Who Said There Is Media Bias?
ABCNEWS TELLS WHITE HOUSE OF 'INDICTMENT'
Tue Oct 25 2005 19:08:02 ET
"We have double sourced that the vice president's chief of staff has been indicted," a reporter for ABCNEWS claimed to a White House press spokesman this afternoon.
Tue Oct 25 2005 19:08:02 ET
"We have double sourced that the vice president's chief of staff has been indicted," a reporter for ABCNEWS claimed to a White House press spokesman this afternoon.
posted by BigBubba at 5:03 PM
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38 Comments:
You best wish to find some meaningful intellectual ability under your tree. You, I and the fence post know absolutely nothing about what is going to be the conclusion of the grand jury investigation, if there will be any indictments and certainly cannot predict any convictions of anyone.
Have you forgotten that indictment is not conviction? That grand jury indictments are easier to obtain than convictions? I have refused to engage in idle speculation about this case. Obviously Fitzgerald and his associates have been close mouthed about the proceedings. I await the next stage of this opera buffa with eager anticipation.
Seems that "no indictments yet" is the hottest national news story... and so "no news" is "big news".
-FJ
I just heard my first silly newshead comment of the day on Fox News. The newshead said that the Bush Administration got a break today because a spokesman for Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald said there would not be any announcements today. Seems to me the break would have been an announcement so that we can all move on to whatever is next.
The "news vacuum" by the prosecuor's office has led to a total Bush administration "bash" by the talking heads. So even if no indictments get handed out, Rove, Libby, and Cheney will have "taken their licks" and the "corruption" of the regime fantasy concocted by the progressives will go into the popular psyche and mythology.
-FJ
I love the way a couple of cynical LA Times reporters have "invented" a GOP strategy for dealing with possible indictments FOR the GOP, and even attributed it them.
Yahoo Story
They go interview a few members of the GOP, line up their arrows of logic for Odysseus to shoot through, and then label it "The GOP Strategy".
I wish I got to define all my opponents "strategies" for the public. The lynch mob calling for the heads of the Progressive Caucus would be beating down the walls of Congress to get to them, and Capitol Hill police would willingly hand them over.
-FJ
Miers has now withdrawn her nomination for the position of Associate Justice for SCOTUS. Provided Bush now has an opportunity to nominate an "originalist" to the court, and if he does, we should start to see a rise in his popularity polls, as conservatives climb back aboard the Bush Express.
-FJ
"I wish I got to define all my opponents "strategies" for the public."
It boggles the mind to think you think it's a one-way street and that it skews to liberal favor, as if Republicans succeed in spite of it. The whole reason for GOP's success in the last decade has been their ability to successfully frame the issues and the media is just as "complicit" (if you can call it that). That was Gingrich/Limbaugh's "gift."
This whole media bias thing is such a dog run. When you have the Right griping about liberal media bias and the Left complaining that the media is this administration's lapdog, you know there must be something else to it.
My namesake and I don't agree on much at all, but if there's one thing Chomsky does well, it's in portraying the media. The media is THE instrument of the status quo. It is THE organ of whatever you might think of as the "Establishment." Farmer John correctly refers to these folks as our aristocrats and calls them a necessary evil. Fine. But don't gripe about "bias" then when the difference is a mere bag of shells. Look at this president: spending like a drunken sailor, growing government, and chalking it up to "war needs." So now he nominates a Bork and all's well again, he made the right noises, go back to bed? Come on.
Any presidential campaign provides the most naked example of showing who our fourth estate really works for. Take any third party candidate from the last 25 years. My guess is that the average American would find more sense, more truth in what both Nader AND Buchanan were saying. But what, without fail, happens to any third-party candidate who dares to step into the ring (should he have the money required to even merit a moment's notice)? Ridiculed and marginalized instantly by the press. More importantly, their messages are not allowed to see the light of day. Forget about questioning what corporations are doing with American jobs. Forget about having a meaningful discussion about illegal immigration.
