The media knows Bush is lying....they know it.

[kentuck]

But they refuse to report it. Why? Because they were willing accomplices to the illegal invasion in Iraq. They knew we had special forces in Iraq before war was declared. They knew the inspectors were forced to leave Iraq by Bush. They knew there were no WMDs found by any inspectors before or after the invasion. They knew Bush was planning an invasion when he first put the troops in Kuwait. They knew he was just playing the game to suck the British into the war by agreeing to go to the UN - anyway, it permitted him to add more troops for the invasion, that he felt he needed. They knew he was going to invade Iraq. The media knew Bush was lying all along. They know he is lying when he says he went in as a last resort. They knew it then and they know it now. They still refuse to report it.

[babylonsister]

1. Tonight, RE: Tweety et al...the truth might get out...

My opinion is (Hardball's minimal chat about it) that it was decent, and here's why.


I wrote this down while listening:
Bush, in the 'conference', used the excuse that the invasion of Iraq was justified because Iraqis were/are safer w/o Saddam. Tweety showed the footage and asked (all paraphrased obviously) are WE better off? Are the facts being manipulated? How ARE we getting out of Iraq, and was the intel fixed? Those are great questions.
O'Donnell and Fineman both agreed that the DSM question was never answered.
My gripe is, if he's asking those questions, Tweety et al, and these are heavy questions, why isn't he addressing them every day and often?

[wiggs]

2. Because he just signed a multimillion dollar television contract. nt

[Daphne08]

3. I was surprised that he was so objective during that segment.

[seabeyond]

16. matthews didnt trust bush on going to war

he was about the only media mouth that was questioning every person that came on his show if it was a good idea

and that is the only nice thing i am going to say about the man. and only because it is the truth, not cause i want to stick up or defend the tweety

[Supersedeas]

41. Why aren't Corporate Media types tying the Memo to interviews with

Richard Clark, Joe Wilson, Chris Westerman, and those connected to John Bolton's coercive activities.

The Memo, standing alone can be marginalized, but in the context of what the Press also knows about the Clark/Iraq-9/11 connection and the Wilson/Yellowcake Plame connection and the John Bolton attempts to manipulate intelligence--the Memo becomes a much larger issue.

[Old_Fart]

45. Tweety is a whore

The highest bidder will create his views on a topic.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[BeFree]

5. Yep, they buried it

And ya know what happens when ya bury something like this? It eventually gets dug up.

And when it gets dug up it really begins to stink. Now, can't you just smell it?

The pathologists are going over the exhumed remains with a fine tooth comb and what do we see? We see the lies, we see the deceits, and we see the birthers of those deceitful lies getting all nervous and squiggly because they know the gig is up and the grave diggers hunger for their just rewards.

[jobycom]

6. Oh, they are far more complicit than that

They knew Gore never claimed to have invented the Internet.

They knew Gore never claimed he discovered Love Canal. They knew that Gore really was part of the inspiration for Love Story.

They knew that Gore did't lie about Kailey Ellis, and that Bush's camp did.

They knew that Gore won more votes in Florida than Bush.

They knew that the Supreme Court ruled that there were legally cast votes uncounted in Florida, but that Florida was not allowed to count them.

They knew Bush was AWOL.

They knew Bush lied about secret terrorist codes targeting Air Force One on 9-11.

They knew Clinton and Gore had warned the US that UBL was going to attack, and they knew the Republicans blocked every attempt by Clinton and Gore to prevent the coming terrorist attack.

They knew that every single thing Bush and the Republicans did AFTER 9-11 was an idea proposed BEFORE 9-11 by Clinton and Gore and defeated by the Republicans in a straight party vote.

They knew all that you say they knew.

The knew Bush knew there were no WMDs in Iraq BEFORE the invasion.

They know Joe Scarborough blocked a homocide investigation of an aid found in his office, and may have been involved in her death.

They knew the Swiftboat Veterans were lying.

