Democrats & Liberals: Archives

Right on the mark, Woody! And, thanks for not letting this go unnoticed by WatchBlog readers.

I was curious as to the location of the Sinclair affiliates, and so:
Columbus, OH
Springfield, Mass
Tallahasse, FL
Pensacola, FL
Greensboro/Winston-Salem, NC
Asheville/Greenville, NC
Charleston, W Va
St. Louis, MO

I count 4 key battleground states! It’d be interesting if the affiliates competition makes hay of this, Sinclair’s party bias could very well hurt Bush!

Bert, before you start doing hand-springs at the idea that something as obscure and roundabout as Sinclair’s purported party affliation “might hurt Bush”, let’s have a little fact-checking.

A liberal think tank has said that Sinclair executives have given a total of $130,000 (as individuals—not as a company) to Bush since 2000. Does this make Sinclair a Republican organization? Hardly.

Shall we look at how much money Times-Warner (ABC’s parent company) executives have given Democrats? By this kind of reasoning, ABC—and hence Nightline—is a Democratic organization because several of its parent-company executives are top-Democratic donors.

The major irony here is that just last week Kerry accused ABC of being Republican!

I don’t agree with Sinclair’s decision—it just seems silly to me. The Nightline stunt is equally silly—part of the media’s condescending idea (demonstrated in the whole pictures of flag-draped coffins controversey as well) that Americans don’t know the cost of war and need to be reminded by paternalistic liberal reporters.

They really do think that Americans are idiots, and seem totally befuddled that so many of us still support the war despite all their best efforts. Part of Sinclair’s folly in this is that nobody in their right mind would hesitate to reach from the remote after the first five minutes or so of Ted Koppel droning out a list of names. Perhaps (and let’s hope) Koppel really does just want to honor the fallen, as do we all—but considering the partisan bent of that show, it strikes many of us as borderline offensive.

Speaking of fact-checking: I meant the Disney Corporation (not Time-Warner, the parent company of CBS).

Ok Martin, where do I start?…

- First, It’s funny ya’ll on the Right keep slamming media programs like Nightline, NPR and CNN, as bias. On a scale from Limbaugh to Fox News Channel, how bias is Ted Koppel? Or, am I wrong Rush and Fox are not bias? By the way, I’d love to see specific examples of these media outlets being Liberally bias!

- Second, I do agree that Nightline’s stunt is silly, but it is sweeps month. Sinclair’s move is worst than silly, it’s a bad PR, a partisan shot in the foot!

Also, two cliches in one - you live by the sword…/It’s all about perception! Just as the GOP attack machine blew the ‘Nazi ad’/MoveOn.org issue onto cable news, nearly every news item I’ve read mentions Sinclair’s ties, bias and political leanings. Damn! That Liberal press again!

- Finally, it should be obvious that polling moving aganist the war is consistent when reports of troop casualities show a sharp increase (like Thursday). Obviously, the Bush administration believed images of flag-draped coffins would have the exact same effect.

Looks like the Liberals ain’t the only ones who think the American public is stupid.

Well, since we’re mostly agreeing, I’ll keep things rolling—of course Fox is biased, and I won’t quibble whenever you care to point that out. (The Rush comparison seems less relevant though because he’s not a network and doesn’t pretend NOT to be biased).

The “Sinclair is Republican story,” however, was initiated by the liberal Center for American Progess who apperantly googled some company executives and found that over the last two presidential elections some of them gave a total of $130,000 to Bush. I’m guessing, because of the new campaing finance laws, that they majority of this was in 2000—but it doesn’t really matter. It’s slanted evidence. How many Sinclair executives donated to Democrats? How much? Does it even matter? Look at how much Michael Eisner (the Disney CEO) has donated to Democratic causes. Far more than 130 grand.

Sinclair was dumb to make that move, for the reasons you point out, but “censorship” seems a harsh way of putting it—“boycott” seems more appropriate. They have succeeded only in giving publicity to what otherwise would be a pretty boring episode of to the say the least a not very widely watched program.

I’m not sure how sweeps month factors into this—care to enlighten me? I fail to see how Ted Koppel reciting 500 names would captivate an audience (Nickelodeon re-runs anyone?)

Martin, I agree that it’s not censorship, but you can’t say it’s not partisan, they say so themselves.

It brings up some interesting questions about the Bush administration’s intent to facilitate media industry monopolies, though.

