New York Time's Frank Rich: Bush "Dishonest, Corrupt, Reprehensible"

[chiphomme]

JimSmith - 11/28/2005 5:02 PM

So, what role does the press have in your view? Do they merely repeat the bits and pieces they are fed by through the official channels, or do they have an obligation to test those bits and pieces to establish the facts and context before repeating them? When they find the bit and pieces are not wholly factual, if they are an impartial or unbiased or otherwise supposedly neutral journalist do they confront the official channels with the evidence of misstatements? If they do, is it not fair game, or ethical, to confront the originator of the bits and pieces using a widely distributed media?

I think Walter Cronkite asked the question, not out of the blue. Given the daily opportunity to pontificate if he so desired, and the size of his audience, I find your easy condemnation of his reporting a bit irrational. Besides, you did not respond to the point, which was to counter your relatively unsubstantiated claim that news consisted of critical reports of Bush only. While this is obviously not true the Cronkite reference was made to show when explicitly poor behavior is exercised by a President of either party, the press is equally critical. The intensity and frequency of critical news reports is directly related to the critical nature of the poor performance and frequency of same by a sitting President.

When Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinski began to dominate the news it was never clearer that when news reporters smell the stink of a cover-up or lie, it becomes news when each and every layer of the cover up is peeled back. The act of getting blow job was not illegal, had no bearing on the outcome of the inquisition. The effort to cover it up was and did, and it was reported in the press moment by moment. The President's denials and the denials of his supporters are not as newsy as another lie being uncovered, debunked and reported.

So, don't Look to destroy the media because of the news they are reporting or how they report it. Look to what those in the news are doing that is being reported. Like the Monica Lewinski stories did for Clinton, the present Iraq war reporting is giving Bush a chance to be truthful. And when he opts to stonewall and cover up, it gives the press more to write about. It is what makes the news organizations functional. Jim

Walter Cronkite did "pontificate". And news shouldn't have a bias, which it does.
My point, which you're missing, is that I was critisizing a statement in this forum about how it suddenly became news when its a negative about the Bush administration (ie I was ripping a person here not the news media).

[chiphomme]

Shane - 11/28/2005 5:28 PM

Deep response.

Right up there with the ever thoughtful "Middle Class Mentality, anyone?"

[Shane]

chiphomme - 11/28/2005 4:32 PM

Right up there with the ever thoughtful "Middle Class Mentality, anyone?"

Please tell me why you find that phrase so irritating? It was not meant to irritate.

[JimSmith]

chiphomme - 11/28/2005 5:31 PM
Walter Cronkite did "pontificate". And news shouldn't have a bias, which it does.
My point, which you're missing, is that I was critisizing a statement in this forum about how it suddenly became news when its a negative about the Bush administration (ie I was ripping a person here not the news media).

To my recollection, Walter Cronkite only engaged in pontificating in editorial/opinion pieces. I never witnessed him add his personal take to a report of a news item as an aside or prelude to a story. But, I was not watching him for a good bit of his career so it is possible I am mistaken. I would have expected him to be roughed up a little more if he was a blantant partisan pontificator though.

As for your point, I think you are confusing yourself with yourself. You made the point that you believed some participants here believed news was only news when it is critical of Mr. Bush. To be specific, here is your post:

chiphomme - 11/28/2005 3:11 PM

So the media does it's job when it's a negative opinion piece on Bush?


BTW, are you ever going to get back to me on the "Middle class mentality" quote?

You made your perspective again a few posts later:

chiphomme - 11/28/2005 3:31 PM

I guess you missed my point. Is it only news when its a negative piece on Bush?

In each case it is you who is making the link between news only being news when it is critical about Bush. Everyone else made the assertion that when the White House or some other public official or private individual/celebrity is found by the media to be even acting like they are covering something up, whether it is factual or not, it gets carried as news. When the tide turns on them, and the news media peels a few layers of deceit back and reveals intent and more serious character questions, just like when Clinton lied about the blow job, the real problems arise when the officials don't give up the ghost.

