Blaming the messengers...once removed: Smearing the NYT for the MoveOn Ad
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The level of spin and finger-pointing necessary to deflect from the reality of continuing to back a failed strategy and the cost of the bloodshed for our occupation of Iraq has truly reached ridiculous proportions.
Not content to smear solely MoveOn for their "General Betray Us?" ad--which, by the way, failed miserably because a recent poll shows that the percentage favoring withdrawal has moved upwards since Petraeus's speech--the White House and their flunkies in the mainstream media are now smearing that bastion of "liberal media," The New York Times, (purveyor of the collected works Judith Miller, Thomas "FU" Friedman, Michael O'Hanlon, David Brooks, et al., just sayin'...) for publishing the MoveOn Ad. A smear that has been repeated by the Vice President just yesterday, even though it's been debunked for a week now. But hey, since when did Dick Cheney have truth on his side?
Once again, George Bush joking about the reason for going to war four years ago is worse than anything anyone has said or written since. It still should be shown every day to show that he is truly callous and uncaring about the lives he has sacrificed.
Also if the same accusations were made towards Colin Powell's presentation to the UN, they'd be entirely accurate.
Just looking at Kurtz, hurtz.
Curtilingus @ 1:
Agreed! It's amazing how that was swept under the 'forget about' rug but something that
conveys the feelings of the majority of Americans is practically criminal. We truly live in
bizarro world!
Fuck the Whitehouse and the MSM...
Ari was just on FOX and he said that MoveOn had "captured" the democratic party. That's the second time I have heard that phrase today. Must be talking point number one for the week.
Matthews is all over the fla kid who was tasered. The first fifteen minutes of his show is pretty good.
If the Times shouldn't have run the betray-us ad, then shouldn't they also not have run the Rudy ad? You can't have it one way and not the other.
I saw the new poll numbers and it's funny that bush's speech lowered his ratings and Petraeus' appearance didn't help things either. I guess that pathetic 30% would jump off a mile high cliff if bush jumped first.
When he shot his attorney friend in the face with a shotgun.
No, they would push YOU off a mile high cliff.
He's a tool!!!and a fool....send him to school...
Here's some more tools....
EMAIL U OF FLORIDA PRESIDENT AND BOARD!!!!
www.president.ufl.edu/listing/index.html#president
I stand corrected, Cythraul.
But I would try to take a couple of them with me. ;)
i said b4 and I'll say it again: phuckkk howie kurtz. he's a shill and he works for his wife, not cnn.
The approaching Economic Tsunami may hit shore before Bush Co has a chance to ride off into the sunset and say "It's Clintons Fault".
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2171546,00.html
who is this asshat???
Darth Vader actually spoke yesterday???? Amazing. I haven't heard from him in awhile, so it's surprising the evil one comes out and speaks against the NYT. It's not so surprising that he lies....."subsidized" MoveOn???
He should just go back into his bunker or cave and wait hang out until January 2009. Anything that man says is a pure lie.
General Jack D. Ripper @ 14:
It's an iron lung inside his man-sized safe in his office, upside down.
The "Mainstream" media talks only to itelf. The public stopped paying attention a LONG time ago.
So Cheney is a lying assclown.
So Kurtz is a right wing tool.
What a pair of revelations!
"daddy!"-Steve Doocy's inner child as he thinks about his repub heroes
After the Sinclair Group forced their tee-vee stations to run that crapumentary 'Stolen Honor' which attacked Kerry in the run-up to the 2004 election, the Repugs can go choke on a thousand diseased donkey dicks if they want to complain about bias in the media.
So the NYT is supposed to censor ther advertisers??
why does Dumbya hate amuhr-uh-ka??
The moveon add is the latest reich-wing fake outrage and method of distraction. The only "people" that are making any noise about the ad exists the fringe extremists that faux attracts. Again, reich-wingers are out of touch with mainstream America.
Correction: The moveon *ad*....:)
MoveOn was successful in pointing out that the report was political, and now the Repbulicans are responding by personalizing the matter by calling the ad an attack on the General.
