Technology writer Michael Malone thinks media bias is at an all time high. In his view, it is so bad that he is "ashamed" to call himself a journalist anymore.
The sheer bias in the print and television coverage of this election campaign is not just bewildering, but appalling. And over the last few months I've found myself slowly moving from shaking my head at the obvious one-sided reporting, to actually shouting at the screen of my television and my laptop computer.Malone blames media editors more than reporters for biased campaign coverage. He writes: "most reporters, whatever their political bias, are human torpedoes & and, had they been unleashed, would have raced in and roughed up the Obama campaign as much as they did McCain's." To him, it's the people who call the shots -- who decide what stories to assign -- who are the real culprits.But worst of all, for the last couple weeks, I've begun -- for the first time in my adult life -- to be embarrassed to admit what I do for a living. A few days ago, when asked by a new acquaintance what I did for a living, I replied that I was "a writer," because I couldn't bring myself to admit to a stranger that I'm a journalist. . . .
For many years, spotting bias in reporting was a little parlor game of mine, watching TV news or reading a newspaper article and spotting how the reporter had inserted, often unconsciously, his or her own preconceptions. But I always wrote it off as bad judgment and lack of professionalism, rather than bad faith and conscious advocacy.
Sure, being a child of the '60s I saw a lot of subjective "New" Journalism, and did a fair amount of it myself, but that kind of writing, like columns and editorials, was supposed to be segregated from "real" reporting, and, at least in mainstream media, usually was. The same was true for the emerging blogosphere, which by its very nature was opinionated and biased. . . .
I watched with disbelief as the nation's leading newspapers, many of whom I'd written for in the past, slowly let opinion pieces creep into the news section, and from there onto the front page. Personal opinions and comments that, had they appeared in my stories in 1979, would have gotten my butt kicked by the nearest copy editor, were now standard operating procedure at the New York Times, the Washington Post, and soon after in almost every small town paper in the U.S.
But what really shattered my faith -- and I know the day and place where it happened -- was the war in Lebanon three summers ago. The hotel I was staying at in Windhoek, Namibia, only carried CNN, a network I'd already learned to approach with skepticism. But this was CNN International, which is even worse.
I sat there, first with my jaw hanging down, then actually shouting at the TV, as one field reporter after another reported the carnage of the Israeli attacks on Beirut, with almost no corresponding coverage of the Hezbollah missiles raining down on northern Israel. The reporting was so utterly and shamelessly biased that I sat there for hours watching, assuming that eventually CNNi would get around to telling the rest of the story & but it never happened.
But nothing, nothing I've seen has matched the media bias on display in the current presidential campaign.
Malone also argues that media bias is potentially "dangerous" for the media itself both because it alienates the public and because it risks the imposition of government regulation of media content, such as through the "fairness doctrine." I think the former threat is real, and I think media bias hurts the bottom line of traditional media outlets. But I am not sure the "fairness doctrine" is as much of a threat to the mainstream media as Malone suggests (though it's a real threat to talk radio and the blogosphere). I also suspect (hope) that were the doctrine ever reenacted, it would not survive constitutional challenge.
What it would also not do is fix the problem: reporters can't investigate Obama from Alaska, and if the management sends all their reporters to Alaska, then the very best the doctrine might achieve is to allow the opposition to have a spokesman respond to each of the Potemkin stories, where they will proceed to be grilled by news hosts with great hair, under whatever interview conditions the news hosts choose.
Its like telling victims of media bias that they are allowed to stop acid rain by catching each individual drop with their bare hands.
.
The media would have you draw a link between constitutional "freedom of the press" and "duty and ability to tell the truth." That is a foundational, self-serving lie. It's purpose is two fold, to legitimize the media as an institution; and to inject a false belief that the media is truthful. It's up to the public to find truth, in spite of being surrounded by an immersed in messages that amount to advertising.
The fringes of both sides call the other side "evil" rather than seek any truly meaningful dialogue. And categorical statements like "that's how the other side thinks" (or with the "seems to" weasel-words) aren't really that much better.
Many do.
But the big difference is that they tend to be the ones further out on the edge, while the mainstream leftists tend to the "Republicans are evil" style. While you can always find a wacko fringe Republican site with the latest "Dems r Eeevul" theories, the mainstream Democrat sites are the ones carrying the newest "BushHalluburtonRovian" stories, with a side order of Palinoia.
I know far too many people who characterize themselves as "centrist Democrats" who are never more than a moment away from some of the most insane conspiracy theories about how the GOP is responsible for, well EVERYTHING that's wrong with the world. These aren't the fringe - these are the "middle of the road" ones.
As to Ayers and Rezko, again, if such interviews could be gotten, don't you think some right-wing outlet would have published them? Apparently, Malone is unaware that to interview someone, the interviewee must cooperate.
For Palin, as unprepared as she was, even questions like "Explain why the American people should support the bailout" were considered "gotcha" questions by Republicans!
The media has not been tough on McCain's past at all.
.
Even if they don't, the media have created an incredible power to do harm, and the public has grown to expect the impossible, because the media has advertised its objective as being some sort of straight thinking entity. The objective of the media is NOT to impart an accurate understanding of "how the world works," or of objective reality. The media are professional agitators, enabled by a gullible public.
.
The listener is supposed to THINK. The outcome of belief that the media aims to be truthful is that the listener will trust the media to report objective reality. Blind trust opens readers to gross and rank manipulation.
.
That so many people believe the media is supposed to be accurate is testimony to the media's persistent self-promotion as being a purveyor of truth, champion of accuracy, and effective bastion against encroachment of government on individual liberty.
.
But media is comprised largely of people who fancy themselves elite and educated. They look down on the public - and deservedly so, because they can see they are able to FORM and TRANSFORM public thought via rank manipulation, regardless of the truth or falsehood of what is reported.
.
The problem isn't as much the media, it's like the scorpion or the snake. The media does what it's designed to do - manipulate. The root problem is the people, in that they have developed an unreasonable and unhealthy trust or expectation (or desire) to have a trustworthy media. That's wrong on the part of the public.
That said, the media has totally dropped the ball on such thigns as Obama's nonsensical tax plan and his dodgy donation system, all of which would've been pounded had McCain been the one at fault.
Are you claiming there is no such thing as a negative interview, then? Since no one has to cooperate.
The way such things work is that the target is told something along the lines of "We are going to write about you. You can cooperate and give us your side of the story, or we can write the story anyway and your side of the story will consist of 'when contacted, party refused to comment'".
That threat doesn't work when it isn't issued by the MSM, as its impact is directly proportional to how widely the message will spread. With its incestuous network of buddy-referencing newspapers and TV networks, MSM stories can reach far indeed.
So there are indeed interviews that only the MSM can get... and refuses to try, because they don't want certain things said.
In the current Supreme Court, it would likely fail. Who's to say what would happen to it in the Court as it will be composed in three years?
True, but the interviewee still must give answers. Rezko has been in plenty of legal trouble, and still is. Do you think his lawyer would consent to him giving an interview? He would have to be crazy. I don't think much worse could be written about Ayers than what already has, so I don't that he's going to knuckle under to that kind of pressure. Surely you aware of the attempt by Fox News to get him to answer some questions?
Lastly, do you include Fox as part of the MSM? If so, then why haven't they published such interviews?
By the way, note that I'm not offering any opinion as to whether or not the media is biased. I'm simply pointing out that these examples given by Malone are not very convincing.
I'm surprised Malone, who spends several paragraphs telling us what a great journalist he is, didn't see this Tribune piece which got much play on the Internets.
I love this.
Why do these discussions about media bias so often exclude Fox News, which is the most blatantly-biased entity of its (considerable) size?
I can't count the number of times I've seen on TV or in print journalists explaining the tax policies of McCain and Obama and framing them as "he said, she said" stories. When McCain accuses Obama of wanting to raise taxes on the middle class, the response is rarely "Obama proposes to increase capital gains taxes from 10% to 15% which will affect all Americans who own taxable investments. Households making over $100,000 will have to pay Social Security tax on all their taxable earnings and people in the top tax bracket will have their marginal tax rates go from 35% to 39.6%." Instead, the response is "The Obama campaign denies it will raise taxes on the middle class" -- a completely vacuous and uninformative statement.
Additionally, journalists play along with campaign self-narratives by painting McCain as the straight-shooting maverick as often as they paint Obama as the bold agent of change. Despite all the claims about how journalists are biased against McCain, it was he who several years ago threw a birthday party at an upscale restaurant in Manhattan and had much of the journalism elite present. It's tough to think of a Republican within recent memory who has a friendlier relationship with journalists.
I didn't exclude them, but they are new compared to the other networks AND they are outnumbered 3 to 1, AND they are dependent on a liberal newsfeed to survive.
You can't really call them "new" anymore, and they have a huge viewership.
As for their being "outnumbered", it's ridiculous to accuse the other three networks of being liberally biased in the same fashion that Fox News is biased.
Can you show me examples of memos from the management of the other three networks, wherein management explicitly instructs its news people to push a conservative agenda?
Example of Fox News memos:
There's also the laziness of journalists' basically regurgitating press releases from certain groups. Locally, I get the Albany, NY television channels, and it's shocking how many times a group like NYPIRG gives a press conference and the local stations dutifully report it uncritically. The reports usually begin with something like, "A consumer groups says XYZ" -- or worse, a formulation like "XYZ. That's the claim or a consumer group..." Any time I hear the phrase "consumer advocate", my immediate thought is "government advocate".
