that, Shiite extremist groups carried out the bulk of attacks against US forces. No one knows exactly how many US soldiers AQI has killed, but given that it is but one Sunni group and that the Shiite groups are responsible for most casualties, the figure is almost certainly less than a thousand. It is also a relatively small group, with perhaps 1000 members. Nothing that we know about it indicates that it has ever been capable of killing large number of US soldiers.
But...consider this is a form of war. The press wants to do its best to elect a Dem. All's fair. We need to keep that in mind.
Geez. Who knew?
"The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party - and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume V, "Meditation on the Divine Will" (September 2, 1862?), pp. 403-404.
"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless." Lincoln's Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.
"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Letter To Henry L. Pierce and Others" (April 6, 1859), p. 376.
"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless." Lincoln's Second Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.
"...that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863.
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." Lincoln's Second
Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.
"Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes." Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, March 4, 1865.
As most people know, the U S has suffered more than four thousand deaths in Iraq, including over 3200 combat fatalities since GWB had that "Mission accomplished" thing. Palins's statement makes perfect sense for members of the armed forces going to Iraq. I see no effort by Palin to link the "thousands of deaths" to any single group, ethnicity, religious sect or otherwise. She does not seem reluctant to speak her mind, and presumably, had she wanted to link Iraq and 9-11, that's what she would have said.
Claiming she linked 9-11 to Iraq is dishonest, and a reach of logic. It's just another lying attempt to make Palin look like a MSM journalist in her personal veracity.
The Washington Post is not exactly a bastion of political impartiality, with a newsroom that scrupulously avoids any sign of liberal pandering or republican bashing. They've been on the New York Times plan for some time.
"Report: Aides Incorrectly Claimed Palin Traveled Into Iraq", FOXNews.com, September 13, 2008
Call fire control:
Chris Freiberg, "Campaign downplays Palin's Iraq war remarks", Fairbanks News Miner, September 13, 2008
One other bit of continued silliness - that "mission accomplished" banner. Those banners are commonly displayed on Navy ships returning from deployment. While Bush's handlers erred in allowing himself to be photographed with the banner, there are a variety of similar displays seen on Navy ships on their way home.
This would be a sensible interpretation were it not for the surrounding context. Earlier in the speech, Palin speaks of the conflict as one that "began seven years." That is obviously a reference to September 11, 2001. After the quotation in question, Palin said, "You will be there because America can never go back to that false sense of security that came before September 11, 2001." I think that stands for itself. That is what she said.
Gotcha!
Let's have her words. You are making shit up.
Let's have her words. You are making shit up.
"That includes the quite stringent educational and experiential requirements involved in getting a post at a choice paper"
I think part of the goal bloggers have in highlighting these errors is to goad papers into drawing on a wider breadth of experience, and, yes, education, in selecting future journalists to make them better able to catch these ideology-driven mistakes.
Ummm... you are being held to the same standard. If you fail to follow this protocol, you will get angry blog posts and comments directed at you. That's what happened here. What's the problem?
It's not like you're legally required, as a blogger, to disclose corrections.
The layers of hard-eyed fact checkers don't seem to stop the practice of making stuff up.
I notice the McCain campaign "making stuff up," and then what they make up is promulgated by Byron York and Jim Lindgren, and then the "hard-eyed fact checkers" around here make the sound of crickets when this is pointed out. I wonder why that is.
It seems to me that she is talking about a general "War on Terror", not trying to link 9-11 and Saddam Hussein. It's a pep talk for soldiers heading to war, not some well-choreographed poliicy speech. She has been pretty forthcoming about her thoughts thus far, which, in part, is responsible for her popularity. Baldly stating she made the link is really dishonest and misrepresentative of her remarks on the part of MSNBC.
Given all the back-and-forth on this exact question from both sides- for years now, do you think she would really assert such a thing? Disagree with her politics and her positions all you like. But MSNBC didn't really need to be so disingenuous - except that perhaps they don't want to admit to their bias.
Nice try. But it wasn't bloggers who faked up TANG documents, nor a nonexistent affair between McCain and a lobbyist. Nor a fake koran-desecration story.
Do you really want to play this game? It was Power Line who came up with the idea that the famous Schiavo memo was written by Democrats.
You should tell us how you know it's "nonexistent." All we know is that NYT wrote about it, and then McCain issued a denial, and then everyone dropped the story. This is how many times Iseman was interviewed: zero. That darn liberal media.