Yet you talk to any average American long enough, and they wish there were a third party, because they understand their interests are only superficially represented by dems or repubs.
Yeah, yeah, I know--"get over it."
That's all I had to read, Norm. If you really believe that there is some complicity between Republicans and the media you are one delusional dude.
Another reason why the Duck is an intellectual defect. No matter how many times I tell him I do not receive a military retirement check he repeats his tired assumption. NO MILITARY PENSION, DUCK, GET IT?
norm,
You claim that the "fourth estate" is the administration's lapdog. In so doing, it seems to me that is you who "thinks it's a one-way street" that skews to the adminsitration's favor. You agree with Chomsky that the fourth estate represents the "establishment". Who is the "establishment"?
Well then, perhaps it is time to red-examine some terms. What are the traditional "three" estates? And why is the press often called "the fourth estate"?
For the press to be an "administration lapdog", would it be represented by the "traditional meaning" given the "fourth estate" (from Wikipedia)?...
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"Thomas Carlyle in On Heroes and Hero Worship (1841) writes,
... does not... the parliamentary debate go on... in a far more comprehensive way, out of Parliament altogether? Edmund Burke said that there were three Estates in Parliament, but in the Reporters' Gallery yonder, there sat a fourth Estate more important than they all."
This was not Carlyle's first use of the term. If, indeed, Burke did make the statement Carlyle attributes to him, Burke's remark may have been in the back of Carlyle's mind when he wrote in his French Revolution (1837), "A Fourth Estate, of Able Editors, springs up." In this context, the other three estates are those of the French States-General; the church, the nobility and the commoners, although in practice the latter were usually represented by the middle class bourgeoisie.
Burke, as author of Reflections on the Revolution in France, could have had in mind precisely these three estates, or the three referred to by Henry Fielding.
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in other words...that the editors of the "fourth estate" typically represented the views of the "commoners" of the third estate...
or do you subscribe to the "alternate" definition of the fourth estate (from Wikipedia)?...
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"The term Fourth Estate has more infrequently referred to the proletariat in opposition to the three recognized estates of the French Ancien Régime.
An early citation for this use—earlier than for the one that now prevails—is Henry Fielding in Covent Garden Journal (1752):
None of our political writers... take notice of any more than three estates, namely, Kings, Lords, and Commons... passing by in silence that very large and powerful body which form the fourth estate in this community... The Mob."
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or perhaps as you ascribe the role of the "fourth estate" to be defined by the "Fifth Estate" (from Wikipedia)?...
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Fifth Estate (FE) is a periodical published in Liberty, Tennessee and in Detroit, Michigan. Its editorial leaning tends from anarchist to bioregionalist.
Fifth Estate is the longest running, English language, anarchist publication in North American history.
FE was started by Harvey Ovshinsky, a seventeen year old youth from Detroit. He was inspired by a summer trip to California where he worked on The Los Angeles Free Press, the first underground paper in the US. The name came from a coffee house he liked to visit on the Sunset Strip.
The first issue was published on November 19, 1965 - "That's what we really are - the voice of the liberal element in Detroit," it said. It was produced on a typewriter and then reproduced by offset litho. It featured a critical review of a Bob Dylan concert, a borrowed Jules Feiffer cartoon, alternative events listing and an announcement of a forthcoming anti-Vietnam War march. None of these things would have been included in contemporary newspapers.
In 1966 Ovshinsky moved the office from his parents basement to a mid-town storefront near Wayne State University. Here the paper was saved from extinction by the Detroit Committee to End the War in Vietnam, John Sinclair's Artist Workshop, and other radicals. Later in 1966 the paper moved to Plum Street where they also established a bookshop. Fifth Estate thrived in the late sixties, a period when over 500 underground papers emerged in the US. Thousands of copies were distributed locally with hundreds more being sent to GIs in Vietnam. FE openly called on soldiers to mutiny. In 1967 the FE offices were tear-gassed by the National Guard during the massive Detroit uprising. In this period the paper published 15,000 - 20,000 copies.
