The NYT, TNR, and WaPo, among others, make no bones about considering themselves “Liberal”. CBS has had so many slanted articles that anyone to the right of Leon Trotsky would consider them liberal as well.

Still, you may be right. The liberal press may well have moved so far to the left that the word “liberal” no longer applies.

Other wise, I would say you have a healthy dose of the myopia you have accused me of contracting.

I cannot help but find humor in the fact that the example you lead off with is so illustrative of the liberal attitude.

Gore is a huckster, and his sole purpose in leading the fight against “global warming” is nothing more than a self-aggrandizing (if successful) ploy to gain national attention while at the same time fleecing the rubes who can’t be bothered with actually reading up on the issues. I notice even you have bought into his use of the term “global warming” instead of the correct (and much less misleading) “anthropogenic global warming”.

Of course, “global warming deniers” makes for an excellent straw man, so I can see why, especially when “anthropogenic force” requires him to show specific evidence that man made pollution is the primary factor.

Under the circumstances, I can’t think of a more appropriate term than “hypocrite” for someone who demands the masses cut back on energy while at the same time living in a house that consumes enough to power a small village, flies to “green” rallies in a private jet, profits off of the production of persistent greenhouse gases, and claims he “offsets” them by taking money out of one of his pockets then placing it in the other.

Anyway:

MBentley

Except that the so-called liberal media doesn’t exist. The Media isn’t liberal in the least.

Take a look at the whole hoo-hah over Al Gore: He comes out with a successful lecture against global warming, succeeds in getting other countries to take it seriously, actually does pay over carbon offsets and makes sure that the campaign to promote An Inconvenient Truth is carbon neutral.

Then his son gets caught speeding in a frigging Prius and Gore gets called a hypocrite by the very same MSM you are claiming has a liberal bias.

Take a look at the reception CNN gave Moore’s Sicko, with a 2 minute hitpiece in front of it that makes claims about things being said in the movie that actually don’t appear in the movie to try and discredit the movie. He was angry in that Blitzer interview for a lot of very good reasons.

Take a look at the Patraeus worship the media is currently engaged in.

Take a look at the punditocracy, the fact that anybody ever pays the slightest bit of attention to Bill Kristol. Take a look at the whole thing surrounding Lieberman, which can easily be summed up as meaning people shouldn’t fire their representatives for not representing their views.

Take a look at Time Magazine, normally on the top five lists most people mention as being a “Liberal” publication, and how it named GW Bush man of the year.

What you have noticed as being liberal bias is due not to liberal bias but due to the same perceptual error as people who claim that women can’t drive suffer from: You only notice the bits that go against your ideology and you miss the stuff that goes the other way.

But it still doesn’t explain the misrepresentations where little or no investigative effort was required, just simple verification of the basic facts.
Nor does it explain the incidences where the liberal media has claimed it perfomed extensive verifcation and still published articles which were more fiction than fact, or those in which it has been proven that they altered or ommitted highly pertinent data in order to mislead the public.

Why don’t you focus your attention on this instead of trying to lead the topic adrift?

NO! SOLDIERS DONT THINK THEY EXECUTE

Further, you might not realise this, but the Gulf War, ended in 1991, the operational life, by your own figures, of those WMDs was 5 years – so assuming that the last shipment of them Saddam got was 1995, they would have been three years past their sell by date.

Further, had Iraq had WMDs he knew about he would have had to have been the most restrained leader on Earth because the stated aim for the invasion was to kill him, his family and his friends and…

HE DIDN’t USE THEM.

As to evidence of how inferior news media fact checking can be in America: Stephen Glass, Jayson Blair, Janet Cooke etc… all went for a long period before being caught, because, you might not realise this but not every article gets fact checked, and not all of the false stories were even political.

Yeah, really critical when what he was calling for was a bigger invasion. He never questioned the rightness of the invasion, which means while he might have been critical of the handling of the war, he wasn’t critical of the war itself.

Frankly, most of the charges leveled in the opening of Greenwald’s piece could just as easily have been directed to Hillary Clinton, or John Kerry.

