Sentimental beings may know about it, as well as all sentient beings.

:-)

I don't think the real problem with Fox is that it has a conservative bias, the problem is that it's just plain Republican bias which is completely dis-ingenious. WSJ has a complete conservative bias and you don't see half of the vitriol aimed toward it because it at least weeded to some real ideology which while I don't agree with it, I can at least respect. Fox News has become mere propaganda tool for a party in a way that doesn't compare to any major media outlet on the left or the right, with it's "not guilty" signs labels for Libby, accusing Obama of being a terrorist-in-training and labeling Foley as a Dem.

Derrick,

And your telling me that CBS, ABC, NBC, NY Times, LA Times, Seattle Post Intelligencer, Slate, AP, Al-Reuters do not tilt to the left? Lets measure that against Fox

What is that a ratio of 10 to 1!

I added CNN, but for some reason it cut off. :)

"Fox News has become mere propaganda tool for a party in a way that doesn't compare to any major media outlet on the left or the right".......... You Shi**ing me?.. compared to the all out attacks from the other major networks EVERY NIGHT! On anything Republican?. Jesus!.. save that BS for KOS!.. What a joke. I'm old, please give me ONE example of a "positive" story about a republican in the past week, from ANY of the "Liberal" networks.

Of course the question the raving lunatics need to ask themselves is why, if Fox is the dem hate mongering fascists they believe they are, Fox would even want to host a dem debate?

Their answer, fed to them by moveon, will be for the ratings and subsequent cash flow. (like that wouldn't be true of CNN)

They will ignore reality of the dems ceding the opportunity to debate before the largest possible cable audience available.

How can they argue for thier parties ascendancy to the presidency if afraid to speak before what they feel would be a "hostile" environment. (no matter how delusional that may be)

And the same "hostile" environment makes up approx 50% of the nations population.

STUPID

Right, marc, Rupert's 'niche market', half of America. The real objection the Dems have is that Fox's objectivity is more measurable that of its competitors. God, that must grind them.
=======================

Forthright bias is much preferable than the delusion of objectivity. And Fox is more objective than their reputation. How do you build a brand like that? Maybe he is a genius.
===============================

"...in a display of pure childishness, they are currently boycotting The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Nation, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, CNBC, NPR, the Associated Press, Reuters, The American Prospect, The Guardian, The Independent, New Left Review, The New Republic, Dissent, and In These Times."

I don't know. I might consider that an example of great time management!

How would you feel about the Dems having their debate on CNN with Glenn Beck "moderating"?!

Of course the question the raving lunatics need to ask themselves is why, if Fox is the dem hate mongering fascists they believe they are, Fox would even want to host a dem debate?

Well, it's pretty obvious, isn't it? They want to influence events and they want to continue to masquerade as a news organization.

BTW--calling people who disagree with you lunatics doesn't add much to your "argument", or help your credibility.

"Well, it's pretty obvious, isn't it? They want to influence events and they want to continue to masquerade as a news organization."...........

And the "Cut and Run" tactics of the Dems sure showed Fox!

(They can come out from under the be now)

I don't think you right ringers quite understand the difference between FOX News and what you guys refer to as the "MSM" -- FOX for all intents and purposes has been pretty consistently a GOP mouthpiece. Aside from those short news updates it gets from the news wires, FOX is basically a 24/7 pro-big business, pro-Republican talk show that skews politically from very conservative to right-wing nutcase in how it spins the news. There is no equivalent of this in the right-defined "MSM" -- you would have to go to a much more fringe radical leftist news media or blog to find any sort of genuine equivalence.

This is why Cheney gets all diva-ish about having all the TV sets in his hotel rooms turned to Fox.

Remember when Chris Wallace tried to put Bill Clinton on the spot about not doing enough about bin Laden and the USS Cole when he was President? And remember how bent out of shape Clinton became and responded with:

It was a perfectly legitimate question, but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of.

I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked, "Why didn't you do anything about the Cole?"

