September 15, 2004

WHAT FOR?

After having read more articles and blog posts on the topic than I ever would've thought possible, I am now fairly certain that the CBS memos are fakes. Given that they are fake, I now wonder what the person who made them is thinking. Did he create them to make President Bush look bad? If so, is he kicking himself that he used MS Word and two superiors who were already out of the military by 1973? Is he banging his head against the wall that the discussion centers around superscript th and kerning instead of Bush's attendance? Or did he create them to make the mainstream media look bad? If so, is he like the guy who hid the box cutters in the airplane bathrooms just to prove the point that security isn't tight enough? Did the memo forger assume the media would run with them and want to make them look foolish? I'm insanely curious as to who would make these memos and why. I hope we find out someday.

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September 12, 2004

THE MEDIA'S JOB

See, here's what ticks me off. I haven't seen anyone but Dan Rather and his unnamed experts defend these memos (and no one has claimed the $10,500 reward). And now the AP is asking retired servicemembers what they think about the memos, without any hint that they might be fakes.

Majied, a Democrat from Albany who served 30 years in the Navy, including five years as a SEAL in Vietnam, said the memos support his belief that Bush was a "playboy" during his service years.

"He had enough money to get what he wanted," Majied said. "I think his main concern was not to go to Southeast Asia. I bet he never dreamed it would come back to haunt him."

This man obviously hasn't read this story:

Finally, Killian said his father told him a story in 1980 or 1981, when the two sat in an officers' club in San Antonio, Texas, about Lt. Bush having twice volunteered for duty in the Air National Guard "Palace Alert" program, under which fighter pilots in the Guard could serve a year on active duty in Vietnam.

On both occasions, the younger Killian said, Lt. Bush was turned down because he did not have more than 500 hours of flight time. Killian cited Maurice Udell, later a commander of the 147th Fighter Group, in which Lt. Bush served, and Col. Buck Staudt, later a brigadier general, as the individuals who turned Lt. Bush down.

"We have pilots with thousands of hours in the F-102," Bush was told, according to Killian. "Why would I send you?"

Majied seems to already have his mind made up (and could potentially be another Micah Wright), but it's shoddy reporting that allows people to base their vote on utter nonsense. If the MSM weren't so gung-ho Kerry, they would report things like that the F-102 was actually dangerous and that President Bush wasn't roasting marshmallows around the campfire in the Guard. They would report that President Bush seems to have tried to get sent to Vietnam but was turned down, in contrast to Kerry, who tried to get out of going to Vietnam but was turned down.

The media's job is to provide us with facts so we can make our own decisions. It seems these days that they're making the decisions ahead of time and then providing us with the facts they like.

In times like these, it can't hurt to go back and read Nelson Ascher's post Ignorance and Journalism.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:34 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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September 10, 2004

MEMOS

According to LGF, "By 8:30 pm Pacific, an investigation is underway at CBS" about the forged memos. It's now 1130 in Germany, a full six hours later. So why is the MSN homepage still running this link up top? And where's Seb's post about how, sadly no, they're not real?

MORE:

And why is freaking CBS still running the story? I can't even find anything on their news site that says they're investigating the matter.

MORE:

There's something up there now (it's 2023; I don't know at what time the story was added.)

And here's a memo someone dug up on Kerry (via Bunker).

MORE:

Ha, I had forgotten I said this back in February:

The whole point of his post is just to let you know that Sarah's dumb. Nice. I think my brother said the same thing when he was seven, but that wouldn't make for a very interesting blog.

I can't honestly believe that Seb has been reading my blog for an entire year, looking for things to nitpick. I get bored of his after five minutes. But you keep up the good fight, huh Seb? From now on, your comments are deleted here.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:36 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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August 25, 2004

DENZEL

Man, I wish I could've seen this exchange between Katie Couric and Denzel Washington. Thank heavens for brave celebrities...

