QandO

As bad as the numbers are, I was under the impression that CBS News was already in third place on a regular basis. Am I wrong? Either way, it seems that a more important barometer of the situation would be if the current numbers represent a dramatic drop from where have averaged over the past weeks and months. Any Nielson followers out there who could fill us in?

Posted by: s. at September 16, 2004 02:44 PM

Ok - Rather is an idiot. I think you have established that point.

One thing I never understand about right-wingers is their schizophrenia about the MSM. On the one hand, they say that the MSM is biased and therefore cannot be trusted. The claim that there is no point in consulting the MSM because they are so one-sided and out-of-touch.

Now, let's assume that is true. One would think then that the rational response would be to ignore the MSM. I mean, if they cannot be trusted, why give them the time of day.

But instead, you get right-wing bloggers like McQ who spend seemingly every waking hour obsessing about the MSM. This post is emblematic. In it, McQ talks about CBS's ratings. WHO CARES? If, as McQ claims, Dan Rather should not be taken seriously, why not just ignore him, and his ratings?

It's kind of like domestic violence. McQ is the victimized wife and Rather is the wife-beater. A rational person in the wife's position would have nothing to do with her husband. And yet, she continues to back to him because she just can't let go.

There's help out there, if you want it.

Posted by: mkultra at September 16, 2004 03:04 PM

MKULTRA is the eternal optimist, certain that there is a pony somewhere in that pile of manure. However, he almost makes makes a good point. After Clinton lied to the grand jury, a goodly number of the MSM called for his resignation. Slick gave them his best imitation of Theresa saying "shove it" and they skimpered back to their caves to try to salvage a legacy for him. BJ is one of the MSM's most loved persons today.

Posted by: EddieP at September 16, 2004 03:34 PM

Mk - try and see the big picture here. I think the issue is that there is a broadcast outfit out there, lying to Americans.

You know, the thing that Michael Moore claims the President did, and I think Terry Mac-Awful claimed it too, that is LIE.

Now from the perspective of people who are interested in seeing something that reasonably equates to balanced, this is a problem. CBS does not own the air waves, and as they are licensed by the FCC to use them, it would seem that they DO in fact have some responsibility to at a minimum, present at least a slanted version of THE TRUTH. In the aforementioned case Mr. Rather has gone over the edge of the truth pier and is headed offshore towards mid ocean all the while claiming his feet are DRY. Were this not a reasonably tightly contested presidential election year, it might mean less.
So, he's being permitted to peddle these forged lies, cloaked as NEWS (implying some TRUTH) to
an unsuspecting public audience.

Honestly, if I thought Rather made up negative things about Kerry, I'd probably be just as pissed (and confused as hell about his motiviations). Ya know, sometimes the right thing to do really IS the right thing to do even when you don't happen to like the result.

Now, let's talk about your obsession with coming here. If the posters and mangers of the site are so beyond hope, why do you keep coming back?

I'm not actually trying to chase you off...I'm just tossing the rhetorical shoe onto the other foot.

Posted by: looker at September 16, 2004 03:46 PM

Mk, there is a difference between having to deal with a biased press that still reports facts and having to deal with a press that makes stuff up and passes it off as fact.

We've had two perfect examples of this lately. The first was the AP story that said a crowd of Republicans booed when told former President Clinton was to undergo heart surgery. The second is CBS passing off documents it must have known were forged as somehow newsworthy.

That's not a biased press, Mk. That's a press that is bound and determined to make the President look bad using complete and utter fabrication just because they don't like his politics.

They've crossed over the line from merely biased to grossly dishonest.

Posted by: Steverino at September 16, 2004 04:00 PM

Nah ... its much simpler than all that. MK obsesses about McQ. So MK continues to come here and make pseudo-intellectual comments on things I find interesting.

But that's ok, because, well everyone has to be somewhere, and MK does get the rest of you guys to comment as well.

So, its all good.

Posted by: McQ at September 16, 2004 04:11 PM

Comment? Sometimes it's like watching a little bitty guy walk into a biker bar and shout -
"all right, which one of you fairies is gonna be first!"

Posted by: looker at September 16, 2004 04:24 PM

Anybody else wonder why MK is so darned angry all the time. The rest of us can disagree on various points and not start calling eachother names. Perhaps it is because the rest of us have been able to agree on some semblance of facts and are willing to debate the interpretation of those facts....just a thought.

Posted by: Curt Mitchell at September 16, 2004 04:49 PM

Oh yes. Right-wingers are level headed and only deal with facts. Left-wingers are angry and lie.

I know we live in George Bush's world, where there is only black and white. But do you all really believe this? Really? If so, wow.

Posted by: mkultra at September 16, 2004 05:09 PM

MK: I do think you're able to engage in reasonable discourse, but I also think it's hard in a, let's face it, hostile environment. (hostile = most people prone to disagree with you)

Try just not responding to the stuff you think is hypocritical--or otherwise objectionable--and discuss the points you find relevant. i.e., ignore abuse, and stick to the reasonable stuff.

I think we'll get farther, that way. I prefer it. Of course, the same goes for people arguing with MK. Discourse is better than abuse.

Posted by: Jon Henke at September 16, 2004 05:21 PM

BTW, were up to 51 KIA this month in Iraq. On Monday alone we lost nine boys. Yes, 9.

I have a serious question. I review the right-wing blogs. And by reading them, one would have no idea there is a war in Iraq right now. There is zero mention of the escalating casualty rate. 9 Americans killed in one freakin' day and all the right-wing blogs can talk about is fonts, typewriters, and superscripts.

