If the convential media lied in poll reporting to get Kerry elected are they liable for all the post election Kerry depression disorders that are being reported, and criminally responsible for the Kerry suicide?
What Kerry suicide?
Some whack-job offed himself at ground zero to protest Bush’s reelection.
As far as lying about poll results - I have no idea.
http://www.command-post.org/2004/2_archives/017380.html
- Misc. | Kerry Supporter Commits Suicide at Ground Zero
Moving this from IMHO to Great Debates.
Actually, I’d like to turn the OP around, as such:
If it can be shown that the makers of electronic voting machines (Diebold et al) deliberately induced errors in their systems to count more votes for Bush than for Kerry, would they be liable for the “Kerry suicide”?
Heck, would Bush be liable? Or does he get to simply say “Who cares if I cheated, I won, so there”?
Curses! And our elaborate plan to trick some poor schlub into killing himself would have worked, too, except for one small detail: We forgot that the election results are based on the actual vote tallies and not exit polls.
Paul Rove would never have never made that mistake.
Are you sure you mean Kerry, rather than Bush? Kerry doesn’t really work in that sentence.
That said, the idea that the media actively worked to get Kerry elected, but the results were still unfavorable despite their subversion rates on par with the idea that the “Reagan” tax breaks of the early 80s caused more money to come in, when the opposite occured.
Legally? You must be kidding. But I think the better question is “you’re not actually suggesting this happened, are you?”
WTF? The former claim is inherently speculative (unless the Grand High Illuminatus of the “media conspiracy” decides to fess up); the latter claim can be settled with a high degree of confidence by simply comparing the amount of federal revenue before and after the tax cut.
Now, this is what I call being a sore winner.
Could the OP please cite “all the post election Kerry depression disorders that are being reported” and the claim that the suicide at ground zero was based on the re-election of Bush? I’m not saying you’re making stuff up, but I haven’t seen any evidence of what you’re saying.
Also, is the question being put hypothetically? Its a pretty big “IF” at the start there. Either you are suggesting the “conventional media lied in poll reporting to get Kerry elected” in which case please cite this claim, or you’re not in which case isn’t discussing the question a waste of time?
In any case, if people are depressed and one guy did commit suicide over Bush’s re-election, how is whether or not the media lied about the polls prior to the election relevant to that?
Finally, of course not. Don’t be silly.
I think the OP refers speifically to day-of exit polls, which showed a lead for Kerry. Why the media would make these up is beyond me, but I’m sure there’s a really convincing reason floating around out there someplace.
Of course not. The exit polls were correct. The vote tabulations were wrong. Otherwise, how do you explain Bush getting 667% of the vote in one Ohio precinct?
A more likely place to look for media liability would be in their failure to do their job in informing the public, such that large majorities of Bush supporters believed things that were manifestly incorrect about Iraq, the world at large, and Bush’s position on various issues. (See the PIPA study on The Different Realities of Kerry and Bush Supporters.)
Unfortunately, this doesn’t fit very well with the “liberal media” meme.
Did I miss the meme memo? What is with everybody and his cousin using this word now? Is this the modern day equivalent of what “angst” was several years ago?
A data glitch that was discovered and corrected.
And are you 100% certain all such “glitches” were discovered and corrected?
Any other cases of 600%+ results that we should look at?
The optical scan ballots in Florida are at great deviance from expected results. I for one think that if the optical scan ballots in Florida were hand recounted, Kerry wins Florida. I’ll find a cite when I get a chance but it was one of the cites someone else referenced in other threads.