Journalists First Debunk Republican Attack on Obama, and Now Debunk Attack on Kerry

Duck if you don’t want to be hit by the flying pigs today. Has the resignation of Karl Rove suddenly returned political coverage to reality?  First we had AP debunk the right wing smears on Barack Obama. Now The Swamp reports on how John McCain attacked John Kerry by misquoting Kerry’s position on the war. Maybe the media has really learned that reporting the news does not meaning repeating every untrue statement from the right without fact checking. After quoting an interview with John McCain they write:

McCain was talking of course about Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.,) the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee. If you give McCain the benefit of the doubt, he misremembered Kerry’s position. If you’re more cynical, he intentionally misstated Kerry’s position to make his own support of Bush more palatable.

Either way, it was odd coming in an interview where McCain sought to align himself on the side of character.

From there they quote John Kerry’s actual position on Iraq, which was quite different from the straw man which McCain attacked.

Politics will never be the same if Republicans are forced to respond to the actual views of Democrats as opposed to simply inventing straw men to attack.

Returning to the smears on Obama, there are segments of the news media which actually appears to enjoy being journalists as opposed to repeating right wing smears. The Politico reports the story and concludes,  “Points victory to Obama.” First read also reported on AP’s fact checking in their afternoon email update.

6 Comments

  1. 1
    Donald Douglas says:

    Hey Ron!

    Here’s a post you might like to check out:

    Link

    Take care!

  2. 2
    Ron Chusid says:

    Donald,

    You very well may be right with regards to civilian deaths. After all, in the past we had problems such as the free fire zones in Vietnam. Plus I would expect more modern technology to bring about less deaths.

    It is a shame that you have to ruin what could be a good post with a straw man attack on the left:

    The bottom line is that the popular perception on the left of the U.S. military in Iraq as an occupation army committing wanton atrocities across the civilian space in Iraq is wrong..

    There may be some who believe this, but this is not the “popular perception on the left.”

  3. 3
    Donald Douglas says:

    Ron: I responded to your comment at the post.

    Isn’t a “strawman” an argument that’s easily refuted? Would you care to do so in this case?

    Here’s a point from John Leo on the press that supports my case – not “scientific,” but still of great import:

    ” Reluctance to change a popular story line helps account for the strange press coverage of Cindy Sheehan. That line pitted moral mom versus stone-hearted president. When Ms. Sheehan’s outbursts grew stranger, the press stayed with the soft line about a mother’s grief and simply omitted her increasingly bizarre comments that American troops were “being sent to kill innocent people” in Iraq and that President Bush was “a filth spewer” and “an evil maniac” guilty of “blatant genocide.” ”

    Here’s the link to the whole article:

    Link

    I also have a post up today on postmodern argumentation, which you seem to advocate in reponse to my civilian casualties post:

    Link

    That’s it for now. It’ll be eagerly awaiting your reply!

  4. 4
    Ron Chusid says:

    Donald,

    Isn’t a “strawman” an argument that’s easily refuted? Would you care to do so in this case?

    No. That’s a poor definition of a starwman argument. A strawman is based upon a misrepresentation of the opponent’s position in which a weak (easily refuted) argument is substituted for the opponent’s actual beliefs.

    All you have is Townhall quoting Cindy Sheehan,which may or may not be an accurate quote considering that misquotation ranks high, along with strawmen arguments, among the tactics of conservative writers. Even assuming this is an accurate representation of Sheehan’s views, her views are not representative of the left.

    Your argument that “The bottom line is that the popular perception on the left of the U.S. military in Iraq as an occupation army committing wanton atrocities across the civilian space in Iraq is wrong…” remains a strawman argument as you are attributing a position to the left which is not what is believed by most on the left.

    Your other post is totally absurd. The bulk of your evidence consists of linking to Dr. Sanity’s blog. I don’t read there very often, but when I have her posts have been based upon misrepresentations of liberal views as opposed to comments on their actual views.

    This is why the conservative movmement is increasingly seen as devoid of ideas and irrelevant. You creat your own alternate reality where facts and science can be ignored. You create your own echo chamber where you congratulate yourselves on winning debates, but all you do is attack strawmen or the views of the real lunatic fringe and think that is some sort of victory over liberals.

  5. 5
    beachmom says:

    I don’t think Democrats think the troops are committing atrocities on a regular basis. FAR lefties maybe but they’re not given much cred in the Dem party. The fact of the matter is I was so shocked to read about Haditha when it first came out, I almost refused to believe it. Only after it became apparent from additional reports and an army investigation did I believe it.

    Where I think there is agreement in the views on the left is that Iraq is an occupation. Meaning it isn’t a war for land or to change the government — that was done when Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech was given. Since then it has been an occupation with an insurgency and now a civil war.

  6. 6
    Ron Chusid says:

    Beachmom,

    Donald clearly exaggerates and distorts the views of most liberals. People like him take cases where liberals report a true atrocity, such as Abu Ghraib and then exaggerate this to say “The bottom line is that the popular perception on the left of the U.S. military in Iraq as an occupation army committing wanton atrocities across the civilian space.”

    There is also the killing of civilians in every war. Attempts should be made to stop it. Many such attempts are made, but the government also does exaggerate the accuracy of their smart weapons.

    Conservatives tend to see things as black or white while liberals are more likely to see the gray areas. It is possible to cirticize what is wrong, such as Abu Ghraib, without makeing the absurd generalizations which Donald attributes to liberals. Many conservatives simply appear to lack the ability to look at it as anything but black or white. Either you’re with them or you’r against them and the country, and any talk of problems like Abu Ghraib means you’re against them to this type of conserative mind.

    This mind set, promoted by the right win noise machine, makes poltiical divisions so much worse now than at many times in the past. I guess that’s why even Barry Goldwater called himself a liberal in his later years after seeing what was happening to the conservative movement.

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