I want to know how many you asked, "Why did you fire Dick Clarke?"

I want to know how many people you asked ...

Wallace couldn't think of anyone at the time and tried to wiggle out of it. Later on, Fox responded with well-parsed excerpts of Wallace seemingly asking Rumsfeld some tough questions, but that was from an interview where Wallace brought up Richard Clarke's opening remarks to the 9/11 Commission.

Even in the only instance that FOX could find of Wallace asking a Bush official about not getting bin Laden, the full transcript shows that FOX's parsing of it was misleading and that Rumsfeld wasn't grilled anywhere near as much as Clinton.

And in regards to the USS Cole, nobody at Fox, including Wallace, ever asked any Bush person about the USS Cole, even though it was under active investigation when Bush became President and it wasn't concluded that bin Laden was behind it until a few months later. And on top of all that, the lead investigator, John O'Neill, even charged that Bush had actually obstructed the investigation.

So for all intents and purposes, having FOX host a Democratic debate would be like having the RNC host it and makes as much sense as having, say, Pandagon.net host a Republican debate.

Dear Hatemongers Quarterly,
Since you guys/gals don't take comments on your blog, I must fall down before you here and tell you that I love your blog. Keep up the funny stuff.
Me.

BC, Wallace asked those questions to Rumsfeld and Rice. Just because you are ignorant does not make your beliefs are correct.
-=Mike

BC that was one hilarious post. Been to "AREA 51" yet?

MikeSC wrote

BC, Wallace asked those questions to Rumsfeld and Rice. Just because you are ignorant does not make your beliefs are correct.

I will readily apologize if you can show that to be true. I already linked to the one instance of Wallace asking any Bush official about not getting bin Laden. Go find another. Then go find Wallace asking Rice or anyone else about the USS Cole prior to the Clinton interview. Knock yourself out.

And as a PS, even I was unaware of how blatently hypocritical and dishonest Chris Wallace is until I just came across this. His poor dad....

This is the best thing ever. Fox and the GOP can use this for years.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20040328-secdef0568.html

Questions asked by Wallace to Rumsfeld:
I understand this is 20/20 hindsight, it's more than an individual manhunt. I mean -- what you ended up doing in the end was going after al Qaeda where it lived. . . . pre-9/11 should you have been thinking more about that?

. . . .

What do you make of his [Richard Clarke's] basic charge that pre-9/11 that this government, the Bush administration largely ignored the threat from al Qaeda?

. . . .

Mr. Secretary, it sure sounds like fighting terrorism was not a top priority.

As for Wallace asking others about the Cole --- IT OCCURRED UNDER CLINTON. WHY WOULD HE ASK OTHERS ABOUT IT?

There was no "plan" handed to the Bush team, according to Clarke.

Interview with Rice:
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/58232.htm

He asks VERY pointed questions about domestic spying and Iraq. Far harsher than Clinton faced.

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/71998.htm
Asked why specifically we "didn't finish the job in Afghanistan" amongst other tough questions.
-=Mike

MikeSc, thanks. I guess BC didn't get the correct talking points from Media Matters.

lol.

So, BC, as per usual, you don't know what you're talking about.

And, oh noes, he ignored thousands of identical emails that are rather obvious spam? How DARE he!!!
-=Mike
...It's cute that it's imperative that howling loons such as yourself think it's a relevant question --- but asking Clinton why he didn't do more about terrorism was an obvious sign of "bias".

"Me" wrote:

Dear Hatemongers Quarterly,
Since you guys/gals don't take comments on your blog, I must fall down before you here and tell you that I love your blog. Keep up the funny stuff.

Does your mommy know you're using the family computer? That's for grown-up stuff and homework only. It's not a toy. I'm sure you have a PlayStation -- that's much more fun than this and you can play pretend all you want and much more easily on it.

MikeSC wrote:

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20040328-secdef0568.html

Ummm....isn't this the exact same link I had already used? Weren't you suppose to find another?

