Bush has U.S. troops in deep Qaqaa

The issue of not protecting weapons dumps is getting bigger and bigger. Qaqaa was not an isolated incident.

This goes to the heart of the mismanagement of Iraq and the ability of Bush to make sound judgments. These dumps were left unattended because the military did not have the troops needed to secure them, nor did they adequately prepare for the insurgency they were warned about. There are 900 such ammo dumps, many of which still aren't adequately guarded.

The details of Qaqaa are as yet unclear. The NY Times may have pushed this story to print before fully asking all the questions, and may prove overblown. But military persons have already stated that weapons dumps elsewhere have been raided by insurgents. Qaqaa may not be one of those looted dumps, but that doesn't undermine the bigger issue of the military's difficulties due to too few troops and too little planning.

In 2002, George Bush said we needed to invade Iraq immediately, to prevent Saddam’s weapons from getting into the hands of the terrorists. Well guess what, Mr. President. They ARE in the hands of the terrorists now.

And it’s not Saddam’s fault. It’s yours.

IRS goes after NAACP. Should it go after churches next?

The USAToday is reporting the IRS is investigating the NAACP’s tax exempt status because of speeches made against President Bush. Basically, issue-based organizations can operate tax free. That is, until they start behaving like political action committees--or into today’s parlance: 527 groups.

There is a fine line between advocating and campaigning. At what point does advocating pro-black policies turn into a campaign for the Democrats or against the Republicans? Isn’t the point of advocacy groups to change public opinion to get a change in public policy? Legally, this line is crossed when a candidate or party is promoted one way or another.

As a first step, the IRS investigation is a good thing. When advocacy groups act like 527s, they should be taxed as 527s. But if the IRS stops at the NAACP, then the investigation is probably politically motivated by the party in charge.

It is high time for the tax exempt status of churches to be equally reviewed. So long as church spokespersons are advocating religious doctrine, they are an advocacy group. But once they step beyond that to openly campaign for a candidate or party, then they have become a 527. Across the country, preachers and ministers are using the pulpit (and the media) to campaign for the GOP. This crosses the line.

Many churches have stepped outside their tax-exempt protection area and into the arena of politics. Which they are clearly allowed to do. But they can’t do that and still claim non-partisan protections.

Could a football game decide the presidential election?

When John Kerry mistated the name of Green Bay's NFL stadium last month (he called Lambeau field "Lambert Field"), Packers fans booed the Massacheusetts senator for his gaffe. Few knew then that Packers fans could get their revenge on Kerry this Sunday--but at a cost.

An Associated Press story today presented an intriguing sports factoid related to the upcoming election. Ever since the NFL's Washington Redskins was formed in 1933, when they win their last home game before the presidential election the incumbent also wins.

Hmmm. I wonder how many Cheese Heads will root against their beloved Packers who travel this week to Virginia to play the Redskins?

Kerry supporters take heart. The Packers are 2.5 point favorites. Bush supporters take heart, too. After all, the players ARE a bunch of millionaires!

(Watch for point shaving!)

Not on George's watch, eh?

Aargh! Bush continues to campaign that only HE can protect us from terrorist attacks. He keeps saying over and over in his speeches: "not on my watch."

Uh, George, who was on watch when September 11 happened?

That's right. YOU.

YOU were on watch when America suffered it's worst attack ever. YOU were on watch while the terrorists trained for the mission right here under your nose. YOU were the policy-maker who chose to willfully IGNORE terrorism for the first nine months of office. YOU were the president who did NOTHING about the U.S.S. Cole bombing (a response which might, I say might, have disrupted Al Qaida long enough to be caught). YOU were the president who ignored the Hart-Rudman commission and August 6th PDB that warned you of just this kind of attack.

And YOU are the president who bailed out of Afghanistan early, leaving Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida free to attack us again. YOU are the president who diverted the military away from the war on terror, to topple an unrelated country. And YOU are the president who created a cauldron for terrorist training and aggression in Iraq.

YOU, George. YOU did all this. All on YOUR watch.

And you think YOU deserve another term? What kind of FOOL do you take us for?

It's all very funny... until thousands die in Iraq.

This is something that America needed to see four years ago.

It would have shown the voters who preach the value of "character" just what kind of person they were voting for. I don't know how many times I've been told what a "deeply religious man" he is...

Not that this clip of then-governor Bush totally offends me. In fact, if Dubya were just a small town mayor--or a used car salesman like he would be if he wasn't a Bush--I'd find it all pretty funny.