They knew Dick Cheney lied out of his ass every time he contradicted John Edwards in their debate, and they knew that every independent fact-checker in DC had proven it.

Yet they in every incident reported only what would help Bush at the expense of Gore, Kerry, the Democrats, or truth.


They are covering up the DSM not because they are partially guilty, too, but because they are ardent supporters of the Republican Party and are complicit in every one of their crimes, from treason and war crimes, to the murders of over 100K innocent people.

[Carolab]

7. And they knew the "Dean scream" was an overamped mike. n/t

[jobycom]

11. Don't mess up my list with some Dean fantasies

The media could have cared less about the campaign of a third place candidate in the primaries. Dean made a stupid speech and a stupid speech because he was losing already. The media didn't have to do anything to Dean to desroy him except start paying attention to him.

[kentuck]

12. Good list!

:)

[Carolab]

13. WRONG! You need to do some reading about Dean, boy.

Dean's "I have a scream" speech was seen as a major turning point, and certainly contributed to his losing the Democratic nomination. Television across the country aired video of his appearance before a rally of his supporters, where he shouted loudly and eventually let loose with a shrieking yowl that was widely derided as not seeming "presidential." What most of the media failed to mention or notice was that Dean had used a specific type of noise-canceling microphone, specifically designed to hear only the user's voice and filter out the roar of a raucous crowd. Other recordings of the same event showed that people in the room could barely hear Dean at all, as he hollered to be heard over the cheering audience at his pep rally.

http://www.nndb.com/people/308/000024236/

[jobycom]

14. I read a lot about him, and watched him even more

Was NOT impressed. Still am not.

And what's with the "boy?"

[Carolab]

15. Sorry, sir, or ma'am. n/t

[jobycom]

17. No prob, babe. nt.

[katinmn]

21. the media exhibited the pack mentality with that incident

They painted him as a radical with that one unfortunate tape.

I agree it was the turning point in his campaign.

[jobycom]

35. So the fact that he was plunging in the polls and had just come in third

in a state he was expected to win easily was not an indication that the turning point had already been reached?

It's a real insult to those of us who didn't like Dean to hear that we are so stupid that we turned against him because of the media's coverage of a scream. Dean was a lightweight. The only reason he was the frontrunner is because the media hyped him so much before the primaries that people felt he was the only anti-invasion choice. But support for him was always soft amongst the mainstream Democrats. He had his rabid core, as did Jerry Brown, and Paul Tsongas, and a dozen other populist type candidates. But when Kerry and Edwards finally started speaking out agains the invasion, many of us leaped at the chance to abandon Dean. And it was done before the scream. Until Deaniacs realize why he really lost, they will have no chance of winning next time.

[stickdog]

48. He was still ahead in NH, and they didn't want to take any chances.

But what does it matter what WOULD have happened? The media lampooned Dean in a way no major candidate has EVER been lampooned, for something that wasn't even newsworthy.

Consider the verbal and physical gaffes Reagan made and Bush makes on a daily basis. Now tell me that the "Dean Scream" was just an honest, uncalculated, unbiased portrayal of a newsworthy event. When you defend the media on this one while charging them guilty for every else, you betray only your own lack of objectivity.

[meppie-meppie not]

33. I had a friend at that rally and what you say is dead on! I still believe

that Dean was the one candidate that the Republican's feared running the baby turd against and Democrats played right into their hands as always.

[Jackpine Radical]

27. If Dean was an unimportant third-rater, why did the media

play and replay that TOTALLY BOGUS tape segment 600 times in the next week? (I don't remember the actual count, but it was over 600 in a few days.)

Doesn't that seem overkill for a nothing? I'm sure Al Sharpton said a few "outrageous" things in that primary season (or at least things they could have twisted into "outrages"), but they never did that to him.

[jobycom]

36. Because it was funny as hell, that's why!

It was a blooper film. Bloopers don't hurt celebrities, people just laugh at them. If anything, they make people like more likeable.