Steve Doocey is such a twat!
L.A. Confidential @ 12:
Everything is Clinton's fault, always will be, no matter when it happens. Ask a rightie ... it's Bill Clinton's fault. Ask a leftie, it's Hillary Clinton's fault.
Too bad the "mainstream" media figured out that there is so much money in telling fundie righties what they want to hear. Thinking people who can see the truth without having to be spoon-fed everything don't really need to tune in to be told what to think. Therefore, the business model of the ministry of propaganda is the model that gets the best ratings.
I think I'll go watch "V for Vendetta" and fantasize ...
You think this is bad? Wait til the campaign to blame the Democrats for Iraq gets going. Our noble President was hamstrung by a hail of spittle. Or something like that.
The shitty so-called "Liberal media" is going to talk this up to the point were it appears that there really is significant public outrage over this. They've been doing this same thing for so long on so many issues it is sickening. Of course they never actually take a stand on anything, they just add to the underlying noise (adding nothing but confusion) while never speaking out louder than the right-wing lies. And we've always been at war with Eastasia.
People in other countries wonder why US citizens don't protest more. Well this example is your answer; it does no good as any protest gets turned on its head and made out to be seditious or traitorous. Either that, or you get tasered and hauled off to jail for your effort. What the hell can I do as an individual when I see those who have far more power politically-speaking getting reduced to insignificance? It used to be that when enough like me, the unheard faceless masses, got together and went into the streets it mattered but they've neutered that as well.
How do we fix this country when; 99% of the Republican party is broken, 90% of the free press is broken (the parts that actually matter), and 50% of the Democratic party is broken.
nsr @ 26:
But will we take to the streets of Washington, like those of a generation ago? No. I'm just as guilty as everyone else who thinks that keeping my job is more important than going to Washington to let that fucker know that we don't buy his shit anymore. Sad ... but I'll admit it. I wish we had what it took to shut that city down with a couple of million angry protesters. But then, that would mean we'd have to miss American Idol.
Smack_dab @ 27:
Well said, friend. The answer is we'd have to step well outside our comfort zones with the risk of not being able to return. Something our generation is not prepared to do. Little Britney's soccer game is Saturday, plus I have to work on Monday. Sorry, can't save the country next week ... but hey, we'll get together and do it some other time.
This ad is only a big deal inside to the beltway idiots. I like the way MoveOn responded to the fascist bully Giuliani. Keep it up!
Off topic ... but holy shit. Go to the HuffPo front page. Thompson looks like he's got the grim reaper standing right behind him.
Being inside the beltway gives one a close-up view of a sweaty Republican's ass crack.
Why did I watch that?
The number of people who are aware of the ad since the MSM started throwing tomatoes at MoveOn.org must be tens of times larger than the amount who would have seen it otherwise. In any case, maybe the presentation in the ad is less than nuanced, but it was overall effective. I bet MoveOn will get a significant boost in donations too.
In any case, there's one truth that no observor who's even half-way sober can deny: Petraeus did in fact go in front of Congress and cherry pick what he told them in order to spin the war in a manner favorable to the Bush "Administration's" dangerously deluded Neo-Con pipe dream.
Call that what you want.
Right out of the GOP playbook. Create a distraction so everyone will forget that 3 of the 18 benchmarks set by the Bush administration have been met. A 16% success rate just might be considered a failure. But really, we should give his "chance a plan to work."
I think this is a CNN thing. Wolf Blitzer again praised Petraeus and Crocker saying they effectively made the case for continuing the "Surge" when interviewing Bill Maher today. Then he attacked Maher for criticizing Petraeus.
This morning John Roberts asked Hilary Clinton:
ROBERTS: You were one of the senators who voted unanimously for General Petraeus' confirmation, and we saw that MoveOn.org last week calling him General Betray Us. Obviously, you didn't have that opinion when you voted for him. Do you want to distance yourself from that ad?