But given how Bush's presidency has turned out, I'm not in the mood to laugh. Somehow, this clip encapsulates for me how it's all a big joke for this guy.

Geez. How did a guy like this ever get into the White House...

Does Bush have faith, or is he just gambling?

President Bush has a gambling addiction. Bush bases his policy on what he believes should be true or how he hopes things will turn out. This is the same mentality the gambler brings to the craps table. It can be said that the gambler is engaging in faith-based economics. He rolls the dice with the faith that the result will be in his favor.

Bush has shown us what a “faith-based” presidency would bring us. After four years, we have enough of a sample to make a judgment.

Bush had faith that America would not get hit by terrorists if he willfully ignored terrorism for his first nine months in office. Oops. Bush had faith that he could use former Taliban soldiers to hunt down Osama Bin Laden. Oops. Bush had faith that no one in his administration would actually write books about how he was manipulating intelligence to justify a rush to invade Iraq. Oops. Bush had faith that Saddam had an arsenal of WMDs ready for use against America. Oops. Bush had faith that Iraqis would welcome American soldiers with flowers and open arms. Oops. Bush had faith that he needed to secure only the oil fields in Iraq and letting the rest tumble into chaos would be okay. Oops. Bush held faith that the real nuclear threat in North Korea would not worsen while he enjoyed his looting of Iraq. Oops. And Bush held faith that Iran would get the hint (that we might invade them like we did Iraq) and not develop nukes in a hurry. Oops.

And that’s just the big-issue list.

Reading between the lines, Bush’s faith did prove true in certain areas. Such as, his faith that his brother Jeb would steal Florida for him and that the federal courts (including the Supreme Court) would win him the post-election lawsuit. He also held faith that he could hoodwink America into supporting his trumped up excuses to invade Iraq. Bush has held faith that his domestic agenda (all agencies being run by corporate lobbyists, unrestrained environmental destruction, undoing labor laws, repealing 100 years of social progress) remain obscured by foreign affairs and tax cuts that aren’t actually tax cuts. And right now, he’s holding onto the faith that enough voters are (wrongly) convinced that the war in Iraq is essential to the war on terrorism that they’ll overlook all his misleading and misjudgments and vote for him on Tuesday.

I, however, am holding onto the faith that American voters will not tolerate Bush’s pattern of bumbling his way through major policy issues. That they will choose the politics of reason and reality over the politics of faith and spin.

Too many times Bush simply rolled the dice. And too many times he came up snake-eyes.

The question this Tuesday is how many times are we going to hand Bush the dice. Isn’t it time for a new roller?

Undecided? Then don’t even bother.

With just a week remaining before the election, there are still polls showing a percentage of voters who claim to be undecided. If you’re undecided about THIS election, then you should probably just stay home next Tuesday.

This isn’t the 1990s when everything was honky-dory. These past four years, America has suffered an economic slump, was hit by a major terrorist attack, invaded Afghanistan and started an unprovoked (i.e. “pre-emptive”) war with Iraq. And none of the current administration’s responses have been scandal-free.

Day in and day out, the Democrats and Republicans have been slugging it out--no rhetoric too absurd, no tricks too dirty. You could build a new wing for the Library of Congress just to house all the books written explaining all the bungling going on.

Even if you get all your political info at the water cooler and late night comedians, you should already have enough dander up one way or the other.

This election boils down to just one difference. You either believe Bush is an incompetent liar who mislead America into an ill-advised war in Iraq, or you don’t care what the facts are and think Bush is a “good (enough) leader.”

This late in the game, if you’re still uncertain what to think about John Kerry and George Bush, you live in a bubble and can’t cast even a marginally informed vote.

So, instead of casting a random, uninformed vote next Tuesday, go home and take a nap. And let the rest of us decide the fate of the world.

All biases are not equal

Now that FoxNews has been fully outed as a mouthpiece for the GOP (but there are still some who don't realize this), the argument has shifted somewhat to comparison mode. Conservatives can no longer argue that all the media is liberally biased, so the argument has shifted to comparative mode. The cons have FoxNews and the Dems have CBS, and the two sides are arguing all the rest of the media is on their opponent’s side.

For now, let’s just focus on FoxNews and CBS. The cons have tried to equate the two. They want us all to believe that they are each equally serving a biased agenda. Any quick look at the two, however, will show they are not equal at all. (This is written with the assumption that the reader is familiar with both networks.)

