The Media Gore-ing Bush: Who do you root for?

It's hard (nigh impossible) to feel bad for Bush, who has been sailing above the media fray like a daisy-fresh breeze since 1998, when he finally gets called on one of ten million (at least) questionable things which leak out of his crooked mouth.

And certainly in the context of the fear-mongering build up to the war, it's clear that the dangers to America from Iraq were much smaller than so ominously implied by many members of the administration (as many of us suspected, having heard not much more than a peep about Iraq from these folks until Sept. 2002, after *'s vacation).

However, do we really want to let the media keep doing the lousy job of sticking to the facts which led to the merciless smearing of Gore in the last election? Editorial writers are now claiming that Bush "said Saddam acquired uranium ore from Niger", and beating him up about it, when Bush clearly said no such thing. He said the British have learned that Saddam tried to acquire uranium ore from Africa. That claim is so broad and so hard to disprove - can any of you state with certainty that Saddam never tried to do that anywhere on the continent?

I'm not defending Bush here, but I'm saying it is dangerous to let the media go on just making shit up and putting words into people's mouths and never actually being careful about what is actually going on - they use that power against Democrats with abandon.

I want to see Bush discredited and out of power, but why can't the press actually pursue and actual _proveable_ lie, of which there are hundreds, rather than one which can never be proven by how it was phrased?

In this fight, we have two dogs, and I'm not sure who to root for.

But the only thing that makes this comment in the news is that we haven't found any WMDs. I mean if we had found WMDs or, God forbid, they had been used on our troops, well, we wouldn't be discussing this. The missing WMDs are a real political problem--and although this particular wedge may not be the best to get people to pay attention, it does point to a real problem.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

Can you provide a link to an article where they say, "Bush said Saddam acquired uranium ore from Niger?" I have heard the Niger allegation a lot because that is the only bit of evidence this administration has released related to Africa and uranium ore.

Anyway, if actual news reports (not the talking heads) are saying the Bush gave such specifics, then they should be called on it.

And the new DNC advertisement also says it. (Big mistake, IMO)

does not say Niger specifically, just Africa.

As for pundits, they are not reporters, so I personally do not hold them too much of a high standard (this explains why I have very low opinion of pundits).

Until the White House provides evidence other then the forged Niger documents, the focus will stay on Niger.

Here is the first paragraph of Nicholas Kristof's editorial where he says "After I wrote a month ago about the Niger uranium hoax in the State of the Union address, a senior White House official chided me gently and explained that there was more to the story that I didn't know." (emphasis mine)

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40F10F93C580C768DDDAE0894DB404482

Harold Meyerson in the Wash. Post says " . . . it's not as if the president's baseless assertion in his State of the Union address that Iraq had sought to acquire "yellowcake" uranium from Niger was the last we heard of this claim." (emphasis mine)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3469-2003Jul16.html

Hmmm. I guess you are right. I can't say that anyone has come right out and said that Bush said that "Saddam _succeeded_ in acquiring uranium from Niger". But they always are arguing against Bush by having Ambassador Wilson say that Saddam never acquired uranium from Niger - he believes that would have been difficult or impossible to do. So they indict him _as if_ he had said Iraq got uranium from Niger. You're right about that - no one has come right out and said it, but the implication is there.

Once in the rose garden and once in a radio address.

He used the British reference in the state of the union address IN ORDER TO GET AROUND THE CIA objections.

So Bush is guilty as charged.

and Bush is a lying sack of shite, but why can't the media make this important distinction?

They keep talking about how the "forged Niger documents" make Bush's "State of the Union" sentence a lie, when it is clear that that is not at all the case.

I just wish that reporters would be careful, and not just assume they know what they are talking about and actually check the facts before they go off writing stuff. We have to kill this "echo chamber" effect because more often than not Democrats are the target.

Where ever it was they could bomb. I really got a kick out of that one. Must have even sounded silly to Bush as I do not recall the use of that over and over.

is less a function of who tells the truth and more a function of power struggles behind the scene.

clinton got lambasted for the "sexual relations" lie, which was technically true.

bush sr. got nailed for the "no new taxes" pledge, which was odd because raising income taxes would be hiking an old tax, not introducing a new tax.

the media will dutifully report truth and lie, and it will only identify which is which when a politico holds a press conference to tell them which it is. and even then, the media will merely report that the politico claims the statement to be true or false.

basically, today's media is little more than a rumor mill....

Check out www.dailyhowler.com. Bob Somersby is making this same, and I think very valid, point.