{disclaimer -- Maker's Mark has control of many of OPS' functions right now, so send all complaints to Loretto, KY c/o Bill Samuels -- see picture:
BSJ -
You're my boy, Blue!!! (just watched Old School again).
Cam -
It is a considered decision by journalists to state what they say the manner in which they say it. Look, just recently at the LA Times deriding Bremer for having left Iraq "without a farewell address, 'as though he could not look Iraqis eye-to-eye'" when in fact he DID deliver an address, and a damned good one. Look also at the NYT, WaPo,BoGlobe etc. deliberately mischaracterizing the 9/11 commission's recent plurality statement that their findings debunked Bush's claim that Iraq was responsible, through al-Qaeda ties, for 9/11, when the Bush admin. had NEVER MADE THAT CLAIM. These are just a couple of literally hundreds of deliberate mischaracterizations of what was said b/c it's convenient to the editorial policy to do so. This is why soooooo much of the BUSH LIED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! crap is so gravity-warpingly sophomoric.
Quick question -- why, if the Bush admin. is so disconnected and "unilateral" has there been next-to-no coverage of the unprecedented success this admin. has had in diplomatically addressing Sudan? (in which hundreds of thousands of muslims are being slaughtered, along with animists and Christians). Much less the fact that (again) France has vetoed (1) not only the use of NATO's RRF in protecting the democratic elections to be held in the "globally" supported efforts in Afghanistan (Chirac's response was that we can't use the RRF for "just any" purpose -- to the heroic Karzai's face!!!) but (2) sanctions against the Sudanese government if the slaughter doesn't stop. Oh, could it be France's enormous oil interests in the Sudan -- does that sound familar? *coughFoodforOilIraqScamcough*
MoneyGuy -
We can agree to disagree on any number of fronts and I'd still buy you a beer (or a Maker's) if we wind up in the same ZIP code at some point. I don't think you're as "middle" as you think you are and claim to be is all.
Bozell's point (with which I agree) is that, sure there are conservative voices in the media, but they're unabashedly, right-there-in-your-face conservative -- and to blame them for being EXACTLY WHAT THEY CLAIM TO BE -- ie conservative -- as some counterbalance to liberalism, in what is delivered as objective journalism, is a feeble dodge. It's the classic op/ed page vs. front page-above-the-fold dichotomy -- if you have a political position to advance, great -- it belongs on the former, not the latter, if you any claim to be "reporting" or a "journalist." Let alone claiming to be the "Newspaper of Record."
The implied point in Bozell's excerpt is that the liberalnewsmedia defines ITS positions as the middleground, and any to the right of it as "rightwing" or "extreme" or "ultra", which is another all-too-common Liberal Orwellian exercise. If you can define what is the middle of the road (and in direct conflict to public opinion polls) then you get to set the parameters of the spectrum. I invite you to review Chucky Schumer's "objections" to Bush's court nominees as evidence that the Left redefines the center in order to characterize what it considers to be its opposition as whackos.
For example, every senatorial rating system I've seen puts Kerry to the left of BigFatTedKennedy, and if not the leftmost senator, then #2 (a distinction usually held by BFTK). And Edwards averages the #4 leftmost. BUT, for being, by all accounts the leftist-ist (I've been drinking) senator, do you EVER hear Kerry described as "liberal" let alone "ultra-liberal"? He IS for Chrissake, but he's not described that way in any mass-distribution information outlet.
Similarly, when asked what their opinions are w/o a back-up survey of what their opinions actually are, Libs (even those that turn out to be radical) tend to characterize themselves as middle-of-the-road, whereas Conservatives tend to acknowledge their right-of-center views. So, when it comes to trusting one side of the political spectrum to acknowledge that they're off the political mean, I can't defer to the self-determination of the truly left. Marginally Democratic folks are likelier to acknowledge that they're "left" than slathering "Bush = Hitler" lefties. That's just F*cked up.
As far a W -- well, he's not a conservative -- ask any conservative -- spending throught the roof, incl. education spending up 60%!!! Given our available choices, would I rather have him or the ever-increasingly bipolar, unstable Gore in the Big Office right now? Hands down it's W. I think he's a great foreign policy President -- and not just b/c his immediate predecessor had nothing resembling what could be called "foreign policy" with a straight face. We can't require a permission slip of foreign, actively anti-US governments to act.
Whoof. Enough for now...my fingers are tired.
And to all a good night.
JP