What if ABC/Disney controlled most of the mainstream media outlets? No matter what channel you tuned in, you’d see pictures of young US troops killed in action every night. Every day, the Disney owned newspapers would print the casualty list. All the Disney owned radio stations would play back-to-back protest songs.

President Bush and Powell’s boy at the FCC are trying to make that happen.

Martin, in the Army I worked as a psychiatric technician in a psychiatric hospital at Ft. Sam Houston in the early 1970’s. I can tell you from the exeperience, that those who have been in combat that I have known, and many I have seen on programs discussing the horrors of war and losing buddies, that it is an experience shared only by those who have been there.

It is near impossible, as Homer, to Shakespeare, to surviving combatants have all expressed, for civilians to understand what war is like and what the cost is to combatants.

Yor are right, the American people are not idiots, but, too, they do not know what the cost of this war in Iraq is in terms of dollars, human suffering (unless they have lost a loved one) or even in terms of how many 10’s of thousands of human beings have suffered.

Argue as you may the merits of invading Iraq or Afghanistan, it is naieve to say that the American people know what the cost of this war is. It is a fact that they don’t. And it is not because they are idiots. It is for a host of reasons not the least of which is negative avoidance. 100’s of millions of people in America do not want or choose to dwell on the negative or painful if they can avoid it. That afterall is what separates them from masochists, so it is a healthy defense mechanism.

But, it is the American people who ulitamtely have the power to to continue or put an end to the costs in Iraq, and thus, like it or not, they have a responsibility to confront the real costs of the war as best they can comprehend from their safe hamlets, towns, homes and offices. An American has a much higher risk of dying in a car accident or from overeating in America than from a terrorist attack. Some perspective is needed and confronting the reality of returning dead in as real a fashion as possible for civilians, is a good thing in a democracy that must choose to when it is time to continue and when it is time to end the killing.

It is ignorant for someone who has not experienced combat losses to presume they understand what it is about. I worked with a burn patient from Viet Nam and I will never forget my empathy for that young man. I also know, I will never know the suffering and agony, and courage and hope, he went through. I worked with him because he was on suicide watch at BAMC having already tried to kill himself after losing his face. I had empathy for him only because my duty confronted me with his presence, in the same way that the draped coffins will confront the American public with the losses taking place - and not just the vicarious “We are all heroes for what we are doing” attitude by armchair war supporters.

Martin, Fox news isn’t just biased. No, it’s Agenda-bound. It is created with a purpose in mind: to actively aid and abet the Right-wing agenda. What’s the difference? Near contstant support for Bush, in spite of all that has happened, all that has gotten wrong. No doubts, no real examinations of the obvious errors of the Bush foreign policy, much less any of the alleged errors that all the books have put forward. When you go onto a site like NewsMax, do a search on Bush, and find almost zero bad things said about an obviously controversial figure, even in his own party, then you know somethings up.

Compare this to Clinton’s treatment. The so-called liberal media jumped on the whole Monica Lewinsky bandwagon, and never jumped off. You didn’t have this kind of hagiography required. You would hear about all the little embarrassing bits, all the little accusations. You really had no liberal command, control, and authority up there telling the reporters and editors what the political line was going to be.

What do you have on Fox? Well, Fox is run by a man known for injecting his personality into every station he owns. No newspaper of his issued any editorial opposing the war. A hard right conservative/libertarian, he hires Bush 41’s former campaign manager, Roger Ailes, to run his news network. A man, who, by the way, still offers political advice on the down and low to his former boss’s son.

Consistently, during the war, Fox News declared that WMDs had been found, when the other networks would barely touch it, and for obvious reasons, since every claim has since been discredited.

It is they who came up with the ridiculous doublespeak phrase “Homicide Bombers” as part of a transparent attempt to make a phrase that didn’t exactly bring warm feelings to anybody’s heart for the palestinians, even more unpalatable. You can allege all the Left-Wing newsroom Cabals that you want to, but none of the organizations you call liberal show the organized political agenda pursuing tendencies of Fox News.

This right here is more evidence that Republicans have been so overwhelmed by ideology that they actually think that the audience doesn’t have a right to decide for themselves what to think of the roll call of the American dead. When right-wing ideologues are yanking even those programs they perceive to have a bias, like The Reagans despite their mandate to express all the views of the community they serve, then the question of whether Right-Wing ideologues are stifling the free flow of ideas can be asked, along with another, separate question.