The foreign media are no better in my opinion (I listen to shortwave radio, although increasingly here in North America, the international broadcasters left are from the smaller countries and only report on their own domestic affairs). It seems as though any time certain advocacy groups release a report, it'll make the bulletins at the top of the hour. Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are two of the groups I'm thinking of, although it happens in other areas as well, with groups like Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders showing up a lot.
There's also "public health" as a source of seeing the usual suspects.
Oh, right. And how much "carnage" did that "rain" of missiles cause, compared to what Israel did in Beirut?
44 dead Israeli civilians vs. 1,191 Lebanese civilians killed? Hm, let me see ... where's the weight of the news coverage gonna fall.
In other examples of bias, German civilian casualties during WW2 continue to receive less attention than the Holocaust, and the number of whites killed by Native Americans receives short shrift compared to the Trail of Tears.
Wotta putz.
.
There was no ethical justification for giving Joe the person a public anal exam. The "spread the wealth" myth can be punctured without that.
.
That you defend the gleeful airing of aspects of his personal life is a reflection of you, and it's an ugly reflection.
That's true. They are far more biased.
Of course, all right-minded people know that Glenn Reynolds regularly invents fictitious emails from random people and posts it as gospel truth.
Unless you think several justices are going to be impeached or assassinated, the ideological composition of the Supreme Court in 3 years will be virtually identical to what it is today since all the justices likely to retire in the next four years are also the most liberal.
This is your evidence? An email from some anonymous person to Instapundit? You can't be serious.
.
These discussions don't exclude FoxNews. FoxNews is brought up, if not mentioned as part of the subject.
.
But the presence of FoxNews doesn't magically inject accuracy or honesty into other reports. IOW, "they all lie," while true, is not equivalent to, e.g., "the critic is wrong, and CNN reporting in that instance was neutral."
Well it certainly was excluded from this discussion (until I brought it up).
That's right, comrade. As an Enemy of the State, he is obviously adept at making things up. That's why he's been caught at it more than Dan Rather has been. Oh wait...
Free Hint: NONE of the networks were named.
Huh? Are you reading the same post I am -- the one talking about CNN and CNN International (in addition to the New York Times and the Washington Post)?
.
CNN and CNNi were specifically mentioned, including citing a specific incident and the reporting thereon.
.
Still, Mahan Atma's defense is tired, "they all do it, ignore the one you pointed to, and look at the crap I dug up." If you look a the crap Mahan Atma dug up, you'll almost certainly find that he is deliberately misrepresenting the truth.
Not quite what I said, is it.
Hey, don't trust me, you can see a xeroz of the Fox News memo right here. It's right there in black and white, and I quoted it word for word. Read it for yourself and please explain how I "misrepresented the truth".
Excerpts:
* "Just because Dems won, the war on terror isn't over."
* On President Bush: "His political courage and tactical cunning ar[e] [wo]rth noting in our reporting through the day." (6/03/03)
* On the 9/11 Commission: "Do not turn this into Watergate. Remember the fleeting sense of national unity that emerged from this tragedy. Let's not desecrate that." (3/23/04)
* On the war in Iraq: "Do not fall into the easy trap of mourning the loss of US lives and asking out loud why are we there? The US is in Iraq to help a country brutalized for 30 years protect the gains made by Operation Iraqi Freedom and set it on the path to democracy. Some people in Iraq don't want that to happen. That is why American GIs are dying. And what we should remind our viewers."
.
It was a very fair paraphrase. The article laments CNN and CNNi bias, and points to WaPo and NYT as promoting opinion as news. You inject, "Hey, FoxNews is biased, look at this!" That's a perfect exhibit of "ignore the instance the author of the article described, and look at the crap I dug up."
.
-- Hey, don't trust me --
.
I don't.
.
-- Read it for yourself and please explain how I "misrepresented the truth". --
.
I suggested other people read the source for themselves. Maybe you've presented it fairly, maybe not. My personal experience in fact checking you for honest representation scores you a ZERO. Others mileage will certainly vary. You shouldn't have hurt feelings based on absence of trust. Hell, I'm here preaching not to trust any of the media, and here, you're just another media hack.
Will they do better reporting after the election?
My gut tells me that after the battle, things may return to some sembleance of the invetigative journalistic ideals taught at schools.
The next question is if the public will trust them?
I for one am hesitant to trust anything I get from the MSM.
No, you "suggested" that I was "deliberately misrepresenting the truth". I posted a link to the actual memo, from which I quoted verbatim. Please show me where I misrepresented anything at all.
It's even probably true that the "MSM" is more favorable to Obama this year than to McCain. But Fox News, which has sounded like an extended McCain campaign commercial for several weeks, is more biased than its competitors by orders of magnitude.
Finally, there's no way that this year's media coverage is anywhere near as biased as that of the 2000 election, where the "liberal MSM" fabricated stories about Gore supposedly lying and otherwise made him out to be a fool. That press coverage almost certainly changed the election results. Just take a look through the archives of The Daily Howler. (I don't know how to "link.") (By the way, I voted for Bush in 2000, so this isn't a case of sour grapes.)
.
I did both. Here, this will refresh your recollection: "If you look a the crap Mahan Atma dug up, you'll almost certainly find that he is deliberately misrepresenting the truth." That's a suggestion to read the source material, and to be skeptical that it represents what you claim it does. It says what it says. But I reject your contention that what it says is evidence of an unfair bias. Others are free to disagree with my opinion in that regards, but I repeat that as far as I am concerned, you are batting .000 in the honesty department.
Its possible for a newsroom to send as many reporters to investigate Obama/Biden as they do McCain/Palin.
OK...
I don't always read the comments, but I didn't think Anderson was a troll. Did someone else start posting under his name or did he just jump the shark? If I ever post something this stupid, please ban me.
That the LAT is really sitting on a tape of Obama and a couple of prominent Jew-bashers getting really nasty about Jews and Israel, and the LAT refuses to let it out. It surfaces after the election and horrifies a great many people. As many as one or two people who voted for O wish they'd known about it earlier.
Would that damage the credibility of the LAT? Would that damage the credibility of the MSM? (Keep in mind that, although it was CBS which ran the bogus TANG memos in an effort to throw an election, the public is likely to ascribe that mindset to the media in general)
How long does it take to regain trust? What do you have to do?
So what exactly is the "liberal media bias" doing that has hurt GOP presidential candidates? Or is the premise here that Republicans should win every four years?
It's trolling to make a valid but snarky point now? Gee I'm glad I didn't say anything earlier.
The point is pretty clear. The news coverage almost always covers the biggest most newsworthy event.
Most here seem to prefer that the news would forego newsworthyness and focus on their pet cause in a way that benefits them.
So, basically, I am ashamed of this post.
And my next post.
Chris Dodd, sweetheart deals w/Countrywide. Refuses to release records r/t loan. NY Times wrote an op-ed last week. That story dies on the vine.
Dodd smugly sits on his chair and questions CEO's??? Wow...
Schumer bad mouthing Indymac last summer. Bank run. Stock craters. Investors destroyed. Now we find out his largest campaign donor to his committee is looking over the books to find "value" assets if Indy fails??? His buddy was looking things over the same DAY Schumer drops the hammer. This according to WSJ.
Another little move by Ways and Means...calling into question charitable donations and if they reach the level of helping the needy W/M's would like to see??? So now, a party that controls all aspects of the tax code gets to determine what is the proper tax deductable charity for you to support? Wow..
Will Justice investigate any of this?
I really don't care Dem/Repub. These elected officials oversaw this mess. It didn't fall off an orbiting space probe. This is criminal. Lives/fortunes/savings destroyed. Nothing this bad/destructive can happen w/o the direct involvement of our Congress. And now we sit back and give these THIEVES BILLIONS and say "FIX IT" HELLLLOOOOOO
Do people simply look away when it is reps of their own party who are in question? I guess.
What's the saying? "He may be a sonofabitch, but he's my sonofabitch"
.
I don't care which side you're on, that's funny!
.
On your serious point, you are likely able to anticipate my point of view. I think trust in the media is dangerous, and should not exist. Better the entire media be openly partisan, and the public be left to THINK for itself.
This:
Obama is like black Hitler, only instead of killing Jews, he's going to give everyone money he robbed from the middle class using the Government instead of a gun.]
More of a hobgoblin, I like to think.
Ben P however wins my heart with "valid but snarky" -- I may have to get a bumper sticker made up with that.
I wanted to find the old Onion article about 3 Western journalists killed in a north African country, with "Also, 3,000 natives were killed" wrapping up the piece, but I'm having a bad google day it seems.
If a group of 20 terrorists attacked your house and killed one of your children, and you shot back and killed all 20 of them, would that be disproportionate? Or if they were hiding among civilians and in order to protect your family you killed all the terrorists plus, let's say, 5 civilians, would that be disproportionate?
Two observations:
1) All the major television outlets will let either side put its pundits on the air and get the issues they want discussed on television. This appears to be completely irrespective of the relative merit of their contentions.
2) Many newspapers who have consistently endorsed conservative or republican candidates in the past have endorsed Obama in this election. Is that simply more liberal media bias?
Obama received donations from a number of employees, but hardly anything from the company or its PAC(s). Of course, Obama's received lots of donations from lots of companies' employees. I would venture that there are some Wal-Mart employees out there who have donated to him, but that's not at all the same as Wal-Mart donating to him.
How do I know that the 44 Israelis were all civilians? Sheesh.
I am familiar with the various depraved arguments for "collateral damage," whereby we hypothesize good motives for killing 20 or 30 of the [Lebanese Japanese Germans Iraqis "natives"] for every one of the good guys.
