That’s what elections are about, fool. The candidates and their qualifications and character. *Not * the leanings of their media coverage.
How comfortable are the seats on the short bus? The closer analogy would be if you, a Nixon supporter, constantly tried to make the subject the morality of Woodward and Bernstein’s methods of gathering information, not the President’s misconduct.
If it isn’t clear by now, you ought to drop down to a less-demanding board. Weirddave, please reread this thread. You haven’t addressed, well, any of the clarifying statements addressed to you. If you’d like to persist with this “Clinton must have lied and evaded because he’s a liar and evader, and Bush didn’t do coke because I couldn’t stand it if he did” approach, go right ahead. That’s all you’ve got, though. There are no contradictions in my views, since you claim there are - each is based on the facts at hand, which include the two men’s answers to the same question.
Goddamn you’re thick. You’re doing the same thing here that you did in the other thread. Listen closely, I’ll try to use short words. I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT WEATHER CLINTON, BUSH OR BOTH USED OR DIDN’T USE DRUGS. I DON’T CARE ONE WAY OR THE OTHER, M’KAY? BOTH MEN MADE SIMILAR STATEMENTS ABOUT DRUG USE, AND YOU ARE GIVING CLINTON A COMPLETE PASS AND UNQUESTIONING BELIEF BECAUSE OF YOUR POLITICS, WHILE CLAIMING THAT IT IS “PROOF” OF DRUG USE WRT BUSH FOR THE SAME REASON.
Conclusion: You’re a partisan moron to the exclusion of all fact, reason and common sense. You really don’t belong on a message board dedicated to “fighting ignorance”, except perhaps as an example of the opposite.
But here’s the thing. If you can’t unearth the memos which corroborate your brand of truth, then you don’t air a highly inflammatory story whose foundation is these memos. If you miraculously come into possession of such memos, you don’t just authenticate them by checking that the signatures look authentic. No, if for no other reason than because you have a personal bias, you go the extra mile to authenticate. You freaking carbon date them if you’re able, to make sure that your proof is beyond reproach.
And if the election is nearing and you STILL don’t have the memos, you most certainly don’t FORGE them because you really, really, really believe that while the proof could not be obtained, the conclusion was right.
Did Mapes forge the documents? Or did the Kerry Camp, who was in contact with Mapes prior to the story running, try to help her out by “re-creating” them? Both of these theories seem much more plausible to me than the laughable theory that Karl Rove planted them on the off chance that a reporter would find them, fail to perform even the most basic due diligence, air a story damning to the President right before the election, and then be discredited because the font used in the memo didn’t even exist in the early 70’s.
Uh huh. Mapes should have been fired. If she didn’t forge the memos herself, she certainly failed to authenticate them. AND, just as damning, she was in the bed of the opponent of the man she was trying to discredit. Add in a highly contentious election and you’ve got a very irresponsible, unethical journalist who deserves to be fired.
Yes, Mapes should have been fired. And she was. Four other people were forced to resign which is probably a lot like being fired what with losing your job without your consent and all, and Rather himself resigned, presumably on his own recognizance. There have been Consequences.
And when I read all the bitching from conservatives on this board about there ALSO needing to be an apology to Bush, I am FORCIBLY reminded of the term I once read that was used to describe conservatives and Pubbies after their electoral victories:
Sore winners!
Thanks for the laugh, Weirddave. You’ve confirmed that your desperation to avoid assigning Bush any responsibility for his conduct is paramount to you.
Next time you feel like posting a rant, use a spellchecker, btw. Word to the wise.
Why should Mapes have been fired? Did it have anything to do with politics?
Presumably, from what the report concludes, her conduct was not motivated by politics. Right? So how do get from that to concluding that conservatives are “sore winners?”
It seems to me you’re admitting something here - that Mapes WAS a partisan player, and that her firing is a political victory for conservatives and a loss for liberals. I thought her firing was merely a result of her violation of CBS policies concerning fact-checking, accuracy, and fairness – interests shared by liberals and conservatives. Seems to me her firing is a victory for us all… RIGHT?
In your case we shall have to add the term “disingenuous” to “sore winner.” The reason the conservatives are all exercised about memogate is that it was an instance of a news network jumping prematurely on a story that was damaging to their idol Bush. Of COURSE it’s a victory for them, ya disingenuous sore winner. Now don’t go forcing me to add more adjectives lest I start using archaic terms and whatnot. Fair warning has been given.
You’re missing it. The CBS story was seen by conservatives as partisan, even though we now know it wasn’t. According to the posts we’ve been treated to here, including by you, it still is seen as a partisan story. What, you’re more interested in what the President did than what that pesky liberal network did? Hah. Not in evidence.