By 1972 the optimism of the sixties had worn off and the tone of the paper became more concerned with struggle than fun. Ovshinsky left, leaving a group of young people (teenagers or in their early twenties) to run the paper. Some of their naïveté wore off as they sent delegations to Vietnam, Cambodia and Cuba. With the massive defeat of George McGovern and the election of Richard Nixon for a second term with an increased vote damaged the movement - many underground papers stopped coming out and the alternative news services such as the Liberation News Service, and the Underground Press Syndicate had collapsed. By 1975, FE was lingering on - many staff had burnt out through too much activism and they had their share of internal disputes. The debts were mounting up.
In August, 1975 Vol. 11, No.1 declared "The issue you are now holding is the last issue of the Fifth Estate - the last issue of a failing capitalist enterprise . . . This is also the first issue of a new Fifth Estate." This was the first explicitly libertarian issue of FE. The paper had been taken over by the Eat the Rich Gang. They were a group that had successfully published several pamphlets and were particularly influenced by Fredy Perlman, Jacques Camatte, Jean Baudrillard, Council communism, and Left Communism, as well as the Situationists. They did not originally identify themselves as explicitly anarchist and had no contacts with the anarchist currents of the 1930s. However they were contacted by veterans of that period, who they saw as powerful role models. They developed a close relationship with Black and Red, a radical printers/publishers group which Fredy and Lorraine Perlman were involved in.
From 1980 when they came up with the dictum "All isms are was-isms." the paper became more anti-technological and anti-civilisation, something for which it was well known throughout the '80's. Fifth Estate continues to publish from the Detroit-area but has added a new editorial base in Tennessee. The current editorial collective has taken the magazine in a direction that refuses sectarianism and attempts to unite all of the disparate strains of anarchism into a more unified force. The group also distances itself from anarchism as ideology, embracing a more inclusive, yet still radical, anti-authoritarian perspective.
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But "regardless" of which of the definitions you choose... NEVER is the fourth estate described as the administrations "lapdog". The FOURTH estate is essentially ANTI-ADMINISTRATION by it's very existance and purpose...public watchdog.
Now cry to me about "who will watch the watchers". You can claim that the watchdogs have "sold out". But I would argue that the evening news last night was comprised of mostly PURE speculation as to possible indictments forthcoming. So it can "hardly" be accused of demonstrating any "loyalty" to the current "administration". It is a slave to "public opinion" and a tool for laying public officials "low".
And, IMO, the "fifth estate" was put out of business BY the "fourth estate", as the 4th estate's "slant" became increasing "radical" in light of the victory of the press over Richard Nixon (resignation) and the war in Vietnam (defeat).
-FJ
mr. ducky,
I think Wikipedia offers a rather robust definition that might lead you towards a greater understanding of Originalism. I would ask that you pay particular attention to the Scalia quote/ interpretation.
And I agree with you about America being "run by the corporate". But unfortunately, the "corporate" is defined by the "legislative". And so the solution to the "problem" of the "corporate" must be to re-examine the nature of the corporate. And the main objection I have with the "corporate" is that it is no longer "limited". Corporations never "die" and so can consolidate an incredible amount of resources in the hands of managers whose main concern lie only with continued growth and the next quarter's profits.
-FJ
I like Michelle Malkin. She speaks for the Bourgeoisoie (1st def) instead of the Proletariat (alt def) and directly against the "fifth" estate (3rd def). In this respect, she is truly the 1st of the 4th.
And Nixon was the victim of mis-aligned axe handles of logic invented by the press...
And the Vietnam War was all part of American's long-standing policy of "containment" of Soviet ambition and corresponding "communist" idealogy which followed on the heels of "The Korean Conflict" and many, many, minor overt and covert American operations leading up to the present day.
And ps - it was not for the "aristocrats" that the WMD "excuses" were made, but for the "sheep" who would rather graze upon the hill than go hang the pack of wolves that were growing bolder, but still merely feeding on "strays".
-FJ
You made a BIG error in reading my post fj. I said the Left claims the media is the admin's lapdog. I claim that neither the Left nor the Right are accurate. Both are dissatisfied with the media, aren't they?