Why would they need to stifle that flow of ideas? What are they afraid of? And they answer it outright, their bias for all to see: They are quoted as saying they believe it would undermine the war effort. But why would that be the case?

Republican are constantly harping on the need to take the soldier’s deaths as motivation to go on. But when it comes time to put a name and a face to those who have fought and died, they don’t even trust the average person to make up their mind as to whether to be discouraged, or inspired.

You go to your people, and you tell them, the American people have a right to identify with their soldiers. You go to them, and you tell them, that the reading of the names of five hundred American dead would not be a political problem for the war if it was being well run in the first place. You go to them, and tell them that they are dealing with an audience of adults who as whole dealt with the far greater toll of 9/11 without giving in to despair.

You tell them, that the worst possible way to maintain popularity for a war, is to make it look like those who support the war have something to hide. It’s not done much good for your people this whole year. What good will it do you now, in this extreme form?

Glad to see that my post has inspired so much discussion. I find it baffling, however, that Martin and Bert would describe the Nightline show as “silly”. It seems to me that they are trying to make a serious statement. (If it were an outright attempt to end the war, that would be a serious purpose indeed!) As Martin admits, it is probably not going to have high ratings. It will probably be rather tedious. Of course, reading all 50,000 names on the Vietnam Memorial would be tedious too…

Whenever Martin posts something I always seem to find three or four things to object to, but I’ll just add this one: Isn’t the Pentagon who’s being condescending by wanting to hide the coffins? (And might I add, stretching the definition of the word “privacy” beyond all recognition.)

Can we quit calling Fox a news station. All I ever see on that channel is tabloid trash. “Fox Entertainment Network” sounds better. You may think CNN employs a bunch of communists but at least they have reporters in Africa. At least they don’t editorialize while they’re actually reading off the headlines. At least they don’t have a show called “The G Block”. Martin said: The Rush comparison seems less relevant though because he’s not a network and doesn’t pretend NOT to be biased. I would extend that to Fox. People were so starved for media that would report what they wanted to hear that Fox doesn’t even have to pretend to be unbiased.

Jeff,

The amazing thing about Fox is that some people actually believe it’s the only unbiased news source. My boss’s boss is a staunch conservative, and he believe that Fox never displays any bias whatsoever.

Amazing.

Most conservatives I know will admit that Fox has a bias; most leftists, however, will never admit that Reuters, AP, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, the LA and NY Times, etc. are all equally biased. That these outlets covered the Clinton scandal proves only that it was a huge story and could hardly have been swept under the rug. They did manage though to frame the story as “right-wing” indignation and prudishness over sex instead of abusing the office of the presidency and perjury. And in doing so they saved Clinton’s bacon. A Republican president would NEVER have survived a scandal like that—can you even deny it?

I thought Rumsfeld’s comment the other day was right on regarding the LA Times’ decision to run with the headline “Mosques Targeted in Fallujah” after Marines returned fire coming from a mosque. The untrue idea that “Mosques” would be targeted is utterly inflammatory anti-Amercian rhetoric (and hence, good liberal journalism).

Examples of this surround us every day.

“When Bush wouldn’t “apologize” at his press conference after five reporters demanded it from him, all the headlines were saying things like “Bush Refuses to Take Responsibility,” or “Bush Remains Stubborn in Face of Demands for Apology.”

When Powell gives an interview, as he did the other day, and says he believes Bush will rise in the polls as the Iraq situation improves (which Powell believes it will very soon), the AP decides to run with “Powell Says Iraq Losses Hurting Bush.” Even if the headline has a grain of truth, choosing to frame the story that way is nothing but obvious leftist wishful thinking.

If a great many people flock to Fox, it’s because they want to get away from the daily display of leftist bias from other outlets. Yes, there’s an element of wanting to hear their own views confirmed, but so what? Don’t they have a right to those views? (It’s the same reason every leftist I know has rushed to buy Richard Clarke’s book—it tells them what they want to hear).

“Whenever Martin posts something I always seem to find three or four things to object to, but I’ll just add this one: Isn’t the Pentagon who’s being condescending by wanting to hide the coffins? (And might I add, stretching the definition of the word “privacy” beyond all recognition.)”

