The New York Times just can't lay off the GOP's Kool-Aid. Take, for example, their story ("In Montana, Obama Tries to Rally Support on Iraq ") about Barack Obama's Fourth of July in Montana:
Mr. Obama’s statements about Iraq on Thursday continued to reverberate. First, he said he might "refine" his plan for withdrawing troops after meeting with military commanders in Iraq this summer. Later, he emphasized his commitment to removing combat troops within 16 months of his taking office.
Wonderful. Pray tell, where might that reverberation be taking place? Oh, I see -- it's reverberating in the very same article:
One day after Mr. Obama said he would consider refining his plan to remove troops from Iraq within 16 months, he offered no timetable for withdrawal as he criticized the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, which he said "has not made us more safe and has fanned anti-American sentiment all around the world."
Was this some detailed policy speech worth of such misguided over-analysis? No. He was speaking at a barbeque -- not the Council on Foreign Relations.
I got back yesterday from a 3-month business trip to Paris. My company maintains an overseas office, and one of their workers was out on maternity leave when the office hit a particularly rough patch. I speak French, so I was shipped over to fill in.
I'd been to France before, but not recently and never in a non-tourist capacity. But during this stay, I lived in an apartment, mingled with French people and generally tried to live like a Parisian. I learned from this some very interesting things:
Jesse Helms 1921-2008: The man who gave the Karl Rove types the blueprint on how to divide and conquer the United States of America.
That is BIG news were I'm from. Practically the entire Section A of the Charlotte Observer is dedicated to Senator NO this morning. Different writers with both positive and negative views expressed.
If we want to drive the far right out of power, we need to start at the foundation Senator Helms built.
If anyone currently has to hold a relationship to support their political ambitions, there is no better example at current than Florida governor and possible GOP vice presidential running mate Charlie Crist.
Today's media freakout on "refining" provided some great material to expose the bias and stupidity of many in the MSM.
In this video, I focus on the "reporting" of CNN, which pulled a classic case of: "Obama must respond to these allegations because he's facing questions" without noting that CNN was the outfit that had raised the questions in the first place.
Also, just so you've been warned, I've recently begun narrating some of my videos -- and this is one of them. On the bright side, you can find out that I am after all a real person, and that my name really is Jed.
After years of watching the GOP in action, I think they actually have a well defined process to control political dialog in the USA.
Tonight Obama himself was TV responding to a Red Herring. Not Good. It shows that McCain has defined Obama and MSM automatically accepts any deviation from McCain's definition as a flip flop. Pathetic reporting but something we all need to combat.
I'll put on my business person hat and lay out what I believe the GOP is doing.
Key Concept:
RED HERRING
any diversion intended to distract attention from the main issue
After listening to a 10 minute rant on MSNBC where they basically played two obama quotes back to back that said the exact same thing in different words and them have them characterize it as a flip-flop, I figured I'd come here to see them getting chewed out...but no.
Allow me to begin with a given: It is critical for each of us, as surrogates to the Obama campaign, to know, understand, and be able to explain Barack Obama's policies so we may respond to misstatements, correct those misinformed and educate those who may otherwise not vote for Obama as our next POTUS. The blueprint for Change is downloadable from Obama's website http://www.barackobama.com/...
It is equally crucial we be familiar with the litany of McCain flip-flops to point out the hypocrisy, non-credible platform he assumes to possess, politics of heinous pandering, or the bankrupt agenda they cannot run on because it is simple curd for the bottom 28% of Bush's bell curve.
So what are these flip flops the due diligent progressives have been discussing and the rest of the Main Stale Media (MSM) been avoiding? More below the fold.
During the last week, its clear the news media is on full-getaway mode. Passing off Gen. Clark's comments as "controversial" or "news" even though he's said the same before. They show California burning to the ground constantly (becuase every American wants to see their countrymen's land burned to ash), Jolie is knocked up in France so I guess thats news?
So as we head into the Independance Day Weekend, I've complied a list of 5 things MSM news outlets should do to regain their focus.
WHY IS IT SO EASY TO FORGET? Why is it that we can lose our compassion for ppl so easily? As easy as a new more glammed-up headline coming across our television...that's how easy it is. I don't only blame us but I blame the MSM who constantly bombard us with mind numbing articles ripe with sterotypes, war/hate mongering phrases and pundit opinions that DO NOT INFORM US OF THE REALLY IMPORTANT ISSUES! HUD in LOUSISIANA is spending $762 million in taxpayer funds to tear down over 4600 public housing subsidized apartments.