In this case the Plame offense was hatched in the White House, the manipulation of Iraq intelligence to support a decision to invade was conceived and directed from the White House, the nation's expectations of a short, clean war replaced by grateful Iraqis becoming our allies and friends, was fabricated by the White House. Denials are just building the interest by the press to peel away the veneer of legitimacy of those directing the show. The list goes on and on.

A few minor casualties from the White House and the whole house of lies will be taken down. By the press. Because that is their only redeeming feature. Keeping politicians honest. No one and nothing else can do it. It is frustrating, but they are virtually another branch of government, motivated by relatively pure and uncorruptable emotions, greed and ego, to tear down those abusing the power of their offices. Jim

[guage]

Rich might as well have 'DNC hack' stamped on his forehead.
He has nothing to add (equally predictably), so he does his usual routine of slinging out everything but the kitchen sink before he reaches the conclusion that almost all of his columns reach - I don't like George Bush, and I don't support the Iraq War.
Well, Frank, some of us aren't looking for an exit strategy from the war, but rather victory. That aside, it's truly astonishing how many completely oddball accusations Frank manages to cram into a single column.

[old300D]

guage - 11/28/2005 6:22 PM

Rich might as well have 'DNC hack' stamped on his forehead.
He has nothing to add (equally predictably), so he does his usual routine of slinging out everything but the kitchen sink before he reaches the conclusion that almost all of his columns reach - I don't like George Bush, and I don't support the Iraq War.
Well, Frank, some of us aren't looking for an exit strategy from the war, but rather victory. That aside, it's truly astonishing how many completely oddball accusations Frank manages to cram into a single column.

No, not victory. There is no plan or metrics associated with that goal. Look past the rhetoric and see the administration look to a permanent presence. That's not victory, it's occupation.

[azimuth]

old300D - 11/29/2005 1:12 AM

No, not victory. There is no plan or metrics associated with that goal. Look past the rhetoric and see the administration look to a permanent presence. That's not victory, it's occupation.

According to the Hague convention of 1907 (or 09, I forget). Official occupation ends when governing authority is returned to officials of the occupied country. If the Bush administration returns power to the newly elected officials in Iraq, then we are no longer an occupying force.

We are in Japan, but not in an occupying sense. Same with Germany, S. Korea etc.

[Ammonium]

Here you go chippy chip, sit'er down and take a listen...

Remember the Tet Offensive waged by the vietcong in the Vietnam war? Well if not, here's a refresher...

That the Communists were able to mount a major assault at all was a blow to U.S. hopes of winning the war rapidly, and starkly called into question General Westmoreland's now-infamous public reports of the previous progress in the War: highly fictionalized and exaggerated to appear positive for the American public and often using exaggerated body counts and other inflated numbers.

Developing reports of the Tet Offensive severely undercut the upbeat war propaganda of the Johnson administration and The Pentagon, and served to undermine public support for continuing the war.

Seeing the complete collapse of the PAVN/PLAF offensive, the lopsided casualty ratio, the lack of a popular uprising in support of the attacks, and the failure of the attacking forces to gain and hold significant territorial assets, Westmoreland considered it an appropriate opportunity for a counteroffensive action, and his staff put together a request for 206,000 additional troops to prosecute the war in the wake of the Offensive, a move that would have required mobilization of the U.S. Reserves[13].

While this was being deliberated, the request was leaked to the press and published across three columns of the Sunday edition of the New York Times on March 10th, 1968. Then-Lieutenant Colonel Dave Palmer later wrote in Summons of the Trumpet': "Looked upon erroneously but understandably by readers as a desperate move to avert defeat, news of the request for 206,000 men confirmed the suspicions of many that the result of the Tet Offensive had not been depicted accurately by the [P]resident or his spokesmen. If the Communists had suffered such a grievous setback, why would we need to increase our forces by 40 percent?"

Okay got that? Basically the word out of the LBJ administration was, it's in the bag, we got these commie bastards no problem. Well, then the Tet Offensive happened, Saigon Fell, and the south got knocked around hard. Uh oh...doesn't sound like everything is going to plan afterall. Those public documents about the war going great don't sound so good after all...