But it's pretty obvious to the neutral observer who suffered more in the 2006 war, and it wasn't the Israelis. Who lost anyway, due in part to their tactics, and perhaps moreso to the stunning stupidity of going to war in the first place -- what in god's name did they think they were going to accomplish? Blow up enough of Beirut and Hezbollah will just fade into the background?
Crap like that *strengthens* terrorists. They practically pray for such attacks on the civilian population.
The author whines about no one talking to Obama's drug dealer? Where were the interviews with george Bush's drug dealers? Or alcoholic frat buddies?
No interview with Rezco? In what right mind does this guy think Chicago reporters HAVEN'T been trying to swing that for the last five years. It's not like Tony Rezco is someone new to us in Chicago, just b/c ABC's crack tech reporter just heard the name for the first time 2 months ago.
In fact the US attny in Chicago is talking to Rezco, and IL may lose another governor to Camp Fed in the process. If the press could get in Rezco, they would.
Plus, where has this guy been? Obama sat down with the Chicago Tribune editorial board for hours -- you know, the editorial board that never (EVER) has endorsed a Dem candidate for president. Here's a link to the entire thing (from MARCH 2008): http://www.chicagotribune.com/news /nationworld/chi-080314-obama-audiogallery, 0,1284605.audiogallery (added spaced in the address b/c I can never seem to figure out how to add a link)
Whatever. It's good to see that Barnie Goldberg now has a friend in his self-hating world.
Here is what Power Line said in a post called "Our Own Axis of Evil:"
That is the complete post. How is that different from saying "Dems r Eeevul?" And what do you think of the idea that if you oppose the war, that means you must be either an idiot, a Communist, or a terrorist?
And here is what Power Line said in a post called "The Enemy is Evil:"
Do you see a big difference between saying "Dems r Eeevul," as compared with saying "Dems r complicit in Eeevul?"
One more question: do you think Power Line is "a wacko fringe Republican site?"
Indeed:
Fox has been around for twelve years. They are available to 85 million households. They are "the cable news network with the largest number of regular viewers." They have the power of Murdoch behind them. Treating them as minor, secondary or weak is disingenuous.
Funny you should mention that. See here for a nice example of VC's Lindgren "basically regurgitating" Byron York's regurgitation of what was essentially a verbal press release from the McCain campaign. And never mind that a blatant falsehood was being promoted (see here and here).
Another nice example of NR "basically regurgitating press releases from certain groups" is here. NR was very happy to serve as a promotional vehicle for the complete, unedited AIP press release. Even though it made baseless, irresponsible allegations about "Stalinist, police state tactics."
Not exactly. He just relies on readers like you who are inclined to accept any claim he makes, even when the so-called 'proof' is screamingly flimsy. Like an uncorroborated email from an unnamed, unknown source.
True. He has. Proof of Reynolds' dishonesty is easy to find. Start here and keep clicking.
Good point. And an excellent example is the business about Gore and the internet. Take a look at what Vincent Cerf said:
Compare that with what was said by Dick Armey. And who did 'MSM' parrot? The latter.
You mean like the way NYT agreed to hold the FISA story until after the election, simply because Dubya asked them to?
These days reality is more extreme than satire. Malkin's latest effort to describe the essence of Obama: a graphic of a black figure holding a gun.
Interesting point. Number of large papers (circulation greater than 200,000) that have endorsed Obama: 21. Number that have endorsed McCain: 5. The biggest of those 5? Murdoch's NY Post. Source.
Obviously the press hates America. Even though a lot of those papers usually back the GOP.
Good point. And Palin has admitted drug use. Where are the interviews with her drug dealer?
"Those evil Rethuglicans did it, so we can do whatever the hell we want to Joe the Plumber."
And nice ad hominem attack on Bernard Goldberg (dismissively referred to as "Barnie") who actually wrote a pretty good book on the subject--one I doubt fair-minded Josh ever bothered to read.
Good point. And Palin has admitted drug use. Where are the interviews with her drug dealer?
Good god, she took a tylenol once? Stop the presses!
he's going to give everyone money he robbed from the middle class using the Government instead of a gun.
The Government IS a gun.
I think you should look up the definition of "ad hominem."
And the "Barnie" was a typo. I meant "Bernie," which is what he prefers to be called.
And I've read the book. And I think it's wrong for the same reason the author above is wrong. You can't complaint about "liberal media bias" and use as Exhibit A Joe the Plumber and not consider for your analysis the amount of attention 12-year-old Graeme Frost got for giving the Dem radio address about the SCHIP program.
I mean ... you can. But it wouldn't be an intellectually honest analysis ...
Rather than the snark, can you address the merit? The piece we're all discussing claims that liberal media bias is proven, among other ways, by the media's failure to track down and interview Obama's drug supplier. Can you cite a similar interview with any of George Bush's suppliers and how that affects the claim of liberal media bias?
I didn't realize Bias discussed Joe the Plumber. Is that in the most recent edition?
We know what he was doing at 3 years old, but did we ever hear the real story of what he was doing at 5 &1/2 years??
Who is the real 5 and 1/2 year old Barack Obama?
The MSM sent teams of people to search through dumpsters in Alaska. They haven't made any similar effort to sift through Obama's past. Those numbers don't lie. It was National Review who tried to look through records of Obama's community organizing days.
As I recall, the MSM tried to get a copy of the arrest report and other court records from Bush's drug activity, but they weren't available. Just because they didn't get anything doesn't mean they didn't try. Here, it's clear that no one apart from National Review has examined Obama's close ties to Ayers.
Frankly, when it's only liberals who are defending the MSM against charges of liberal bias, then it only proves the point.
"How do I know that the 44 Israelis were all civilians? Sheesh.
I am familiar with the various depraved arguments for "collateral damage," whereby we hypothesize good motives for killing 20 or 30 of the [Lebanese Japanese Germans Iraqis "natives"] for every one of the good guys.
But it's pretty obvious to the neutral observer who suffered more in the 2006 war, and it wasn't the Israelis. Who lost anyway, due in part to their tactics, and perhaps moreso to the stunning stupidity of going to war in the first place -- what in god's name did they think they were going to accomplish? Blow up enough of Beirut and Hezbollah will just fade into the background?"
Anderson, your arguments are uncharacteristically weak and illogical.
1. Sheesh is not an argument.
2. We do know that the 44 (I am trusting your number here) Israelis killed by terrorist attacks of Hezbollah (all the attacks were terrorist attacks because they were attempts to kill civilians at random) were civilians living in Israel, not soldiers. On the other hand, Hezbollah was living among civilians in Lebanon and we do not know how many of the 1191 (your number again) were civilians and how many were Hezbollah or were working with Hezbollah.
3. Arguments that sometimes you have to risk killing civilians when terrorists are hiding among them are not "arguments for collateral damage" and are certainly not depraved, or not necessarily.
4. Would you be happier if the Israelis had suffered more than the Lebanese, or as much? Would it be better if 1191 Israelis had been killed/
5. Your last too sentences bring up a whole issue that I didn't address and don't intend to address here, namely Israeli motives and strategy, because it is irrelevant to the original discussion.
1) Fox Broadcasting exists, broadcasting its eeeeeeeeevil right wing views, ergo there is no media bias.
2) How can you square eeeevil Fox's once saying something nice about Bush, with their claim to be fair and balanced? You can't, ergo the mass media is not biased. Except for Fox, which is evil, with several e's.
3) There are partisans on the left and right who think the media is biased in the other direction, ergo the mass media is getting it correct, reporting right down the middle. Which is kind of like saying that if one guy says the sun rises in the east, and another says it rises in the west, the answer must be that it rises in the North.
4) Jukebox grad will take issue with this, taking me to task for not mentioning Rush Limbaugh in my disquisition on the multiple-e evilness of conservative-dominated mass media, since Limbaugh's presence disproves the existence of liberal media domination.
See? Teh intarwebs. You can learn a new thing every day.
Aww come on seriously?
I'll say right of the bat that I don't care if either candidate or any candidate used drugs in the past. It's an absolute non issue to me.
But Palin in her own words has said "I can't claim a Bill Clinton and say that I never inhaled."
Of course possession of small amounts of Marijuana has been basically legal in Alaska for more than 30 years. (or was until 2006). So I suppose you could draw a distinction in saying one person used drugs where they were illegal and one person used them where they were half-legal, but given that the de facto state in the rest of the country is that small personal possession is ignored in many cases, that's a somewhat thin distinction.
Yep, the fringe left does think that way, but the mainstream right also does.
You can go to fringe Moveon.org or similar sites to hear all of the "Evil GOP" type conspiracy theories you want, but you only have to look at and listen to mainstream Republican Commentators/writers/pundits to get far more extreme statements about the left.
Simple example: Are you able to find a single best-selling book by a mainstream left commentator that describes all Republicans as Traitors or Godless heathens?
The closest the left can come up with is a extremist Al Franken who calls Repubs and Fox News Liars.
Can you name fringe Liberal pundits that have the appeal and influence of the mainstream Conservatives like Hannity, Coulter, Limbaugh, Boortz, et al?
Or, in the alternative
1. The media is biased.
a. opinion coverage is fundamentally biased, depending on the commentator, and to both sides.
b. the media as a whole is biased toward "newsworthy" events and sensationlist events.
c. The media *generally* tries so hard to avoid bias they fall into blatant reporting of the "he said she said style" without doing extensive research into the veracity of claims because doing so is seen as "bias" by those who's claims are being investigated.