Hope I’ve given you at least three of four here—but here’s another one. I wonder, considering the left-media’s drumbeat on this subject, how may of you even know when the media ban on arriving coffins was enacted? It was under Clinton, and Bush is just continuing a policy already in place when he came into office.

And David, I stand by what I said about it being condescending to think that Americans aren’t aware of the costs of war. Some aren’t, to be sure (as some aren’t aware of the costs of NOT going to war). But many of us know people presently serving in Iraq (two of one of my best friend’s brothers are over there), and statistics show that Red State Bush-supporting people are far more likely to be serving, be related to or know people serving that Blue-state elitists like Ted Koppel who dare presume to lecture the rest of us on the costs of war.

Martin sez

how may of you even know when the media ban on arriving coffins was enacted? It was under Clinton

Ha! Guess again. It was under Bush I. According to CNN, the policy started in 1991.

As I recall, not many coffins came back during the Clinton administration, and when they did the right-wing media acted like Clinton had personally killed the soldiers with his bare hands.

Well, maybe that’s right. The article I saw said that the policy was in place but not enforced until 99 (which would be under Clinton). So I guess the ban is even older than I thought—but the point remains. It’s a long-standing policy and not just some neo-con plot hatched to pull the wool over our eyes.

My point on the Fox “News” was not that they are biased and CNN & Co. are not (even though Fox is ridiculously more biased, but I digress). It was that Fox is a terrible “news” organization. They sensationalize things even more than other news outlets do (and that’s really hard to do) up to the point where they border on being a tabloid. CNN, NPR and PBS among others do some tremendously well done reporting on many topics. And while they are biased in their reporting of certain things and sensationalize others they still manage to do things with a bit of class. So what would you rather have: CNN or Fox, the Times or the Post, the Boston Globe or the Boston Herald. I think the choice is obvious.

Most conservatives I know will admit that Fox has a bias; most leftists, however, will never admit that Reuters, AP, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, the LA and NY Times, etc. are all equally biased.

I’ll agree that some of those are biased (I don’t know enough about some of them to claim anything).

However, I’ll never agree that they are equally biased.

I think the bias from the left is mostly unintentional - the people involved aren’t trying to impose an agenda, but their personal beliefs seep into the reporting.

Fox is a different story. I believe that Fox intentionally pushes an agenda, and the bias is much stronger.

A Republican president would NEVER have survived a scandal like that—can you even deny it?

Sure I can. Reagan survived Iran Contra. Bush and the GOP have survived a few other scandals and questionable activities:

• Dick Cheney’s secretive Energy Task Force
  
• The “itimigate” over Plame
  
• The Medicare scam
  
• The massive intelligence failure of Iraq
  
• Bribes offered on the House floor to Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.) in exchange for his vote on Bush’s Medicare plan
  
• Theft of confidential memos by republican staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee
  
• Enron
  
• Halliburton
  
• The fake news stories about Medicare
  
• Using the IRS to push Bush campaign rhetoric
  
• Questions about National Guard Service
  
• etc.
  

So, I think it’s reasonable to conclude that the “liberal bias” in the media hasn’t unfairly hurt Bush.

Martin, the problem with fox news is not the bias half so much as the use of that bias to justify sloppy reporting and fact-checking, and outright sweeping under the rug of major issues. The problem with some conservatives is that they not only buy into FOX’s image as fair and balanced, but they also buy into the notion that credibility should built on the direction of the bias. Me, I just got done reading Plan of Attack, and have come away with a better opinion of the Bush Administration’s handling of the war.

I could have just dismissed it as biased towards Bush and his people- there’s certainly evidence to support that- but in the midst of whatever bias there is, there’s information, there’s knowledge. There’s things that can be cross-checked and corroborated. To me, the ideal process of coming to conclusions comes from a constant, tentative weighing of the information one gets. It may mean that I go back on certain beliefs. It may mean that I take up positions simultaneously that seem contradictory. It may mean that I end up as devil’s advocate. But it also means, that when I go on the warpath, I’ve got some firepower and some protection to win arguments with.

Bias, in the end, is a poor indicator of what’s good information, and one is always able to separate new information from the interpretation it comes with, and decide for one’s self what might be true.

The broadcasters who are refusing to air the memorial special are shooting themselves in the foot, because they are making a political issue out of something that could have easily remained just a rorschach inkblot test of what one thought of the war.