Think about one thing you wrote: the news last night was almost pure speculation. These days, most major media outlets offer pure speculation (opinions are cheap) rarely pure news--which is a far more difficult thing to do. The media has to provide content, and they have to do this in order to "sell soap."
So they tart stuff up to sell soap.
Asking the really uncomfortable questions costs them their livelihood. So their job really requires disseminating information that has already been framed by their masters, and to create faux controversies to make it appear as if there are two sides duking it out.
I'm not saying this is good or bad--there's an element of "maintaining order" to it that I think we require. The media is far, far more status quo than its patina of liberalism.
Oh yeah, poor Nixon. so misunderstood!
Then I agree with you normy, neither left or right are completely accurate in their claims. But I think that the very "definitions" of the "fourth estate" acknowledge that the 4th estate represents the public and the public has "class" constituencies to which individual media outlets "cater" to sell their "adverts".
And IMO, only about 10% cater to the serious right (mostly radio and internet but some FOX), about 10% cater to the serious/loyal liberal left (MSMtv/PBS/print), 70% cater to "entertaining" the masses (and are therefore liberal-leaning so as to not offend) and the final 10% to the radical 5th estate (mostly internet and Air America types).
And if they wish to sell their adverts, they must be careful not to upset the class that buys their papers (Bourgeoisie -WSJ/ Liberal -NYT/ Masses - People Magazine or Entertainment Weekly /Anti-Bourgeoisie- PWD or Left Links
-FJ
No, Nixon was not misunderstood. But lets face some facts. Someone "leaked" the Pentagon Papers (which was one H' of bigger crime than the trumped up le'faire Plame) and Nixon sent his plumbers out to find the source of the leak. McGovern was a VERY LIKELY source, but he couldn't very well order the FBI in to investigate his "opponent" in the middle of a campaign. The press would have a field day, and the public would accuse him of trying to rig the election.
This wasn't "espionage" against the DNC campaign. It was a national security issue. The Fifth Estate was all intertwined with the McGovern camp. And no one thought that McGovern had even the slightest chance of winning the presidency with all the anti-war whacko's that had lined up on the left side. Nixon won in a LANDSLIDE election. Nixon didn't NEED intel on McGovern's campaign. But he DID need to plug his security leak. And as usual, the CIA wasn't playing ball (Deep Throat) as it seemed to be mired in politics as well.
I only hope that future presidents care as much as Nixon did for the security of this country. Secret wars in Cambodia or not. Covert Ops are NONE of the American citizen's business. But it IS REAL international politics. It's the real "hardball" politics that comes with national survival in a hostile international environment driven by human/animal "cravings and desires" and NOT simply moral idealism and some naive belief in a "benificent" human nature.
-FJ
Sorry senor duck, but to reject "originalism" means to repudiate the concept of "stare decisis" and there goes all your precendents and case law with it. You end up with the rule of lawyers, not the rule of law. It prevents you from "decontextualizing" and "deconstructing" the document so as to suit a preferred outcome. If you want a different outcome, pass a different or new law! That's what the Constitutions for!
-FJ
Mr. Ducky, I have never "spouted" anything at all about small government. Where do you get your weird ideas?
Your attitude begs questions. Do you plan on passing up your social security entitlement? Do you think that I should pass up my entitlement despite paying into social security for 29 years? You are a weird little man with weird little ideas.
My VA check is very simple to explain. If the government didn't take care of its service connected disabled veterans they would have a hard time finding men to defend you and all the other service avoiding social defects.
LOL! An inferiority complex from living in Texas??? I have yet to meet a Texan with an inferiority complex. My college roommate was from Beaumont and his ego was bigger than the Hindenberg! And every one of his fellow Texans wore leather belts with their names burned in and adorned w/cacti and armadillos.
You won't find a more "pridefull" man in the lower 48 states than a Texan. And it's pure amour de soi, none of that citified amour propre.