In Hillary’s case? She wasn’t a war critic and she isn’t a war critic. She didn’t question the rightness of the invasion. In Kerry’s case, he became a war critic – because people can be wrong and change their minds.

Further, it doesn’t change the fact that O’Hanlon didn’t mention that his trip to Iraq was planned, funded and run by the military. He was not independent in his assessment. There was nothing hyperbolic in Greenwald’s assessment, it was an outright fact check that found O’Hanlon less than honest.

I must beg to differ with you here. In the first place the casus belli was violation of the cease-fire agreement, which specified ALL WMD’s, and all delivery vehicles exceeding certain terminal range parameters were to be destroyed, and Saddam Hussein’s continued refusal to allow unfettered access to confirm that this disarmament had indeed taken place. The only time the goal posts have been moved is when the liberal press pushed them further back.

Next, please show me where you obtained your information that the canisters found were disposed of in any way shape or form. Both Mustard Gas and Sarin are typically destroyed in high temperature incinerators so it is highly unlikely that those found were simply improperly disposed of (stuffed up as you say). Sarin may also be deactivated by the introduction of sodium hydroxide which renders it inoperable, but it is not a hit or miss affair.
The container (a 155mm artillery shell) detonated in Baghdad in 2004 was certainly not treated to any disposal procedure, stuffed up or otherwise. The only reason there were so few injuries was that the insurgents did not understand the binary activation procedure.

The term “degraded” is itself misleading. In binary form Sarin retains a 100% effectiveness rate for up to five years, and even at 50% (or even 20%) effectiveness it is still very deadly. A 155mm shell contains approximately 4 liters of agent. At 100% effectiveness .07 milligrams is an adult lethal dose. Do the math.

Your analogy of France is illogical, at least if you are referring to battlefield debris. Modern Sarin projectiles combine the binary agents in flight, and the agent breaks down in a very short period thereafter. The projectiles found so far in Iraq are unfired, still in binary form.

I want to make something clear here. I initially opposed the invasion of Iraq, but not because I felt Saddam was not a danger, rather because I believe it is a strategic mistake to open a war on two fronts unless one is forced into that position. I do not mean to sound callous, but it is less important to me if Saddam continued to oppress and murder his own people than to finish the job in Afghanistan first. Had Saddam remained in power, he would have provided a bulwark to check any Iranian desires toward asserting themselves as possible belligerents. I did not feel at the time that he had any meaningful connections with the muhabarin.
The revelation that he did in fact have ties to them (although he did not have any operational input into the events of 9/11) combined with the fact that he did posses at least some WMD’s put that position in a different light.
There is little doubt in anyone’s mind that sooner or later we would have had to deal with him; his aspirations were no secret. Should he have remained in charge, he could have, either in desperation or by design, transferred one or two of those canisters to the muhabarin, providing them with the means to conduct future atrocities against us, while at the same time affording himself plausible deniability in the matter.
I am also less than pleased with the poor performance of Phase IV. I consider this to be a major failing on the part of the administration. However, while I see much condemnation from the left over the conduct of the war, I have yet to see any reasonable alternative proposals from them.

Your statement that big media has all but cut off funding for fact checking is equally suspect. CBS, ABC, and the NYT all have a very large staff (according to their own statements) that do nothing but verify the accuracy of their reports. Even TNR has a full time staff of fact checkers. Elspeth Reeve, the wife of Scott Beauchamp, is one of them, and Franklin Foer publicly claimed that the material had been meticulously vetted prior to publication.
The same is true of 60 Minutes/CBS and CNN (in regards to “Wall” and “Tailwind” respectively). Both claimed exactly the opposite of your theory. Even were that not the case, verifying the military status of the “Wall” interviewees was pathetically easy; it is hard to believe their staff was so poorly funded they couldn’t afford a stamp, or so understaffed no one knew the address to NPRS. In the case of “Tailwind” CNN’s own military consultant objected strenuously to its airing, not because they did not have the resources to vet the material, but because they refused to consider the very valid evidence to the contrary that he provided. He later resigned in protest over the matter. CNN obviously managed to find considerable resources trying to extricate themselves after the event. Unfortunately for them, their own investigation showed where they had taken statements out of context, lead witnesses to remark in the abstract then stated those remarks as fact, used unreliable witnesses, and intentionally neglected to include the witness statements that did not corroborate their position.
In the case of the doctored photographs, no large (or even small) staff is needed; any news outlet that publishes has to have a photo editor, and all of the photographs in question would be reviewed by him (or her, as the case may be).

