The Victorious Opposition

Yahoo posted the trailer for the new movie, “The Tillman Story”:

If this trailer is any indication, they are making no bones about going after the military with regards to the misinformation that was originally spread about Pat Tillmans death.  Usually, I think that documentaries whose sole purpose is to besmirch the armed forces aren’t worth the celluloid they were filmed on.  However, this was a *national* story—“Heroic Soldier Falls In Line Of Duty After Abandoning NFL Career”.  There are many layers of questions to this issue, as a result:

- Was the military intentionally spreading misinformation in order to keep the “feel good” nature of the story?
- Did the truth regarding the circumstances sully the PR potential needlessly? 
- At the end of the day, do we prefer truth to inspiration?
- Is it ever justified to mislead the public for the sake of morale?

I’m curious to know:
1) What you think
2) If you are planning on seeing this movie

I could have made this a discourse, but I feel that we may have some vocal opinions on this that could generate some good debate.

This is yet another right-wing wingnut conspiracy theory, up there with the Truthers and Birthers. However, the fact that this is posted by an organization calling itself “Accuracy In Media”, with a subtag of “for Fairness, Balance and Accuracy in News Reporting”, made this humorous enough to warrant posting. AIM’s mission statement is:

Accuracy In Media is a non-profit, grassroots citizens watchdog of the news media that critiques botched and bungled news stories and sets the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage.

And with that setup, I give you The Real Story of the Oklahoma City Bombing:

While liberal news outlets such as MSNBC were cynically exploiting the April 19 anniversary of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing by attempting to tie the terrorist attack to the anti-government sentiments of the modern-day Tea Party movement, investigative reporter Jayna Davis was setting the record straight in an exclusive interview on the AIM radio show, Take AIM. The Oklahoma City bombing was an Arab/Muslim terrorist attack on the United States, she says.

Davis, author of a blockbuster book on the attack, The Third Terrorist, has examined and presented the evidence showing that Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was in fact a front man for Middle Eastern terrorists. The third terrorist, in addition to the two, McVeigh and Terry Nichols, who were convicted, was an Arab. This was the mysterious “John Doe” who was never found. But other members of an Arab terrorist network were involved, she says.

She says the evidence was ignored and dismissed because the Clinton Administration didn’t want to go to war with Iraq, the likely culprit, and wanted to blame the attack on domestic right-wingers for political reasons. 

...

One of the problems with the MSNBC narrative is that Davis makes a convincing case that in fact McVeigh “was a handpicked dupe, set up to take the fall in order to save his Islamic collaborators from prosecution.” She documents that he had expressed a desire to be a mercenary for Middle Eastern terrorists, and that the trail of evidence that both he and his accomplice Terry Nichols left behind points in the direction of an Arab/Muslim connection to the attack.

Oh, my. This screed goes on and on, including inviting readers to contact that Oklahoma City DA and ask that he act on her “evidence” to bring these “Arab suspects” to justice (interesting to note that apparently a criminal investigation/trial is OK in this context).

Where do these fruit-loops come from?

Nice, huh!!, and on Sunday, how appropriate, is there no end to the deification of this guy?

The NY Times has just declared that church is now in session. But this isn’t just any Messiah, no outstretched open palms, welcoming the weary and afflicted into his arms like that pretender from Nazareth, nope, Obama is here to lecture, hence the wagging finger. We are beyond persuasion, we must be instructed, guided, and told what is good for us.

Some may interpret that symbol as a medical cross, like, this guy is on life support, bring in the paddles, but we know better. We are presented here with a father figure, one that, like a Shepard with his sheep, will keep the wolves at bay, as long as we do what we are told.

For all the bluster about health care, why doesn’t he just lay his healing hands on the sick and infirm, make the blind see and the crippled walk. Others may wonder why he just doesn’t do some global Spock like mind meld, or some Jedi mental manipulation (You don’t need to see his pass, these are not the droids you are looking for) so that the people think it is their idea.

The Obama halos where pretty hilarious in their time, but newer more direct images are needed.

Where the real Jesus told his disciples to go spread the Good News of the gospel through out the world, Obama has chosen the MSM:

  * Obama, in what has become a tradition for the media, is deified with lighting that resembles a halo (ever recall the use of similar lighting for George W. Bush?)
  * Deification is further emphasized through the use of a cross watermark, courtesy of a mosaic filter
  * The focus, however, is on Obama’s single upraised finger, the digit pointing towards the heavens, as if to say “I am the one that can save us, as it was foretold by the ancients.” Or something.
  * The White House, a tiny, nearly transparent reflection, is located below the President; it seemingly says that the man is bigger than the office. He is more real. He is more important. He is the One.