And you're going parse bits of it, why not parse this:

MR. WALLACE: You have urged the 9/11 Commission to come up with a unanimous report, because you say it would make a stronger statement. Do you worry -- and you talk about the questions that we are asking -- that everybody is asking in Washington this week -- do you worry at all that whether it's the debate over Dick Clarke's credibility, his charges; whether it's the fact that we're in the political season that the important work you say the Commission could do is going to get caught up in partisanship?

Lame or what? Like I said, the whole interview in context was not comparable to the treatment Clinton got -- and note how the USS Cole isn't mentioned anywhere.

Interview with Rice:
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/58232.htm"

He asks VERY pointed questions about domestic spying and Iraq. Far harsher than Clinton faced.

Ya think? Go point out where Wallace asks Rice about the USS Cole or even about the failure to capture bin Laden.

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2006/71998.htm
Asked why specifically we "didn't finish the job in Afghanistan" amongst other tough questions.

Again, go point out where Wallace asks Rice about the USS Cole and/or about the failure to capture bin Laden.

And as far as your other post defending Wallace ignoring those 20,000 emails because they were "rather obvious spam", let me just refresh you about how Wallace started the ambush part of his interview of Clinton:

WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on "Fox News Sunday," I got a lot of e-mail from viewers. And I've got to say, I was surprised. Most of them wanted me to ask you this question: Why didn't you do more to put bin Laden and Al Qaeda out of business when you were president?

There's a new book out, I suspect you've already read, called "The Looming Tower." And it talks about how the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, bin Laden said, "I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of U.S. troops." Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attack on the Cole.

Nuff said, eh? Wallace, like rest of his fellow FOX talking heads, is a hypocritical disgrace to real journalism.

(PS -- I had to repost this because it was flagged for too many links because MikeSC had multiple redundant links. Pardon me if a duplication appears.)

Hmmm....

I twice tried to respond to MikeSC and his bogus claims about Wallace asking tough questions of Rice and Rumsfeld (he reused my link to Wallace's interview of Rumsfeld, and not once did Wallace ask either of them about the USS Cole, and not once was Rice asked about the failure to capture bin Laden), but it was flagged and blocked, probably because of the the way Wizbang treats URL's with no linked text, as MikeSC used -- it causes an odd duplication of the URL's and apparently Wizbang's filter will automatically block posts with more that 4 links.

I'm not going to try again -- let's see what Wizbang's human filters do. FYI.

I twice tried to respond to MikeSC and his bogus claims about Wallace asking tough questions of Rice and Rumsfeld (he reused my link to Wallace's interview of Rumsfeld, and not once did Wallace ask either of them about the USS Cole, and not once was Rice asked about the failure to capture bin Laden), but it was flagged and blocked, probably because of the the way Wizbang treats URL's with no linked text, as MikeSC used -- it causes an odd duplication of the URL's and apparently Wizbang's filter will >

She was specifically asked why we didn't "finish the job in Afghanistan". That's a "soft" question?

And, again, why would he ask Bush or his cabinet about the USS Cole which happened months before he took office. He did say that terrorism did not seem to be a big issue for the Bush administration when they came to office, which is a very fair criticism.

BC, you are -- as usual --- lying. Badly. It seems the left around here is INCAPABLE of actual honest intellectual discussion, but after looking at your joke of a site, I should've known that honest intellectual discussion was miles beyond your abilities.
-=Mike

BC and his loony tunes crowd show time and again, on this blog, their like an old dog, after imaginary rabbits, snooping around the backyard all day, finding nothing of substance.

But their delusions keep them going.

What a waste of life.

To Mitchell:

You're a friggin, factless idiot and a poster boy for why blogs are no better than a bunch of guys talking loud in a bar. I gave plenty of links and sources to back up my points. If you have a problem with any of them, put up some evidence or put a cork in it.