FoxNews runs its politically charged content twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. The vast majority of CBS’s programming, however, is non-news. The evening news, two 60 Minutes episodes, and Sunday morning shows are only a small fraction of CBS’s weekly schedule. Just on the comparison of time spent on news, the two networks don’t compare.

Where CBS can’t hold a candle to FoxNews is tone. CBS does journalism the old fashion way. They have decades of journalistic standards to live up to. (This is not to say that CBS actually meets those standards, but the bar they have set for themselves is high in the traditional sense.) FoxNews has no such tradition or standards. Unburdened by any personal tradition to uphold, FoxNews goes straight for the sensational. There is no statement, insinuation, or tactic beyond them. When CBS’s Rather used allegedly forged documents about President Bush, the rest of the media raked CBS over the coals for the error--even though the factual content was never challenged and has been verified. The mystery of the documents isn’t the point here. CBS was held to a high standard of journalism. FoxNews, however, routinely distorts facts, takes quotes way out of context, and even allows its hosts to blatantly take sides on issues (and yes, it’s always the side of the GOP). The network’s favorite phrase is “some people say”, which is a low-handed tactic to inject the speaker’s comment without having to own up to them. These different approaches are not equal by any measure.

This not to say that there aren’t biases at CBS. But they are subtle. For example, on this past Sunday’s 60 Minutes were segments dealing with a reopened racist murder case of a black boy and a bit on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show. These segments were not slanted to favor an agenda. They were responsibly handled. However, the bias (such as it may exist) is in the programming. The producers chose these two topics over all the other possible topics. It’s arguable that the murder case is to remind black voters about the oppression they have lived with, to bring back the anger to the black voter--an anger they have long used to vote Democrat. And it’s arguable the Jon Stewart bit is to point CBS’s very mainstream audience to the somewhat left-leaning cable program, The Daily Show--which would help the show’s ratings and encourage more left-of-center news (or quasi-news) programming.

FoxNews’s biases, however, are far from subtle. They shamelessly bring on guests who are willing to perpetuate the “Kerry is French” nonsense, and even air one program that begins with “x-number of days until Bush is reelected.” Hardly “fair and balanced.” And there are thousands of similar examples of such behavior by FoxNews and CBS. These are just examples. If you want to see ex-employees of FoxNews saying the same things, check out the "Outfoxed" DVD.

If there is any question that FoxNews embraces no journalistic standards, it is settled by this: FoxNews owner Rupert Murdoch has made it clear that he believes all news is opinion. And since no opinion can be declared wrong (for it’s just an opinion), then the messenger can make any assertion however unsubstantiated or contradicted by facts. Moreover, the facts themselves become opinion. That way, falsehoods and distortions become virtually immune to criticism. But the viewer should be wary of the danger to journalism and even democracy that this attitude presents. If the public is confused on the facts, then they must make decisions based on impressions and emotions--and that is when they become easy to manipulate.

So it is important for viewers to be able keep their sense of proportion. Just because both networks may be biased, it does not mean they are equally biased in all ways. CBS falls short of FoxNews in both veracity and air time. Pundits who wish to perpetuate the “liberal media” myth will, when shown the media isn’t actually liberal, try to fall back on the argument that “well, each side has their networks, so it’s a wash.” This is a trick. When conservatives don’t get a clear victory in an argument, they try to make it a draw by distorting the proportion of the facts. To the cons, a draw is a win (because it steals your victory from you).

One broadcast network with limited news time plus one left-wing radio network (Air America) does not begin to compare with the right-wing juggernaut of FoxNews, lazy corporate networks (check out Fighting The Tide’s earlier story on this), thousands of conservative radio channels, and dozens of GOP-stumping religious channels.

We’ll never get the media back on track, back to doing real journalism, until the viewers take a stand against the ham-fisted propaganda they are bombarded with these days. This is not an easy cause. Some days it seems as futile as standing on the beach and pushing back the incoming tide. But it must be done. Because if we don’t, the essence of our democracy is at risk. And then where would we be?

Liberal media?

You have been hearing about the "liberal media" for about two decades now. It has been said and repeated by so many pundits in so many places that the idea has become entrenched, and many arguments and world views built upon that conception. Even liberals were tempted to believe it by the end of Clinton's presidency. But is it correct?

There are two arguments against this. But first consider, "the media" (often called the "elite media") is vaguely defined by the accusers. "The media" apparently is whatever news outlet is not spouting right-wing rhetoric on a regular basis. This is key. A news outlet does not have to actually propagandize for the Democrats or liberals to get the "liberal media" label. They only need to refuse to promote the GOPs spin. It was not enough that CNN ran every second possible of the Monica Lewinski scandal. They were "liberal" because they did not demonize Clinton enough.