If last years elections taught us anything, it is that life is hard, responsibility is taunting, with the freedom to choose comes the freedom to fail and who wants that? Cradle to grave governmental interference protection may not be such a bad thing, after all, he does really seem to care, a lot.

Sometimes I wish these voters figured out that if you really need someone to tell you what to do, when to do it, and for how long, you should of joined the Army. They really do let you believe that making your bunk and shinning your shoes was your idea.

Comedy gold from Britain’s Charlie Brooker, who encapsulates the dreary style of modern news:

I think part of why TV news is on the decline is simply due to changes in expectations regarding the speed of information.  Information technology theory gives us new ways of thinking about this subject that help clarify the issue and let us arrive at a deeper understanding.  With the internet, and the on-demand video, audio and text-based content that’s available, one can consume information at a higher rate relative to the slow, passive pace of television.  With these options widely available, expectations of information bandwidth tend to grow.

It’s like how most of us would feel if we had no other internet option than dial-up.  Our expectations are bigger than the measly 56.6kbps we’re stuck with.

H/T:Fox News

Consider this slant on health care issues:

Is Female Health Care Under Attack for the Second Time in a Week?

Days after a government task force radically changed its guidelines for using mammograms to screen for breast cancer, another critical preventive test — Pap smears – is under the microscope, heightening concern that both might be a first step down a slippery slope toward health care rationing.

So, I must ask, where was the outrage last fall when the same organization issued the same type of recommendations for prostate cancer screenings and colorectal cancer screenings last year? I don’t recall hearing anything, then or now, about male healthcare being under attack or slippery slopes towards rationing.

Both of these areas are big deals for the dwex family - I’m at elevated risk for prostate cancer due to family history, and mrs. dwex is at elevated risk for breast cancer due to family history. My doctor and I have discussed the issues surrounding PSA tests for a couple of years, including the false-positive issue (which I’ve mentioned in other posts). Even with the elevated risk, we’ve decided to avoid PSA testing until I’m at least 50, unless I have symptoms, because the false-positive rate combined with the risks of biopsy are just not worth it.

When routine early screening leads to complications (e.g. false positives leading to biopsies that can have serious complications), early screening needs to be questioned. On the flipside, when detection and treatment leads to no longevity benefits and reduced quality of life, the rationale for continued screening should be questioned. These studies have raised issues that warrant discussion as part of the broader healthcare debate. They shouldn’t be used as political footballs.

People need to have this type of information. And they need to talk to their healthcare providers. These are recommendations about routine procedures for average people. Individuals will make their own decisions with their medical providers - which is how things happen anyhow.

I’m really tired of all this fear-mongering nonsense. This crap with cancer screenings is right up there with the “death panel” nonsense, having no correlation to reality but making for good press.

The interview part of this runs a little longer than it needs to, but stick it out. The post-interview commentary is pretty cutting, and pretty much right on the mark.

In recent weeks, the White House has begun using its government blog to directly attack what it called “Fox lies.” David Gergen, who has worked for President Bill Clinton and three Republican presidents, questioned the propriety of the White House declaring war on a news organization.

“It’s a very risky strategy. It’s not one that I would advocate,” Gergen said on CNN. “If you’re going to get very personal against the media, you’re going to find that the animosities are just going to deepen. And you’re going to find that you sort of almost draw viewers and readers to the people you’re attacking. You build them up in some ways, you give them stature.”

He added: “The press always has the last barrel of ink.”

It looks like Obama’s refusal to appear on Chris Wallace’s show during his media blitz really was a calculated display of adversity after all.  That’s why this statement from Dunn is so funny:

“What I will say is that when he (Obama) goes on Fox, he understands he’s not going on it really as a news network, at this point,” Dunn said on CNN. “He’s going on to debate the opposition. And that’s fine. He never minds doing that.”

I don’t see how Wallace qualifies as “the opposition” by any stretch of the word’s definition.  Even O’Reilly, who is notably right-of-center, gave Obama a pretty fair interview during the campaign (if less fawning than he was used to getting from the Suck-Balls Media).  Of course, Fox and its failure to fellate Obama at all times is what this is really about:

As for Dunn’s complaint about Fox News’ coverage of the Obama campaign, a study by the Pew Research Center showed that 40 percent of Fox News stories on Obama in the last six weeks of the campaign were negative. Similarly, 40 percent of Fox News’ stories on Obama’s Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, were negative.