Dean blew it. What makes him a second rate candidate is that he couldn't turn that boom in publicity to his advantage. He was already plummeting, but with that much national exposure, he could have turned it around. he didn't have the skill. And that's part of what I didn't like about him BEFORE the scream.

[stickdog]

47. Yeah, just like when Muskie cried or Eagleton had to admit he underwent

shock therapy! Unlike Dean, those guys were skilled enough to use that to their ADVANTAGE!

[stickdog]

46. You lose all credibility if you can't see what the media did to Dean.

Jesus Christ, they crucified him with bullshit special effects and then danced on grave signing Hallelujah!

Whether you like him or not, or felt he was going to lose regardless or are even happy the media crucified him for a meaningless display of emotion is besides the point!

Show a speck of objectivity here. Just because corporate media once worked in your favor doesn't change the fact that they undoubtedly flouted professional journalistic standards to squash Dean's candidacy like a bug.

[snowbear]

10. Great list joby!!

Awesome job!! :bounce:

[Al-CIAda]

22. Yes sir- and they might even know the official 9/11 story is bogus. n/t

[jobycom]

32. IF it is, they may know it. nt.

[meppie-meppie not]

34. it is, and they know it. n/t

[jobycom]

37. If you say so. nt.

[meppie-meppie not]

44. I was rather being an ass. Until there is a "real" investigation all

we can do at best is speculate, although from everything I've read my gut tells me MIHOP.

[bunny planet]

25. Spot on Jobycom.

The media is complicit in all of these lies.

[Pacifist Patriot]

29. Indeed.

[samsingh]

38. very well put Jobycom

this list should be sent to very MSM outlet in the world.

[kodi]

8. the media are willing players in the kabuki on the potomac

short of killing them off there isn't much one can do, but as nixon once said about a similar situation, "that would be wrong."

[nicholieeee]

9. of course the media knows bush is lying...

the issue is that they're, most likely, not allowed to report it. keep in mind that we live in the era of corporations and mega-mergers. all of the media outlets are owned by a large company. abc is owned by disney, nbc by GE, CBS - viacom. do you honestly think that with powerful owners like that, newscasters would be allowed to report on wrong doings in the white house?? of course not, that's a conflict of interest. and why bring someone down if it's only going to bring you down as well?

[Arugula Latte]

18. Welcome to DU, nicholieeee!

:hi: :toast:

[LunaC]

19. I think initially they were just lazy

and they went along with the WH propaganda.

Now, though, they see the bullshit for what it is. Now we need to relentlessly challenge and pester them into doing their jobs.

Come, get pissed with me......
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3807017

[suziedemocrat]

23. I think they knew - but I also think it's a sort of "pack" mentality.

I don't think reporters are very independent thinkers. Most just repeat what someone else said. They are much more likely than the general public to go along with conventional wisdom. They are pleasers. Plus, I think a lot of reporters hang out together. Most of you know how hard it is to hold your own against the angry lies of the right. Then think if you are already an intellectual follower, how easy it would be to get sucked into the "dark side." I think Chris Matthews is one of the worst at going along with what he thinks is conventional wisdom. If you notice, someone on his show will use an unusual word, suddenly Chris will start using that word whenever possible for a few weeks. Language as fashion.

[MrPrax]

20. Parry says it Best...

At this point, a trickier question might be why the mainstream U.S. news media has performed so badly for so long.?

To some extent, the news media’s reluctance to solve the Mystery of Bush’s Iraq War Lies may be explained by a well-founded fear of retaliation from Bush’s powerful defense apparatus – from the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page to the screamers on Fox News and right-wing talk radio.

But there may be another motive, a fear of the logical consequence that would follow a conclusion that Bush willfully deceived the American people into a disastrous war that has killed almost 1,700 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis.