Now the message sent to many people, especially moderates in the communities involved with this, is that the sacrifices of our soldiers should be just a blank impersonal number, instead of faces and names that might encourage us to think of the war in human terms. The war effort at home should have been started a long time ago, but the Bush administration wanted to have it’s cake and eat it to, engage in warfare abroad, but not deal with the necessary preparations back home. Instead of calls to common duty, the calls have been to consolidate and entrench political and cultural values, to reignite the divisive conflicts that were so familiar in the cold war.

How many people would have blamed Bush for making no further tax cuts after 9/11? How many people would have not agreed with Bush, if he had said, we need to prepare for darker, more lean times, and that American needs to be prepared to sacrifice to face our enemies, then there would have been no political liability in it. He could have very easily reminded Americans of true leadership by sending this message: duty matters more than personal benefit. I’ll ask you to give up the tax cuts, so that we as a nation will be able to bear the burden of this war, do our duty, and leave prosperity for our children, instead of debts and broken promises.

This is actually a good thing. Everytime they censor it backfires and causes more interest and press coverage. In the near future we will be seeing funerals and listening to interviews of loved ones at the grave sites. Just the opposite of what these control freaks want. Doesn’t this always happen?

I guess if by “major issues” you mean Democratic party talking points, then perhaps Fox doesn’t embrace them like the other networks. The problem here—and all of us do it—is that we tend not to see bias when it confirms our own views. To me, it’s as obvious as Fox’s bias is to you that most of the major networks are pushing their own leftist agendas.

I don’t know how you can complain about Fox’s “lack of fact-checking” and cooberation in comparison to the other media outlets. When has their fact checking been wrong? Who are you comparing them too—Jayson Blair and the New York Times? Peter (I get my news from the Iraqi Information Ministry) Arnett and NBC? Yes, both of these guys got fired—but only when they got caught by external watchdogs.

That’s why Fox is the focus of so much leftist anger—they’re the only network that leans right. Conservatives hate all the major networks, so it’s harder to publicize opposition to just one.

Fox also has the benefit of being right most of the time since reality is on Bush’s side and not his opponents.

THIS JUST IN from John McCain (via CNN)

“Your decision to deny your viewers an opportunity to be reminded of war’s terrible costs, in all their heartbreaking detail, is a gross disservice to the public, and to the men and women of the United States Armed Forces,” McCain, a Vietnam veteran, wrote in a letter to David Smith, president and CEO of Sinclair Broadcast Group. “It is, in short, sir, unpatriotic. I hope it meets with the public opprobrium it most certainly deserves.”

The same story says that the stations have been inundated with phone calls, almost all negative it appears.

That is shocking—John McCain questioning the patriotism of those he disagrees with politically.

This is a new landmark: the first time a Republican has actually done this (as opposed to being accused of it when it never happened). Before this, the only ones to question their opponents’ patriotism have been Terry McCauliffe, Michael Moore and every single Democratic candidate for president.

I have to admit—I’m embarrassed and ashamed to see McCain spoil the Republican’s perfect record on this score.

>That is shocking—John McCain questioning the patriotism of those he disagrees with politically.

As far as I know, the only thing that JM disagrees with them about is the propriety of reading the names of dead soldiers. He does support the war!

Disagreeing is fine. Calling people unpatriotic is something else—in the words of our friends on the left, loathsome McCarthyism.

Martin,

If you’re not aware of this, ‘sweeps month’ is usually a period when the broadcast media puts on its most sensationalistic (i.e. controversial, slascious) programming, in order to influence advertising ratings that are set during this period. ‘Nightline’ has succeeded in garnering quite a bit of free press, wouldn’t you say?

Woody,

My intial instinct to label ‘Nightline’s’ move as ‘silly’, was based on my thinking that this was purely a ‘sweeps’ generated ploy - just as the growing ‘20/20’ adoption sweepstakes scandal.

But, after seeing a Koppel interview, I realize his intention is noble, just and worth the dialog it has sparked.

Of course, that can best describe any move that is opposed by Bill O’Reilly and Sinclair Broadcasting, and supported by the next Vice-President, John McCain!

