Carpe Datum

Qualifying Exam

Several, including CalPundit, have pointed out more stupid biased media crap. Several weeks ago, Democratic candidate Howard Dean was asked on "Meet the Press" about how many troops he estimated were in Iraq at the moment. He said he didn't know exactly, but he estimated around 135,000 (the actual number at the time turned out to be around 146,000). If this had been Al Gore talking, you can be quite sure the media would've been off to the races with the "Gore has trouble with the truth" stories, reminding us that Gore claimed to "invent the internet", is a serial exaggerator, etc.

But this is Howard Dean, and the corporate media has decided to brand him as both "too liberal" and "not ready to be president" (keeping in mind Bush's *vast* "successful" ventures in Texas as the figurehead-in-chief prior to his ascent to office). Tim Russert, the host of the show, immediately jumped on Dean for not being qualified to be a presidential candidate if he's not intimately familiar with what's going on with our military. Still others in the media, both print and TV, heaped scorn on Dean for his "horrible" performance and so on. The Daily Howler kept track of this at the time and makes for a good reference point. Dean actually did fine, but the media's performance was appalling.

Contrast this behavior with what goes on daily with this administration. Bush tells an outright lie, and the press decides it would be too impolite to call him on it. It's just Bush being Bush, you know? Harmless stuff. Aw, shucks, Bush just doesn't know what he's talking about. He's a decent guy, surely he means well and he isn't *trying* to lie to us. How precious.

It even extends to his comments on the military:

Asked about U.S. force presence in Afghanistan, Bush said the U.S. presence is being "gradually replaced" by other troops.

"We've got about 10,000 troops there, which is down from, obviously, major combat operations," he said. [...]

In fact, the 10,000 troops in Afghanistan represent the highest number of U.S. soldiers in the country since the war there began. By the time the Taliban government had been vanquished in December 2001, U.S. troops numbered fewer than 3,000 in Afghanistan. And three months later, in March 2002, when the last major battle against remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda took place in eastern Afghanistan, about 5,000 U.S. troops were in the country.

Nice of the paper to actually point out the contradiction between Bush's words and the facts (back on A27 in the 12th paragraph, but it's a start). So where are all the pundits questioning Bush's credibility? As long as Bush gets away with this kind of crap, there's no way to beat him. This is, of course, exactly what happened to Gore in the debates. When he didn't try to confront Bush is his pure bullshit, Bush just turned on the charm and wowed all the Moron-Americans out there with it (you can bet the corporate media pundits covering the debate weren't going to be so rude as to correct Bush on facts during a campaign). When he did try to confront Bush, Gore was seen as rude, aggressive or otherwise unpleasant.

Gore was in a no-win situation, placed there squarely by the corporate media. Even when he won the debate, he "lost" as the media spun it like crazy (sounds like the election, doesn't it?). You can count on this exact same thing happening in the debates to come. With people like Tim Russert moderating the debates, once again Bush will get a "pass" on any lies or bullshit he spouts off about. Hey, it's just Bush being Bush. But when his opponent tries to point that out, well, they're just being "shrill" and a sore loser because, hey, Bush won the debate due to having a better haircut or a better lame joke. With the way the media acts these days, I'm starting the think it was a miracle Gore even won the election.

The Daily Howler recently posted on this as well with even more sarcasm than I could muster. In other words, it's a great read.

Posted by Observer at August 25, 2003 08:07 AM