I recently ran a story on a Pew poll showing that the majority of Americans no longer trust the dinosaur media to be unbiased or even to get its facts straight. Here's a classic example.
The headline, from the Jackson Hole, Wyoming Planet news reads: "Anti-war/Cheney protest draws large turnout on Saturday; video clip"
When you actually read the article, the `large turnout' has morphed into `as many as 250 people', pretty small even for Wyoming. And when you read the comments, you realize that even that is overstated.
"I rode by this demonstration and witnessed maybe 75 to 85 people in attendence,not 250 as you reported. Look at the video see for yourself there was only 75 losers there." - Kevin Loomis
"To follow up the previous comment, As of 2000, Teton County had a year-round population of about 18,000. so if by some strange account there were 250 people there the figure represents 1% of the population. Tell me Mr. Petri - were do you come up with the headline "Anti-war/Cheney protest draws large turnout..." And how much do you want to bet that at least half of them were outside antagonists? - Fleck"
The article further goes on to describe some of the truly moonbattish speeches given. Although oddly enough, the guest of honor the article touted, Democrat State Rep. Pete Jorgensen was far from critical of Cheney in his comments. He told the crowd that “I truly believe that they’re constituents of mine in the state legislature, and I think we need to afford them an opportunity to come back to their home without personalizing the feelings we may have. They are public servants. They have been elected twice – maybe it was a mistake – I don’t know what it was, but we get to get over it next year.” he went on, “Pick a candidate – I don’t care what party – that generally agrees with you and vote next November.”
Hardly an endorsement of a group of Leftists comporting themselves like 10 year olds...more like a local pol trying to touch all the bases.
The rest of the day's fun activities consisted of a handful of demonstrators marching to the Teton Pines country club, where Cheney has a home and is vacationing with is family.
They took an effigy of Dick Cheney, a life-sized, papier-mâché statue showing the V.P holding a spouting oil derrick in one arm and a fishing pole in the other, with a smaller, horned bust of George Bush blindfolded at Cheney’s feet. When protesters reached their final destination they tied a rope around `Cheney’s ' head and pulled the effigy to the ground.
I especially liked the guy capering around in an Arab keffiyah.
As I said, a quod et demonstadum example of why most sensible Americans no longer trust the dinosaur media.
6 comments:
Hey, Josh,
the only thing "agenda driven" is your at-a-dstance lame blogging.
check out the video www.thesnazz.com, and you'll plainly see that the reported estimate of 250 might have been too low. in particular, check out the long shot of the half-mile long line of protesters.
maybe, if you didn't believe everything the no show, agenda-driven redneck comments of anonymous bloggers that you selected to support your pre-concieved thesis, and actually checked-out the photos and video on-line everywhere right now, you could graduate from axe-grinding blogger wanna-be, to a real documentarian of your cause.
--The Cowboy Times
cowboytimes.blogspot.com
Spoken like the sort of Democrat that would shill for Howard Dean's $2,500 a plate DNC fundraiser, `Cowboy'.
I saw the video, Bubba, and I don't agree with you about the `half a mile' line of yahoos...even though the cameraman did his best to make it look like it with some less than skillful editing to make the line seem longer than it was.
In any event, I'll take the word of eyewitnesses who drove by and saw what was happening, if you don;t mind...what was it you called them, ` agenda driven rednecks'?
What are you,but an agenda driven leftard? And a fairly rude and intolerant one at that?
Dick Cheney is a public servant who was elected to his position and has spent his life in public service, regardless of whether you agree with him or not.
What's more, since he has a heart condition, he's probably taking years off his life to serve when he doesn't need the moolah and could be just sitting in the sun enjoying life.That's probably more than most of the people stalking him at his home could say.
As for being a real blogger, I admit that I'm in awe of the 7,100 visitors to your site in what...a year and eight months? That works out to around, what , ten visitors a day? You're really tearing it up with that kind of traffic. With your wit, tolerance and high intellectual level,It's obvious that people are burning out your server to read what you have to say and I wonder how you cope with your fame and notoriety.
You sure put lil' old me in my place.
Not.
FF
Hey, FF (a.k.a Josh "hothead),
Any time you want to compare journalism/media credentials, you just let me know cowpoke.
in the mean time, while you're so desperate to prove your flawed thesis of "agenda-driven" coverage of the cheney rally, in place of: a) either being there and covering the event yourself, or b) interviewing those who were there: like one republican organizer (Capt. Walt Farmer) and ex-vets
(Nick Rowely, Capt. Bob Morris), plus elected officials (Rep. Pete Jorgensen), you might try fact-checking from multiple sources before claiminng "you know" who was there and in what numbers based on some knee-jerk, drive-by bloggers comments and impressions, or a single camera angle, what the "head count" was at the rally.
The video at the www.snaz.com proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what you are obviously too immature and agenda-driven in your own little preconcieved blog fantasy world to admit, because it causes you cognitive dissonance.
Josh you are WRONG, admit it, make the correction, and move on like any honest reporter/journalist would do when confronted with the stone-cold facts.
Lastly, why don't you call the Teton County Sheriff's office and ask the deputy on duty at the event how many marchers there were?
You do know how to dial and interview someone for a story, right, because you're such an expert reporter, aren't you mr. know-it-all, know nothing?
PS: If you had read the rest of my Howard Dean story, which you obviously didn't, you'd have seen that I was highly critical of the Democratic habit of swooping in to town, grabbing some cash, and splitting without meeting voters and town folk.