2. In a "he said she said" style of reporting, anyone with strong political views is probably going to fall victim to confirmation bias and is going to think that the coverage is biased for failing to discredit what "the other side" said.
"Extremist" Al Franken is the DFL nominee for U.S. Senator from Minnesota. That he is given a 50:50 chance of winning right now either says a lot about Minnesota Democrats or rebuts your argument that he is a fringe figure.
Did anybody try to see where Obama and Ayers pissed away $150 mill? Have we heard as much about that in column inches as about Palin's per diem issue?
How about Obama's success as a slumlord? "Success" being defined as having a bunch of folks with no options living in unhabitable government buildings.
Have we had as many column inches on that as on Palin's clothing? Or troopergate? Or book non-banning?
Can anybody figure out any way to prove they "tried" and how they were stymied?
Even so, winning an election does not mean that someone is not an extremist. It seems to me, from my left-libertarian front porch, that Franken is not in the mainstream of the Democrats, but that Coulter and her ilk are in the mainstream of the Republicans.
Of course, your mileage may vary.
I love how the left-media's "love" of McCain somehow argues against this. In fact, it proves their bias because the only reason they loved McCain is that he stuck it to his own party so often.
And to respond to those couple of people who use the media's fawning appreciation of John McCain for the past decade or so as proof positive that the media is fair should remember that during most of that time he was praised for being a "maverick" who broke with his party, and it stopped IMMEDIATELY upon his nomination.
Really, and when did a "maiunstream Republican" like Ann Coulter win her party's nomination for dogcatcher, let alone United States Senator?
And when did she get feated with a box seat at a Republican National Convention, like Michael Moore did with the Democrats?
Mileage may vary but your party is the one who celebrates their kooks in very public ways.
I hope someone can show us what Franken said that is the counterpart to Coulter saying this:
In the National Review, no less, arguably the leading conservative journal. And then Coulter is repeatedly invited to CPAC, where she shares a platform with Romney, who has this to say about her (video):
chapman:
Any argument that ignores the way she is welcomed at CPAC, by someone like Romney, is doomed to fail from the start.
dave:
Please show us what Franken said that is the counterpart to the Coulter quote I cited above.
How is Franken outside the Democratic mainstream?
Franken can be an obnoxious jackass. But that's hardly unique among politicians from either party. In terms of actual policy views, he seems like someone who would be perfectly comfortable in a party lead by a Pelosi-Reid-Obama trio.
And Franken, unlike Coulter, Hannity, Limbaugh, etc... is actually running for office. As "influential" as conservative
entertainersbook writers and radio shock jocks are, nobody entrusts them with actual political power, and all have been on the outs with mainstream Republican party leadership more than once. Can the same be said about Franken with respect to the Democratic party?My party does indeed celebrate our kooks. We even put Bob Barr on the ballot for president. (And yes, I already voted for Barr)
I will grant you Michael Moore - I simply forgot about him, but he is a guy whose extremist views have gotten some mainstream appeal.
None of which changes or rebuts my original thesis, which is that right-extremism is much more in the mainstream than left-extremism. Or do you really think that more people take Moore and Franken seriously than take Limbaugh, Coulter, O'Reilly, Boortz and Hannity seriously?
RE: Media Bias
Various polling agencies and journalistic think tanks have consistently put the MSM in the 75-80% democratic camp. Media bias is often in the eye of the beholder. However, when such a lack of diversity reins in the newsrooms, excuuuse me for noticing a certain skew in the reportage.
I am, by profession, a CPA. Our demographic roughly skews 60-70% republican/libertarian. If the two professions were switched, make no doubt, what got in the nations newspapers and how the exact same factual events were reported, would change significantly.
What you now have ready to replace the dinosaur media model (notice how I colored my argument by using a pejorative synonym for "old") is kind of a flashback to the original yellow sheet journalism. I don't need to tell this crowd the difference in reporting from Townhall and Daily Kos. While I applaud the greater diversity of ideas, I worry about the coming "balkanization" of the first draft of history.
Gee, wouldn't a great business model be the complete and dispassionate reporting of objective facts, along with diverse analysis in a historical, economic or social context?
Mr. Chapman, as we recently learned from the NYT Mag article, Steve Schmidt insisted on cutting the media's relatively free access to McCain.
That, not the nomination, was the decisive point. Reporters love access, and McCain was good at hanging out with reporters.
Schmidt, being a Bushie who actually believed his own anti-media propaganda, threw away one of McCain's strengths. No longer cuddled up with McCain, the media slowly lost its affection for him ... particularly as the move coincided with McCain's ridiculous attack ads.
Not like I care either way... I hate McCain, but I don't believe in coincidences like that.
And Jukebox: First, Thanks for trying to post without making 7 comments in a row. Second, remember that NR fired Coulter, which would seem to indicate she's too extreme for an admittedly right-wing publication. Still want to keep fighting for her?
.
There isn't enough money in it. Plus, thinking about it, anything that is touted as being dispassionate reporting of objective facts is going to be ridiculed by the Democrats. That is, it's impossible to produce a writing that people will agree is a dispassionate reporting of objective facts.
.
There's much more money in being partisan and entertaining; and the cost of goods is low because one can just make up shit instead of undertaking the chore of research and analysis.
.
I don't care who you are, that's funny too.
Near as I can guess, however, McCain's problem was that he was surrounded by ex-Bush people and their ilk ... "movement" GOPers with no grasp whatsoever upon the middle ground.
So instead of tacking to the center, we got the fantasy that McCain needed to reassure the base ... as if they were going to vote Dem, or stay home while the Scary Hussein Oh Noes! was on the ballot. Which led to Palin, most egregiously. And alienated the media big-time.
Well, that would require some common ground between the two (?) Americas, some undisputed premises on which to base the analysis. I'm not sure if in the present socio-political climate such common ground can be found. After all:
2. In a "he said she said" style of reporting, anyone with strong political views is probably going to fall victim to confirmation bias and is going to think that the coverage is biased for failing to discredit what "the other side" said.
And I had planned on voting for Hillary over McCain for what it's worth. I'll hold my nose and vote for him over Obama, though.
The media dislikes extremes, right or left. Obama has run to the center, which is why he is poised to win the election.
Thanks for not answering my question (which said nothing about the contents of BIAS with respect to the Joe the Plumber v. Graeme Frost issue). Hey, but you raised the liberal media's biased approach to Joe the P, so I can see why the contents of Bernie Goldberg's book would be a good deflection.
As to the notion that "no one apart from National Review has examined Obama's close ties to Ayers," I suggest you do a google of this site with the terms "____ Derangement Syndrom." And I say that not under your modified "ad hominem" definition, but to honestly point out the fact that no matter how much is written, how long the "close ties" are examined, you will never, ever be satisfied. No matter what facts you are faced with, your conclusion will be the same. Take a look. It's a good read.
RichardAubrey:
Sort of the same response. "I would be interested in the concept of "we/they tried" speaking of Chicago reporters, to talk to Rezko and so forth." Try the Chicago Tribune archives.
"Did anybody try to see where Obama and Ayers pissed away $150 mill?" Some, but probably not as much as you'd like. But that's probably because the $150 million you copmplain about was directed by a foundation controlled by a wide variety of people including Leonore Annenburg, who donated the max to McCain's campaign.
But, heck, what are facts if they don't fit the meme, right?
The Obama/Ayers "connection:"
Education Weekly's take on the direction of that dastardly $150 million: "The context for the Chicago proposal to the Annenberg Foundation was the 1988 decentralization of the city’s public schools by the Republican-controlled Illinois legislature, a response to frustration over years of teachers’ strikes, low achievement, and bureaucratic failure. ... The proposal was backed by letters of support to the Annenberg Foundation from Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar, a Republican, local education school deans, the superintendent of the Chicago public schools, and the heads of local foundations."
Oh, and among the maoists on Obama's board was Arnold R. Weber, a former president of Northwestern University, who in 1971 was appointed by Republican President Richard Nixon as executive director of the Cost of Living Council and who later was tapped by Republican President Ronald Reagan to serve on an emergency labor board. More recently, Weber has given $1,500 to John McCain's presidential campaign this year. Also, Stanley Ikenberry, a former president of the University of Illinois system; Ray Romero, a vice president of Ameritech; Susan Crown, a philanthropist; Handy Lindsey, the president of the Field Foundation of Illinois; and Wanda White, the executive director of the Community Workshop for Economic Development.
But, dammit, where's the reporting of this socialist conspiracy????
Seriously need to learn how to include links:
Obama/Ayers "link": http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/c olumnists/chi-ayers-2,0,1954702.story
.
It hasn't put any fruit on my table either.
Thanks for not answering my question (which said nothing about the contents of BIAS with respect to the Joe the Plumber v. Graeme Frost issue).
Did you ask me to discuss Graeme Frost? You mentioned to me specifically a comparison between Bush's drug dealer and Obama's drug dealer. Next time, be clear about who you're talking to, and what you want to discuss.
And I say that not under your modified "ad hominem" definition...
WTF are you talking about? MY modified definition? Did I even mention a definition of "ad hominem"? Are you confusing me with Dave N?
If you're not capable of correctly responding to people in this thread, then why should I take you seriously on a discussion of whether the media is biased?
.
<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.whateverplace.place/page/etc.html">Name of Link</a>
As a science guy (and to be cute), I must take issue with this:
I agree with the broader point, but my first thought was, "Really? FNC is at least 100 times as biased as MSNBC et. al.?"
