Along the lines of what I noted before, do you then support the firing of essentially the entire WSJ editorial page staff? (And, the banning of many of the writers of their op-ed pieces?)
I’m willing to entertain the idea of enforcing a new much stronger code of ethics in this regard but I think it better be done across the board. The WSJ editorial page already makes the NYT one look like a fountain of objectivity and careful precise and fully truthful statements!
As elucidator noted, if we want to extend this beyond editorial page staff and into all of political life, a lot of heads are going to roll. And, some of them, like our Pres, will be have to be chopped off about 1000 times.
My dear fellow I wasn’t aiming at you. But I am so happy for a chance to pin down the real culprits.
I was recalling this thread a while back where our friends Revtim, SuaSponte, Bricker and Beagle seemed quite convinced that Chirac had indeed said France would veto any resolution against iraq.
Search for “any” in the thread and that’ll take you to Revtims first post starting the discussion on Chiracs statements. An interesting read since it deals with similar issues on interpretation as are discussed here.
Anyways, they brought up that quote; out of context. But on to the real culprits. Where did they get the idea? Why, from the UK government, who were the main instigators of the smearing campaign against the french after the british veto draft had to be withdrawn because of lack of support. Prominently by Jack Straw:
Dumping Straw, Gedye, Fisher, Sparkman, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, the entire WSJ editorial page staff, … Now that’s what I call a “housecleaning”! I’m more than happy to get rid of Dowd if the rest of these go too!
Well, OK, I re-read the thread to which you linked.
It sounds to me that the French were promising to veto any resolution authorizing war with Iraq for the next few months.
You posted as follows in that thread:
Perhaps I am being partisan, but I think we would agree that the French wanted to give the Iraqis a period of “months” to cooperate with the inspections. Thus, they would veto any resolution authorizing immediate war with Iraq that was submitted to the Security Council for the next few months - thus giving the Iraqis time to cooperate with the inspections.
Insofar as anyone stated or implied that the French had decided to veto any resolution authorizing war with Iraq - ever, at any time, under any circumstances, for any reason, regardless if they began cooperating with the inspections or not - yes, that was a distortion.
Is that what you meant?
I suspect I feel towards this as Daniel Withrow does towards Bush’s original speech - that I am drawing inferences that may or may not be justified by a close reading of the text. Did Bush distort the truth by claiming that al-Queda is on the run, and is slowly being decimated? Not as far as I can tell. Is it a distortion to phrase the French position as “we are going to veto any resolution of war for the next few months”? I suppose you could see it that way, but, perhaps because of my partisan bias, it sounds like an arguable position.
Certainly you are correct that the French were referring narrowly to the resolution currently under discussion, and were going to veto it. But I don’t think it is unfair to infer from the French-supplied time line of “months” to begin to cooperate with the inspections that they would consider a different resolution that did not also include a period of months for the Iraqi government to begin to cooperate/hide the WMD/stall/however one’s own partisanship leads one to characterize the future course of action of Saddam Hussein.
In other words, it seems inescapable to infer that the French weren’t going to support any war with Iraq for some months at least. And that they would veto any resolution leading to war within that period.
That’s how it sounds to me. Sua Sponte, Bricker, and Spite are better qualified than I to speak to how they perceive the French position.
As I say, this sounds to me like an inference rather than a distortion. The French were saying, in effect, “no war for a few months”. At which point my own bias leads me into saying, “If the French won’t support war after twelve years, they probably won’t after three months either, and the whole exercise in stalling plays into Saddam’s blood-stained hands.”
Yep, i agree “months”. Please compare to above cites.
F. e. Mr Sparkman: Yet in his interview Mr. Chirac had also dropped the little bomb that France would veto a second U.N. resolution on Iraq, ‘‘no matter what the circumstances.’’ In other words, inspectors could have come back with pocketsful of biological weapons, Saddam could have launched World War III, or he could have gassed three more villages. Non. The French veto was etched in stone.
Communicates that French say they want a couple of months for the inspectors? Communicates something else?
He’s not wrong – they are on the run. Being “on the run” doesn’t mean dissolved or impotent or undangerous, any more than a more conventional army is incapable of inflicting damage whilst retreating. That’s why the President said, “and we’ll stay on the hunt” and “But the best way to secure America is to get the enemy before they get us, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen.” (emphasis added). We picked up a couple more today. And we’ll continue to do it. And until we get them all, they’ll continue to attack us. Given all the hue and cry from various folks that the Administration is overstating the threat al Qaeda poses, I’m stunned to see you claim that the President is now understating it. Perhaps you could find some of those guys and argue the point. My only point is that Dowd intentionally and maliciously lied about what he did say as she coasted through her lazy column. Which she did. Whether the current al Qaeda threat is over or understated is debatable. That she lied is not.
As to your other point: a) I’m not going to apologize for having a job and thus being unable to respond to you on your timetable, so do feel free to can the bullshit that I didn’t “take the trouble” and b) No, I do not recall repeating any statments about Jacques Chirac – please find me doing so. Regarding the other publishers, I’ll leave them to their own devices. I’ll simply note that none of them had a huge honkin’ mea culpa on their front pages last week and that I don’t give any of them a buck a day.
Finally, this:
Thank you, President Clinton. But she still lied. Watch:
Gosh, Julie, you sure would think that would work. Sure ought to. But it doesn’t. I have watched that man shovel steaming piles of bullshit onto plates and the Usual Suspects eat it with a spoon and swear its chocolate custard!
If everything said here about Ms. Doud is true, she is a paragon of scrupulous veracity in comparison to Fearless Misleader, who is fast closing in on the Nixon Prize. She’s just a pundit. He gets folks killed. Maybe I’m just oversensitive, but seems to me theres a major distinction in effect, there.