But then, you'd have to have an attention span longer than a moth and the innate objectivity to have gotten that far.
Get over yourself, man, before you slide any further into irrelevancy.
Oh yeah, by the way, why don't you have a counter at your blog?
is it because, other than you and your biased on-line friends no one else visits?
My Goodness,
I go on vacation for a few days and look what crawls out of the woodwork!
Lessee..
1) Regarding the headcount - we have your sources that confirm your bias, based on a video that appears doctored to me, and I have my sources,eyewitnesses who actually saw who was there, and the newspaper itself,which said there were `as many as 250 people.'
Let's say there were 250 people there. Hell, let's say 500..is that a `large turnout' like the headline said, based on the population in the area? Get real.
2) If you bothered to pay attention to what I wrote, you'd realize that I personally wouldn't care if there were 25,000 people there. However many there were, they still showed disrespect for democracy by dissing an elected vice president, disregard for his right to privacy by stalking him near his home, and generally infantile behavior.
This kind of juvenile street theater is prevalent on the Left, and frankly, it sickens me.
In America,there are plenty of adult ways to make your disagreements known...most notably something called an election.
Behaving like a bunch of pissy ten year old girls because you aren't getting your way doesn't strike me as `bold dissent', Bubba.
To understand what passes fo rthe American Angry Left today, all you need is an understanding of infantile psychology `oooh,you won't do what I want, so I hate you, hate you...'
3) A few vets don't impress me. If you read this site, you'd know I'm almost reflectively pro-military,but I don't give an automatic pass to people just because they served. John Murtha is a good example, and so is John Kerry.
Remember the `winter soldiers' and Christmas in Cambodia?
Benedict Arnold was a war hero too,y'know.
4) Lastly, as far as numbers go...the stats on this site are publically available IF you have the atention span to seek `em out.
Suffice to say that I think you'd swap traffic and creds with me anytime, and twice on Sunday.
The funny part is, if you actually took the time to READ what's here, you'd probably agree with most of it. It never ceases to amaze me how many `liberals' and `progressives'have some secnd thoughts after a little dose of Joshuapundit.
You're more than welcome to hang out and comment..this isn't anecho chamber.. but keep a respectful tongue in your head or be gone. Them's the rules.
ff
Wow, FF (Josh):
I guess you�re to be commended for your digressive, albeit eventual, retraction about the head count and acknowledging that Republicans and military vets were also organizers and speakers.
Regarding your critique of the protesters as behaving like pissy children, maybe you�re right. But, was their satire perhaps too subtle by half as well?
You do know that the toppling of Saddam�s statue in Baghdad in 2003 was pure stagecraft: a classic psych/ops job, right? Uncle Sam had to ship in those young Iraqi men and boys from another town.
Search out the available on-line long shots, which were never broadcast by the mainstream American media. Let me know if they show just how sparsely attended that Babylon event was (probably even less than the toppling of Cheney's effigy).
However, all this claptrap about bygone agit-prop aside, what do you know of the relevancy of Title 18, U.S. Code 371 and the latest findings of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence?
That, old boy, could shape up to be one very hot potato.
Hang loose, pundit
hi Cowboy,
I never said that I agreed with your take on the head count. I merely reiterated what I said in the article;that it was stoopid and wrong no matter who or how many took part, that the press report referring to it as a `large turnout' was biased, and that citing Rep. Jorgenson's remarks, cited as `legitimacy' for the protest were innocuous and didn't really lend approval to what was going on in the least.
As for the Saddam meme...are you seriously comparing Saddam Hussein to Dick Cheney? If the protesters had that in mind, they're even sillier than I thought.
Regarding US CODE: Title 18,371. Conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States.
You get no beef from me if you say that Saddam was not an imminent threat to the US. But was he heavily involved with Islamic terrorism and committing acts of war against the US? Sure he was.
And moreover, he was a threat to the president's pals in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates...so we went.
It might surprise you to know that both Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld cautioned Bush against invading Iraq, and pushed for a Reagan-style punitive strike that would take out his military and WMD capacity, while Colin Powell and Clinton leftover George Tenant were the ones pushing for an invasion and the installation of an `Arab democracy'. The current occupant of the White House chose door#2..and then put Rumsfeld in charge of implementing a policy he was against from the start.
Does any of this constitute a `conspiracy to defraud'? I doubt it. Just damned poor judgment,IMO and too much dancing between conflicting objectives (pleasing the Saudis vs. `Arab democracy') on the part of the president.
All that to the side, I've said many times onsite that I give the president only a 60% chance of completing his term, and impeachment articles will likely be brought, regardless of what harm that does to the war effort or the country.
Here's one big difference between me and the Angry Left, Cowboy.While I might not appreciate or agree with much of what the president has done, I recognize that he's still the president for another year and a half regardless, I still have a basic respect for our Republic and its institutions, (including our elected officials)and I want him to pull his finger out and succeed if at all possible. Because I understand what's at stake.
The sort of childish street theater, personal hatred and demonization that the Angry Left seems to specialize in for their own partisan political purposes comes at the expense of the country, Cowboy.
It's not how you win wars. And take it from me, we had better win this one. And I also assume that you're intelligent enough to realize that Iraq is just one front in that war.
Thanks for dropping by.
Regards,
FF
Post a Comment