(emailed to me by Tim)

MORE TO GROK:

I went and bought Courage Under Fire online, just because of Denzel. And also because that's the movie that made me know I wanted to be a military wife. After we watched it in ROTC class, I walked home from class all full of pride and love for my then-boyfriend's service. And I got back to his room to find he'd smashed a ukulele to splinters because a class he needed to graduate filled before he could register and therefore he would have to give up his slot in Air Assault School and take the business class in summer school.

As I calmed him down, I knew then that he was the man for me. I told him that as long as he beat up musical instruments instead of me, I'd stand by him through anything.

True story.

MORE:

Well, that's weird. Reader Matt found it on Snopes, and the account is MIGHTY different. I always check the validity of email forwards, but I don't snope out websites (though on a second glance, I should have if I'd read the parenthetical statement more thoroughly). Sigh. Oh well...it's still a good movie.

Hilarious that Meryl Streep said that money is bad though.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:50 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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LIFE IMITATES OTT

Hilarious new Scrappleface article.
What's that you say? It's real? It's a real article?
Oh. I coulda sworn...

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August 22, 2004

DISJOINT

Is it just me, or is this title -- Iraqi athletes object to Bush campaign ad: Soccer players say president shouldn't exploit their success -- a little different from the crux of the article's content?

...

However, the Iraqi Olympic delegation accused journalists of deliberately provoking an angry response from their players.

“Our purpose is not to politicize the football team in any way,” Mark Clark, a consultant for the Iraqi Olympic Committee, said. “It seems the story was engineered.”

...

But Clark insisted journalists were wrong to take advantage of the athletes.

“It is a little naughty,” he said. “The players are not very sophisticated politically; they are a little naive. Whoever posed these questions knew that the reaction would be negative.

“It is possible something was lost in translation. It’s a free, new Iraq, and the players are entitled to their opinions but we are disappointed.”

IraqÂ’s soccer players once lived in fear of Uday Hussein, son of toppled dictator Saddam Hussein, who used to beat the soles of their feet or throw them in prison for slip-ups on the pitch.

Under current coach Adnan Hamd, they have defied the odds to reach the quarterfinals at the Athens Olympics, where they will play Australia on Saturday.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:40 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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MINI-SERIES

I remember last year there was a mini-series about Hitler on TV, and everyone was worried that it was too sympathetic. Even today, sixty years later, people don't want a personable Hitler. So why in the hell do we have a mini-series on 9/11 through the terrorists' eyes? I don't want to know what was going on in their lives to make them do these things, I don't want to watch them prepare to board the planes, I don't want to see the crash of Flight 93 from anyone but Tood Beamer's point of view, and I certainly don't want to give the 9/11 hijackers any more publicity and glory for the heinous thing that they did. I think that's disgusting.

That Hitler mini-series took 60 years. Maybe in 2060, when it's history, they can make a mini-series about that garbage, but it's not history when some of the collaborators are still alive and kickin' and being released by Germans.

This sure isn't the 9/11 movie Lileks envisioned.

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August 16, 2004

TRIP

This is a trip: here's what happens when a scientist meets a journalist.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:20 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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August 12, 2004

ABC

What a crock: ABC didn't call me either, or they'd have found someone who voted Gore in 2000 and will vote Bush in 2004. It seems a tad ridiculous that they can't find anyone in that category. Perhaps they're just not looking hard enough and are instead spending their time crafting over-the-top statements that look like fact but are indeed garbage.

Of course, I voted Gore in 2000 because I was woefully uninformed. I knew that I stood by the Republicans in almost all the issues, but I just didn't think that Bush had the experience to be president. I never thought he was stupid; I just thought he was too...simple.

Thank god I was right. That simplisme is now one of his greatest qualities.

MORE TO GROK:

I digested this for a while and decided I have more to say about it.

The last election was while I was in grad school. I'm ashamed to say that I don't think I read a single newspaper or watched a single debate. I honestly think I got my political news from Saturday Night Live. Embarrassing, I know, but I think it's pretty typical. Most young people just vote based on a hunch or on what they think the parties represent, whether it's true or not.