-FJ
mr ducky,
If you think we need new banking regulations, please get your representatives to draft and pass them and repeal obsolete ones. If you want homosexuals to marry, please get your representatives to draft new laws and pass them.
And if you can succeed in doing so, than we can understand that some men voted "against" those laws and it wasn't a consensus decision. But perhaps we'll be able to also understand that when they passed those laws allowing homosexuals to marry, they weren't "also" creating a universal right for brothers and sisters to marry. Do you think that's possible? Or are future generations free to interpret the new laws however they see fit?
And you'd better read your Constitution a little better in the future mr. ducky...about the right to vote.
"Section. 2. Clause 1: The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States,".
"XIVth Amendment -Section 2 [Apportionment of Representatives.] Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.".
XVIIth Amendement - "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, elected by the people thereof, for six years;"
XXIVth Amendment - "The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reasons of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax."
XXVIth Amendment -"The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of age."
So to state that the Constitution doesn't even give us the "right to vote" is sheer hypocrisy.
-FJ
And mr ducky...
It's time to face the facts about "homosexual marriages". Until the "marriage penalty" was essentially stricken from the tax code, gays were in NO hurry to try and get themselves "hitched". They were perfectly happy to just "live together". It's only when they began to see some "financial benefits" from marriage that they began licking their lips and whispering in their lawyers ears.
-FJ
Yet those fabled enjoyers of the "light of reason" Tanked Teddy, Tanker Dukakis, and Hanoi John go nowhere. Go figure.
mr ducky,
My faith in the Constitution is derived entirely from originalism and the principles of stare decisis. It has NO faith in judges uncovering hidden "universal rights" never before seen by man or beast in the text. And your "Boston baked judges" did just that in declaring that homosexuals had a "right" to marry under the "equal protection" clause where there NEVER was nor NEVER had been a case of homosexuals being considered "marriagable" or being married by the state.
And in case your wondering, there are no "universal rights" except those G_d given "inalienable" ones talked about in the Declaration of Independence. Everything else is simply a "privledge" granted by the Constitution that can be taken away only by amendment. And if something with a long standing tradition based upon stare decisis is taken away in a 5-4 decision of the court, there will be 'H to pay. They call it "revolution" or "civil war".
You might get away with trying to "add" rights using the courts, but it'll never work in the reverse without a Constitutional amendment. And "adding" rights in that manner is a "corruption" of the system, NOT an enhancement. It violates the very foundation of laws built around the concept of stare decisis.
So if you want new laws, go to the "legislature". That's their sole job, MAKING LAW. Judges jobs are to enforce the laws that were actually MADE by the legislature and put on the books. Not "make up" new ones from out of their own heads.
-FJ
mr ducky,
One day you'll discover that "extreme parachialism" is the ONLY thing that can withstand the light of reason. YOU are real. The group you imagine you belong to only exists in your imagination.
-FJ
It's "overall shared benefits" they're after, and why not? Civil unions should have been their ticket. Even Bush supports those. The idea of gay "marriage" need not have entered the legal realm. They could have their civil unions, enjoy the benefits of married folks, and call themselves married if they like.
They can call theirselves a truck if they so desire, however, when any type of official status is conferred I will be asked to financially support someone’s aberrant sexual appetites. I do not care to financially support someone’s aberrant sex lifestyle because of my religious and moral beliefs.
"Let's try an example. Is declaring the execution of minors because it is cruel and unusual an example of "legislating from the bench"
Note: "example of "legislating from the bench".... should read "example of "legislating from the bench" and succumbing to "overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty"
mr. ducky,
If there was no basis for denial of a gay marriage in Massachusetts, what basis was there for affirming it? Had there EVER been a case of a recognized marriage between a two men or two women? A man and a pig? Three men and a chicken? Nope, no stare decisis. Sorry.
But as for the execution of minors, plenty of stare decisis for that. So it is not either "cruel" or "unusual". At least not in those states that permit it. Who cares what they ban in Sweden. They've got different laws there that we ought not "cherry pick". For China has different laws as well. Over there I can gut prisoners and sell their organs. In Nevada, I can "hang" you. In Darfur I can pretty much do whatever I want to you.
