Well, when Kerry gets grilled by a guy whose show is called "Hardball" and the concluding question is "Are you ready to step into the job?" to which Kerry responds, "Yes" to which the hardballer responds, "Thanks, that's all I needed to know." we can probably start to make the assumption that he's going to get a free ride on things like claiming the lame will walk under his Presidency.

Messianism and/or overt religiosity is a virtue in a Democrat but a troubling sign of the erosion of the wall between church and state in a Republican.

The sooner we all accept that, the easier the kool aid will go down.

MATTHEWS: Do you feel you can take this job right now?

KERRY: Yes.

-----------------------

That's how the transcript ends. But for those of us unfortunate enough to feel compelled to watch this crapulent example of advocacy journalism, the interviewer responded, "Thanks. That's all I needed to hear."

Would the Dow below 10,000, gas above $2, the mess in Iraq and the flu vaccine screwup be considered negative reporting about the administration? Or just statements of facts?

Well, except for Iraq, those are facts. As for a "mess" in Iraq - that's an opinion. An opinion that the MSM are selling as hard as they possibly can.

As for Kerry being the Invisible Man, that probably would be appropriate if the press ignored him. They don't, they fawn over him. I think a better label would be Fils Préféré.

Gas - Bush cannot control prices. Period.
Dow - Bush has no magic wand to force people to buy stock. Besides, below 10,000 was normal in the Clinton years and no one seemed to yell back then.
Flu - Bush has no control over manufacturing of vaccines. Good try though.
Iraq - Perspective. If you want Iraq to be a failure, you will view every event as negative, even if they voted for gay marriages in the election.

So, yes, those are facts but outside of Iraq, there's not much control (if any) the POTUS has and if a story blames him, then it is negative.

News is more than reporting "facts" it's also about asking questions. What 'facts' you report reflect the kinds of questions you ask. So, democrats and liberals will ask questions that concern them and thus we get a liberal bias in the media.

The costs of Iraq are facts. If the American public knew what those costs would be prior to this adventure, as well as the current outcome, they and their representatives would never have given POTUS the authority to go to war. As far as the other facts, well, they influence my vote, and I'm sure others. I think it is common wisdom that presidents routinely take credit/get blamed for many things that they do not have real control over. The Iraq decision , on the other hand, is something this administration had total control of. They took a gamble, and it's not the outcome they anticipated. Therefore, they must be held accountable at the polls.

Tom, those facts are not in any form of context.

First, France, Germany, England, Japan - most of the Western nations would give non-redundant internal organs to have our economy. Our nation is doing better than every last one of our economic peers.

The press has been judging and reporting on things not in their historical perspective, but against a standard whose only criteria is for Bush to look bad. They grade Bush not on a curve of his peers, but against a mythical perfection.

Tom, those facts are not in context.

First, France, Germany, England, Japan - most of the group 8 nations would give non-redundant internal organs to have our economy. Our nation is doing better than every last one of our economic peers.

The press has been judging and reporting on things not in their historical perspective, but against a standard whose only criteria is for Bush to look bad.

On a lighter note: A little good-natured poke at John Kerry
Swift Goose Veterans for Truth

Tim McNabb
fivehundredwords.com

Tom,

The financial cost of occupying all the resources of the rabid Islamic extremists in their backyard rather than in my city is well worth it.

Throwing more money at failing schools, social programs or even "guaranteed" free health care is second to the survival of this nation in it's present form.

Furthermore how about this fact? The IAEA allowed Sadamm to stockpile plastic explosives that could be used to trigger a nuclear device.
Urgent Warning on Iraqi Cache Issued in 1995

I think an executive should always be judged against an ideal of perfection, and certainly not on a curve. Otherwise you end up with grade inflation;)
At least in a parliamentary system the party in power can have some control over when elections occur. Here, their actions are dictated by the cycle. In the case of Iraq, the push to war was influenced by the expectation that it would be basically wrapped up by the time of the primaries. They were wrong. If things had gone well, as they did in Afghanistan, this discussion would not be happening. But we might be talking more about the deficit and trade imbalance. I'm surprised nobody has done a compare and contrast between tax cuts and the increase in fuel costs and mortgage rates.

I think an executive should always be judged against an ideal of perfection, and certainly not on a curve. Otherwise you end up with grade inflation;)
At least in a parliamentary system the party in power can have some control over when elections occur. Here, their actions are dictated by the cycle. In the case of Iraq, the push to war was influenced by the expectation that it would be basically wrapped up by the time of the primaries. They were wrong. If things had gone well, as they did in Afghanistan, this discussion would not be happening. But we might be talking more about the deficit and trade imbalance. I'm surprised nobody has done a compare and contrast between tax cuts and the increase in fuel costs and mortgage rates.

