Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (69299)	9/11/2004 1:17:15 PM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793964

Ten minutes of fame and a lifetime of anecdotes. I guess that's worth the effort. You get to tell your kids that you were part of the great internet happening that brought down fill-in-the-blank. Sort of like being able to tell your grandchildren that you were there (albeit stoned and stupid) at Woodstock.

To: LindyBill who wrote (69299)	9/11/2004 1:21:56 PM
From: gamesmistress	Respond to of 793964

Real Clear Politics has some interesting info on the "generic vote" and the Chicago Tribune vs. Bush Friday, September 10, 2004 EYE ON THE GENERIC VOTE: One of the numbers that's been totally lost in all the focus on the horserace is the generic congressional vote. Indeed, the most interesting number from the Democracy Corps poll released today wasn't the 3-point Bush lead but the Democrats single-point lead in the generic congressional vote(46-45). That's a nine-point swing against the Democrats since the last Dem Corps poll in early August. Add that to the recent numbers from the Battleground Poll (Dems +3), Rasmussen (Dems +4) and CNN/USAT/Gallup (GOP +2) and you see a significant tightening of the generic vote across the board. Of course, some of this can be attributed to the wake of the GOP convention, but probably not all of it. Regardless, having the congressional vote this tight after Labor Day could be a real harbinger of bad news for the Blue Team. You'll remember that in the final round of polls before the 2002 midterms there was a small but real shift toward the GOP in the generic vote which manifested itself in a big way on election day. Keep your eye on the generic vote this year as we get down to the wire. THE TRIBUNE ROOTS AGAINST BUSH: The Chicago Tribune is a very large, very well respected paper. Once upon a time it was actually considered a conservative-leaning paper and had a reputation for fairness, though I don't think either of those characterizations really apply any more. The 60 Minutes/Dan Rather Memogate story is a case in point. On Thursday, September 9 the Trib ran an 1,100 word front-page story on the new documents obtained by 60 Minutes and broadcast on Wednesday night. From start to finish the piece by Mark Silva and Jeff Zeleny is laden with lopsided quotes from Democrat partisans, excerpts from the memos in question, and the sort of loaded language you'd expect to find on the editorial page, not A-1. This graf really says it all: "The increased examination of Bush's service record in the National Guard came as the death toll of American troops in Iraq has surpassed 1,000. Democrats are urging Americans to keep their skepticism about the war alive as they try to erase the advantages polls indicate the president gained last week during the GOP convention." Read the whole thing and it's difficult to conclude that the Trib isn't standing right along side Democrats "urging Americans to keep their skepticism alive." Further proof comes in today's print edition of the Trib where readers not only have to make their way to page A-10, they have to read deep into Mark Silva and Jil Zuckman's article titled "Bush, Kerry Dodge Vietnam Debate" to find the following 160 word treatment of the controversy currently raging around the authenticity of the documents that were so highly profiled on the front page of the Tribune just the day before: "The White House this week released records showing that Bush failed to appear for a physical exam, as ordered, to maintain his fighter pilot's rating in Texas in 1972. Instead, records show Bush was seeking transfer to Alabama, to work on a political campaign--a transfer Bush won before receiving an honorable discharge in August 1973. On Thursday the son of an officer who signed memos about Bush's National Guard Service, first obtained by CBS News, questioned the authenticity of one of them, The Associated Press reported. Gary Killian said he doubted his father, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984, would have written that he felt pressured to "sugar coat" Bush's performance review. "It just wouldn't happen," Gary Killian told AP. Also, the memos looked as though they had been produced on a computer using Microsoft Word software, said Sandra Ramsey Lines, whom AP described as an independent document examiner. CBS said Thursday it stood by its reporting." There is simply no way you can look at the language, the placement, and the overall comparative treatment of these two articles and conclude the Tribune is giving its readers a balanced, objective assessment of the what's going on with the story of the Bush National Guard documents. If you agree that the Trib is misleading its readers then Don Wycliff, the Tribune's public editor, is your man: dwycliff@tribune.com CHENEY "CLEANS UP": In an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer yesterday Vice President Cheney cleaned up his widely reported comments from earlier in the week about the importance of the coming election and the war on terror. Frankly, I'm glad he did. Cheney's original comments were a less than artful way of stating the obvious argument that George W. Bush's has a more aggressive stance in the war on terror than John Kerry and that Bush will do a better, more effective job of keeping the country safe against future attacks. Nevertheless, the way Cheney's comments were phrased (and reported by the media) left open the suggestion that a Kerry victory in November might lead to a future attack, which I think is something that probably struck the wrong note with a lot of voters. I know it did with me. Cheney's "clean up" does a much better job of presenting the contrast: "A perfect defense isn't good enough. You can be right 99 percent of the time on defense, and that 1 percent that gets through will kill you. So we made the decision to go on offense, and I think it was absolutely the right decision."