If that conclusion were to be accepted as true, it would force mainstream editors into a tough decision about whether they should join the supposedly fringe position advocating Bush’s impeachment.


http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2005/060605.html

If the evidence was taken at face value, then where would Distinguished Politicians on both sides be, if they had to do an interview on the Sunday Parade?

Let them eat cake!!

[zydeco]

28. Wasn't the Kellogg, Brown, and Root no bid contract, to work with

Iraqi oil and whatever issued over a year or more before the start of the invasion? I could be wrong, don't think to well lately.

[aion]

24. Collective Punishment and Holy Wars

At the very center of the right-wingers' argument is the fallacy of collective punishment. They don't come right out and tell you (most of them, at least), but implicit in their argument is that 'they' attacked us on 9/11 and that 'they' need to be destroyed wherever 'they' are.

The only thing which might conceivably link Iraq with 9/11 is that the people involved had darker (on average) skin, and come from countries which worship Allah rather than Yahweh.

It is the same sort of thinking which resulted in the camps for the Japanese in WW2. "You remind us too much of who we hate -- so we must punish you as well."

I suspect if you dig a bit further you might get a few of them to tell you that it's okay to kill the infidels, provided it is done in God's name.

Where was the media when the unfortunate Japanese Americans were rounded-up? And if we are so divided in this country, is it wrong to suggest that they won't touch stories which they perceive as possibly estranging half of their viewership? Does it all come down to profit with these people?

[Ninga]

26. What happens if you catch your child with cookie crumbs on

their face? They lie about having their hand in the cookie jar.

I am very fearful that the media has backed itself into a corner by allowing lie after lie after lie after lie to slip by their watch.

If they admit they have given the Bush pResidency a pass, then what will that say about their independence and the rule of the 5th estate?

They will NEVER admit the knew Bush was lying all along.

[Lerkfish]

30. before you kill the media messengers, consider this:

except for columnists and investigative reporters, journalists are by definition NOT activists. That is their strength AND their achilles heel.
If they define non-activism as not challenging whatever officials say, but merely being stenographers.

There are many complex reasons for the situation we are now in.

1. attempting to acheive balance by quoting two extremes instead of reasoned analysis. What is being done now is the SAFEST way to appear to achieve balance, by essentially allowin foes to spew from both positions and say nothing about the veracity of the spew. One the one hand, it seems fair: both sides get to have their say and the feeling is that they will offset each other OR provide enough of a choice for readers or viewers to come to their own conclusions. However, this model only works if both sides are merely stating differing views. If one or both sides are LYING, then this model not only doesn't work, it is damaging if it is not countered with real information. The swift boat liars is a really good example. Negative accusations carry more weight, in a gossipy way, than denials of negative accusations. Merely allowing both sides access does not mitigate the damage made by one side against the other by false claims.
The proper response would be to refuse to print/air the alleged claims without independent corroboration, something the press used to do competently in the past. Now, however, there is no such gatekeeping on potentially damaging charges. Therefore, the burden of proof lies completely on the falsely accused, since the press will not be an avocate for either side (in the best situation). That is why "taking the high road" to such accusations is foolhardy, since the ONLY source of defense is the accused. Waiting for the media to "save" them with the truth is not likely to happen, at least not in a timely enough fashion to undo the damage.

2. reluctance to face retaliation yes, believe it or not, journalists are being pressured by bribes, extortion and not-so veiled threats to come to heel to the present administration. Its no "accident' that this administration sports the highest dead journalist count of all previous administrations, even during wartime. Don't you think the media can read between the lines of "rathergate" and accusing newsweek of inciting murder? As this regime becomes more fascist against the general population, consider that it is EVEN MORE SO against the media, because they consider that a priority...look at how intent they are at manipulating the media, armstrong, Gannon, etc. You don't go to THAT much trouble unless you are intensely interesting in affecting an outcome. And that's just the stuff we KNOW about.