It is then you see great journalists and news media stepping in going, "what a minute, what's going on here, things don't snyc well, wtf?!"

Walter Cronkite, the avuncular CBS News anchorman often called "the most trusted man in America" lost his cool when he heard about the Tet Offensive. "What the hell is going on?" he was heard to shout, "I thought we were winning this war."

In Early 1968 he visited Vietnam to get a first hand account of what was going on. He came back and after on of his evening broadcasts had this editorial to say...

WALTER CRONKITE'S
"WE ARE MIRED IN STALEMATE" BROADCAST,
FEBRUARY 27, 1968

Tonight, back in more familiar surroundings in New York, we'd like to sum up our findings in Vietnam, an analysis that must be speculative, personal, subjective. Who won and who lost in the great Tet offensive against the cities? I'm not sure. The Vietcong did not win by a knockout, but neither did we. The referees of history may make it a draw. Another standoff may be coming in the big battles expected south of the Demilitarized Zone. Khesanh could well fall, with a terrible loss in American lives, prestige and morale, and this is a tragedy of our stubbornness there; but the bastion no longer is a key to the rest of the northern regions, and it is doubtful that the American forces can be defeated across the breadth of the DMZ with any substantial loss of ground. Another standoff.

On the political front, past performance gives no confidence that the Vietnamese government can cope with its problems, now compounded by the attack on the cities. It may not fall, it may hold on, but it probably won't show the dynamic qualities demanded of this young nation. Another standoff.

We have been too often disappointed by the optimism of the American leaders, both in Vietnam and Washington, to have faith any longer in the silver linings they find in the darkest clouds. They may be right, that Hanoi's winter-spring offensive has been forced by the Communist realization that they could not win the longer war of attrition, and that the Communists hope that any success in the offensive will improve their position for eventual negotiations. It would improve their position, and it would also require our realization, that we should have had all along, that any negotiations must be that -- negotiations, not the dictation of peace terms. For it seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. This summer's almost certain standoff will either end in real give-and-take negotiations or terrible escalation; and for every means we have to escalate, the enemy can match us, and that applies to invasion of the North, the use of nuclear weapons, or the mere commitment of one hundred, or two hundred, or three hundred thousand more American troops to the battle. And with each escalation, the world comes closer to the brink of cosmic disaster.

To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy's intentions, in case this is indeed his last big gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could.

This is Walter Cronkite. Good night.

Think it didn't have an impression on people, or LBJ? Following Cronkite's stories of what was actually happening on the ground LBJ widthdrew his bid for re-election and Nixon was voted into office.

I soundly rest my case that if BS is spilling from the white house it is the media's job to call them out on it. Walter would tell you he's a firm democrat but when the there are lies ontop of lies ontop of lies, it is the media's job to investigate it and expose it. I wouldn't have it any other way. Do you see any parallels here? I think they're painfully obvious to our current situation. History not only teaches us about the past, but about the furute.

<EDIT>
Edited for spelling

[kvining]

chiphomme - 11/28/2005 3:11 PM

So the media does it's job when it's a negative opinion piece on Bush?


BTW, are you ever going to get back to me on the "Middle class mentality" quote?

"Negative opinion piece"? That's putting it mildly. It's more like an indictment. It says a lot of how far this country has sunk, when we have a President and Vice President who can even conceivably be accused of these kind of things.

[kvining]

chiphomme - 11/28/2005 3:25 PM

It was an opinion not a journalist piece. Get it?
And it get's really annoying when people cut and paste other people opinions and expect counter arguments. Either present your own opinion (with links if you want to buttress it) or shut up.




You don't answer a question with a question. I asked you if your snide "middle class menatlity" remark was meant as a slam. Remember?

If that's what you want, go listen to your AM radio. This, on the other hand, is a place where intelligent people can come to discuss what other intelligent people have to say, without your mind-control bullshit.