Bert, I’m pretty sure Bush has no plans to dump Cheney for McCain.

martin:

are you not aware of the onslaught from the right about anyone who spoke out about Bush or his policies as being unpatriotic….

why do you think the Dem’s lost any credibility for months after 9/11. NO ONE COULD SAY ANYTHING OR BE DEEMED UNPATRIOTIC….

do you remember…”you are with us, or you are with the terrorists?”

hell…there are folks on the right saying protesting the war is actually helping the terrorists and that those people should be treated as enemy combatants…..

then there are stupid news blips like the guy in Jersey who went around and questioned the patriotism of anyone who’s American Flag was less than pristene…..

the Republicans have LOVED playing the “I’m the better patriot” game with the Dems…..

Rob, the “you are with us, or you are with the terrorists” quote occurred during a speech after 9-11 in which Bush was addressing the Taliban, for crying out loud. I’m not sure what it would even mean to say that Bush was questioning the patriotism of the Taliban. ???????????

It’s true that every time certain Democratic officials or candidates are challenged about anything, they say “You’re attacking my patriotism,” which is just a way of trying to change the subject from their own untenable positions.

For example, saying Democrats are weak on security is not the same thing as saying they’re unpatriotic. Even saying that they’re trying to undermine the war is not saying they’re unpatriotic. You can question somebody’s judgement without questioning their patriotism.

Whackos in New Jersey aside, I have NEVER seen an administration official, NOT ONCE, say that a single one of their domestic opponents was unpatriotic. What I have seen repeatedly is Democratic candidates saying it about Republicans—that they never get called on it in the media, while the canard that Republicans are attacking their opponents’ patriotism gets repeated endlessly—is further example of left-media bias.

The “you’re attacking my patriotism” schtick is really starting to make ME wonder, however.

For example: if in everyday life somebody tells me something once (whatever it is), I’m inclined to believe them and just let it go. But if they keep saying “Do you think I’m lying?” even when I don’t, if they keep saying “Are you calling me a liar?,” then I really will start to have second thoughts about their truthfulness. By the same token, why do Democrats feel the need to keep talking about their patriotism when nobody else is? That is, if they really are patriotic? It’s a classic example of protesting too much.

Bert, I’m pretty sure Bush has no plans to dump Cheney for McCain.

Good one, Martin! Props!

Gracias, Bert. Let’s keep those props within the family.

I don’t know how you can complain about Fox’s “lack of fact-checking” and cooberation in comparison to the other media outlets. When has their fact checking been wrong?

I remember FOX reporting during the invasion that Iraqi WMDs had been found. I remember the “smoking gun” report on at least three different occasions.

I agree that Nightline should show its program on all affiliated stations, but I disagree with the idea of Koppel and the ABC execs using their show to promote their own anti-war agenda - and using the military dead as tools. That really is beneath contempt, but they DO have the right and the freedom to say what they want.

Ken,

If using the dead is beneath contempt, I’m sure you were horrified to find out that Bush is using 9/11 imagery in his campaign ads. If anything, that is a stronger case — Bush is clearly using the imagery to get re-elected. In the case of Nightline, I don’t think that it is fair to assume that they have a political agenda.

I agree Woody.

And I don’t remember the right having as problem with other tributes to our troops, like the yellow ribbon thing in the first Gulf War. Where are those yellow ribbons, anyhow?

The funny thing is that by showing all of the war dead at once, ABC saves themselves the hassle of mentioning them and memorializing them every day.

From the very beginning of the war in Iraq, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer has been airing a moment (maybe 20 seconds or so) of silence, with a picture, for every dead soldier every single day that there has been dead soldiers to report. On bad days, this has meant that the last several minutes of the program have been dedicated to these mini-memorializations.

None of the other networks (AFAIK - someone please correct me if I am wrong about this) have done anything remotely like this. My guess is that this is for two reasons. First, it’s an expensive use of potential advertising time. But secondly, and more significantly, I think that the networks are now and have always been afraid of being accused of putting a negative spin on the war, and have been continuously underreporting negative stories, avoiding negative imagery, and glossing over casualities (on both sides).

In other words, in the big picture it is my opinion that ABC news and all of the other major television news outlets have been continuously censoring themselves since the beginning of the war, in particular they’ve been excusing themselves from doing their rather obviously morally correct duty of reporting on those Americans who have given their lives each day.

Perhaps if ABC had the guts to report this stuff from the beginning it wouldn’t be so controversial of them to try to make up for it in one dramatic late-night fell swoop.

-Cf

Martin wrote:
> but the point remains. It’s a long-standing
> policy and not just some neo-con plot hatched
> to pull the wool over our eyes.