"Did you ask me to discuss Graeme Frost? You mentioned to me specifically a comparison between Bush's drug dealer and Obama's drug dealer. Next time, be clear about who you're talking to, and what you want to discuss."
You're right. I confused you with another commenter (the difficulty of coming in and out of the thread while at work).
How's this, could you address the author's (and your) complaint of media bias based on the example of a supposed unfair treatment of Joe the Plumber in light of the treatment of Graeme Frost?
My question was to ask whether the CAC or the slumlording got as much--AS MUCH--ink as Palin's per diem or troopergate or clothing allowance. I wasn't asking for predetermined facts. Just a demonstration that we/they "tried".
I can see they did not, which was my point.
"I hope someone can show us what Franken said that is the counterpart to Coulter saying this:"
We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity
If my counterpart you mean "one remarkably similar to another" or "one having the same function or characteristics as another", I don't think there is any comment remarkably similar to the substance of what Coulter wrote.
If on the other hand, Franken made comments with the same goal as Coulter, to be provocative, there is a counterpart, that being Franken's rape comments about Leslie Stahl.
I'm not a fan of Coulter or Franken. They are both bombastic, provocative and do what they do intentionally to help sell more books and get better ratings, respectively (well, one out of two isn't bad).
And concerning Ann Coulter, NRO explained what occurred in regards to that Coulter column.
In other words, any crazy lefty is just crazy and you can't draw conclusions about liberals or the left from them, but anybody who is on the right and crazy is a typical example of people on the right.
In other words, you're politicial positions are correct, but mine are insane.
It's good to know that only people on the right engage in simple reductionism and demonization of their enemies.
Well, mine for one. Several times, in fact. But I'm proud to be open minded. Smug, in fact.
There are some issues about Obama which are completely blank. Completely. Not even a "nothing here".
At least Franken was talking from the standpoint of a professional satirist.
What's McCain's excuse for rape jokes?
David St. Hubbins
"At least Franken was talking from the standpoint of a professional satirist."
Ah, I see, his creative energies were flowing as he was engaged in the duties of a professional satirist.
"What's McCain's excuse for rape jokes?"
No excuse at all. It is uncalled for.
"There are some issues about Obama which are completely blank. Completely. Not even a "nothing here"."
Could you please site some examples? Do they include Obama's birth cirtificate, his wife calling the African Press International? His secret muslim background and subsequent desire to impose Shariah law?
Please, also, a site for the "slumlord" allegation. I'll respond in kind once you provide the evidence. Thanks
Well, journalism is a liberal pursuit, using liberal in its 19th c. capital-L sense. It was conservatives who ran the censorships.
Also, as hired hands, journalists tend to feel an empathy for workers that they can work up only with an effort of imagination for plutocrats.
On the other hand, I have been a newspaperman for over 40 years, and I once worked for a redhot liberal rag that had about 140 reporters and editors, 3 of whom were ordained ministers of the gospel, and of the other 137 non-clericals, 3 left over a period of 9 years to go to seminary. I challenge just about any non-journalistic business to match those ratios.
That said, this Malone guy doesn't seem to know much about the history of newspapers and must not have heard of McCormick, Patterson etc.
On the other hand, I have been a newspaperman for over 40 years, and I once worked for a redhot liberal rag that had about 140 reporters and editors, 3 of whom were ordained ministers of the gospel, and of the other 137 non-clericals, 3 left over a period of 9 years to go to seminary. I challenge just about any non-journalistic business to match those ratios.
I'm not sure I get the point of this. Could you clarify what this demonstrates? Thanks.
Yeah, I'll bet. Given the line up of suggestions, I can really see an honest response.
But how about his time at Columbia. Grades. Activities. Associates. Anything approaching, say, the interest in Palin's education. Where are the MSM reports?
You don't need a link for "slumlord". Everybody knows he was involved in subsidized housing. How it actually went is what gets no ink. (Hint. No better than it should, which means uninhabitable, except the poor folks are still there). My question is where is the MSM interest in this story.
Ahhh....you've come to the crux of the matter, summarized the insolvable problem...
Requiring thinking of voters is like requiring honesty of politicians. Never has happened, never will happen.
I think Harry meant that, even if the allegations of bias are true, the diversity of thought in his newsroom (the kind James Lindgren wants to impose by law) rivals that of any other sampling of the private sector.
I was a reporter too once. Can't say my newsrooms were ever as diverse. But I always felt we treated news subjects fairly and, if anything, were biased toward those that returned our calls.
A few people who say they like to skip my posts have said they prefer when I batch them. It's hard to please everybody at the same time.
Wrong:
Read the cited comment and the article it's based on.
fury:
See the above. Please note that the article you are citing says this:
I guess Jonah wasn't clear enough for you and chapman.
You can omit this part: rel="nofollow"
That's quite weak. Yes, he had a prior career as a comedian. Yes, comedians sometimes think of jokes that are not funny, or even tasteless. That comes with the territory. And the joke you're talking about never saw the light of day.
If the worst thing you can say about Franken is that he told a tasteless joke about rape, then that puts him on exactly the same level as McCain, as Mahan pointed out (link, pdf):
McCain has told a bunch of other tasteless jokes, like this one:
But these bad jokes are fundamentally different than Coulter promoting the idea of a new crusade. And she has said a bunch of other things that are just as inflammatory. But she still gets invited to places like CPAC, where she gets introduced by people like Romney. And sells zillions of books.
We know something about Palin's grades, activities and associates while she was in college? Really? I saw one report with very minimal information about a couple of her friends. Nothing about "grades" and "activities." Meanwhile, NYT conducted "three dozen interviews [with] friends, classmates and mentors from [Obama's] high school and Occidental," to explore his drug use. Where is the imbalance?
And let us know where I can go look at McCain's "grades."
So the answer to the request for evidence is .. No evidence. C'mon, don't complain about dishonest responses with that weak tea.
And I tell you what, for every piece of evidence you provide me of the categories you annouunced (in caps no less -- Columbia! Grades! Activities! Associates!) relating to Sarah Palin, I will provide you two for Obama. And then we can see who really has or has not gotten then ink, as you say.
Who bets I win on the "Associates!!!" category?
[And Richard, this will be my last response to you if you don't put up some evidence at this point. If you do, I will respond in kind as explained above. But seriously, this all started out of a post above by an author who claimed the media is in the can for Obama. He cited evidence (i.e., Joe the Plumber, Obama's drug supplier), which I contradicted with other evidence (Graeme Frost, George Bush's coke dealer). Evidence, my friends. Evidence]
I guess you could get that from what I wrote, if you try really hard and assume that anyone that does not agree with you has nefarious purposes.
If you agree with Ann Coulter that everyone on the other side of the aisle is a Traitor and a Godless heathen, then your political positions are insane.
If you agree with Michael Moore that the Bushies somehow arranged or were complicit in the events of 9/11/01, then you are insane.
If you agree with me that the federal government should leave the bank accounts and personal lives of its citizens alone, and that people like Ann Coulter are lunatics, then you are a reasonable and clear-headed person.
Hope this helps.
I can't say that I see having ordained ministers on staff as being much of an indicator of intellectual diversity. There are Unitarians, UCCs, Maryknollers, etc. The idea that "ordained" = "conservative" actually strikes me as a further wexample of the insularity of newsrooms, if anything.
Someone once told the Duc de la Rochefoucald that there were "many consciences" in the Assembly. He responded that "yes there were many consciences. Semonville, for example, has at least three."
.
I'm sure the link-learners appreciate your pointing that out. I do omit that part. The host (VC) inserted that in the brief lesson I put out. Try it yourself (using the four-character codes for "grater than" and "less then", and an "a href" "/a" pair), you'll see.
.
Yes.
Let me try again to break through your attempts to distract from the question.
Where is the MSM interest in Columbia?
Where is the MSM interest in Obama's activities with subsidized housing?
Where is the MSM interest in the results of the CAC expenditures?
My question is not what did O do or not do. My question is, where is the MSM interest.
The original subject of the post was journalism, not Obama. That's why I'm asking about journalism.
Can you find as many column inches on the three issues I mentioned that would equal MSM interest in Palin's clothes?
That's quite weak. Yes, he had a prior career as a comedian. Yes, comedians sometimes think of jokes that are not funny, or even tasteless. That comes with the territory. And the joke you're talking about never saw the light of day.
My apologies. Regardless of who said it, I don't find a "joke" about drugging and raping a women funny and apparently the joke did see the light of day, as people are aware of it. That you appear to be giving Franken a pass on this is disappointing.
and previously when referring to Ann Coulter:
"I guess Jonah wasn't clear enough for you and chapman"
Please re-read what I wrote. I never made any comment on what Jonah Goldberg wrote in regards to Coulter other than to provide a link to the article, which I did here. People can draw their own conclusions on what to think of Goldberg's comments.
You've been corrected several times about the 150 mil, and other issues, but instead of admiting that you even might be wrong, you move on to another baseless allegation.
If you can't be as much as a man as me -- and believe me, that's not saying much! -- then there really isn't much point is engaging with you.
Thanks for conceding the point.
Hoosier
I don't necesarily disagree. I wouldn't say "ordained" = diverse viewpoint. In fact, I'd bet you'd see a more activist approach to issues such as the death penalty. Again, I dispute the notion of the piece that started this thread, but I would not dispute that some internal biases may exist.
I suppose it is possible that bias, to some ears, gets worse every 4 years over the previous 4 years ... or it could be whiny complaining every 4 years by people who can't let go.