On CNN, by contrast, there was a 22-point disparity in the percentage of negative stories on Obama (39 percent) and McCain (61 percent). The disparity was even greater at MSNBC, according to Pew, where just 14 percent of Obama stories were negative, compared to a whopping 73 percent of McCain stories—a spread of 59 points.

I also suspect strongly that the Administration is striking out in revenge for what Glenn Beck did to Van Jones.  If that’s the case, what we’re seeing now is downright Nixonian on its part.

This latest episode of White House ineptitude just goes to show how truly not-ready-to-lead, how thin-skinned, and how dangerously partisan (in spite of the “unifier” crap we were sold during the campaign) the Obama Administration actually is.  Love Fox News or not, they’re far and away the most watched during primetime and they will respond to Obama’s attacks before that large audience.  There is no way that the Administration is going to benefit from this.

Fox News

With partially nude photos of her popping up on Web sites questioning her Christian credentials, Miss California USA Carrie Prejean has fired back, claiming the racy pictures are just modeling shots and vowing to continue her battle against same-sex marriage.

“I am a Christian, and I am a model,” Prejean said in a statement released overnight to the media. “Models pose for pictures, including lingerie and swimwear photos. Recently, photos taken of me as a teenager have been released surreptitiously to a tabloid Web site that openly mocks me for my Christian faith. I am not perfect, and I will never claim to be.”

...

The images may also hurt her status as a spokeswoman for conservative causes. “She can continue to advocate for causes, but I don’t think these causes are going to advocate for her,” Ken Baker of E! News told NBC.

Baker, of course, just gave away the true reasoning behind these attacks: destroy her and shut her up for daring to speak heresy.  This is the exact same kind of relentless hatred that Sarah Palin has been dealing with for months.  Eventually, I’m sure that Andrew Sullivan will be running around demanding that she produce airtight evidence that Prejean wasn’t born a man.  Liberals’ obsession with crushing attractive conservative women is starting to become disturbing.  I’d like to know if NOW or one of those other nitwit bimborganizations is going to defend her, for that matter.

For the record, I agree with Prejean that there should be nothing morally contradictory with her previous modeling work.  If it was okay between her and God for her to appear in beauty pageants, which are all about objectifying women as sexual objects and all that, there’s no reason why those pictures should be wrong either. 

The true hypocrisy is among her left-wing haters, who would have no problem with anyone else doing this who didn’t publicly state a position with which they disagree.  The fact is that they see a woman they need to crush and they’re going to keep pushing it.  Usually, I don’t care about these pageants, but what I am seeing here is another coordinated media attempt to silence an ordinary person who happens to be conservative.  That is what I’m mad about.  Expect more of her personal information to come out very soon.  I hope she holds fast.

MSNBC

UPDATE: This from last week:

“In the entire history of the Miss USA, no reigning title holder has so readily committed her face and voice to a more divisive or polarizing issue,” organizers said in a statement.

That’s pretty dirty when you recall that it was one of pageant’s fucking judges who injected that polarizing issue into the event in the first place.  Prejean gets set up for that and then attacked by those who let it happen in the first place.  When did Miss Thoughtcrime become a title, anyway?

The media will be allowed to cover the arrival Sunday of an airman killed overseas, the first such opportunity since the Obama administration overturned an 18-year ban on news coverage of returning war dead.

...

The new Pentagon policy gives families a choice of whether to admit the press to ceremonies at Dover, home to the nation’s largest military mortuary and the entry point to the U.S. for service personnel killed overseas.

Critics of the previous policy had said the government was trying to hide the human cost of war.

President Barack Obama had asked for a review of the ban, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that the blanket restriction made him uncomfortable. The administration will let families decide whether to allow photographs.

For example, if several caskets arrive on the same flight, news coverage will be allowed only for those whose families have given permission.

The ban was put in place by President George H.W. Bush in 1991, at the time of the Persian Gulf War. From the start, it was cast as a way to shield grieving families.