I'm going to write ABC now.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:43 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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August 11, 2004

HEARTACHE

If the media knew how much this hurts, how it's like a knife in the heart of every military family member, would they still do it? It's becoming obvious that no one in the media gives a damn about our servicemembers.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:26 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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August 07, 2004

BOOING

But I thought Fox News was the crazy unbalanced one? At least they're not booing anyone...

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July 28, 2004

POLLSTER

I read that stuff about 40% of Canadian teens saying the US is a "force for evil". Whatever. But I was interested in this part of the article:

“What they’re reacting to is a sense that the U.S. is belligerent,” said the pollster who conducted the phone survey, Greg Lyle. “The U.S. is sort of bellicose, warmongering [and has] this sort of cowboy diplomacy.”

But former Canadian diplomat Martin Collacot says the teens are responding to cues from their government, the media and their teachers.

How about they're responding to cues from the pollster? I hope this quote was taken out of context, because when the pollster himself thinks Americans are warmongers, it might have an effect on the way he words his questions or interprets his data. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe 40% of Canadian kids really are that ignorant without any cues at all.

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July 26, 2004

RESPONSIBILITY

Normally I avoid reading things I have to register for, but I was so intrigued by this NYTimes title that I had to go through the rigamarole: Is The New York Times a Liberal Newspaper?. I really recommend it; it's an honest admission that the NYTimes is "of course" liberal.

However, I did notice one thing that always makes me prickle, something that I also noticed when Atrios' gang descended on me a few months ago: the Left often uses religion as the only line in the sand. The Right doesn't like the NYTimes because of the risque fashion models, articles on gay marriage, and evolutionary theory in the science section. Sarah doesn't like this poll because she's an "evangelical Christian" who refuses to listen to reason. In fact, in discussing evolution in the science section, the author says:

Newspapers have the right to decide what's important and what's not. But their editors must also expect that some readers will think: "This does not represent me or my interests. In fact, it represents my enemy." So is it any wonder that the offended or befuddled reader might consider everything else in the paper - including, say, campaign coverage - suspicious as well? [emphasis added]

So people on the Right think that those who support evolution are "the enemy", and therefore we shouldn't listen to anything else they have to say? Please.

What about all the people I've met on the Right who are atheists? They don't fall into the stereotype that the NYTimes just laid out: either you're happy that the "articles containing the word 'postmodern' have appeared in The Times an average of four times a week this year" or you're a close-minded fuddy-duddy evangelical Christian who wants the Ten Commandments in every courthouse and a cap in every black ass. Ridiculous.

What about all the people I've met on the Right who are libertarians? They don't fit the stereotype either. Some don't like gay marriage, or do believe in "one nation under God", but they still don't think the government has any business poking a nose in. They believe in personal responsibility instead of the "my way is right and you're the enemy" dichotomy the NYTimes set up.

In fact, I'd say a lot of us belong on the Right not because of our religious views but because of our views on Responsibility. (If you've never read Bill Whittle's essay, now's a good time...)

One of the things that makes the current political debate so rancorous is that we do a lot of talking past each other, because the old labels no longer seem to apply. Rachel Lucas is a gun-toting, idiot-intolerant, pro-gay, pro-choice conservative. My Liege Lord and Master, Emperor Misha I, the Hammer of Idiotarians, is a deeply religious, formidably armed firebrand who smashes with righteous fury any homophobic or racist morons who darken his cyberdoor. And Kim Du Toit, the rootinÂ’-est, tootinÂ’-est bad-ass hombre who ever lived, a veritable poster boy for the idea of an assault rifle in every crib, is a former South African who marched in the streets against racism and took huge risks fighting for the equality of all of his fellow citizens before he came home to America.

They, like me, call themselves conservatives, but we are indeed a new breed: pro-choice, pro-gay, vigorous defenders of equality of race, religion, gender and sexual orientation. WeÂ’re big on freedom and big on responsibility.