The WSJ editorial page hyas liked to say over the years that it is not true there are always two sides, and that sometimes there's a right side and a wrong one. Maybe McCain is just more wrong; maybe his campaign is more negative and less gracious; maybe the efforts to call Obama socialist, communist, Marxist, and even George W. Bush, are desperate. Maybe the Palin pick was desperate and irresponsible. Maybe the guy known for swearing and shouting at colleagues does not have great temperment for an executive position (what was the Cochrane line about blood running cold?). Maybe the Ayers connection and ACORN sins are heavily overblown.
Or maybe we just call it bias rather than face the simplest facts that it's a bad year for Republicans and Obama is a great candidate.
I did not concede anything.
You have failed to answer the question of where MSM interest is in several of Obama's past activities, especially in comparison to the MSM interest in some of Palin's far less important activities.
The difference in interest is part of Malone's post.
Randy. How was I corrected? The CAC's $$$ went for what? Not interested in the brochure. Interested in the actual result. Got some MSM interest there?
The truth is that the media, rather than being primarily "liberal," are lazy, not-too-bright members of a herd that latch onto narratives and stories and run them into the ground, whether or not they are true or relevant. (See, for example, shark attacks, Gary Condit, Lacy Peterson, etc.) They do have a tendency to paint major Republicans as stupid (Reagan, Quayle, W), but they also have a tendency to portray major Democrats as overly ambitious, out-of-touch and elitist (Dukakis, Gore, Kerry and the arugula-eating Obama).
This time around, the media are favoring the Democrat. That wasn't the case in 2000, and it probably wasn't even the case in 2004.
As it is we have billion dollar corporations spending huge amounts of money to influence an election. Why not simply acknowledge what they are doing? Why pretend they are not?
As I said above, until you provide some evidence, you've conceded the point (in my mind at least). I've proposed a very reasonable manner to test your thesis. I'll repeat, for every one cite you can provide about Palin at College! Grades! Acitivies! Associates!, I'll provide two about the same for Obama.
If you can['t do that, your argument of liberal bias for unequal treatment has little merit.
If you'd like to change the very categories you created, that's fine. For every "Expensive Clothing!" story you cite about Palin, I will provide one for "Expensive Haircut" for Edwards.
And, again, please, a cite about the "slumlord" allegation.
It's pretty simply. Put up or ... you know the rest.
Clearly she should have used a white figure instead.
I myself am a godless (raised RC, like you) New Dealer.
Of the 6, 2 were RC, 1 Lutheran, 1 UCC and the other 2 were Protestant but I don't know what brand. As I said, the paper was a redhot proabortion sheet, although both the editor and the editorial page editor were RC. Go figure.
Most reporters and editors are self-consciously aware that part of the tools of the trade is an ability (or effort) to set aside personal biases in an attempt to be fair. I don't know of any other trade or profession that even asks that of its hands.
Even if they aren't, it's a collegial business and a reporter who turns in consistently slanted stories is probably going to be advised to seek out opportunities in public relations or law.
VC critics of the press might be surprised to learn how many journalists have law degrees. I cannot say that having a law degree correlates highly with being a good journalist, though.
But what does interest me is the issue of religion and the press, which you raised. Not in the sense of is there an anti-religious bias in the media or not. But rather that the level of ignorance is astounding. Reporters for NYT, Time, CNN don't even know what the words that they use when they cover religion mean much of the time. Let alone how using one set of words versus another might be taken by readers or viewers.
The coverage of the death of John Paul II and the ensuing conclave was almost unbearable. The reporters who were inteviewing various theologians, historians, and msgr's had no idea what to ask. If they had pre-fabricated questions, then they didn't know what the answers meant.
To a very large extent, the MSS in the US assumes that "Christian" means "Evangelical Protestant." And they just run with that. So they'll ask a Catholic Bible scholar, for instance, if new archaelogical evidence that the Battle of Jericho never occured undercuts the Faith. And he or she has to respond, patiently, that Catholics don't take the Bible as a history book, so you'll need to ask someone else about that.
I can't imagine assigning someone to the "science beat" when his knowledge of the field is as thin as this.
randy:
aubrey's thing is to make phony claims and then duck when challenged to substantiate them. He did a nice job of demonstrating that here. What he's doing in this thread is just more of the same. Facts mean nothing to him.
The question is not whether or not it's "funny." The question is whether or not it makes sense to compare it to the kind of things that Coulter says. It doesn't.
It did not "see the light of day" in the sense that it was never used in a performance. It came up in a brainstorming session. "People are aware of it" only because someone went digging around for dirt on Franken, and heard about something he said during that brainstorming session.
That you appear to be relying on a straw-man argument is disappointing. No one is giving Franken "a pass on this." It's not a question of giving him "a pass." It's a question of realizing that what he said is not comparable to the kind of statements that Coulter makes.
What you said was this:
You seemed to be implying that NRO disavowed what she said. But they didn't.
Here:
Indeed. GE owns NBC. Westinghouse owns CBS. Disney owns ABC. Time-Warner owns CNN. It's no surprise that the corporate media usually leans in the direction of promoting corporate interests. This year they see which way the wind is blowing, but their underlying priorities are still the same as always.
News bulletin: graphic artists realize that there are a few colors other than black and white. Portraying Obama as a black figure holding a gun to someone's head is not exactly subtle. But desperate times call for desperate measures. Even though they are obviously not working.
Anyone engaged in managing contract awards or purchasing for a business is asked to put aside personal biases towards one bidder or another. Lawyers arguing a case for a client are also expected to put aside their personal biases in favor of representing the client's best interests. There are many more.
"Even if they aren't, it's a collegial business and a reporter who turns in consistently slanted stories is probably going to be advised to seek out opportunities in public relations or law."
How about the editor who has many fair and balanced stories, but chooses to print more of those that support one particular agenda?
jukeboxgrad writes:
You seemed to be implying that NRO disavowed what she said. But they didn't.
Not implying that at all. It's up to the reader to draw their own conclusion.
In my initial post, I indicated that both Franken and Coulter are bombastic, provocative and have incentives to be so. If you believe my comment may be a straw man, ok. What we're really getting into is degrees of looney statements: one talks about invading Islamic countries, killing their leaders and converting them to Christianity, the other talks about drugging and raping a woman. They're booth looney.
People in most professions agree with this. The papers screw up legal opinions all the time. Most sportswriters don't understand statistical analysis and can't discuss it intelligently. And reporters can't state scientific principles to save their souls.
There are exceptions, of course. But I think it's one reason people turn to the internet as a resource.
I very much doubt whether one Catholic in 1000 could explain the beliefs of, say, even as closely related a religion as Episcopalianism toward funeral rites.
My point, though, is that the attacks on journalists are seldom -- and if you are following, say, Instapundit, never -- about what journalists actually do. For example, Reynolds yesterday claimed that Obama's $150M September money machine was 'underreported.'
It was on page one of my paper, and of probably almost all others. I have called him time and again for putting on the Internet that the MSM was 'ignoring' a story that was on page one everywhere. So when the MarkFields of the country turn to the Internet, they're drinking swill. They just are informed enough to recognize swill when they taste it.
Anyhow, my point about religion is that claims that reporters and editors are somehow elitists who do not share the interests and concerns of ordinary folks is nonsense. I could have picked a different topic than religion, but it serves for a lot.
As for statistics and sports, I was a sports writer once, long ago, and I don't recall anyone ever attempting anything above 8th-grade level in massaging statistics. If Mark had cited statistics and health reporting, I'd agree with him.
The CAC spent one thousand times the amount of money Palin is supposed to have spent on clothes. Obama was closely associated with the project.
Is it too much to ask if there are any results available? Is it excessive to suggest that Obama's qualifications might include the CAC results, whatever they are?
Are there test scores? People hired? Contracts let? Accountability?
Those seem like reasonable questions a reporter would ask.
My question is whether the ink regarding, to take a handy example, Palin's clothes, is more, less, or equal to the CAC coverage.
You'll note there is no "claim" here. A question. How does the coverage match and does that support or contradict Malone's point?
Now, does anybody want to insist that JTP's evisceration was important? Of course. It distracts the public from the question of whether Obama said something he really believed.
You noted that 6 of 150 were post- or pre-seminarians. But what about the rest? Was it a "churched" group. in comparison with the people of the city they served?
I very much doubt whether one Catholic in 1000 could explain the beliefs of, say, even as closely related a religion as Episcopalianism toward funeral rites.
I'm not saying they do. But there four RC archdiocese in the US that each have more members than does the Episcopal Church (USA). Kind of hard to really understand what's happening in the US if you are ignorant of the beliefs of 75-80 million Americans. 'Sall I'msayin.
I think it's more like they spiked it.
You may recall the dust-up when the WaPo referred to evangelists convening in DC as "poor, dumb, and easily led". Their first excuse was that they though they were only saying what everybody thought. Then that they didn't know any evangelists. Then that they didn't know anybody who knew any evangelists.
Turns out evangelists are slightly above average in income and education. Easily led is a toss-up. Either you are stiff-necked, independent and stubborn to be in churches growing and shrinking, calving and joining, or you are easily led.
Point is, the WaPo felt perfectly justified in making insulting assertions without doing any research. What's the problem? They're only evangelists and everybody else thinks they're loony.
IMO, the freedom to make those statements without even thinking of doing the legwork is a good indication of where journos are wrt religion.
I'll take that as a backhanded compliment, and I agree that there's a real danger of misinformation on the internet. OTOH, there's also real analysis available. I liken it to the days when there were hundreds of papers. Lots of them were filled with nonsense. It took a while for some papers to develop a reputation for accurate reporting, something people could generally trust. I expect that to happen on line also.