Frankly, I would hope that no family would opt for this; given that certain elements within the media are unapologetically doing it in order to influence policies with which they disagree.  It’s part of my larger problem with the arrogance of those who think that it is their duty to not just report the news, but to function as a (non-elected) fourth branch of government and exploit emotional events in order to further their own agendas.  Believe me, it’s bad enough that they gleefully keep score of how many of our guys our enemies zilch out without this.  What’s next?  Autopsy videos?

If the media wants to know why their credibility is shot, they should be looking in the mirror, not at flag-draped coffins.

Yahoo

While I was preparing to reply to something that buzzion said on this thread, I decided that the point was deserving of a post of its own.  One example of liberal media bias is the game “Name That Party”, where if a negative news story is about a Republican politician/conservative personality, he or she will be clearly identified as such throughout the article, but a Democratic politician/liberal personality will often have the political/ideological affiliaton omitted or buried on page A-33.

The other media bias game is “Republicans Do It Too.”  This is where Democratic illegal or unethical acts are excused by claiming that the Republicans are equally guilty of doing the same thing, so there isn’t any reason to blame the Democrats.  Here’s a recent case:

When Timothy Geithner appeared before the Senate Finance Committee last month, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) accused the soon-to-be treasury secretary of “dancing around” questions about his taxes.

When news broke that Tom Daschle had failed to pay taxes due on a car and driver, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) declared himself “very troubled by it.”

But neither Kyl nor Cornyn seems interested in answering questions about his own tax history.

They’re hardly alone.

Last week, Politico asked the offices of all 99 sitting senators to say who prepares their taxes, whether they or the Internal Revenue Service has ever discovered an error on returns they’ve filed, and whether they’ve ever had to pay back taxes. (Read all the surveys here.)

Of the 56 senators who have responded to the survey, eight said that mistakes have been made on their tax returns, and six said they have paid back taxes. Thirty senators said that no mistakes have been discovered on their returns and that they’ve never paid back taxes - at least to the best of their recollection.

The offices of two senators - Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) - told Politico that they would not answer the survey questions. The offices of Kyl and 42 other senators - 17 Republicans, 24 Democrats and Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) - failed to respond at all.

What’s interesting is that if a Republican gets caught in a sex scandal of some kind, it never does any good to point out that Democrats do it too because with Republicans, there is an element of “hypocrisy” involved because they are the “family values” party.  My response to that is that Democrats are “The Rich Don’t Pay Their Fair Share” Party and that the hypocrisy of Tom “Tax Evaders Should Go To Prison” Daschle as well as Charles “End the Bush Tax Cuts Now” Rangel is the real story.

If a mistake was made on anyone’s taxes, I’m sympathetic, believe me.  The tax code is far too complicated and we need reform desperately.  However, when we’re talking about the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee or even the nominal head of the IRS as Treasury Secretary, it’s kind of a big deal; and limp-wristed comparisons to Senators who actually corrected “errors” before they were revealed by background investigations for critical government posts are weak.

CBS News

So, “fair and balanced” means being a mouthpiece for the Republicans? Someone is likely to lose their job over this one:

During the February 10 edition of Fox News’ Happening Now, co-host Jon Scott claimed that “the Senate is expected to pass the $838 billion stimulus plan—its version of it, anyway. We thought we’d take a look back at the bill, how it was born, and how it grew, and grew, and grew.” In tracking how and when the bill purportedly “grew,” Scott referenced seven dates, as on-screen graphics cited various news sources from those time periods. However, all of the sources and cost figures Scott cited, as well as the accompanying on-screen text, were also contained in a February 10 press release issued by the Senate Republican Communications Center. One on-screen graphic during the segment even repeated a typo from the GOP document, further confirming that Scott was simply reading from a Republican press release. The Fox News graphic and the GOP press release both claimed that a Wall Street Journal report that the stimulus package could reach “$775 billion over two years” was published on December 19, 2009 [emphasis added].

If they had cited the press release as their source there would be no issue. But the presentation, both the narrative and the quotes/citations are presented to make it look like Fox News work. That’s borderline fraudulent.

Drinking beer, driving fast cars, even eating unhealthy food, its all good for the NBC execs who decide what makes the Superbowl cut, and what they consider political advocacy.

NBC is coming under fire from pro-life advocates for rejecting a television commercial a pro-life group hoped to run during the Super Bowl. The ad shows a beautiful picture of an unborn child during an ultrasound and asks what would happen if President Barack Obama had been a victim of abortion.

The commercial, a popular one in recent weeks within the pro-life movement, is sponsored by the pro-life Catholic group Fidelis and its CatholicVote web site.