To MikeSC:

You're another friggin, factless idiot, and calling me a liar just because you're living in a delusional, f*cked-up, la-la land and ignoring anything and everything factual evidence you don't like takes the gloves off. The Cole investigation lasted into the summer of 2001 -- who was President then, dumbass? Here, let me repost my long retort with your dumbass linking fixed so Wizbang doesn't flag me again.

****
MikeSC wrote:

A repost of my link to a transcript of Wallace's interview of Rumsfeld.

Ummm....isn't this the exact same link I had already used? Weren't you suppose to find another?

And you're going parse bits of it, why not parse this:

MR. WALLACE: You have urged the 9/11 Commission to come up with a unanimous report, because you say it would make a stronger statement. Do you worry -- and you talk about the questions that we are asking -- that everybody is asking in Washington this week -- do you worry at all that whether it's the debate over Dick Clarke's credibility, his charges; whether it's the fact that we're in the political season that the important work you say the Commission could do is going to get caught up in partisanship?

Lame or what? Like I said, the whole interview in context was not comparable to the treatment Clinton got -- and note how the USS Cole isn't mentioned anywhere.

A link to an Wallace interview with Rice

He asks VERY pointed questions about domestic spying and Iraq. Far harsher than Clinton faced.

Ya think? Go point out where Wallace asks Rice about the USS Cole or even about the failure to capture bin Laden.

A link to another Wallace interview with Rice
Asked why specifically we "didn't finish the job in Afghanistan" amongst other tough questions.

Again, go point out where Wallace asks Rice about the USS Cole and/or about the failure to capture bin Laden.

And as far as your other post defending Wallace ignoring those 20,000 emails because they were "rather obvious spam", let me just refresh you about how Wallace started the ambush part of his interview of Clinton:

WALLACE: When we announced that you were going to be on "Fox News Sunday," I got a lot of e-mail from viewers. And I've got to say, I was surprised. Most of them wanted me to ask you this question: Why didn't you do more to put bin Laden and Al Qaeda out of business when you were president?

There's a new book out, I suspect you've already read, called "The Looming Tower." And it talks about how the fact that when you pulled troops out of Somalia in 1993, bin Laden said, "I have seen the frailty and the weakness and the cowardice of U.S. troops." Then there was the bombing of the embassies in Africa and the attack on the Cole.

Nuff said, eh? Wallace, like rest of his fellow FOX talking heads, is a hypocritical disgrace to real journalism.

And you are, just as said, a friggin idiot, as well as a true liar.

I will readily apologize if you can show that to be true. Posted by: BC at March 11, 2007 12:26 PM

Well....it's been over two hours. And this...but it was flagged and blocked, probably because of the the way Wizbang treats URL's with no linked text, as MikeSC used

Ummm, er... the post that cry for help has no linked text in it!

Must be a figment of all our imaginations it appears unedited and readable.

Unlike your "apology."

BC, you don't even rate owning a foil hat. But I'd be far from surprised to learn you have a "space rock" in your butt like the Iraqi at LAX.

"Why doesn't the press ask Bush about a situation that occurred months before he took office and that was too old to really do an effective investigation of?" -- BC

Heck, BC, maybe they should ask him about his views on the Sacco & Vanzetti trial, considering that it is equally relevant.
-=Mike

Marc babbled:

I will readily apologize if you can show that to be true. Posted by: BC at March 11, 2007 12:26 PM

Well....it's been over two hours. And this..

Are Sundays normally "Stoner Day" at Wizbang? Go back and check what I actually wrote, bright eyes:

MikeSC wrote: BC, Wallace asked those questions to Rumsfeld and Rice. Just because you are ignorant does not make your beliefs are correct.

I wrote: I will readily apologize if you can show that to be true. I already linked to the one instance of Wallace asking any Bush official about not getting bin Laden. Go find another. Then go find Wallace asking Rice or anyone else about the USS Cole prior to the Clinton interview. Knock yourself out.

Now, what part of this zoomed over your little head? MikeSC reused my link instead of coming up with another one, and he then posted 2 interviews of Rice by Wallace in which Wallace never asks Rice about the USS Cole or the failure to get bin Laden. His contention that they were tough interviews was laughable as well.

