If Giuliani were there, and there were such booing, he would have shouted “Quiet!”
There was nothing on the tape that warranted a “Quiet!” command.
I for one am not surprised. Not everyone is as civilized as you are. You can find assholes in any crowd, regardless of political orientation, and it’s fairly safe to conjecture that most people who would boo the idea of wishing for the speedy recovery of a political rival aren’t socially astute enough to ponder how that might reflect on the candidate they’re supporting.
So clearly did the crowd, as Bush announced Clinton’s hospitalization. The suspected booing comes long after that moment of gut reaction, after Bush wishes Clinton a speedy recovery. The time for a reaction of “ooo, that’s horrible” was over. The time for assholes to boo if they wanted to couldn’t have been better scripted.
There is inconclusive evidence of isolated booing. Did “the crowd” boo Clinton? Heck no. Did Bush fail to admonish an unruly crowd? No, because the crowd was not unruly. Do I think the reporter make a biiiig honkin’ error in judgement? Yes. Should any of this be a big issue? I don’t think so.
You didn’t say this, but Random in this thread did, as well as Liberal after I posted. There was some disagreement, and that’s why I listened and posted my own analysis. (30 seconds of listening carefully to a 4 second section of audio is hardly over the top tinfoil hat behavior, eh?)
is, judging by what’s audible, no more accurate than saying “There were boos on that clip.”
It’s inconclusive. It’s possible the reporter was in fact standing near someone who booed, and chose to focus on that. It wouldn’t excuse his poor reporting, nor make the story true by a stretch of the imagination, but it would indicate he didn’t make it up out of whole cloth as some want to suggest. Exaggeration is somewhat different that an outright lie, isn’t it?
Wonder if Phelps will condemn Keyes, too, for not being harsh enough. After all, Keyes didn’t specifically say “No faggot will ever possibly be able to get into Heaven,” so there is room for improvement, so to speak.
It’s possible, but IMNSHO rather unlikely, that the reporter in question was sitting in the middle of fifteen or twenty people who were booing, or that he was distracted during the cheering and heard only the booing in response to the cheering. Mind, I wouldn’t attach any meaningful probability to either of those, but it’s possible (highly bloody unlikely).
[sub]Now watch me get labeled a liberal sheep for this;)[/sub]
That sounds to me like an absolutely level-headed and reasonable take on the matter.
I’ve listened to the clip and I think there’s no booing at all. It seems to me that what you can hear is a sharp intake of breath by multiple parties (presumably in shock as Clinton isn’t that old), no more.
Should the reporter be fired for blatantly lying? Absolutely. From what I’ve read, reporters in the USA can get away with lots of things, but they absolutely cannot get away with lying to the public.
But kudos to the blogosphere for correcting itself so rapidly.
I can do better than the audio clip; they showed both Bush’s statement and the crowd’s reaction on the television news here when it happened. And I was specifically listening for booing, because I was curious as to how the convention audience would react.
Undoubtedly there were a few yahoos who did boo, but they were more than drowned out by the cheering and generally supportive applause (although I was amused by the expression of one onlooker behind Bush who applauded in a decidedly grudging manner).
Nevertheless, there was nothing for Bush to chastise the audience for, and the reporter is officially a dipstick of whatever political persuasion.
A reporter with a personal agenda?
I’m shocked! Just shocked, I say!
From what I’ve read, reporters in the USA can get away with lots of things, but they absolutely cannot get away with lying to the public.
Sure they can! All you have to do is change the word “lying” to “spinning” and anything goes.
This wasn’t a blog; this was Associated Press.