“You know, take a look at O’Hanlon being called a war critic, he wasn’t one. He has always supported the occupation, his trip to Iraq was sponsored and planned by the US Army (Note mentioned in his article) and nobody bothered to check anything about this up until Glenn Greenwald did.”

Despite Greenwald’s hyperbole, O’Hanlon had some justification for calling himself a critic. In 2005 he wrote a treatise on how the occupation had been badly mishandled once the Ba’athist regime was overthrown, using phrases like, “The post-invasion phase of the Iraq mission has been the least well-planned American military mission since Somalia in 1993…” , “…one of the most brilliant invasion successes in modern military history was followed almost immediately by one of the most incompetently planned occupations…”, and ,” Unfortunately, in the Iraq operation, the U.S. defense planning system did not work. Indeed, it failed badly in planning for the aftermath of Saddam’s fall from power.”

Hardly a ringing endorsement of the administrations handling of the affair.

http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/ohanlon/20050101.htm

Neither could his Op-Ed (with Jason Campbell, NYT, 2006) be called particularly enthusiastic.

O’Hanlon has also been critical of the administration demands for an increase in the military budget.

Frankly, most of the charges leveled in the opening of Greenwald’s piece could just as easily have been directed to Hillary Clinton, or John Kerry. Both of them enthusiastically supported the war in 2003.
But more to the point, this was not a matter of fact checking. Greenwald’s objection is merely a matter of semantics over how O’Hanlon characterized himself. That is quite a different thing from claiming to be a Ranger and combat veteran, to have witnessed atrocities that never occurred, or to have failed to do even the most basic verification of facts before publishing.

“The problem is not a matter of liberal bias; it is a matter of America’s big corporate CEO’s, who own the media, cutting funds to any fact checking at all.”

On the contrary, in the examples I have shown it was more likely than not a matter of bias. In all the examples they knew, or should have known, that there were severe material flaws and they chose to rush to print anyway, then dissembled rather than accept responsibility.

And to get back to the original subject, the TP article whose comments section we are posting in is an example of bias. The article infers that the military is preventing soldiers from accessing the full spectrum of news, but this is not the whole truth. The government only blocks access on its own computers, and for a variety of reasons. Soldiers are still at liberty to view ( and comment on) sites through their own personal internet access and Internet cafes.

Speaking of censorship, what’s up with this site? Twice now I’ve posted comments that disappeared several hours later.
Computer glitch, or commie conspiracy?
You be the judge.

“You know, take a look at O’Hanlon being called a war critic, he wasn’t one. He has always supported the occupation, his trip to Iraq was sponsored and planned by the US Army (Note mentioned in his article) and nobody bothered to check anything about this up until Glenn Greenwald did.”
Despite Greenwald’s hyperbole, O’Hanlon had some justification for calling himself a critic. In 2005 he wrote a treatise on how the occupation had been badly mishandled once the Ba’athist regime was overthrown, using phrases like, “The post-invasion phase of the Iraq mission has been the least well-planned American military mission since Somalia in 1993…” , “…one of the most brilliant invasion successes in modern military history was followed almost immediately by one of the most incompetently planned occupations…”, and ,” Unfortunately, in the Iraq operation, the U.S. defense planning system did not work. Indeed, it failed badly in planning for the aftermath of Saddam’s fall from power.”
Hardly a ringing endorsement of the administrations handling of the affair.
http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/ohanlon/20050101.htm
Neither could his Op-Ed (with Jason Campbell, NYT, 2006) be called particularly enthusiastic.
O’Hanlon has also been critical of the administration demands for an increase in the military budget.
Frankly, most of the charges leveled in the opening of Greenwald’s piece could just as easily have been directed to Hillary Clinton, or John Kerry. Both of them enthusiastically supported the war in 2003.
But more to the point, this was not a matter of fact checking. Greenwald’s objection is merely a matter of semantics over how O’Hanlon characterized himself. That is quite a different thing from claiming to be a Ranger and combat veteran, to have witnessed atrocities that never occurred, or to have failed to do even the most basic verification of facts before publishing.
“The problem is not a matter of liberal bias; it is a matter of America’s big corporate CEO’s, who own the media, cutting funds to any fact checking at all.”
On the contrary, in the examples I have shown it was more likely than not a matter of bias. In all the examples they knew, or should have known, that there were severe material flaws and they chose to rush to print anyway, then dissembled rather than accept responsibility.
And to get back to the original subject, the TP article whose comments section we are posting in is an example of bias. The article infers that the military is preventing soldiers from accessing the full spectrum of news, but this is not the whole truth. The government only blocks access on its own computers, and for a variety of reasons. Soldiers are still at liberty to view ( and comment on) sites through their own personal internet access and Internet cafes.