-FJ
Fitzgerald's indictment of Libby won't stick. He's got no data to prove that Libby knew Plame was a "covert" CIA operative or anything more than a "secretary". It's all simply fuel to justify two years worth of digging and millions spent that will ultimately result in an inevitable "acquittal".
-FJ
"overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty"
The quote is what it is. It is a direct quote from an opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States.
I didn't say that I "support" gays. I don't care what you do in Massachusetts. Spread the word that Texas is "hell." Stay away.
Can you explain about "overwhelmingly pressured" when I never penned that phrase? Where did it come from?
Hell in Texas
Hell Marys
Hotter'N Hell Hundred
Insider Knowledge
If I owned Texas and Hell, I would rent out Texas and live in Hell. —Philip Sheridan, famous misinformed yankee carpetbagger
Stupid Press Question of the Day
I have been sitting here for at least an hour listening to really dumb questions. The very last question of the Fitzgerald press conferance wins the grand prize for stupid press questions.
"Did the Meiers withdrawal yesterday have anything to do with today's indictments."
"Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work – and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers."
Why read fiction when real life has stuff like this to offer. Scoots is a real poet!
Is a court room event the defining moment of your political philosophy, Duck, your political victory? I think I prefer the concept of taking your issues and beliefs before the voters and winning the election. That is why President Bush will be President until 2008. Perhaps then we will enjoy a George Allen, R-VA, presidency.
If the pseudo intellectual progressive liberal demoracists continue to pursue their agenda of making their party irrelevant to mainstream America and nominate Hillary "Stand By Your Man" Rodham Clinton, or Hanoi John we will see another Republican presidency. Amazingly the pseudo intellectual progressive liberal demoracists refuse to give up their belief that they are the smartest, prettiest, most tolerant, most kind kids on the block who know what's best for the universe even if the universe doesn't. Us flyover country hayseeds recognize them for exactly what they are, pretentious pricks who need to go bother someone else.
Yeah, right Duck. You are very spiritual. Unlike other spiritual types who speak in tongues you speak in profanity. Nice. You say I am venal so I guess that explains why you are puzzled by my support of President Bush as opposed to supporting the venal Hanoi John. No contradiction, Duck. Speak for yourself when you claim we are a venal sorry people. I am not. That is why I could never support the venal sorry Hanoi John who betrayed his morals, honor and scruples for political gain.
mr. ducky,
The equal protection clause requires one to become a "textualist" and ignore all the "facts on the ground" and precedents. And any reading of the Constitution that prohibits the rules from "changing" are hardly "activist". And it's an abuse of the language to call it so. Stare decisis is a "static" position.
So go ahead and tightly embrace the equal protection clause mr. ducky. Just don't be surprised when someone reads the text "differently" tomorrow. As for me, I'll stick w/using precedent for a guide. For I judge the meaning of what most people do by their actions, not their words. And I judge most governments and politicians the same way.
article on the 14h
-FJ
Ooops, bad link...
article on the 14h
-FJ
Mr.Ducky, I just want to know how Bush intends to cut the budget and hand out big tax breaks while paying for his war and cleaning up the gulf coast (among other things). "What's the problem? I'm outta here in a couple years and I made "my base" richer. Adios, the rest of you poor saps!"
Funny, but I always thought that the "progressive" position was to have this Karl Popper inspired government of Bureaucrats running this unelected and mythical "open society" government that controlled all the corporations and hands out goodies (mr. ducky's ideal "distribution"/"supply" separation) to all the members of its' society based upon who it thinks "needs" the money. Kinda like "government by corporate managers" and the "quarterly report" of "upsidasium inspired societal goods".
And so my question is, how is the Bush administration any different from the ideals that progressive seek ("What's the problem? I'm outta here in a couple years and I made "my base" richer)? Is it possible that the whole dispute lies simply over "who gets the goodies? Surprise, surprise.
-FJ
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