Dave Astor of the excellent and respected Editor & Publisher covers two matters we’ve discussed here recently.
Last night he did a quick item on the Ann Coulter/Lydia Cornell outrage. For the record, Coulter still has Lydia’s private information posted publicly on her website some 48 hours after it was posted there. She has been asked politely to remove it. She has chosen not to.
As Cornell pointed out in her response yesterday, that sort of thing helped Bill O’Reilly blow his stack recently when he thought (incorrectly, of course) that a “liberal” group had posted a private email address on their website. Of course, it doesn’t take much for the increasingly unstable O’Reilly to blow his stack these days.
As well, Astor covered Robert Koehler’s latest Tribune Media Services’ “Poll Shock” column that we briefly reported on last week. His coverage gathers additional comments from both the Dispatch Public Affairs Editor Darrel Rowland and Koehler on the “staggeringly impossible” results of Ohio’s recent Nov. 8th 2005:
I love that. It’s the exact same thing we heard after the ’04 Presidential Election: Once someone else finds the “solid evidence” the media will be happy to report on it. Note to Mainstream Media: It’s your job to investigate the smoke and find out if there’s a fire! Otherwise, what the hell do we need investigative reporters for at all? Oh, yeah. Apparently, we don’t. The bloggers will do it for you. (But don’t come running to us wondering why it is that your readership is falling over a cliff in the meantime!)
Koehler’s reponse to Rowland in E&P:
And Koehler concluded sarcastically that “the spark won’t jump in the media mind. You know: Hmm, we have widespread confusion in the voting process, a recent GAO report that cites many glaring insecurities in e-voting, and our own polls indicating big victories that turn into big defeats. Could it be? Nah! What are we thinking? This is the world’s greatest democracy.”
Go Bob. And thank you, E&P.
UPDATE: And speaking of Koehler, this just in from his latest column which will be published tomorrow and available then to read at this location:
Dig up an old lie from one of George Bush’s forgotten speeches and the stench is asphyxiating, as though it’s coming from the rotting corpse of democracy itself. The words quoted above are from the president’s inaugural address in January – the odor intensified by recent news that the president allegedly wanted to bomb the headquarters of al-Jazeera
You mean the "solid evidence" that’s all locked up behind "propietary" software shields, and impossible SoS recount hurdles, Editor Rowland…?! HOW "convenient" for you (and for those persons of bad faith who are in control of counting "our" votes in private these days).
Meanwhile, E&P, you might note that Howard Dean has seemingly introduced the GAO Report into what I think might be considered "the edge" of the corporate mass media:
By Howard Dean in "The Hill" 11/30/2005:
"…We will offer real ethics reform and election reform so that the Government Accountability Office can report in three years that we can have confidence in our voting machines…"
© 2005 The Hill
http://thehill.com/thehill/expo...3005/dean.html
[I take this particular piece of writing from Dean to be an attempt to wrangle the Democratic "strays" on Capitol Hill into line for the upcoming battles. I do find it sad that unless a "former Defense Department official" worked for Reagan (or some other misguided "Republican") he or she is somehow unworthy of support from Democrats and other realists… Talk about an inferiority complex (this is with regard to a comment Dean makes in the piece about an Iraq redeployment plan Lawrence Korb has proposed).]
As I listened to Dubya’s speech at the Naval academy today I, of course, wanted to refute three-fourths of what he was saying. However, getting sucked into that kind of debate doesn’t make sense these days. Their underlying idea is to fight the political rhetorical fight at all times and to never really accept the realities or to talk about them. Their political arguments are about pretty talk, wedge issues and burning strawmen. They assume that the vast majority of their listeners are NOT well informed and that most of them assume George & friends are telling the truth. One has to get beyond that faith-based rhetorical facade and get closer to reality to know what they’re about and to completely refute them.
The Niger documents were forged.
The aluminum tubes were not for nuclear use.
They did not know where WMD were in Iraq — because there was none.
Our attack in Iraq was illegal.
Our continued involvement (despite Joementum Lieberman, Joe Biden or Hillary!) isn’t legal either.
Once you consider the reality it becomes easier to dismiss what Bush says (at least for oneself) and it becomes more disgusting to consider the effect the Repub rhetoric has on other Americans.
The violent rhetoric of Limbaugh and Coulter is more clearly aimed at the true-red Republican base and especially their force-fed young followers. They say Coulter is just ‘for fun’ or metaphorical, but they ignore (intentionally) the fact that in politics the only thing one has is words and you can’t judge anyone (such as Alito’s likelihood of overturning Roe) without having some faith that they aren’t lying through their teeth and it’s too late after they’re elected or appointed. I like to consider their prior performance to get around whatever rhetoric they’re using.
Nope Coulter and company are vicious political smear-mongers who shouldn’t be allowed within a mile of a microphone. American politics and Modern Democracy depends upon a well informed public. They try to subvert that and we can’t let them get away with it any more than we would let terrorists get away with blowing up the World Trade Center.
BTW, where is Osama bin laden?
Nobody at the Naval Academy is ALLOWED to oppose George W. Bush. He might be the biggest liar in history, but those people are sworn by a debt of allegiance to SUPPORT HIM AS THEIR COMMANDER IN CHIEF. They’re all getting a free education, paid for by the taxpayers, and they have to cheer when someone tells them to.
It’s like a tin-horn banana republic. The guy who has the military has control. Bush didn’t say a word that suggests anything will be different. The Iraq army will take over? When? Someday. Well, that’s not news. Someday Iran will have nuclear weapons, too. Let’s all wait patiently for that.
#3 – RLM — The oath is: "I, _________ , do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.
That first phrase…one can dream.
Three cheers to Dave Astor and E&P. We need more like those guys!
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: the Ohio irregularities were a slap to the face – will we stand up, and take back our country, or will we lie down on our backs and whimper, and become exiles in the land where we were born?
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