Who should apologize then, dumbass?

I watch Fox News from time to time and two things I've noticed:

-half its "air" staff are liberals
-it is a CABLE CHANNEL!

Meanwhile, all the major broadcast networks, including the tax payer funded PBS, have only token conservatives and otherwise tilt left of center. The other cable "news" networks are WAAAY left of center.

Another thing I have noticed about Fox News is that it is not really right wing at all. It just happens to give voice (occasionally) to right of center voices. What Fox News happens to have is a populist or "equal time" bent. The Gore supporter, Rupert Murdoch, uses the rubric of "fair and balanced" as a way of giving the looniest of left-wing ideologues a forum in, what some might consider, a balanced environment. This is easily seen through of course. Fox just wants to appear more even-handed than the MSM and yet it "airs" more idiotic left wing nonsense than the rest of the broadcast networks combined.

The reason it seems "right-wing" to leftists is that they have been so used to leftist bias in the news that even if SOME right leaning opinions are heard then the source must be right-wing.

Let's do some math....

Media outlet one (which we shall call CBS) has 0 out of 10 stories that are favorable to conservatives.

Media outlet two (which we shall call Fox News) has 5 out of 10 stories that are favorable to conservatives.

Of these two, which leans to the right?

If you answered "media outlet two" then you need to go back to school (preferably a private one where they teach math skills).

I was going to ask BC if he were an idiot, but after having read all of what he posted here. There is no doubt. First, Clinton failed to respond to attack after attack from al Qaeda. Historically, that is a fact. That he fired a few tomahawks into Afghanistan is hardly a roburt response to an attack on our nation or its interests. I noticed Wallace never asked anyone in the Bush administration about Whitewater either.
The difficulty of having an intelligent discussion with someone who reponds, as most liberals do, with I know you are but what am I, is an example of both their thinking and intellect. If you fucking idiots ever directly answer a query with a thoughtful response, must of us would go into catatonic shock. I have become convinced that you are both easily mislead, incapable on itellectual honesty and prone to infantile responses. But then thats just me.

You kiddies want to prattle on about how NBC or CNN or ABC is "left". Who are you kidding?

NONE of the channels other than FSTV and Link are giving you the real lowdown on what is happening.

Heck, ever since Brian Williams took over he has done at least one hoo-rah session every night espousing the need for our occupation to continue. The rest of them are worse.

If you watched REAL news instead of your daily pablum you MIGHT possibly glean that all your govt propoganda stations are just that, propoganda, suited for the nationalists talking points. Of course only real men watch real news... it's only real men who can stomach watching a country go to ruin and still want to try to change things.

No climate change, all "enormous successes" in Iraq, torture has been isolated instances and all our soldiers missing parts and pieces in hospitals have been taken care of.

Yep, Bush boy propoganda at his best. Hoo-rah.

You folks must clean a lot of sand out of your ears daily.

No climate change

If you mean no ANTHROPOMORPHIC climate change. Check.

all "enormous successes in Iraq"

If by "all" you mean ousting Saddam, bringing the vote to the Iraqis, ending the practice of throwing dissents live into industrial plastic shredders, etc. Check.

torture has been isolated instances

If by "torture" you mean that there hasn't been any (except by Jack Bauer). Then check.

and all our soldiers missing parts and pieces in hospitals have been taken care of.

Oh yes, we say that all the time [rolls eyes]

Booble,

No anthropogenic climate change....right, none that man would have to sacrifice anything about his pimped lifestyle to help solve..check.

Enormous successes....60% unemployment, less electricity than prior to the war, 1.5 million refugees, 600K dead and our occupation has done no harm.......check.

Torture....ask Maher Arar,on second thought you won't know who he is......check.

Vets being sent to war without the proper equipment, vets laying in roach infested moldy buildings and only through the media having been exposed on YOUR CinC's watch?.........check.