3. access as related to #2 above, one of the invisible ways the administration manimpulates the media is by selectively restricting access. More meetings are held secretly, in violation of sunshine laws. Press conferences are more scripted and controlled. Audiences at town hall meetings are cherry picked. Only certain questions are allowed, or the reporter will find themselves removed next time or denied access.
These are very effective tools to a news organization that does not want to be "scooped". And, you'll notice, they hand out plum scoops to their friends, like Gannon. The underlying message there is: play by the rules and you'll get the rewards. Even if reporters chafe at that, they still have to deliver to their bosses or lose their jobs. I"d like to think most reporters would make the right decision, but if only one does not, that one gets the scoop and the others are chewed out by their bosses.

4. The bottom line: money or more directly, what sells, or who owns the media organization. As we know from Rev. Moon, owning a paper can be a convenient thing if you have a propaganda agenda. Follow the money. Who owns the media outlets, and what are their connections to this administration? Do they get a quid pro quo for propaganda? Certainly this administration has been the kindest to megamedia moguls of any previous one, relaxing most if not all monopoly and trade restrictions.
Also, what sells. Even though it would be great if people went in droves to buy papers on the Downing St. Memos, it would not hold a candle to sales from a Michael Jackson verdict.
Its wrong, but its reality.

Now, I'm not cutting the press any slack here, I think these pressures SHOULD BE IGNORED and they should still do the right thing. But, I think its wrong to forget these pressures exist and account for much of the "complicity". I don't think in most cases the media sets out to be complicit, but rather cave in to any or all of these intense pressures being brought to bear against them by this administration.

IMHO

[jobycom]

39. That may have been true before around 96

But it isn't true in today's media, although it may be true of individual journalists who refuse to stand up.

Proof: if you cn find an incident or two where the truth was well known, and where the media completely knew the truth but refused to report it, and continued to report a lie instead, you can prove bias. That's exactly what I tried to do in my story above.

I'll take one incident: the Kailey Ellis story from Gore's first debate with Bush. Gore told the story in that debate of a school in Florida where Kailey Ellis was forced to stand in her classroom because the school was overcrowded. It was one fact in a string of facts about overcrowded schools. Going in to that debate Gore had a double digit lead over Bush, and had turned all of Bush's slanders back, so that the nation no longer believed that Gore was a serial liar and exagerator. Immediately after that debate, all the polls, and all the analysts, including such conservatives as Buchanan and Buckley, agreed that Gore had kicked W's butt. It wasn't even close, Gore had beaten Bush by 2-1 in the polls on that debate. Bush lost big.

The next morning Bush's camp called a press conference, and accused Gore of lying over the Kailey Ellis story. "More of his pattern of exageration and misinformation," the claimed. Dick Cheney claimed Gore had "fabricated the story out of whole cloth." Etc. The media picked up this line and ran with it, and before the end of the day Gore was again a liar, and his ratings were plummeting, because the media had assured everyone that Gore was exactly what they had feared he was before his upturn in popularity.

They based the whole story that Gore had lied on the words of the principle at the school in question. Within a day of that principle's press conference, however, the school's superintendant had called a press conference to refute the principle. Kailey Ellis had indeed had to stand in her classroom, and the principle was just covering his own butt, and was a Republican activist to boot. Quite untrustworthy. Kailey Ellis's father came forward and said the story was true, and that he had told Gore the story exactly as Gore claimed.

Gore had told the truth, and the Republicans had lied, in other words, and the media knew this within one day of the story. They continued to paint Gore as a liar over the story, though. They never retracted what they had said, they never pointed out that Bush's camp was lying, and they never tried to correct their stories. Gore's ratings went down after that and never recovered. The media then began the whole "Gore was too agressive and lost the debate" routine, claiming that Bush had won the debate despite what the polls and the pundits showed, and it was all downhill from there.

I could retrace the Internet story, the Love Canal story (I had a long argument with a NYT editor over that one), the Love Story story, and a lot of minor ones--all of which the media knew to be lies, all of which they kept repeating as truth long after they knew they were lies.