The ban only says that the military cannot permit the press to come on site and take photos of the arriving coffins, and as a matter of fact I have a certain degree of sympathy with that policy. In this case, however, the other networks aired photos that were already taken (perhaps by an authorized military photographer?) and were already legally published in the non-military world.

After the photos were released due to the FOIA request, FOX was perfectly free to run them. They chose not to. Whether or not the policy was enacted a hundred years ago or just yesterday is irrelevant. FOX was acting politically on the behalf of Karl Rove. FOX was acting against the best interests of the American people.

-Cf

Christopher—you have two totally unsubstantiated claims there. Even if it is in America’s best interests to look at pictures of coffins (an assertion you haven’t even bothered to explain)
what proof do you have that Fox acted at the orders of Karl Rove?

None.

If the choice to not air pictures of coffins (even if many of those photos are actually those of astronauts—which happened to be the case) is political, then isn’t airing them just as political? I see now—the media is the Democratic party’s exclusive property and should take its marching orders from the John Kerry campaign.

I see now—the media is the Democratic party’s exclusive property and should take its marching orders from the John Kerry campaign.

Haha! I wish!

Actually, I think the mainstream press (disregarding info-tainment shows like FOX News, Rush, and Air America) has been mostly balanced.

If the media was run by the liberals, they would have completely ignored the ribbon/medal “scandal” and if they were all run by conservatives (as some of my friends believe) the AWOL thing would never have come up.

On the whole, I think it’s pretty balanced. With the far-left and far-right rags and blogs thrown in, there are also fewer stories that get missed.

However, I am disturbed by the trend toward media deregulation and the underminig of anti-trust laws.

Martin, it simply amazes me that you’re not willing to trust the American people to act maturely in the face of their soldier’s deaths. What this was, was a plain old recitation of names, with photos popped on screen. No judgments, no harsh tone of voice, just names and pictures.

What do you have to be afraid of? What is so injurious to the war effort? Is it that you have some kind of paranoia about the public’s support of this war? Don’t you think the administration’s political support on this war is robust enough to handle whatever discouragement that a public listing and identification of the war dead might produce?

In the end, people judge wars on progress. If we are losing hundreds of soldiers in a matter of months, and we are seeing little, no, or less than no improvement of our situation, then that will be much more debilitation to our war effort than any dry recitation of names accompanied by pictures.

Those who said that Afghanistan was a quagmire turned out to be wrong. But that happened only after we started making substantial progress a short time later. Those who said that the initial invasion of Iraq was going to get stuck in a quagmire were wrong, too. Within a week of that little announcement, we were back on our way. But those who say the Iraqi occupation is a quagmire are right, and have been proved right by continued and escalating violence, tied with lack of control of a number of cities. Now, this quagmire might loosen, but things have been going this way for about a year now. It might take additional measures to win this war.

You will not win Iraq by heaping abuse on those who even approach a critique of our military action there. You will win it by employing the tactics and resources necessary to break the stalemates, drop the casualty rates, and attain our objectives. If progress can be seen in the War in Iraq, then people will look at such plain presentations of the war dead as being motivation to continue, to not let those deaths be in vain, rather than reason to abandon the Iraqi war.

Trying to suppress anything that deals with the unpleasant side of Iraq will not win support for the war, Martin. It will invite comparison to the political hypersensitivity ofthe supporters of Vietnam. with that comparison will come the ugly memories of the secrecy, the incompetence, and the nasty rhetoric that implied betrayal of one’s country merely for voicing a contrary opinion. It seems like your people are intent on re-opening that wound, of re-fighting the Vietnam controversy on the homefront and winning this time. But such controversy, you forget, is a function of dissatisfaction, and dismissing people’s concerns like that will only serve to amplify them.

If you want support for the war to overwhelm opposition, you must earn it by deeds, by progress, or if necessary, by apologies and remediation. You will not unite this country by dividing it against itself.

Christopher,

Actually MSNBC has a so-called ‘Wall Of Honor (or Heroes)’ segment, where viewers send in photos of troops in Iraq and the heartfelt messages from families. I happen to think it’s blatant pandering of a 3rd place cable network, but…

By the way, Martin…

Every news segment I have seen since this started, never fails to mention the Conservative bent of Sinclair, including a hilarious segment on The Daily Show.

Lastly, according to The Daily Show, every Sinclair newsperson is required to end everyone of their segments saying, ‘We stand behind the President, 100% percent.’