There's something of an underground war among baseball fans between those who appreciate statistical analysis (say, Bill James or, to pick a timely name, Nate Silver) and those whose sole contribution to baseball understanding is "clutch hitting" and "veteran presence". Most sportswriters fall into the latter category, and when they discuss statistics, they clearly don't understand them.
Yeah, statistics and health reporting is appalling. The internet isn't any better on that score, best I can tell.
I recall that they said something close to that, over fifteen years ago, but the words were a bit different. When using quote marks, it's customary to cite the actual words that were used. Did you know that?
I'd say it was. The place was swarming with deacons, church organists, etc.
I believe I was the only open freethinker in the bunch, although there were others who kept their religious views private.
When I worked on Southern papers, I'd say the proportion of freethinkers/skeptics was higher than in the general local population, but only because the local population was so Christian. We certainly had more observant Jews on staff than you could have found in the general population.
Where newsrooms are unrepresentative is in holy rollers, who are mighty scarce.
At the redhot lib paper I mentioned, I campaigned for a long time to cover the monthly gospel sings that filled up the 16,000 seat auditorium, which the paper ignored; while giving smothering coverage to string quartets that drew maybe 150 people.
Problem was, the only person on staff who knew gospel music was me, and I didn't want to cover it myself.
Newspapers underreport bowling, too. They aren't perfect.
I have to fight the prejudice in myself. It's very easy to catch the church broadcasts o cable-access here, and find Evangelicals and Fundamentalists who talk about "homosexualism," demons, and ee-voe-LOO-shun.
Then I think about Wheaton College back by my native Chicago. Or Calvin College up in Grand Rapids (Or Calvin Coolidge up in Bland Vapids. Something like that.) Those are schools with excellent scholars.
My alma mater has an spot in the history department that is--essentially--reserved for an Evangelical. It has been held by--in order--Nathan Hatch, George Marsden, and currently Mark Noll. And the Evangelical whom I know best on a personal level is college dean of a very good regional college in the South.
Now, I admit that I have been left speechless by some of the positions of some Evangelical scholars on evolution, as well as on the historical truth of some events in the Bible. But then I don't think that's any sillier than secularists who claim that they can base morality on something other than transcendent truth.
So I try to be generous.
Difference is, you know the subject. The WaPo guy is a journalist, as currently defined, and he didn't know. Nor care that he didn't know. But, I expect he knew just exactly which groups he could cheerfully slander. Wrong. He also knew the ones where he would need to walk on eggshells.
I suspect--I'm a grad of Enormous State University so I wouldn't know for sure--that the conservative Christian colleges don't teach much in the way of Angry Studies. They may spend as much time on their own religious views, but that doesn't mean their other scholarship is necessarily lacking.
My kids also graduated from ESU, and they started their partying on Thursday evenings. We had to wait for Fridays, while my father's education included Saturday morning classes.
I was passing through Allendale, home of Grand Valley State University, one Friday evening, and stopped to get some meds for a friend. The amount of booze going through the checkout lanes was warmly familiar. One cute little girl, about ninety-nothing pounds, had a couple of cases of beer and a gallon of vodka.
I think Calvin and Olivet and certain others could, if they felt like it, make the case that their students' books are open for longer than certain other books on other campuses.
I don't want to interrupt, but when you're ready to take a break from that, I would encourage you to write yourself a note, to remind yourself to never ever reply to me. After all, if you're not careful you might inadvertently accept responsibility for your multiple false statements that I've documented. And I don't think you would want to take the chance of wandering down a road that's so unfamiliar to you. Who knows what might happen. Better to stay on familiar ground.
A note, or maybe tie a string around your finger. Just a suggestion.
But, I expect he knew just exactly which groups he could cheerfully slander.
No doubt. It is pretty obvious who is and who is not on the A-List.
conservative Christian colleges don't teach much in the way of Angry Studies
That's been my sense as well. Looking at departments, they at least don't have majors devoted to Rage Studies or Me Studies. Frankly, I could do without Studies Departments altogether. "Studies" is not an academic discipline.
Enormous State U? I used to visit friends there when I was an undergrad. The parties were incredible. As were the hangovers.
Yeah, I love the smell of Lysol in the morning.
"That's been my sense as well. Looking at departments, they at least don't have majors devoted to Rage Studies or Me Studies."
God has been known to fire up Ye Olde Wrathe from time to time. Take away the wrath, you get this. Not what Calvin or Luther, who both could rage with the best of them, had in mind, I'd guess.
Me studies, on the other hand, are problematic.
Obama himself seems more interested in the community angle here. Making radio more responsive to "community needs", however they are defined (which would, of course, enable "community activists" like himself). Combine this with a shorter relicensing cycle and serious pressure could be brought on broadcast radio without as much 1st Amdt. scrutiny.
But the MSM is not out of the woods here, regardless. Even more than in 2004, they have been actively campaigning and enabling the Obama campaign. There are any number of hard questions that have not been asked, or if asked, not seriously of his campaign. Rather, they have jumped into the feeding frenzy on Palin.
Todd Z has a later post here: The Obama Program that may be an accurate picture of what we can expect from an Obama Administration. It does not really include that the extremely corrupt Democratic controlled Congress is likely to be much more powerful this time, both because of increased numbers, and an agreeable president.
In any case, the country is liable to lurch left, likely by quite a bit, and that is not really what the people in the middle want. When it becomes obvious that the $250k cutoff for tax increases is really much lower for single taxpayers, that giving 95% of the taxpayers a tax cut, when 40% don't pay income taxes means sending cash to those who don't, and is thus the redistribution that the campaign is denying, cutting and running from Iraq, etc., more people than ever are going to realize that they have been lied to by the left leaning MSM.
The result of that? Continued plummeting readership and viewership, which translate into continued significant declines in profitability (or, in many cases, increasing losses). Yes, this has been going on for quite awhile, but I predict an steepening of the curve for those media who were most in the tank for Obama.
Where are the people going to go for their news and information? Obviously, the Internet. Radio to some extent. More centrist MSM, such as FOX, WSJ. But I suspect, primarily the Internet.
On a personal note, I was heartened the other day, when my father admitted to me that he was finally dropping Time magazine, after a 50+ year run in our family. Even for him, a pro-choice moderate, it had veered too much into being a mouthpiece of the DNC. In his later 80s, even he is getting more and more of his news from the Internet.
So, the product of any single newspaper is no longer of value to me, and I don't spend money on it.
If I want to get the balanced type of coverage newspapers once provided, I have to go to the web and look at a variety of sources, including newspaper sites. The aggregate provides the balance the particular no longer provides.
So, that's probably a few hundred dollars in lost revenue to the MSM each year. I don't even use the classifieds since Craigs List is better. I'm not doing this to send anyone a message, but simply because the product is no longer worth the investment in time or money.
On Sunday mornings, the table is no longer covered with the NYT, WaPo, and Chicago Tribune. Just a laptop.
Presuming that an analysis were done, and not just ranting based on something you saw last Tuesday, you might have a pretty hard time proving that over a time span of, say, 1992-2008.
Some time shortly after Gulf 1, Walter Cronkite was testifying before Congress on the issue of media coverage. One of the things he said was that the media's pre-war panics about how our stuff wouldn't shoot, wouldn't run, wouldn't fly, was perfectly justified. He said it with a straight face, too.
Then there was the classic SNL piece about the reporters quizzing Centcom.
In another venue, he referred to "Absence of Malice" when the audiences cheered as Paul Newman screwed the paper six ways from Sunday. He called that "savaging".
So I guess the question is whether you're paying attention or not.
Even this cry of "bias" is woefully biased. If the reporter were really reporting objectively about bias, he would have mentioned the blatant and outrageous bias against third parties in this election. This has been far worse than any bias for or against either of the "big 2". Not letting other viable candidates into debates is just one of such "prejudices" practices by the mainstream media.
There are more than two parties, people! And the alternatives are not all communists, fascists, or weirdos! Remember that parties have changed in the United States before. All is not carved in stone.
People have been screaming that they want change, but they have not been allowing change. If they continue this way, they will be screaming for change all the while they drag us down to whatever circle of Hell it was that Dante reserved for hypocrites.
I am completely disgusted by those "average Americans" who keep screaming for the Exceptional Americans to save us... as long as it does not inconvenience them in their warm, well-lit little caves.
Isn't there some nice little island somewhere, where "the people" are not quite so full of shit?
If Jim Webb thundered that we couldn't be safe without a navy of 600 ships once, he did it a hundred times.
The doubts about the Aegis missile defense system were valid.
And the lionizagtion of Schwartzkopf -- more leftward slant, I suppose.
I fail to see what a TV comedy show and a movie have to do with anything.
Looks as if you weren't paying attention. I was. There was constant insistence in the media that our stuff just wouldn't work. Some outfits, such as Dina Rasor's pentagon criticism office, were handing out press releases to reporters who swallowed them wholesale. I talked to one of her subordinates at her office and to her. Also followed other issues. A Marine officer spoke to a group of parents in our area whose kids were in the Gulf during Desert Shield and one of the things he had to do was to reassure them that, despite what they heard on the news, our stuff worked just fine.
The comedy show??? Seems to be considered a legit part of the political process today. But the point is, they got on the train late. Everybody knew exactly what they were saying. That's what made it so funny.
The audience cheered Newman's character during Absence of Malice because they know what the media do. Oh. Here's the point. They don't like it. I almost let that part go unmentioned. So you could have failed to see the point. Glad I spotted that.