Foolish stupid americans........check.

Given that Clinton gave us the current GWOT debacle, given that he was spectacular failure in Kosovo and Bosnia (you have any idea of the refugee problem that Billy gave to that region?), given that it has been the efforts of the Murtha wing of the Dem party that has emboldened the terrorists, given that liberals generally get the US into international trouble and conservatives (and sometimes moderates like Bush) have to get us back out, I find "civil behavior"'s (nice misnomer BTW) post above laughably hypocritical (and I'm being kind).

Booble,

But but, but Clinton..... When exactly will you 30% fundies ever hold the current president responsible for the disaster called Iraq? When??

The terrorists don't want us to follow Murtha's plan. All that would do is remove their reason for holding Iraq hostage. Your ideas of keeping us in Arab lands forever just reinforces their fatwas for jihad.

a 104-acre embassy including two office buildings, one of them designed for future use as a school, six apartment buildings, a gym, a pool, a food court and its own power generation and water-treatment plants while the average Baghdad home has electricity only four hours a day. This is military permanence under the guise of diplomacy.

Not to mention our gluttonous consumption of their oil which has nothing to do with why we are in Iraq and not in Darfur now does it?

Hahaha....you guys are a riot.

Zelsdorf Ragshaft III (aka "Da Turd") drooled:

I was going to ask BC if he were an idiot, but after having read all of what he posted here. There is no doubt.

That you're going to make a retarded comment, given that preface? Let's see....

First, Clinton failed to respond to attack after attack from al Qaeda. Historically, that is a fact.

The only fact is that you're another in a long line of Google-impaired, slack-jawed fools posting stuff pulled out of butts. Of course Clinton responded, he just didn't pull a George Bush and made up lies to invade the wrong country in retaliation. This was covered in some lengthy Usenet debates from way back, so I'll just post those, here, here, and here (by Joseph Welch).

That he fired a few tomahawks into Afghanistan is hardly a roburt response to an attack on our nation or its interests.

And Bush's FUBAR'd, train wreck of a war in Iraq is? I see bin Laden just celebrated his 50th birthday -- I wonder what he had on his cake. Think he'll send Bush a thank-you card for making Iraq such a nice recruiting poster for young men and women wanting to enter the terrorist trade?

And 79 cruise missles are not "a few," not that you would care about annoying little facts like that.

I noticed Wallace never asked anyone in the Bush administration about Whitewater either.

Asking them why they ignored all those pre-9/11 warnings might have been nice.

The difficulty of having an intelligent discussion with someone who reponds, as most liberals do, with I know you are but what am I, is an example of both their thinking and intellect.

You're right -- what was I thinking refuting my opponent's baseless assertions with sourced information, and carefully using full in-context excerpts and relevant cites? I'm dealing with morons so doing all that is a complete waste. People like you will just ignore all this because of that cognitive dissonance thing and write utterly random rubbish like, oh say:

If you fucking idiots ever directly answer a query with a thoughtful response, must of us would go into catatonic shock. I have become convinced that you are both easily mislead, incapable on itellectual honesty and prone to infantile responses. But then thats just me.

Hah, a right-winger using the phrase "intellectual honesty" is like Michael Jackson using the phrase "keeping it real".

You guys really do live in an utter fantasy world, don't you? Sort of like an ultra-lame "World of Warcraft" minus any cool graphics, no?

Civil Behavior my friend, your childish taunts emanating from your parent's basement notwithstanding, the current Iraq situation is the result of three things:

1. Clinton's inaction in dealing with both Saddam and with Islamic terrorism on his watch.
2. Bush underestimating the left in this country, thinking that they would not side with the aforementioned Islamic terrorists,
3. There is no three.

Asking them why they ignored all those pre-9/11 warnings might have been nice.

Yes. "OBL plans an attack on US soil" is the epitome of actionable intelligence.
-=Mike

BC = Never met an Islamic terrorist he didn't prefer to defend and/or assist, at least rhetorically.

