Sullivan too

Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rumsfeld... they may be the only people who still believe all the manure. I just peeped at Andrew Sullivan's blog to find this post:

Saturday, October 09, 2004

ME TOO: Josh Chafetz reflects on where he is in this race. Bottom line: "Undecided ... but leaning more towards Kerry than I was before." That's where I am. Josh's arguments are very close to my own thoughts as well. I cannot support Bush but I'm amazed I'm this close to considering favoring Kerry as president. I'm not there yet. Don't rush me. But after two debates, I feel far more comfortable with the thought of him as commander-in-chief than I once thought possible.

True, Sullivan is gay and this Bush is no pal of that issue, but it runs even deeper. I feel the people who strongly support Bush are either (1) doctrinaire conservatives, (2) people who don't follow the news, (3) people who watch Fox (see #2).

Fox is an embarrassment. Their headline about the second debate: "Is Sen. Kerry too inconsistent in his political positions to lead the nation?"

No other news organization is as biased. In fact, they are all struggling under their own idiocy: that somewhere along the line the goal of 'objectivity' was replaced with 'balanced' which means 'purposeful distortion of facts to appear impartial.'

I'm not joking. Objectivity has nothing to do with being 'balanced' in a quantitative sense. It means 'being able to argue all possible interpretations based on the facts. It's a test of analysis, not factual reporting. Instead, the news has applied their standards to which actual events they state and quote.

Take the current brouhaha about the ABCNEWS memo from Political Director Mark Halperin. Matt Druge - ever vigilant for another Paula Jones - claims that this memo shows the bias in the mainstream press for Kerry.

The key lines in the memo are:

The New York Times (Nagourney/Stevenson) and Howard Fineman on the web both make the same point today: the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done.

Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win.

We have a responsibility to hold both sides accountable to the public interest, but that doesn't mean we reflexively and artificially hold both sides "equally" accountable when the facts don't warrant that.

We can learn a few lessons from this.

1. we now have proof that until that memo the press has been purposefully distorting their reporting to give equal quantitative space to different "sides" instead of telling us the facts and giving us multiple interpretations

2. Drudge and the rest of the Right Wing Press consider the admission that Kerry is different from Bush an act of partisanship instead of a rational, informed choice. They, of course, would consider attacking Kerry at every opportunity just telling the facts, ma'am.

3. Bush can get away with murder.

4. Clinton lied about his intern; Gore exaggerated about minor things - they were impeached and ridiculed respectively. Bush & Cheney have lied about the reasons to go to war, the conduct of that war, and the current state of the war (and the economy, environment, heath care, jobs etc) and the press has been rolling over and smooching their behinds.

The great test for the press has been given and they have failed. They do not report, they do not analyze, they are not our watchdog, they do not protect. They just feed.

Viva la internet - the only source, now, for accuracy.