tbagain: So, you dismiss the media for being liberal but you post a quote saying that it is a fallacy to blame the source. How can you dismiss the media as liberal and say it is not logical to check the ideology or bias of your source? Those are completely contradictory statements.
Truer words have never been posted on this BBS. Kagy's had a smug political superiority complex ever since I've been on this board. That's not saying I'm not that way either, I've certainly had my many moments. I'll accept the opinion that there is a liberal slant to the media, but I don't think it's a concerted effort among all in media to influence people to one side or another.
tbagain: No mention of WHY Klayman was suing either of those guys, right? I guess lying about sex and allegedly indulging in and lying about underhanded accounting practices, in light of Enron, etc, should receive equal coverage. No thanks. Anyone remember Jack Nicholson's quote on Gary Hart? I think it was something like "I like a president who f***s." At any rate, I'll take a president who f***s an intern over a shadow president who f***s stockholders and taxpayers any day. But, then, I'm a liberal.
Jeff, I never said I "dismissed" the media for being liberal. I accept them as a group of mostly self-proclaimed Democrats, and I am always on the lookout for bias. I judge each article based on the facts presented within that article.
The real evidence that there is a liberal media bias is that there are no liberal media watchdog groups that do studies, have well researched data, and use direct quotes... On a different topic...I ran into a stat the other day that in the last 70 years, a "large majority" of the daily newspapers in the country backed a Republican president 16 out of 18 elections. How can they do that when Repubbies are nasty, stupid, ugly, subhuman waste? Uhh...go team! Ra ra ra! Our team rules! Damn, what a waste.
Batman Jones, I think when our Commander in Chief puts himself in a compromising position in which many people could blackmail him, that is MUCH worse than a CEO ripping off a shareholder. One is a extreme national security issue, and the other is felony theft. Let's not go over the whole Clinton thing though. People like you and people like me will never agree on this issue, so let's move on.
You have no evidence to support this claim. In fact, all current evidence suggests the opposite of your claim.
tbagain: Sorry, pal. Can't move on yet. Why didn't Kayman go after Gingrich and Livingston then? And why DID Gingrich and Livingston go after Clinton? The S&L crisis was, I guess, a case of felony theft too, according to you. I promise you it did more damage to ordinary people than Clinton's blowjob. So did Enron. And Clinton wouldn't have been in that position if people like Kayman weren't so obsessed with getting him. Here's another one: Iran Contra was worse than Whitewater. Is that my bias showing?
Really? How did the media react after the first lawsuit filed by Klayman against Clinton? If I tried to sue tobacco 100 times, you'd probably portray me as a nut.
How are you not dismissive if you are "always on the lookout for bias." It is impossible to "judge an article based on the facts" AND "lookout for bias" at the same time. It's one or the other. And this hooey about stealing from (not "A" stockholder) thousands of stockholders for the purpose of lining their own pockets not being worse than the possibility of setting oneself up for blackmail...yeah, that's MUCH worse. These guys stole the entire pension funds of hundreds of employees. Some lost their entire retirment right before they were set to retire. No matter what you think about Clinton and his infidelities, I can't believe that you would place that well above the bankrupting of hundreds of hard working Americans in terms of what is worse.
re: educated professions outside business being liberal Nearly all of the engineers that I have met have conservative leanings, and all are fiscal conservatives at the least.
Batman wrote- Sorry, pal. Can't move on yet. Why didn't Kayman go after Gingrich and Livingston then? And why DID Gingrich and Livingston go after Clinton? The S&L crisis was, I guess, a case of felony theft too, according to you. I promise you it did more damage to ordinary people than Clinton's blowjob. So did Enron. And Clinton wouldn't have been in that position if people like Kayman weren't so obsessed with getting him. Here's another one: Iran Contra was worse than Whitewater. Is that my bias showing? LOL! Tell me what Gingrich and Livingston did to deserve a lawsuit from Judicial Watch?? Gingrich was railroaded into paying a $400,000 fine, and he was exonerated at a later date. Livingston had an affair, and he admitted it. Both men had enough honor to resign- a trait Clinton knows nothing about. Rocketman hangout boy wrote- I'll accept the opinion that there is a liberal slant to the media, but I don't think it's a concerted effort among all in media to influence people to one side or another. I agree with this. Jeff wrote- How are you not dismissive if you are "always on the lookout for bias." It is impossible to "judge an article based on the facts" AND "lookout for bias" at the same time. It's one or the other. I disagree with this point. If I am reading a random article from the Chronicle, I am on the lookout for a liberal slant. When I read Larry Elder, I know that he is a Libertarian, so I recognize his bias. I don't dismiss the facts in either case if a persuasive argument is presented. No matter what you think about Clinton and his infidelities, I can't believe that you would place that well above the bankrupting of hundreds of hard working Americans in terms of what is worse. What is more important to you- our national security or money? Clinton had phone sex over unsecured phone lines, and then wagged his finger on TV telling the entire world that he never had sexual relations with "that woman". There was a credible article from Debka (I may be wrong about the source) that Clinton's phone sex was picked up with microwave surveillance by several countries, including China and Israel. I really don't want to argue this point with you Clintonphiles. We will never agree on these point and it is a waste of everybody's time to continue the "Clinton" wars. I will NEVER be convinced that Clinton should not have been thrown out of office, and I will not change your mind either, so I am dropping it forever. Have the last word, and A NICE DAY.