More to the point, of all the people in the world, you would think that the right-wing bloggers would be upset over how the Bush administration has hamstrung the military effort in Iraq by politicizing the military decision making.

This is from an article today in Salon:

"Little of this comes as a surprise to the men and women on the ground with whom I spoke in Fallujah in April. While rigorously apolitical, most Marines, up to the rank of major, when discussing the battle, readily admitted that it was overly politicized, and many bluntly told me that they "got fucked by higher-ups." One particularly conscientious 1st sergeant, from the 1st Battalion of the 5th Marine Regiment, kept getting choked up when I asked him to recount the battle and was openly disdainful of the command authorities who had ordered his men to attack the city and then paradoxically ordered them to retreat as soon as victory seemed within reach. "There's no two ways about it: We were robbed of victory at Fallujah.""

Question: Why have the right-wing blogs shoved Iraq down the memory hole? Since when has the death of 9 Americans in one day become a non-story?

Posted by: mkultra at September 16, 2004 05:33 PM

Hear hear!
I therefore, won't discuss the latest pointy headed 'right wing' book that I finished that attempts to explain the anger of the left of center crowd. Though I can say with reasonable comfort that being out of power in Congress and the White House is a big factor.

BTW - I used to shoot holes in the 'far far right wing' theories about Clinton and the UN taking over, (egad, have they lost their minds?) Texas a few years back.

Mk - I just ask that people use their heads and be reasonable. When people start shouting about Halliburton and the Likud controlling Bush it's kinda hard for me to give them a serious hearing.
Same goes for the latest "Rove planted the memos", and "the fogeries don't matter, the facts in them are still true...".

Please, do those sound like truly reasonable arguments?

Posted by: looker at September 16, 2004 05:40 PM

Shoved down the memory hole? What do you want us to do? Rent our garments and type "ohhhhhhhhhhh, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh".

It's a military operation. People are unfortunately killed in military operations.
It is NOT going to be free from danger.
Where is your lamentation for the Iraqi civilians killed by what are clearly NOT Iraqi insurgents who seem to be quite content to kill anyone who is handy?

As to politicizing the effort - well, yeah, and I suppose you don't think having to deal with the shrill cries of "lied about the war", "where are the WMD's!", "Saddam wasn't a threat", etc. have any effect on any decisions being made do you? Claiming that you don't understand how the war has become politicized and blaming BUSH alone for that is a bit much don't you think?

"The wrong war at the wrong time!" - yeah, there's certainly no one but Bush making political decisions about it.

Posted by: looker at September 16, 2004 05:49 PM

MK: the short answer is that casualities do not, and can not, measure progress. Our objective in Iraq is not zero casualties.

McQ and Dale have discussed--and criticized--various policies and actions in Iraq. I've discussed democratization and some political realities. As far as military tactics....I'm out of my league there, so I stay away.

For the most part, I don't think the solutions--and strategic problems--in Iraq are front-page material. A car bomb is not a factor in our progress/failure. It's an unfortunate side-effect of that progress/failure, but it is not a measurement.

Posted by: Jon Henke at September 16, 2004 05:52 PM

"Oh yes. Right-wingers are level headed and only deal with facts. Left-wingers are angry and lie."

Thank God mkultra is finally seeing the light!

Posted by: Jumbo at September 16, 2004 09:01 PM

Impeach George W. Bush

Why is George W. Bush's National Guard service from 1968-1973 relevant in 2004?

Without relying on any of the dubious “CBS memos,” personal testimonies and the undisputed Bush Guard documents previously released by our government strongly suggest that as a young man Bush used the Guard to avoid military combat, refused a direct order to take a required annual physical, and didn't fulfill his military obligations.

As a wealthy son of privilege, “W” used the National Guard to avoid combat. Ironically, Bush now uses the same National Guard as a "back door draft”--conscripting Guard service members (many from underprivileged socio-economic backgrounds) into combat in Iraq—a crusade based on discredited WMD evidence, which was touted by the administration to justify their “preemptive” invasion and occupation.

It has been reported that as much as 40% of the U.S. occupation force in Iraq is comprised of National Guard and Reserve members. And these brave men and women of the National Guard are sustaining many casualties (more than 100 dead so far).

It must be comforting to the families of Guard members that the Bush administration has misleadingly conflated Iraq with the 9/11 attacks in cynical, inferential sleight of hand designed to win the support of the American public for a masturbatory diversion from the real war on terror (aka Bin Laden and co.). The 9/11 Commission reported that there is no evidence that Iraq was behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

George W. Bush has denigrated the National Guard, both as a young man, and now as a middle-aged, president. Bush is unfit for command and should be impeached. Why? With more than 1,000 U.S. troops killed in Iraq so far, Bush’s crimes against our military and the American people are far graver than the extra-marital indiscretion of our previous President. Where is Ken Starr now? Talk about hypocrisy.

Posted by: Bob Dylan at September 16, 2004 11:48 PM

Don't you just love people who cut and paste talking points?

Posted by: Steverino at September 17, 2004 08:00 AM

Ya know though, it always puzzles me when they go and call themselves the ARMY National Guard. You'd think they were under the impression they were somehow affiliated with the United States Army or something.

And didn't John Boy say he'd have done it even if there were no WMD. Um, yeah, I think he did.
But that may have been before or after or during the time he voted to vote for it against it.

Posted by: looker at September 17, 2004 08:09 AM