PS to Shodan: the term “Usual Suspects” as a term of mild scorn and affectionate derision is trademarked by Elucidator Enterprises, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Project for Universal Enlightenment. On each instance of your use, please forward one dollar to the Eugene V. Debs Memorial Fund.
" Do you really think that this kind of thing–the decontextualization or editing of a quotation to make it seem more damning than it is–doesn’t happen every day of the week in some place like the WSJ, or on Fox, or what have you?
To which Shodan replied:
“I am not sure - are you agreeing with me that the quote was deliberately distorted, in order to make a political accusation? And that this is a bad thing to do?”
Why don’t you take a look at my earlier post back on p.1 (c. 6am) and get back to me…
jshore, you clearly have a stronger stomach than I do ;).
Randy, well done. Thanks for having the patience to reconstruct the genesis of the Chirac smear.
I just adore the fact that when a columnist takes a shot at Shrub, all the Republicans/Conservatives start screeching and bleating like Shrub was being flayed, convieniently ignoring the fact that when the exact same columnist did the same thing to Clinton for 8 years, the Repubs/conservatives were right there cheering the columnist on.
Err. You are quite correct, that last part was “most definitety not posted by” DanielWithrow. It was posted by me. As was the one sans selective quoting up above. You think you might have got things a little bit mixed up there, matey?
On to the issue. I think things will become a little bit clearer for you, my friend, once you realize that three periods by convention means <unspecified amount of text not cited>. Let’s try again.
And that is indeed a formally correct cite of my earlier post. It is certainly no “lie”. But it is a distortion of the argument I made, insofar that it implies another kind of argument than in the original text.
So, I hope this was not to “Clinton-esque” for you? (taken to mean correct, informed and pertinent).
mandelstam: Thanks! I’m not sure though if it’s as much a matter of “patience” as it is of “surplus time”.
You have a point, Payton’s Servant. It wasn’t a full 8 years, but througout the Lewinsky scandal, Dowd did give Bill Clinton pretty similar treatment.
If this were a thread about Dowd’s political bias, your point would be a good defence. However, this is thread is about Dowd’s journalistic integrity. Her Clinton columns are therefore Exhibit B.
Why stop at using an ellipsis to replace words. We can manipulate quotes even more easily by replacing letters. E.g., to see that RandySpears boasts about lying, just condense his post above to say:
I hope this was… li…es for you.
Seriously, the important point in selecting or condensing a quote is that it fairly represent the speaker’s position. Bush stated in his May 3 Radio Address, two days before the Arkansas speech:
So, the condensed quote was the opposite of Bush’s position.
OTOH the Jacque Chirac quote did more closely agree with his position. No doubt there are some hypothetical circumstances where Chirac might have approved a second UN resolution, but he never said what they might be. I think it’s reasonable to believe that he would have vetoed a second resolution under continued “normal” Iraqi violation of existing UN resolutions.
This nonsense about the quoting of Chirac being more accurate of his views than in the case of Dowd. Well quite frankly it is BS.
BS in the same way that your (unfounded) speculations of what Chirac would have done and would not have done in the future that never came to be.
Suffice to say that the latter was discussed at great length in the thread linked to above. Here it is again. So i’ll leave more eleborate December-bashing to some other poster this time. I’m not up for it.
I’ll check back here after the weak-end and maybe have a go.
Well, OK, then we are in agreement that Dowd distorted a quote, and that this was dishonest.
Your post didn’t have anything from Fox, and the one quote you provided from the Wall Street Journal didn’t seem to me to have any misquotations or distortions. So if you want to provide an example (as december and Daniel Withrow did), we can discuss if it is equivalent or not.
Or start a new thread. I don’t want to hijack this one.
You have distorted my quote! I didn’t capitalize, and you did not include the necessary trademark[sup]TM[/sup].
Yet another example of the sort of nasty, vicious, left-wing personal attacks on those of us who stand for all that is decent and upstanding in America! Have you no shame?
Besides, I don’t have a dollar.
(Shodan flounces off to regain his composure by cleaning his guns, adjusting his medications, and polishing his framed but badly PhotoShopped composite of Ann Coulter performing unnatural acts on William F. Buckley, Jr.)
Doesn’t sound to me like an organization in retreat – and a highly-coordinated terrorist attack is an offensive, not a rear-guard action. Sounds to me like Bush hasn’t kept the pressure on Al Qaida and has ignored the political issues that enable Al Qaida to recruit and exist in countries.
I still say he’s not painting an accurate picture, and that his inaccuracy is going to have more serious consequences than the inaccuracies of an unfunny comedic columnist.
I think you guys are missing a very important point—Maureen Dowd is an editorial/opinion columnist, not a reporter, which, given the mess that is journalistic ehtics these days, seems to make it quite alright for her to take statements out of context and use them any way she pleases.
Hey, the Conservatives and Republicans, ie, Drudge, Coulter, Limbaugh et all did the exact same thing to Clinton for 8 years and no one said a damn thing.
You made two interesting points, PS. Reversing their order:
I do agree that Coulter and Limbaugh have done the same thing. They’re vilified when they do it, and properly so. They’re generally regarded as entertainers or partisan hacks, rather than journalists. Is it OK for a regular New York Times columnist to be no better than Limbaugh and Coulter?
Unfortunately, I think you have hit the nail on the head. Maureen Dowd knows exactly what she’s doing. So does her boss, Gail Collins, and her boss, Howell Raines, and his boss Pinch Sulzberger. So does the Committee that awarded her a Pulizer Prize. These journalistic leaders agree that it’s perfectly OK for her to out of context and use them any way she pleases. Pity.
I’m more than happy to get rid of Dowd if the rest of these go too!