tbagain, First, for the record, I am not a Clintonphile. I ran the Houston campaign for one of his 92 primary opponents and I never voted for him (though I find it impossible to dismiss the great things he did in office, tempered by terrible things like his cruel welfare reform stuff). Next, Gingrich and Livingston aggressively pursued Clinton on infidelity, knowing all along they were equally guilty of it. And, yes, they resigned when they were caught in their hypocrisy. How very honorable. Gingrich also divorced his wife while she was on her deathbed and continued to spout off about family values. The honor here! Oh, it's killing me! Let me this next part straight: Was it China or Israel who "blackmailed" Clinton? I don't remember reading about that. Did they also blackmail Yeltsin with the scandalous information that he drank a lot? It was a known fact that Clinton cheated and that he lied about it. You're right. Us 'Clintonphiles' don't recognize that as a threat to our national security. And it amazes us that anyone does. If you want to get dramatic though, Iran Contra, given the fact that the President had explicit orders from Congress NOT to fund the Contras and did it anyway, was arguably an act of high treason against the US government. Sorry, but that's just an easier leap than this nonsense about Clinton's phone sex compromising our national security. I understand your frustration, though. When it comes to scandal, the right wing had so very little to work with and they wanted so badly to bring this guy down. It's got to be hard to be the party of morals and family values, when your leadership is full of people who believe that the most serious laws do not apply to them. If you really want to beg off this argument (and I can certainly understand why you would), why not do it without parting shots? Calling Gingrich honorable while saying that Clinton compromised national security by cheating on his wife is at odds with the high road you pretend to take.
Jeff is dead on when he says that the media has corporate bias, not ideological. It has corporate bias in two ways. First, it needs to make money. Therefore, it must keep its advertisers happy. Can't criticize Nike when they are a major advertiser. In addition, it needs to do stories that make people buy/watch its product. No need to report on massacres in East Timor when we could get more viewers showing a movie review. The media can't "rock the boat". No criticizing of America or ludicrous things like the "Patriot Act" in the post-9/11 time. In the same way, we also see bias towards war in the media. Why? Because the media makes more money in war. More people watch the news and buy newspapers during wars, therefore advertising rates can soar due to the increased viewage. Furthermore, weapons companies, or companies that have financial interests in weaposn companies make up a lot of advertising dollars. The mass media wouldn't want to lose that revenue by speaking out against war, or presenting the anti-war viewpoint. Every time there is a war, we get to hear of all the wonderful new weapons that have been dreamed up -- nice advertising. Shows us what we get for our massive military budget. We see the capabilities, but never the results of innocent people being killed.
Ditto to Vengeance and Jeff. If anyone has any doubt about the cynicism of our modern politics as they relate to money, consider James Baker's rarely reported response to the question of why we were going to war with Iraq. He said there were three reasons: "Jobs, jobs, jobs." Of course, he backed off this assertion when polling showed that arguments like "He's a Hitler" played better with voters.
Believe it or not, most editorial pages are completely separate from the rest of the newspaper. At some papers I've seen, they aren't even in the same building. And in most newspaper set-ups I've seen, the editors in charge of the bulk of the newspaper don't have any sway over the editorial page, and vice versa. The views on the editorial page don't necessarily jibe with the views in the newsroom. Of course, with regular reporters sometimes doing opinion pieces, there can be some overlap. Batman: But that's exactly my point (or was supposed to be). Liberal bias is often in the eye of the beholder. Show that piece with the reporter saying "even Republicans" are getting on-board for corporate reforms (and I would debate whether Republicans are always against corporate reforms. And the tone of the voice over was questionable, too) to you, and you see no evidence of a bias at all. Show that to Brian Kagy and maybe he sees some. We can all see the same thing and interpret it differently. And that's why I think a lot of people see more liberal bias than probably exists. But that's just my opinion. I've been known to be wrong.
I don't believe it. The opinion page is a separate entity insofar as the sports or lifestyle or metropolitan is a separate entity. Each of these areas has a separate editor, but that doesn't somehow make them removed from the rest of the paper. Most opinion pages feature a mix of both liberal and conservative nationally syndicated columnists, letters from the community, local guest columns and the paper's own editorial opinion. The paper's own editorial is almost always crafted by a senior editor with the approval of the paper's publisher or editorial board. Most of these higher-ups are conservative. The point that most people are missing here is that it is NOT the reporters who set the tone of the paper. They do NOT choose their own stories, nor do they edit or even write the headlines for their own stories. Everything is assigned by senior editors and checked by copy editors. The stories are all subject to final approval by the publisher who can kill a story if he or she wants. The higher up you go in the chain of command, the more conservative the players become. Therefore, the much-vaunted 80% democratic reporter number is virtually meaningless.
Good to see you're debating the point and not resorting to name calling like "Clintonphiles", because people are disagreeing with you. I guarantee that if someone had called you a "Bushphile", you would be throwing a fit, and either raging about people refusing to debate you points, or you would call it liberal bias and an arrogant liberal attitude. I mean name calling and then running off the board? I guess it is best you left the discussion if you fell to that level.
A "Clintonphile" is a fan of Clinton - nothing more. Don't be so paranoid. Batman, you can say that Clinton's impeachment was just about sex a million times, and it still won't be true. Your analysis of the impeachment vs. Larry Flynt's witch hunt is truly mindnumbing.