On the other hand, liberals have been exasperated by the lack of criticism by the major media (TV news, the major newspapers, etc) on the Bush administration. The blind eye turned toward the Florida election scandal, the cronyism in policy writing and agency hirings, the Bush approach to terrorism his first nine months, their lack of critical analysis about Bush's reasons for war, the bungling of the war, the reckless deficit spending, and on and on. Liberals have been completely dumbfounded over the lapdog complacency by the media these past four years. Only this year, in 2004, has there been any attempt to answer these questions, however halfheartedly.

If the major ("elite") media were liberal, would they not have pounced on this President on day one (election day 2000) and scrutinized his every word and every policy? How could Bush possibly be polling ahead during the campaign if all the major media were so feverishly biased against him? This should be your first clue to the real answer.

The first argument against a "liberal media" is based on simple logic. 1.) Ask yourself, how often you have heard over the past fifteen years or so that the media is liberal? At least every week, and probably every day. 2.) Ask yourself how often you hear the complaint that the media is conservative? Rarely or never. 3.) Ask yourself if liberals in a liberally controlled media would come on the air, every day, and criticize the media for being biased--in THEIR favor? (That is like a football coach screaming at the referee for making all the calls in HIS team's favor.) So again, no. They would keep quiet about it and enjoy their advantage. 4.) Ask yourself, if the liberals would not tell on themselves then who is doing all the complaining? Who are all these talking heads on your television and editorial pages? If they are not liberals, who are they? The answer to that is fairly obvious. Whatever they are, they are not liberals.

The media is, if anything, largely conservative. Not something you are used to hearing, is it? But that is not to say that the media is all just a mouthpiece for the GOP. It is not that simple. So here is the second argument.

"The media" is corporate. It is corporate because all the major media are a bunch of corporations, whose job is making money and answering to stock holders. This is not a secret. Viacom, who owns that beacon of liberalism that is CBS, has said it wishes for Bush to be reelected because his policies are good for the Viacom corporation. Disney, who owns ABC, favors Bush (both the president and the governor of Florida) because it believes it will get more beneficial legislation from him. Sinclair, who owns many media outlets, blocked the airing of a Nightline episode listing U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq because it might make Bush look bad, and is actively trying to get Bush elected by airing the anti-Kerry film Stolen Honor. Clear Channel, who owns thousands of radio stations, has pushed away Bush critic Howard Stern and airs plenty of Rush Limbaugh. Rupert Murdoch, who owns FoxNews and much more, is obvious in his biased support for the GOP. Does all this sound like the media is controlled by liberals? Hardly.

If you watch a lot of news, you will notice that stories which question the status quo (labor issues, corporate scandals) get short shrift while emotional gossipy stories, especially murders of young white women, get round the clock coverage. Sensational stories draw more viewers, and therefore more advertisers. And advertising is where the media makes its money. This is not to say that folks in the board rooms do not have their own political ax to grind. They do. But at the end of the day, the news is just another commodity, another means to the typical corporate end of getting your money into their pockets. If the Stacy Peterson story draws viewers, it will get the lion's share of coverage, even if the current budget bill in Congress is likely more important. The same with war. If the war is popular, report the good parts. If it is unpopular, report the bad parts. But whatever you do, do not turn off your audience. They take their money with them.

So the next time a talking head tries to convince you "the media" is controlled by liberals, think about these two arguments. You will find that the liberals are not the only group driven by a self-serving agenda and want to manipulate you to believe what they want you to believe.

A healthy skepticism is a good thing, especially when you apply it evenly and, well...liberally.

Our Mission

Hello!

Welcome to Fighting The Tide, the social and political commentary blog that challenges you to see the world in a different light.

Sometimes getting people to stop and think is as futile as fighting the tide. It's simply easier to go with the flow and not worry. Unfortunately, there are forces in the world that not only encourage this behavior, but depend on it. Who these people are and how they benefit from misperception, misinformation, and distortion is what Fighting The Tide intends to explore.

Everybody has an agenda. If they're telling you something, they want something from you. And FTT is no different. But FTT's agenda is up front and on the table: we want you to THINK, to take nothing for granted, and entertain the possibility that fighting the tide is worth the effort after all.

Thanks for stopping by.

Daniel Preece