The media lies for Bush, and lies against the Democrats, and they do it knowingly. Before the mid 90s I used to argue each of the points you argued above. But that changed in the 90s. The media became an activist force for the Republican Party. Look at the ownership. Rupert Mrudoch started Fox News specifically to support the conservatives. NBC was run by GE, run by Jack Welsh, who campaigned for Bush on the trail, and who in the night of the 2000 elections ordered NBC producers to call the election for Bush before the votes were counted. The media is controlled by activists, and it is populated by activists such as Candy Crowley, Kathleene Seelye, and CeCe Connally--three names behind some of the biggest slanders against Gore in 2000.

This is not the media of the 80s and early 90s. This is an unregulated, corporate media run by companies who make more money from Bush's tax cuts than from their media divisions. They have turned their media divisions into advertising firms to pimp their candidates, thus to get their tax cuts. The MSM has no relationship at all to the media before the 90s. This has happened before to the US media--read up on the Yellow Journalism of McKinley's era. That whole era, from the president on down, echoes ours so much it is disturbing.

[Lerkfish]

40. thanks for your thoughtful reply...

I agree the situation has gotten much worse, but moreso in broadcast media than print media, though that is also changing.

however, I disagree that in the general media there is necessarily a concerted effort to lie as much as a caving into to various pressures from the administration to promulgate their propaganda. Its still WRONG, but I think its a difference. Instead of the media being an equal partner in the propaganda, I perceive they are more like a captive thrall who must comply or else.

In any event, I'll grant you, the end result is the same, propaganda is disseminated and opposing views are minimized.

A coerced accomplice or a willing accomplice still aids the oppressor.

However, better understanding the nature of the motivation goes a longer way toward a remedy.

[jobycom]

42. May be true of many reporters

and editors, that they are coerced into going along with the administration. But it is not true of their bosses, and not of all editors and reporters.

The ownership of the media is using the media as a Republican advertising firm. They hire editors and reporters who support their agenda. There are also a lot of reporters and editors who are neutral, and who are liberally biased but try to be neutral. These journalists can get some of their stories published, as long as they are not too damaging to Bush. But the overall tone of the media is set by the owners, and then, to make it worse, is set by the activist conservatives within the rank and file of journalists.

You have liberally biased journalists trying to be objective despite their bias, and you have activist conservatives willing to lie for the Republican Party. The latter set the tone, the former just hang on to their jobs. The final result is an activist PR firm for the Republican Party with a couple of naysayers afraid to raise their hands.

The one hope we have is to uncover and publicize lies of the administration that are so blatant the conservatives would be laughed at by the public at large for supporting them. The MSM still has to maintain the fiction that they are not PRAVDA, that they are honest, or their game is up. They are not an effective PR force if no one believes them. That is why the DSM is so important. We need to be in the streets publicizing the contents of that memo. We need to be blockading CNN's foorstep until they have to cover both the protests and the memo. We need to make it common knowledge, and then even the media has to start talking about it. All those true journalists who want to report the truth have to be supported and emboldened. That's our only hope, that's our wedge to split apart the oligarchy.

Otherwise we just have to wait until things fall apart so badly that even the lies of the media can't convince people that things are going well.

[Imagevision]

43. USA Today just said they didn't report on DSM because they couldn't

verify the source reporting on it in Britain? -- however, USA Today - today responded with their excuse for not following up, actually, in my opinion similar to the Blair and Bush denials of yesterday about the "fixing of facts" for the lead up to the invasion of Iraq.

[Hokie]

31. The only report lying when it is about oral sex

and when it is a Democrat

[KoKo]

49. Hitting the "nail on the head" here, Kentuck....

had that same "revelation" somewhere yesterday afternoon.

They all knew and they know and they cover their butts by saying "Well, EVERYONE KNEW," and yet nothing to see here...move along?"

Interesting....and disheartening

[Dr Fate]

50. Liars protect other liars- or the web unravels.

It's awfully simple.