Speaking of censorship, what is the problem with this site? Twice now I’ve submitted posts only to have them disappear several hours later?
Computer glitch, or commie conspiracy? You be the judge.

Think Progress censors news like Hillary Clinton’s shady connections with Norman Hsu. Not word one on the website after 3 full days. Kind of callling the tea pot black here aren’t we?

Comment by Liberalismisdead — August 31, 2007 @ 3:06 pm

From Crooks and Liars:
“August was a disastrous month for Republicans and the Romney campaign took a huge hit when it’s national finance committee co-chairman, Alan B. Fabian was charged in a 23 count indictment, including charges of money laundering, mail fraud, perjury and obstruction of justice. It’s reported Fabian, a former Bush Pioneer, allegedly ran a scheme that netted him millions of dollars which were used to purchase beach front property and travel. The Romney campaign said they would return Fabian’s $2,300 campaign donation, but not funds donated by others through him. Fabian stepped down from Romney’s campaign shortly after his August 9th indictment — but you may not have heard much about this scandal.”

Should be

Not mentioned in his article

The weapons were degraded to the point of being almost worthless, mostly because they had been improperly disposed of.

IE: Iraq had tried to dispose of them but they had stuffed up.

Those that weren’t disposed in this manner happened to have been found on the war front with Iran, and if you are going to count those you can proclaim that France has a huge stockpile of mustard gas.

Further the threat of war was based not on old stocks of degraded WMDs but on the threat that Saddam was manufacturing more of them. You are trying to move the goal posts on the case for war.

You know, take a look at O’Hanlon being called a war critic, he wasn’t one. He has always supported the occupation, his trip to Iraq was sponsored and planned by the US Army (Note mentioned in his article) and nobody bothered to check anything about this up until Glenn Greenwald did.

The problem is not a matter of liberal bias, it is a matter of America’s big corporate CEO’s, who own the media, cutting funds to any fact checking at all.

Even a basic fact check will find a lot of errors in a lot of stories going both ways, BUT, there isn’t even a basic fact check going on on most stories you read in the newspaper because funding towards that has been reduced repeatedly since the 1980’s.

I did notice that the “truthiness” factor seems to be alive and well in at least one of the articles, specifically the one entitled “After Propagating False Iraq Intel, NYT’s Michael Gordon Now Echoing Bush Claims On Iran” where “Anonymous” claims that Gordon “casually dismisses contrary opinions as the complaints of some critics of Bush.”. I checked the links and one was another article quoting Gen. Pace who stated that Iranians and equipment made in Iran had been captured in Iraq and, (while) “That does not translate that the Iranian government per se, for sure, is directly involved in doing this,” Pace told reporters in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. “What it does say is that things made in Iran are being used in Iraq to kill coalition soldiers.”
The other “contrary opinion” (an article by Juan Cole) does not dispute that EFP’s of Iranian manufacture are being used in Iraq, only the number of soldiers actually killed by them and even in this he misquotes the article he is disagreeing with.
As to the existence of the EFP’s themselves, or the likelihood that they are Iranian in origin., there really isn’t much dispute. I have friends currently serving there, experts in the field who verify both the existence of them, the level of sophistication in their construction and the similarity to Iranian made weapons of like nature. Add to this the fact that caches of these devices are regularly found along the Iranian border and you have an excellent case that Iran is the point of origin. In short, it walks like a duck, squawks like a duck, and looks like a duck.
But what I did not find was even one accusation against the conservative news media that rose to the level of misrepresentation in the few paltry examples I cited in my previous posts. Not one instance of doctored or misrepresented photographs, not one major author who had lied flagrantly about his bona fides, not one case where a conservative news story was made up from the whole cloth.