After several days of negotiations, an NBC representative in Chicago told the group late yesterday that NBC and the NFL are not interested in advertisements involving “political advocacy or issues.”

Its hard to imagine what on earth would get them so riled up about this ad. The words “abortion” or “pro life” are not used, why would they think “imagining the potential of a human life” would be so inflammatory?  No mention of Roe v Wade, no disgusting images of aborted fetuses, no call to action or movement.

Does NBC have a strict set in stone policy for “political advocacy” issues?

Burch responded to that rejection further by saying, “NBC claims it doesn’t allow advocacy ads, but that’s not true. They were willing to air an ad by PETA if they would simply tone down the sexual suggestiveness. Our ad is far less provocative, and hardly controversial by comparison.”

I wonder if they would allow 3/4 naked women to prance around in skimpy underwear that read ,“Life: imagine the potential”, as long they were not sexually suggestive. The fact that they were willing to work with PETA in toning down their ad reveals a policy of allowing advocacy spots on a case by case, as long they agree with the spot, not very fair or equitable.

The ad aired on BET in Chicago on Inauguration Day and it has become an Internet sensation with over 700,000 views in seven days. The CatholicVote ad was in the top 10 “most viewed” category on YouTube on Inauguration Day last week.

I’m not Catholic and they are spotlighting someone I did not support, but I like the cut of their jib, their message was promoted in a tasteful way without judgment or rancor.

I think I will throw a couple of bucks their way as reward for them taking the high road.

While the Midwest has been caught in the throws of a killer ice storm, people are wondering ,“where the hell is FEMA?” Sure, they did a nice dog and pony show for DC, helping out for the inauguration (and what kind of natural disaster was that exactly?) but something right out the biblical plague section of Exodus , the stuff FEMA was suppose to respond to, has them all flummoxed.

At least 42 people have died, including 11 in Kentucky, and conditions are worsening in many places days after an ice storm knocked out power to 1.3 million customers from the Plains to the East Coast. About a million people were still without electric Friday, and with no hope that the lights will come back on soon, small communities are frantically struggling to help their residents.

Kentucky is a red state after all, so by nature, more resilient, but it does seem odd that both Obama and FEMA have left them to fend for themselves.

But the bigger question is, where is the MSM? How easy it is to hearken back to Katrina days, where they were Johnny on the spot reporting how abysmally pathetic the Bush administration and FEMA was in their conspicuous absence. Now, where is the MSM, speaking with one voice, united, what an utter failure Obama is and his policies, how he must hate white people and if pressed hard enough would admit to some nefarious dealings in instigating the storm in the first place?

Remember how Bush was castigated (and rightly so for some things that went down), yet now, they are mute.

We are still hearing about Katrina, 4 years later, here’s a news flash for all you reporter types, we got a natural disaster going on right now, and your leader is too busy trashing Wall Street or Rush to give those poor people a helping hand or the time of day.

Could it be that he is unaware of what is going on (incompetent), or is aware but voluntarily refuses to help out (genuinely evil?)

I can’t wait for Kanye West to host a concert after wards to benefit the the locals and say ,“Barrack Obama don’t like white people”.

Last week we reported a Neilson analysis that showed that, for all the hoopla, Ronald Reagan’s 1981 inauguration had the highest viewership, not Obama’s. In response, I pointed out that web video made up a significant chunk of the viewing this time, and Neilson didn’t report on it, so the analysis was just wrong.

The folk over at NewTeeVee (a GigaOM blog - well respected in the industry, if perhaps unknown outside it) have tallied up what they can of web video statistics, and put some numbers behind what I pointed out in that thread:

We’ve been collecting stats all week from news outlets and streaming providers about the audiences they received during the Obama Inauguration ceremony on Jan. 20. These numbers are necessarily imperfect, but it seems that web viewership of the proceedings actually rivaled that on TV. Whereas TV had on the order of 37.8 million viewers, web streaming providers reported on the order of 70 million views.

Now, you cannot directly correlate TV and web views (page refreshes, time-shifted, clip views, etc), and hence these number are not directly additive. But if you take just 5-7% of those web views as directly complementary, you’re above Reagan’s viewership.

This is a different world from 1981. Honestly, I’m surprised that the TV number was as high as it was.

I mean no disrespect to Reagan, but making a news story out of the TV viewership was disingenuous at best.