I also notice that your idea of dealing with the false statement I highlighted is to change the subject.
Well, it is utterly true that they are fighting Iraqis. The Iraqi insurgency has always been almost entirely home-grown, foreign fighters never made up more than about 5% of it.
The Iraqi insurgents are patriots fighting to free their country from a foreign invading and occupying force. I suspect that many of the "patriot" blowhards here would claim to do the same thing if their country was invaded, occupied and then ruled by a puppet government.
It is amusing that whenever the American government labels one of its evil acts as "noble", the American public basically swallows the lie whole.
I'm sure they're striking a great blow against the U.S. by car bombing shopping Iraqis. Such patriotism!
You forgot the Hitler linkage.
Your point is, I see, that if a blogger is caught cheating, that means the MSM doesn't cheat.
That won't fly.
It wasn't "thinly sourced." A former top McCain campaign official viewed the Iseman situation as "alarming." (That was reported by NRO back at a time when the GOP still had some hope of nominating someone other than McCain.)
Nice job with the straw man. No, McCain is not required to prove a negative. The problem is that his denial was enough to get the media to abandon the story, even though they had done almost no investigating. For example, Iseman was never interviewed. That darn liberal media gave McCain a free pass.
Another nice little straw man. I never claim MSM is perfect. You were the one who suggested that bloggers always get it right ("it wasn't bloggers who faked up TANG documents"). Trouble is, they don't.
I still don't see even of a pretense of a defense for the false statement that was issued by the McCain campaign.
Do you post all these links figuring people will assume they support your claims and nobody will look at them and see that you're lying?
The NYT article specifically says that Iseman said that there was no affair, and it contains at least one direct quote from her discussing some of the allegations in the story.
There is no evidence that the media "abandoned the story" based on "his denial" rather than based on the fact that they looked and found no story to report.
I didn't say that Weaver claimed there was an affair. I said that Weaver was alarmed about "the Iseman situation." Specifically, Weaver and others were concerned about the apparent closeness between McCain and Iseman. Given McCain's history of infidelity, it's reasonable to raise that question.
I'll say it again: Iseman was never interviewed. The quote you're talking about came from an email she sent. Getting an email is not the same thing as conducting an interview.
Given that Iseman was never interviewed, it's apparent that they didn't look very hard.
Newsweek admitted their source was one person who claimed to have seen a draft of a report.
They've spiked better sourced stories than that.
The original "Bush Doctrine" was that we were at war not only with al Qaeda itself, but with any terrorist group linked to it, and with any state that allies itself with that terrorist network. To the best of my knowledge it has never been suggested, by anyone, that the Taliban had any connection to the 11-Sep-2001 attacks; and yet they were our first target, because they were openly allied with and sheltering al Qaeda. Iraq's connections with the international terrorist network is beyond doubt; the only doubt is about the precise extent of its relations with al Qaeda in particular. Iraq's connection with the WTC need be no closer than that of Morocco with Pearl Harbour.
What's more, even so tenuous a connection isn't necessary for the present purpose: even if Saddam Hussein had had no connection, however indirect, to the 2001 attacks, the Iraqi front is still part of the same war. Iceland had no connection at all to Pearl Harbour, but our invasion and occupation was part of WW2, not a separate war. The fact was that with the changed situation in the region it was inconceivable that could continue the containment-and-sanctions regime of the '90s. Something had to be done about Iraq, even disregarding its terrorist connections.
And of course, as others have pointed out, none of this is relevant to the mission today in Iraq. The troops Palin was addressing are not going to fight against Iraq but for it. Whatever Iraq may have done in 2001, it is now an ally (just as Italy was in 1944 and '45). And the people they will be fighting are al Qaeda and its allies, i.e. the same group that was responsible for the 2001 attacks. Thus, Palin's remarks were perfectly correct even without regard to any of the above.
On the contrary, there has been a steady campaign by the MSM to confuse the issue, by treating statements linking Iraq with al Qaeda as if they were claims of a direct Iraqi involvement in those specific attacks. Nobody in the Administration has ever suggested such a thing. There's good reason to believe that
False as a JBG post. One can conduct an interview via email. Journalists do it all the time. It's generally not the preferred option, because it doesn't allow for as free a flow of communication, but it's often the only one that sources will allow.