I don’t trust the conservative media for the simple reason I don’t trust any media source, but I don’t see where you’ve made your case by citing BDM. Spin/counter spin, and the reader left with nothing more than blurred vision and a queasy stomach.

Additionally, and perhaps more to the point, your claim that the liberal media lacks resources and time to adequately vet their product is almost laughable in its use as defense.
None of the examples I cited required anything more than basic fact checking (and perhaps a bit of professional integrity).

With MacBeth, a simple Google search would have immediately provided ample evidence of his fraud. There had been articles and photographs on the Internet for months showing that MacBeth was in the United States at the time he claimed he was in Iraq.

With Rather and the “Bush/ANG” story, one just had to look at the memo itself. It was composed on a word processor.

In the cases of Micah Wright and “The Wall Within”, a $.39 stamp would have resolved the whole matter. Military records may be released under the FOI directly from the NPRC in Missouri.

In regards to the fraudulent photographs, it is even more obvious that lack of ethics, not lack of resources, was responsible. Any photo editor who actually took his job seriously would have spotted them. No doubt they did, but chose to go to print anyway.

With Beauchamp and TNR , their attempts at verification were so woefully inept one could not help but come to the realization that they had arrived at a conclusion then sorted the facts to fit their case, especially in view of the BFV rep’s statements. Rather than send him a copy of the article and ask for an objective analysis they chose to ask a set of general questions designed to give them the answers they wanted. Add to this the fact that Foer originally tried to keep this information out of the public eye under the guise of protecting a source.

And bear in mind, these are only a few examples. While the conservative right no doubt has it own share of spin doctors, I do not see wholesale misrepresentation on anywhere near the scale that I do on the left.
Since this will no doubt subject me to more ad hominem attacks such as the one posted by CMO and the tinfoil hat crowd, be advised I am not a Republican, a conservative, or even a Christian. I am a centrist, a strict constitutionalist, and an atheist.

As to the WMD’s and why they shouldn’t be counted I would appreciate it if you would post this information. As best I can recall, the ceasefire agreement specified “0 WMD’s” retained, not “Until existing supplies are exhausted”. Not to mention that even in a degraded sate they are still capable of inflicting massive casualties.
Just why shouldn’t they be counted?

Click on braindead media on this site under What We’re Fighting Against.

The American media isn’t liberal, it is deeply flawed.

During the months it took for the story to be completed, a strike happened, and one of the journalists ended up volunteering to work in the morgue. (Needless to say, security wasn’t exactly tight.)

There were hours of footage taken from that story that probably will never see the light of day – simply due to privacy issues.

Now contrast this to any of the stories you have highlighted, where a single source has been taken as being gospel, or any of a dozen examples of reports out of America’s government which simply don’t ask critical questions.

Where in South Africa you have a press core which is willing to take the time to get the story right, in America you have a press core in such a hurry that it takes the blogs to correct them. In South Africa you have a thriving news industry, in America your news industry is being suplanted by the growth of the same blogs which fact check them.

The investigative journalism that does end up in your paper is of a much poorer standard then that which is used elsewhere. Let me illustrate an example from my country (And from a related newspaper to the ones I work on.)

The Daily Dispatch in South Africa found out some startling news about Frere Hospital. Frere, had basically been run into the ground, and babies were dying. The Daily Dispatch, commonly called the Daily Disgrace up until the story in question, decided to investigate the numerous complaints that had come from this situation.