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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (18945)	3/25/2006 5:36:51 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

John Green Can Do Better. And Help Is on the Way. BY JAMES TARANTO Best of the Web Today Friday, March 24, 2006 Here's an amusing little kerfuffle: An e-mail has surfaced on the Drudge Report, written by "a top producer at ABC News" (it seems to be an ABC-heavy day around here) during the first presidential debate between George W. Bush and John Kerry, in which he "unloaded on the president." John Green wrote: <<< Are you watching this? Bush makes me sick. If he uses the "mixed messages" line one more time, I'm going to puke. >>> We went back and reviewed the debate transcript, and it turns out that Kerry was the first to talk of "mixed messages." Here are all the times the phrase appeared during the debate* <<< Kerry: Jim, let me tell you exactly what I'll do. And there are a long list of thing. First of all, what kind of mixed message does it send when you have $500 million going over to Iraq to put police officers in the streets of Iraq, and the president is cutting the COPS program in America? . . . Kerry: You can't tell me that on the day that we went into that war and it started--it was principally the United States, the America and Great Britain and one or two others. That's it. And today, we are 90 percent of the casualties and 90 percent of the costs. And meanwhile, North Korea has got nuclear weapons. Talk about mixed messages. . . . Bush: You cannot lead if you send mixed messages. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to our troops. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to our allies. Mixed messages send the wrong signals to the Iraqi citizens. . . . Kerry: Right now the president is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to research bunker-busting nuclear weapons. The United States is pursuing a new set of nuclear weapons. It doesn't make sense. You talk about mixed messages. We're telling other people, "You can't have nuclear weapons," but we're pursuing a new nuclear weapon that we might even contemplate using. >>> Bush's use of the phrase has the virtue of making sense, whereas Kerry's first use is totally incoherent (what the heck is "the COPS program," anyway), and his other uses seem to have things backward (i.e., if only America were more restrained, the North Korean regime would be perfectly nice). Green's message was a highly impulsive reaction to Bush's statement about "mixed messages." According to our DVD of the debate, Bush first said "mixed messages" at 10:12:12 p.m. EDT and last said it 12 seconds later. We're assuming Green did not actually puke and thus began composing his message--sent from a BlackBerry--after the final mention. The message was sent at 7:13:07 p.m. PDT, so that it took him at most 43 seconds to pound it out with his thumbs. Anyway, maybe his objection was rhetorical, not substantive. Journalists, after all, are trained to be concise. We typically don't like repetition, have little use for redundancy, and consider it bad form to repeat ourselves over and over and over. For example, a journalist would never write the following: <<< What does it mean in America today . . .? . . . America can do better. So tonight we say: help is on the way. . . . What does it mean . . .? . . . America can do better. And help is on the way. . . . What does it mean . . .? . . . America can do better. And help is on the way. . . . What does it mean . . .? . . . America can do better. And help is on the way. . . . What does it mean . . .? . . . America can do better. And help is on the way. >>> This is from Kerry's 2004 Democratic Convention speech, another example of the use of repetition in political rhetoric. If Green wants to show he's not a partisan, all he has to do is release the contemporaneous e-mails he wrote about the emetic qualities of Kerry's speech. * A haughty, French-looking Massachusetts Democrat who in 1971 made a splash by slandering American servicemen who had fought in Vietnam, then faded into obscurity for more than three decades before resurfacing as the Democratic presidential nominee, and oh by the way he served in Vietnam. opinionjournal.com drudgereport.com prnewswire.com

To: Sully- who wrote (18945)	4/4/2006 1:46:31 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

ABC News standards and practices by Cal Thomas Townhall.com Apr 4, 2006 ABC News has suspended for one month without pay John Green, executive producer of the weekend edition of "Good Morning America," because of an e-mail he wrote. I say "an" e-mail, even though Green wrote at least two that have recently come to light. More about the second e-mail in a moment. The first e-mail, published on the Drudge Report Web site, was written by Green to a colleague during the first 2004 presidential debate. It said: "Are you watching this? Bush makes me sick. If he uses the 'mixed messages' line one more time, I'm going to puke." When that e-mail became public, Green said, "...I regret the embarrassment this story causes ABC. It was an inappropriate thing to say and I'm deeply sorry." Green also apologized to White House Communications Director Nicolle Wallace. The second e-mail was leaked to the New York Post and printed last week. In that one, Green said former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright should not be booked on the show because "Albright has Jew shame." Albright was raised Roman Catholic, but has a Jewish heritage. Green added, "She hates us anyway because she says we promised her five minutes (of air time) and only gave her two... I do not like her." For people who believe the broadcast networks are biased and employ mostly people who favor liberal Democrats and oppose conservative Republicans, ABC's reaction to these e-mails provides additional confirmation. Notice ABC did not suspend Green after his critical remarks about President Bush were published. It acted only after his Madeleine Albright e-mail surfaced. There appears to be a double standard at ABC: one for those who bash conservatives and Christians who are Republicans and another for those who bash Democrats with a Jewish heritage. Last Thursday, I served as the unpaid master of ceremonies for the Media Research Center's "Dishonors Awards" dinner in Washington. The annual event highlights the most outrageous statements by media heavies about Republicans, the Bush administration, terrorism and other subjects. To see these sound bites presented one after another focuses the mind as nothing else does on the opinionated news that so much broadcast journalism has become. There was MSNBC's Chris Matthews praising Jane Fonda for saying about the Vietnam War that it was like states west of the Mississippi River attacking states east of the Mississippi River and would we like that? Matthews responded, "How do you step out of being an American to make such an objective judgment?" There was NPR's Nina Totenberg saying, "It is the first time in my life I have been ashamed of my country," for what she judged was mistreatment of suspected terrorist prisoners at undisclosed detention centers. That some Hurricane Katrina victims had gone to live temporarily with good-hearted, church-going families raised the concern of CBS's Harry Smith. Apparently seeking to reach the atheist demographic, Smith asked pastor and best-selling author, Rick Warren, "Do I need to be concerned that I'm going to go live with a church family, are they going to proselytize me, are they going to say, 'You better come to church with me or else, I'm, you know, you're not going to get your breakfast this morning'?" CNN founder Ted Turner said on his old network that he believes North Korea's despotic leader Kim Jong-il when he promises not to build nuclear weapons and that while he hasn't met Kim, he's seen his picture and "he didn't look too much different than most other people I've met." An incredulous Wolf Blitzer noted the way Kim treats his own people, which included letting many starve to death. Turner responded, "Well, hey, listen. I saw a lot of people over there. They were thin and they were riding bicycles instead of driving in cars, but-". The full list of award winners may be found at at mrc.org. It's worth the visit, especially for those in denial about mainstream media bias. John Green should be reinstated. He and other members of the big media should be encouraged to say what they think, loudly and proudly. Like those labels on bottles, packages and cans at the supermarket, which inform shoppers about their contents, encouraging big media workers to label their ideological insides will benefit news consumers. Cal Thomas is the co-author of Blinded By Might. Copyright © 2006 Townhall.com townhall.com