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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kevin Rose who wrote (612637)	8/28/2004 3:57:26 PM
From: Knight	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769670

Media Reporting of Swift Boat Veterans' Accusations In the previous message you wrote: "On the other hand, the Swifties are throwing up a lot of nonsense that has no supporting documentation, and relies on the memories of a few vets who have admitted to a deep disgust at Kerry's antiwar statements. Additionally, their memories are in many cases in direct conflict with the accounts of other vets who were closer to the actual action. Some, like Thurlow, even have admitted that their memories may have been affected by that disgust." I have a question for you: Have you actually read Unfit for Command? If you have not, you have no credibility to offer that assessment. I will say up front that I have not yet read the book, so in this post I will stick to saying only what I can say with credibility--even without reading the book. I do know about some of the accusations in the book. Based on the accusations I know about, it seems the major media is focusing almost exclusively on any factual errors (or fuzzy memories) that can be found in the book and totally ignoring some of more damning and documented revelations. In addition, they are focusing on anything negative they can dig up about the numerous (over 200) contributors to the book in order to discredit the entire book. (With over 200 people to investigate, it's inevitable that they'll be able to dig up something negative.) They also report that some of these men have been Kerry critics for many years as though that gives their claims less credibility. In fact, it makes them more credible. If that many people hold a grudge for that many years, it's likely there's a substantive reason for it. It also appears that the overwhelming majority of the fellow-officers who served with Kerry do not support him. I have not seen this fact presented in any report I've seen in the mainstream media. Rather, the overall impression given is that these are just a few people who have it in for Kerry and who didn't know him very well. The major media also also seems to have a maniacal focus on uncovering who is paying for the ads as though it were some sort of criminal investigation. NEWSFLASH: the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads are mainly financed by...[insert eery conspiratorial music]...LONG-TIME REPUBLICAN SUPPORTERS OF BUSH. What a SHOCK! What amazing investigative journalism! And to think all that time the public believed that the ads were financed by a completely disinterested group of folks. Now seriously (previous sarcasm aside), this is an obvious red herring. The major media needs to get a life. What matters is NOT who financed the ads. What matters is whether the accusations in the book are TRUE. I seriously doubt if most of the media folks have actually read the book. They're simply repeating Democratic "talking points" and (wittingly or unwittingly) acting as a mouthpiece of the Democratic spin machine. Because the overwhelming majority of the major media are more sympathetic to the Democratic party, (their political views aren't even remotely representative of the US population at large), they are motivated by their bias to question and discredit anything that hurts their favored candidate. This is true EVEN IF THEY ARE SINCERELY TRYING TO BE OBJECTIVE. It is IMPOSSIBLE for a person to be completely objective. A person's view of a story or event (and judgment about what to focus on) will always reflect their bias. Many try to prove bias in the media by analyzing and collating reports and counting negative and positive references to different political parties or candidates. While this sort of investigation adds weight to the evidence for media leftward bias, it is really unnecessary. All that's needed to prove media bias is the following fact: The overwhelming majority of the members of the national media in every presidential election in the last 24 years (and probably before that) have voted for the Democratic candidate for President. With this sort of imbalance, it is inevitable that the reporting will be unbalanced. The media bias on this Swift Boat issue has been especially pronounced. Not one time have I heard anyone in the mainstream media go through the main set of charges in the book and present them. In all cases that I've seen, there appears to have been a selection of only those accusations upon which they can cast some sort of doubt.