So you can "fail to see" all you want, but I fail to see how that is supposed to convince anybody.
Anyhow, Aegis' failure rate during operations remains 100%.
Osprey. Now there was a weapons system that that no one should have questioned, right?
Sergeant York. Another system that the press should be blamed for reporting on.
I don't think you really were paying attention, you're just exercising selective memory.
The Fairness Doctrine was never based on a sixteen year analysis. That might be interesting to know, but not at all relevant to its enforcement.
Dick York.
Dick Sergent.
(Coincidence?)
The Aegis system with the Standard Three is doing nicely in missile defense testing.
The Sergeant York was a good weapon system within its limitations. Fred Reed, once a defense writer, noted that reporters invited to view a test were instructed on the workings of proximity fuses. Whereupon they reported that none of the shells hit the target. The radar system was deficient, but could have been corrected. However, putting Stingers wheels (see Avenger) was seen as a better version.
The Osprey has replaced the 53 for Combat SAR. Works better. I note the lack of a forward firing gun is lamented as if it were a fatal flaw. What they don't tell you is that no US transport choppers have ever, ever had a forward-firing gun. So this is no change promoted as a new and deadly flaw. Either the reporters are stupid or they have an ax to grind.
I talked to Molly Brown years ago regarding the Stinger which she had excoriated in her WaPo writing. She said it was not user-friendly. I asked her about how illiterate ridge runners were using it to blow the Sov AF out of the Afghan sky and she changed the subject.
I also talked to one of Dina Rasor's minions about the Stinger and he said it had been promised to be man portable. It was, he said, too heavy. How heavy are the components of the 81mm mortar, I asked. He changed the subject. Rasor was a go-to for the anti-Pentagon reporters in those days.
BTW, she said in her book that her original venture into DoD criticism was interesting. They folks she worked for were saying things she didn't actually follow. So they told her the truth. They were trying to cut the lean, not the fat, but it was tough to sell that, so they lied. She also said in an article in the Det Freep that there was a group led by Eugene McCarthy which was trying to weaken the US military by lying about such things. Bad as she was, she was the most honest of the lot. But it was those folks the reporters thought had the scoop.
Years ago, the Det Freep ran a multi-part article about the waste of money in the F15 vs. the A10. The guy, from internal indications, knew his business. But he spoke of the F15 as if it were only and always a tank-buster. So, comparing two tank busters, buying any of the more expensive ones was a waste of money. Deceptive article, but he didn't actually lie since he didn't actually say--as in assert--that the F15 was only a tank-buster. But the object was clear. I talked to a couple of editors at the Freep around that time about the article and they both said it was a terrible article and they had no idea of how they came to buy it from the Chi Trib.
Now, I didn't say anything about hiding flaws. As you know. I was speaking about the media screwing the pooch and reporting flaws which didn't exist. As you know. Keep believing in the media's objectivity in this area. It may affect reality if you do it hard enough. I think it works toward the end of a Peter Pan performance.
Aegis was tested before it was first deployed, and it was said by its minders to work then, too. So until it is tested in operations (which I hope never gets done), we have no idea whether it is any good or not.
To say that the York was a good weapon except that it couldn't acquire targets is to say it was useless. Same problem, as it happens, as Aegis.
The objection to Osprey was not that it didn't have a forward gun but but that it didn't fly. A serious objection, in my view. A lot of Marines died to prove the brass wrong and the reporters right.
I am old enough to remember, and knew the guy who blew the whistle (he was a grad student where I was an undergrad), that the Marine Corps said the M-16 was combat ready. Reporters said it wasn't. A lot of Marines died to prove the brass wrong and the reporters right that time, too.
The press (I don't work for the media) at least is open to doubt, which is more than the average DoD systems manager. I'll take its questions more seriously than I do Pentagon press releases.
(I didn't by any means complete my list of failed weapons that DoD sang the praises of, either.)
But now the Osprey flies.
As an old-time purist, I decry going to the M16, and the M4, even. But then, I was about 210 when I was lugging military stuff around and could afford a few hundred rounds of 7.62.
But you have switched from the media screwing the pooch with false reporting of non-existent flaws to being annoyed with the DoD. Different issue.
Problem is, any significant system beats out some other system. And the winner always has teething troubles (Jack Broughton referred to that in "Thud Ridge".). So the teething troubles get the ink, while the system which was not chosen is supposed to work like it says in the manufacturer's brochure. The losing system has a lot of juice behind it, including perhaps some years of an officer's career, ditto the civilian side of procurement and the congresscritter in whose district the think would have been built. Plenty of room for discontented argument.
If the York had had a tweak to its radar, which was originally taken from the F16 and adapted (not well), it might have worked. Perhaps a purpose-built radar. Nobody tried. The range of the Stinger was superior, so it was put on wheels and the York went away. My point is not whether it worked, but Reed's point that the idiotreporters couldn't or wouldn't describe the function of a proximity fuse and lied that it was relevant that the shells never hit the target.
You may recall the Viper antitank system. It was to be a replacment for the M66 LAW. There was a whole lot of fuss about how it would not penetrate the frontal armor of a modern main battle tank. Thus, it was a rotten item putting our soldiers at risk. Morons of the press--to be redundant--would not tell the reader that no system fitting within the specs of an augmenting munition could possibly penetrate the frontal armor of a modern main battle tank. So after the Viper was sent packing on a wave of faulty public reaction, we got the AT4, a foreign design which...cannot penetrate the frontal armor of a modern main battle tank. One editor I talked to said he was pleased to have been a part of the process. Idiot.
But my point was, as you know, dishonest reporting about military matters. Not the Pentagon's public relations efforts.
My city editor served in Vietnam, but he is retiring, and it is pretty rare to encounter an editor with military experience, while when I was a cub it was rare to find one who hadn't served.
That said, I don't think the public was any better served in the days of cheerleaders like Drew Middleton. The taxpayers would have been better served if they had paid more attention to the reporters than to the experts when it came to buying, to take one example of many, the F111.
I don't report on military matters, but I study them. It isn't the Pentagon's public relations I object to but the incompetence of the high command.
That would be a different thread.
McCain has run an erratic campaign that jumps from idea to idea. He picked a running mate that rallies the base but looks wacky to just about everyone else. He also has all too many senior moments (wandering around the debate stage, oddly-timed smiles, etc.). Even many of McCain's supporters (Frum, some of the conspirators, etc.) do so only with a lot of reservations.
The coverage is more positive toward Obama, but maybe that's because there's more positive to report.
I think it was Colbert who said that reality has a well-known liberal bias.
A maverick west coast legislator--name escapes me but he was sued by Pat Robertson for defamation--observed that a guy who'd been an ensign or lieutenant (O2 type)knows how to listen to general rank officers and see when they're BSing.
Problem is, wrt higher command, whatever they didn't do is always, always going to work perfectly, while whatever plans they made always got screwed up upon contact with the enemy.
Some people thought fighting in the Huertgen Forest was a catastrophe. It was, for the guys fighting there. But, as my father said, having fought on the fringes, it cost the Germans, too. Question is the relative advantage. But everybody knows how tough it was for us and the decision is seen as awful. Anybody know if it tore up the Germans, too? Rarely asked. Got to fight them someplace.
AJA. His opinion was, high command sacrificed yellow skinned Americans.
I can't disagree with him.
However, when I say the high command is incompetent, I am not only talking about operational decisions. 'Something must be left to chance,' a famously successful commander said.
I mean that high officers, in a civilian-led system, must tell the civilians what their best judgment of operational requirements are. Petraeus, to take a current example, did not tell Bush he needed more infantry, although I suppose now that everybody knows that was the case.
There wasn't more infantry, but that was not Petraeus' problem. That would have been Bush's problem if Petraeus had been honest with him. We know all this because Bush said that he would listen to his commanders on force levels, and he never raised force levels. QED.
A lot of good GIs died because we went in with inadequate force.
However, the practice of converting practically anybody from FA to MP to "instant Infantry" seems to have gone reasonably well. The newbies aren't doing manuver warfare, nor coup de poing a la Pegasus Bridge, or duking it out in the desert in Kursk-size mech ops.
They are doing MOUT. For which they have been getting extra training in the BCT and AIT since Afghanistan, if not since Desert Storm.
"A lot of good GIs died because...." is always presuming some other tactic would have worked better. In some cases, the most obvious ones, that is more than likely true, although far from certain.
What was the point?
"yellow-skinned"? Did the 442 fight there? WTF?
Did your ex-boss wonder or try to figure out what the Germans thought?
Did the fighting there draw German units which would have been better used elsewhere?
Did the Germans lose a lot of guys defending useless trees?
Was there room for an attrition battle in those days? Was trading down at, say, one for one a good use of our guys, considering the realistic options? One for two? Two for one?
True, it's an assumption on my part. If we'd flooded the zone at first, if there'd been a GI on every corner, maybe there wouldn't have been room for an insurgency to form.
Heck, some people even think leaving the Saddam units intact would have been better. They might be right, too. We left the Japanese army in charge in Vietnam for a while in '45.
Just about any approach would have been better than the one we tried.
Saddaam's units had dissolved before our guys arrived. Most of the fighting was against irregulars. So we couldn't "keep" them together. The Japanese Army was together in China and Indochina and our forces worked with them after VJ day to quell banditry before disarming them and sending them home. Different story.
Five times as many troops would not have prevented the insurgency from forming. Iraq is too big. You just go where the GIs aren't.