Tom, I agree with that. And it's the standard the media should be using in analyzing John Kerry's record since 1971. His record in the senate would shock most Americans except for the Kool-Aid drinkers. No one can argue that the GOP must combat the attacks of Democrats and vice versa. However, the are playing with a stacked deck. They must contend with the news media, the entertainment industry, academia, assorted heavily financed 527s, etc. It's no a crime for the media to have a Liberal-Left bias. It is a crime that they lie about it.

Just today, Bill Kristol -- who hasn't been a big fan of the Bush presidency -- stated on Fox News Channel that he believes CBS, NY Times and the Kerry campaign are working together to hurt Bush. That's unconscionable. It's Un-American. It stinks.

What Jim wrote (^^).

What -S- wrote about what Jim wrote (^^ ^^)

I think that there is a doctrinaire conservative positiion that the "media" is uniformly left leaning. This simple mindedness leads to the proliferation of right oriented talk shows where you can hear your biases and fears constantly being reinforced in a self serving echo chamber. Which is really just a marketing niche. The reality is that there is a large communications industry that is composed of overlapping segments of the web,entertainment, advertising, politics and news. For instance, I thought it was laughable that "legitimate" "news reporters from both left and right were defining standards for Kitty Kelly's Bush family book, that she was to be called to task for dishing up half truths, innuendo, gossip and rumors backed up by unammed sources. Rush Limbaugh, on the other hand, will say that he is an entertainer, not a politician or news reporter, but he is taken as such by many. I think everybody has to be much more critical about what they are hearing and accepting as truth. Without getting paranoid, of course.

unnamed, un named, un-named, whatever

An Annenberg poll showed that 80% of American journalists voted for Al Gore. Another poll found that 34% of reporters said they were Liberal, 7% said they were conservative and 57% claimed they were moderates (although they were pro-choice, anti-gun, pro-big government etc. LOL. Yeah, sure, moderate). And comparing Rush Limbaugh or Bill 'O Reilly or any other commentator, talk show host with men and women at the NY Times who are supposed to be reporters is a spurious comparison at best.

If you really want to be embarassed for Chris Matthews, listen to him at the rally when Clinton showed up. The man actually giggled like a little girl. (my apologies to little girls)

Many people get what they interpret as news from O'Reilly and Limbaugh. Many more than read the NYTimes, I'm sure. To be accurate, the talk shows are news filters and opinionated interpretations of information. This is the sin the mainstream media is blamed for, however. O'Reilly and Limbaugh will use mainstream media sources when it suits them. My point is, EVERYTHING should be considered skeptically.

Tom: You might want to rethink what you mean by "simplemindedness" and "proliferation of right wing talk shows."

No one believes you, at least not here. At least, not many.

The stats don't support your concepts, which is, in effect, an indication that your own rather primitive opions are showing through.

What the stats do support is that the media is overwhelmingly liberal and pro Democrat Party, as are the unions, and that includes teachers unions, public service workers...all of whom also invest their pension plans in seeding and growing more members for their unions through various investments in more of the same. And, based upon today's media, there is little hope of information outside a suppressive, primitive rant by liberals that insists that because they all agree, that they are right or think clearly.

The two aspects aren't correlative: agreement about opinion does not clarity make, or rationality or even more important, accuracy make. It just means you get a lot of car horns all working in unison; still doesn't make it a symphony, or even a tune.

Another example of the damned liberal press:

From WSJ's "Corrections & Amplifications"

News Corp.'s Fox News was incorrectly described in this article as being sympathetic to the Bush cause.

Original Quote:

"Mr. Bush believes the key to victory lies in his party's conservative core. He gave a rare interview over the weekend to Fox News, a network sympathetic to the Bush cause and popular with Republicans. Among other things, Mr. Bush voiced doubts about whether the country can be fully protected from future terror attacks. "Whether or not we can be ever fully safe is up -- you know, up in the air," he said."

I think we are so conditioned to hear negativity about the right and republicans, and to see love tossed at the Clintons and the left, that we naturally think of Fox News as extremely conservative when they are balanced.

We haven't heard or or seen fair reporting. We wouldn't know it when we see it. Kerry is potentially a pathalogical liar, and nobody is reporting on it.

Pathalogical liar? I'll settle for smarmy politician. Truth bending goes with the title.

Of course, he does seem to have come down with a case of Bidenism (see plagiarism story). And if he says, "I have a plan" one more time without actually having anything other than rehashed Bush policy, he'll qualify for frequent liar miles.

So what was I saying?

The Study mentioned in this post should get some press: Candidate Brand association study. This is insightful and could have an impact. It already dispells some conventional wisdom about Republicans = wealthy, corporate, racist, elite, upper class.