Beeblebrox wrote:

Civil Behavior my friend

Let's talk about "civil behavior" for a moment, shall we? The unified (as usual) right-wing attacks on Amanda Marcotte undescored the ultimate hypocracy of the right: you guys only talk the talk about civil behavior, and then only in the most narrowist of terms like language. To me and most non-morons, doing things like spreading malicious, baseless rumors and smears, deliberately and grossly misrepresenting what people say or write, falsely accusing people of lying, and using personal attacks in the guise of "raising legitimate questions" is neither civil nor even moral. But that is the SOP of the right wing in this country. Give me a scruffy, potty-mouth liberal blogger over some polite, well-dressed, lying dumbass right-winger anyday.

your childish taunts emanating from your parent's basement notwithstanding, the current Iraq situation is the result of three things:

Why do have the feeling that you are going to ignore everything I posted to restate some beloved, right-wing fantasy BS? Let's see if my feelings are right (so to speak)...

1. Clinton's inaction in dealing with both Saddam and with Islamic terrorism on his watch.

I had already shown that is an utterly BS right-wing contention. I only hope you don't see my pointing out your blissful disregard of cited evidence as being uncivil.

2. Bush underestimating the left in this country, thinking that they would not side with the aforementioned Islamic terrorists

I think a civil, proper description of #2 would be "spurious" but I personally prefer the term "random, deranged, BS nonsense".

3. There is no three.

Which matches well with #'s 1 and 2. Three strikes and you're out, and nobody was even pitching.

Since this is my last post of the day, let me address MikeSC's latest denial of reality:

Yes. "OBL plans an attack on US soil" is the epitome of actionable intelligence.

Yeah, well, that plus a few other little things....

Let's talk about "civil behavior" for a moment, shall we? The unified (as usual) right-wing attacks on Amanda Marcotte undescored the ultimate hypocracy of the right: you guys only talk the talk about civil behavior, and then only in the most narrowist of terms like language. To me and most non-morons, doing things like spreading malicious, baseless rumors and smears, deliberately and grossly misrepresenting what people say or write, falsely accusing people of lying, and using personal attacks in the guise of "raising legitimate questions" is neither civil nor even moral. But that is the SOP of the right wing in this country. Give me a scruffy, potty-mouth liberal blogger over some polite, well-dressed, lying dumbass right-winger anyday.

What I love about BC's posts is that he usually - as in the case above - proves himself wrong.

BC, I'm not entirely ignoring your posts. I know that they will be entirely devoid of historical context but I read them anyway just to see how far out in left field they are. We are rarely, if ever, disappointed.

Yeah, that sounds pretty much like the left, doesn't it?

Spreading malicious rumors and smears. (Charges of homophobia, racism, etc., attributed to anyone who disagrees with the gay-left or racial policies of the left.)

Grossly misrepresenting what people say or write. (That the joke was a smear on Obama when it was really a "Bush is so dumb" joke.)

Falsely accusing people of lying. (Bush lied. Moore on television saying that any 7 year old knows that believing what you say to be true still means it's a lie.)

Using personal attacks. (Standard lefty fare.)

Is the right a pure as new fallen snow? Of course not. But we are learning, fellas. We're learning that the best plan ever is to use any excuse for outrage. Outrage trumps everything.

Nevermind civility. I can handle uncivil persons. The worship of outrage is what I think we should do away with. It shuts down communication, vilifies the other, and ensures that no questions need be answered, no argument presented, and no case made.

It's not civility that was the problem with the joke at Bush's expense, it was the oppotunity to cite Obama-Osama as worthy of outrage at which point no one needed to talk anymore. No one needed to talk to voters. Who wins with that? No one at all, that's who.

Someone said, why is the right to worked up about this. Plainly: Because it's a bad and evil thing and it should be discouraged and torn out before taking root and spreading (though last election saw the same sort of debate-avoidance in New Mexico, so perhaps it's too late). It is important to our democracy and to our freedom that our elected politicians not be *allowed* to duck the public this way. It is not up to them, not Dem and not GOP and not anyone else, to decide when they have to speak to us and when they don't.