It's been just 12 years, but it seems like an eternity ago -- the day I grabbed that sheepskin, packed every worldly possession into a pile of UPS boxes, and set off across the country to pursue my dream of becoming a journalist.
My first job was 2,500 miles from home, and paid the princely sum of $21,000 a year. No matter, I thought; this was the first step in a noble career as a servant of the people and the truth.
Six years later, burned out and disillusioned after years on small newspapers across the country, I shut the door on journalism. There were many reasons: financial, work-life balance, overwork, stress. But disillusionment was the biggest. Put simply, I had decided that engaging in hack journalism -- sensationalizing and exaggerating the story, rather than simply presenting the facts -- was the surest path for advancement to the big leagues of journalism. And I couldn't do it.
The past 72 hours have provided me with a stark reminder of why I left.
Surely the MSM is able to distinguish between honoring someone's service and questioning their qualifications to be POTUS. Conflate they will, have a counterstrategy we must. Below the fold is a idea I hope people will comment on. The McCain camp (with the help of the MSM) with their outrage are attempting to make McCain's claim that his military experience (as POW) makes him more qualified to be the POTUS bulletproof. Their choral histrionics sung refrain after refrain as you can see at TPMtv's HYPERVENTORAMA is unfortunately all too revealing. Rather than feel powerless I turn to writing this diary to suggest something that might be good idea but would still need vetting.
I'm deeply frustrated at MSM's inability to reflect on their judgement. They cling to their image of their great American hero, their Vietnam G.I. Joe fighting to save the day. When they feel their dream or "hope" questioned, they react as if attacked and immediately call 'foul' on anyone questioning their hero. Let's pull a Tim Russert and press McCain to disclose his FULL military records! (COMPULSORY DISCLAIMER) I'm not denigrating McCain's service or his sacrifice for the country-just asking for a real vetting!!
I hope everyone else here is as shocked and angry at NBC's latest "reality" show, "The Baby Borrowers." NBC has gone right past taking advantage of unfortunate adults for entertainment purposes and directly into child abuse by taking children who are far too young to understand what's happening away from their parents for 3 days.
If you have any shred of doubt that this is actual child abuse, below the fold is a letter from people who know about child abuse first-hand, those dedicated to taking care of children.
Please contact NBC, and especially it's sponsors, and tell them how outrageous it is for a national TV network to engage in child abuse. List of sponsors and contact info is below the fold.
NBC makes it difficult to just e-mail them. you go to this page:
http://www.nbc.com/...
A call to action for McCain to sign SF-180 and release his full military records so he can be properly vetted. The MSM must stop giving McCain their blessing. Please stay with me.
I think the top story on Media Matters right now is quite illuminating. I invite you all to please read it and think about how we can frame what could be a very key talking point for us.
So, here I am happily returned from gathering signatures for our neighborhood on a new rule we wish to put in. I figured I'd scan DKos and The Page by Mark Halperin real fast and see what I had maybe missed. It seems I missed alot this last week.
Every week, on Friday, Mark puts out a PDF for "Campaign Scorecard". I usually find it interesting, but something stuck out at me like a sore thumb, considering I made a post about it last night here.
Was rather surprised to have what I said in the Lara Logan diary, to be so blatantly confirmed by Mark.
All of sudden there are groups that are appearing all over MSM saying they used to be Clinton supporters but now are against Obama and will vote for McBush.
The common wisdom in the media is that Sen. Obama is showing strength by "standing up to the left" by signing on to the FISA compromise. Like so much of what passes for intelligence on the idiot box this is a bunch of hooey. The charitable reading is that it puts a fig leaf over a very obscene part of Obama’s campaign. If it weren’t so logically flawed and the stakes were not so high, then it would be mildly amusing. But, that presupposes it’s a political fight, like some dustup over whether to do away with Social Security, and it presupposes that this was a left-right, liberal/conservative issue. Of course, neither of those premises holds.
But, I find myself somewhat less than surprised over Obama’s position and hardly outraged. After all, we all knew he was a politician, and we’ve learned that can be an epithet as well as a laudatory label. In the event, he may be irrelevant to the discussion. It would be good to know that someone about to take the oath of office would mean the words they speak, but is that ever the case?