The left hates us. We are harder to attack than the racist, homophobic, misogynists that they formerly could comfortably lambaste as right-wingers. (And they deserved to be lambasted, by the way – and I’m not even sure what lambasting is, but it does sound nasty and severe.)

The point is this: labels donÂ’t really work. As one of my readers brilliantly pointed out in my comments section, itÂ’s not like the vast sensible middle of the nation is divided into Red and Blue camps, Republicans vs. Democrats, Liberals vs. Conservatives, Left vs. Right. TodayÂ’s politics are more like a RubikÂ’s cube, where someone you may stand shoulder-to-shoulder with on one subject, can become, with a simple twist of the issues, a bitter opponent in some other fight.

This is where WhittleÂ’s Theory of Political Reduction comes in handy. (If thatÂ’s too wordy we can call it BillÂ’s Electric Razor.)

I contend that there is a single litmus that does indeed separate the nation and the world into two opposing camps, and that when you examine where people will fall on the countless issues that affect our society, this alone is the indicator that will tell you how they will respond.

The indicator is Responsibility.

I appreciate that Daniel Okrent of the NYTimes can at least see that his paper doesn't exactly represent the views of a large chunk of America, but I wish he wouldn't naively herd us all into the "intolerant right-wing nutjob Christian" group that the Left thinks we all belong in. There are a plethora of reasons that the NYTimes disgusts me, and virtually none of them have anything to do with religion.

Posted by: Sarah at 03:25 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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July 24, 2004

FLIGHT 93

If there are any faceless people I love as much as our servicemembers, they are the people of Flight 93. I didn't know a single one of them, yet their bravery has always made me so proud. If I ever heard anyone put down these heroic passengers, I'd kick him in the teeth, which is why this horrific headline makes me nauseous. I know they finally fixed it, but who on earth greenlighted that asinine headline in the first place? (And what's the deal with mismatched headlines popping up all over the place? Do journalists put their stories into a Headline Generator and pull out the worst title they can find?)


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July 21, 2004

DIG

Here's an interesting little dig I found in the MSN movie review for Day After Tomorrow:

The Story: A paleoclimatogist (Dennis Quaid) races to save the world and his Manhattan-trapped son (Jake Gyllenhaal) from an impending Ice Age brought on by the effects of global warming (or, as the gun-shy Fox marketers call it, "global climate change"), which causes cataclysmic hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, hail, heat and a colossal tidal wave. Not for the weatherphobic.

Couldn't resist getting that dig against Fox in there, could you? Even though the cause of global warming could possibly be the sun and not humans, and the whole scare could be a bunch of b.s., let's find a way to blame the biased Fox News for it...

Sheesh.

Posted by: Sarah at 09:32 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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July 16, 2004

MEDIA

Sander asks an interesting question...

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July 15, 2004

POLL

I hesitate to even say the p-word here on my blog again, in light of what happened last time, but Joshua Sharf has an interesting post about the new WaPo poll.

(By the way, if you're not reading Oh, That Liberal Media every day, you're missing out on some shocking stuff.)

Posted by: Sarah at 08:15 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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GASP

Surprise, surprise. Someone at the NYTimes is donating money to Kerry. Gasp.

(via Iraq Now)

Posted by: Sarah at 04:34 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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NAZI

Tim found a good article by John Leo about the power of blogging.

Plus I read another Leo article and found this line, about googling Bush=Hitler, hysterical:

The odd thing is that I typed in the names of every Nazi I ever heard of, excluding only Hitler himself, and the group total was still less than George Bush gets alone. This might indicate that either that George Bush is by far the second most important Nazi of all time, or that the Democrats and the left now require some sedation.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:26 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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June 27, 2004

PRICE

Wretchard writes of the price our Soldiers had to pay to prevent the media from having "quagmire" footage. It pains me that they have to play that kind of game.

MORE TO GROK:

I'd much rather see this movie, made by an anti-war fellow who was looking for the truth.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:56 PM | Comments (22) | Add Comment
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