Don’t sweat it, Publius. You’re making more sense than ElvisL1ves.
Thank you, **Corbomite. ** I have my jibs professionally cut and pressed.
If that information is true, it goes beyond hardball politics into dirty tricks. And that’s something I won’t support, for any politician or party. If an official, any official, goes beyond certain bounds, they have to be called for it. This reminds me of the incident some time back in which a reporter – under the banner of free speech – reported the identities of several U.S. agents abroad. Some were subsequently killed. It’s no laughing matter, and it ought to be, unequivocally, beyond the realm of politics.
quote:Originally posted by Satisfying Andy Licious
Honestly, posting a citation from FAIR is a formal declaration that you don’t have to be taken seriously.
Geez, ElvisL1ves, you’re going to have to stop throwing me such slow, fat pitches or people will start thinking you’re my sock puppet.
There’s a terrific column written by a guy named Cecil Adams. He discusses how FAIR perpetrated on of the most notorious press hoaxes of recent memory: the claim that wife-beating goes up on Super Bowl Sunday.
Does violence against women rise 40% during the Super Bowl?
14-Apr-2000
If you want to disagree with me that FAIR is unreliable, fine. But Cecil himself terms them “a liberal media watchdog group with a vocal feminist wing.” In other words, not an objective group but one with a political outlook.
FAIR’s own website has a prominent section labeled “Activism.” It is an activist group. A good rule of thumb is that an activist group is not going to tell both sides of the story. And when it’s a group with a history of making stuff up, well …
In particular, I recall one of their stunts. I’d look it up on their website, but they say their search engine currently is down. It followed a TV report on the plight of boys in today’s world. The feminists at FAIR lobbied to get the program blocked from airing – they tried to censor it. Afterward, they issued a demand that those responsible be ousted and replaced with feminist-friendly reporters. They wanted people fired for disagreeing with them, and wanted only their side to air.
You can call that “Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.” I call it bullshit.
quote:
“Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”
- Dean Wormer
Yeah. And look what we did to Dean Wormer.
Yeah, but you seem to think that " liberal media watchdog group" automatically means “sleazy-assed liars”. Simply calling them liberal doesn’t discredit them.
A couple of journalists have written a book, “Boy Genius,” about Rove’s dirty tricks history – interestingly, it shows that Rove was mentored in dirty tricksterism by none other than Donald Segretti. Here’s a link to a description of some of Rove’s evil deeds based on the book:
http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen1101.html
Here’s a quote from the page:
It should be obvious we’re dealing with the same breed of vile scum that we had in Nixonian times.
For some, who revel in their self-professed “open-mindedness”, it does too. And on a board dedicated to fighting ignorance, too.
Note that our friend has not been able to establlish anything about the GSA report, or anything else in the FAIR summary about the vandalism “stories”, that is factually inaccurate or even demonstrably filtered. All he has left is bluster.
We take facts very seriously here, Andy. EVen more seriously than reasoning. When you don’t have command of the facts, it’s really better, not only for the Fight against Ignorance but for your own self, not to demonstrate that. And, when it’s demonstrated to you anyway, it’s better to recalibrate your thinking than to denounce the messenger. When you’re in a hole, stop digging.
Many of us were like you in our youths. Most of us outgrew it, though. Perhaps you will too.
When I say they are a liberal media watchdog group it means I am noting they are a liberal media watchdog group. In other words, not objective on the issues, any more than American Spectator or A.I.M. would be. Plus, they are an activist group. To a reasonable person, that indicates that whatever they say and do is going to be strongly partisan.
But in this case cited above, FAIR was, indeed, “sleazy-assed liars”. Unless you wish to defend the absolute invention of fake statistics and smears.
Without access to the original documents, you can’t establish anything about the FAIR report. Which is pretty much what FAIR wants. Note that they do not link to the original documents, so you cannot see them in their entirety.
When I cited sources, I chose mainstream news organizations and linked to the entire report so anyone could read the entire document. FAIR does not do that. So you can’t see, from their report, what they are leaving out.
They are a liberal activist group. So an intelligent person understands that they are presenting their side. That’s fine. They’re entitled to do that. But no one with a brain would consider them an objective source, especially when they have a history of lying to promote their causes. The organization has a contingent of radical feminists, and if you want to see the anti-male movement as legit, it’s your prerogative. There are some people who will say that if it came from the far left, it must be true, and it’s true only if it came from the far left. You’re one of them. I, thankfully, am not.