Yes, Mapes’ firing is a victory for truth. When do we get to see Coulter, Limbaugh, O’Reilly, and Novak fired? Are you up on the soapbox, in high dudgeon, about them? Why not? Never mind, we know.
That’s something which bothers me about every one of these political threads–both parties turn a blind eye to their own side’s misdeeds. I hate Bush, and I am embarrassed that CBS scored an own goal by broadcasting a dishonest report. The GOP’s scumbaggery does not in any way detract from the severity of CBS’s lapse in journalistic integrity. Novak’s act of treason is bad, but his shameful behavior doesn’t make CBS’s OK by comparison. Ditto to the Pubs; Clinton was a bad president, but his malfeasance doesn’t exculpate Bush from his many faults.
To both sides: Have the honesty to admit to your own side’s misdeeds.
When did the Dems “turn a blind eye” to CBS’s transgressions? They were investigated and the persons responsible have been fired. At the White House, they’d have been given the Presidential Medal of Freedom even for fatal screwups.
What can you point to that shows Dem partisans saying “At last we can prove Bush was a deserter! We didn’t have anything to prove our casual smears before, but now here’s a blue dress, er, fitness report that backs us up! Oh, precious vindication!” As you ought to know, there was and is plenty of documentation and witnesses to prove the essential point about Bush regardless of the CBS story - it was an issue before this cheap forgery and is an issue now. Many of us were able to remember that the important issue is the qualifications, character, and leadership of the candidates, and their histories that lets us make such judgments. The Pub partisans used the issue to divert attention away from that to one of their favorite pinatas, the Liberal Media.
You are not on solid ground in trying to draw yet another false equivalence. That’s been a far too familiar tactic by the partisan right - every issue, it seems, is met with “But your hero Clinton was worse!” (even when that is objectively false) or “Hell, you guys do it too!” (even when there is no evidence to support that) or “Well, you would do it if you could” (which does not deserve a response).
Wow. And you still can’t address the subject, instead insisting this is all about Bush, when I’m not talking about Bush. AND my spelling is bad! Oh, woe is me, I’ll just hide in shame!
AFAICT, your “debate” style seems to be:
1:Change the subject
2:Continue to try to change the subject
3:Ignore what the other guy is saying, continue blathering on about a tangential subject
4:Bring out your big guns:The Wally smilie and a spell checker.(BTW, You spelled “spellchecker” wrong. It’s 2 separate words.)
Boy, I am humbled before your wisdom.
On preview, you might want to read Gobear’s post, he’s saying the same thing.
The Dems didn;t fire Mapes; CBS did. Your posts in this thread have done nothing but point to Novak, Coulter, and Limbaugh to take the heat off CBS. They’re all dishonest reporters and commentators–both Left and Right.
No, you’re missing the point. CBS screwed up, took responsibility, and fired the malefactors. You stated that as evidence that “The Left” turned a blind eye to it. Only when challenged do you now acknowledge that “The Right” might be more guilty - note that those worthies are all customarily partisan, all repeat liars, all still employed, and all still admired by “The Right”. Your attempt at drawing an equivalence is ludicrous.
Yes, weirddave, you’re still not talking about Bush. That is still the point and that is still your problem.
No, you’re missing the point. Yes , the Right are a packjof hypocritical scumbags, but what with Dio’s paranoid ravings and your complaints about the Right, just admit that the reports were wromg.
Yes, weirddave, you’re still not talking about Bush. That is still the point and that is still your problem.
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Let me put it another way–" note that those worthies are all customarily partisan, all repeat liars, all still employed, and all still admired by “The Right” is a pointless statement. Of course, the Rightist puundits are liars and admired by the Right. The Right have shown that they are nothing more than amoral powermongers. They are utterly bereft of ethics or morals, their only yardstick of behavior is how well they can con the voters.
So stop expecting the Right to clean house because it is never, ever going to happen. Folks like Shodan and Bricker admire torture, they embrace racist politicians and perpetrators of voter fraud, they shrug off the maiming and deaths of Iraqi children, oops, sorry, “collateral damage.”
All you do is to keep an eye on your own party so that you don’t follow the same corrupt path of power for power’s sake the Pubs have.
OK - answer me straight, then: was Mapes acting in partisan manner, trying to help the Democrats or injure the Bush campaign? Or was she motivated by a desire to get the story out FAST, and would have done the same for a Kerry-bashing story?
It’s not often that another poster insists on ramming his foot down his throat just to prove me right. Please stop it, I might get used to it and find myself at a disadvantage when discussing things with the more typical posters on the boards, you know, the ones who aren’t the tragic result of botched lobotomies.