The best way to deal with the Petraeus/MoveOn controversy is with facts and questions. Point out the deceptions in his testimony. Ask questions like, " How did he get that Bronze Star when his only combat experience was as Commander of the 101st Airborne in Iraq"? That's a medal that is usually awarded to soldiers in combat, not unit commanders who are usually behind the lines. No one seems to have a clue how he got that medal except that it was awarded about the time he was commanding the 101st Airborne.
I think what really gets both the Media and the Republicans so upset is that their little ploy of giving the war credibility by making it Petraeus' war rather than Bush's war then building up Petraeus' credibility didn't work. The polls are going in the opposite direction than they expected.
They expected Congress to place a Laurel Wreath on Petraeus his head when he rode in on his chariot, and that didn't happen either.
the only truth cheney knows and that is somewhat doubtful, is whose butt he has he hand up, his or bush's.
There is a reason why they go to such ridiculousness.
And there is a reason why this presidency spent the most $$$ in PR campaigns.
The pundits are being smart, the more ridiculous, incredulous their reason becomes, the more $$$ they get from that PR campaign stash.
Soldiers and civilians are being killed every day in Iraq and someone call the general a name. I feal so bad his feelings were hurt. You got to see this video, it's a take off of Chris Crocker defending Britney Spears.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiuRhy4CqzU
On the Situation Room today, after a slip of the tongue caused him to accidentally call Petraeus "General Betray-us" (see, it's pretty catchy, huh?), Wolf Blitzer said that Bill Maher "attacked" Petraeus, when in fact Maher simply said he didn't believe Petreus's claim that he'd written his report without input or vetting from The White House.
I guess that qualifies as an attack now. Nothing get's an authoritarian-type personality more fired up than to question a Man in Uniform (see: John McCain's "...They should be thrown out of the country!") freak-out yesterday)
Anyway, CNN really is doing it's best to keep the MoveOn ad story on the front burner. Do they think this sells papers? Do they think it's gonna change anybody's mind about the war? Or are they just trying to boost donations to the people who created the ad? Because I guarantee this is a publicity windfall for Move.On. I believe it cost them $10,000 to place the ad in the NYT, but they've now reaped millions of dollars of air time with it, thanks to CNN, Fox etc.
Geez, what rarefied world do these effete beltway class live in? Certainly not the earthly existence we do. The ad didn't hurt a thing, the polls show less support for the surge since Petraeus' talk.
Please, get these poor beltway elite the smelling salts; their delicate refined constitutions have contracted a case of the vapors.
And I feel sorry for Arianna having to becalm the fluttering and swooning tirades of the beltway nags.
Where was the outcry for the culprits of outing a CIA operative (Valerie Plame)?
Where is the outcry of Pat Tilman's actual death? And, who used his promoted unfactually glorified death?
Where was the outcry over spying on Americans and torturing?
Where was the outrage of John Kerry's war record smited during a presidential campaign by a partisan 527 of Swift boaters that had ties to Bush?
What of the political campaign smearing of John McCain's service by George Bush during the GOP primary?
The firing of US attny Englasias for being an absentee prosecuter when in fact he missed for his reserve duty?
What of the outcry of the Katrina fiasco?
How about when Bush played around, looking for WMD in the Oval Office after invading Iraq for WMD? Remember the, " Not here" as Bush looked under his desk. While soldiers were still in harms way in Iraq?
FOX always puts up questions like "John Kerry a vietnam veteran or a sleazy glorified coward ? ".
FOX does this all the time.
So the caption of the moveon ad is, " Petraeus or Betray us ? " Its a question not a statement. Its up to you to decide. !!!!
what repubes fear most is 3 million members. that is no small group. the only thing bad about the ad is that it somehow allowed the right side of the debate to once again focus on anything but the truth and debate the issue directly. in the majority of the koolaid drinkers outcry, i have not really heard anyone of them defend what the general had to say. they would rather us trumped up outrage to defend the perception of the general's honor being smeared. how pathetic and silly the look, more and more everyday.
Why is it that when statements derive from the executive branch, i.e. the Prez and/or V. Prez, the media throw the tag "The White House" says this, or says that. The WHITE HOUSE doesn't say DICK b/c it's a damn building. Buildings don't talk, last I heard.
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