If the Republicans start this sort of habit of only speaking on their own terms, of making excuses not to speak to those who disagree with them, who might challenge them... I hope to heck that conservatives won't stand for it.

It's a democracy issue. We *must* hold our politicians in an antagonistic way (and Republicans *do* for all the Dems claim they are all lock-step dones) and they *must* be willing to face a hostile press and population.

And, as I said before, if my man Giuliani refused to do so he would *not* be my man. I am not giving any sort of double standard here. If Dems want to be anti-democratic they can, but lets be clear about just what they are doing.

That's the way of the hard left: lack of historical perspective, not understanding complexities of international, strategic activites this country pursues. Overstating or not understanding the case ("right-wing attacks on Amanda Marcotte undescored the ultimate hypocracy of the right" Huh? Come again?).

Your "plenty of links and sources" don't make a case, if they are from left-wing sources, and you consistently think that posting a link absolves you of critical thinking.

It's the "critical thinking" of a Ward Churchill, a Moveon.org, NYT, BC that discredits the Left. BC, your failure to realize that it's more a lack of perspective to think through the "facts" you link to is the reason it is fruitless to engage you on those facts. It's simply a waste of time.

Let's talk about "civil behavior" for a moment, shall we? The unified (as usual) right-wing attacks on Amanda Marcotte undescored the ultimate hypocracy of the right: you guys only talk the talk about civil behavior, and then only in the most narrowist of terms like language. To me and most non-morons, doing things like spreading malicious, baseless rumors and smears, deliberately and grossly misrepresenting what people say or write, falsely accusing people of lying, and using personal attacks in the guise of "raising legitimate questions" is neither civil nor even moral. But that is the SOP of the right wing in this country. Give me a scruffy, potty-mouth liberal blogger over some polite, well-dressed, lying dumbass right-winger anyday.

Says the individual who has been whining about how "unfair" FNC is for the day thus far. That you do not see the hypocrisy in this is --- well, yeah, it's not surprising.

Yeah, well, that plus a few other little things....

Provided one ignores, again, the utter lack of any actionable intelligence. All intel up to that point indicated attacks on federal buildings (one of the 3 hits was on a federal building and the two with the most deaths were, of course, not federal buildings).

But continue being a dishonest hypocrite. It almost covers up your brutal lack of intellect.
-=Mike

If you answered "media outlet two" then you need to go back to school (preferably a private one where they teach math skills).

I have to say, this is my favorite excerpt from this thread. Taunts of poor math skills from someone who backs it up with an example that demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of statistical analysis.

I have to say, this is my favorite excerpt from this thread

Well, thank you Brian. Of course, since you didn't back up your assertion about my underlying "statistical analysis" I would say that your taunt has basically fallen on deaf ears.

You did get me to thinking about my example however. There probably are no where NEAR 5 out of 10 stories favorable to conservatives on Fox News. More like 2 out of 10. Still, that is twice as many as there are on the alphabet networks so I guess that proves that Fox News is a wholly owned subsidiary of Jerry Falwell. Bastards.

"real man to---" which do you read? (wussie)
BC (bull crap) thanks for the laugh of the day.

Let's see...ummm....let's work bottoms up;

To jhow66 and the other fools claiming I'm wrong -- prove it. I gave plenty of cites, excerpts, and sources. Point out where I'm wrong and not just restate utterly unsupported right-wing talking points nonsense. Put up or shut up.

To MikeSC: so says the guy who lyingly claimed that I lied while avoiding dealing with every bit of evidence showing that he's grossly confused (as is typical of right-wingers.)

To Mitchel: better look again, idiot -- the links were all to well-sourced sites, including military and government. What's the matter -- your mouse button ain't working properly? Or are you just being a typical right-winger liar?

To Synova: the difference, not that you'll ever believe it, is that the entire right-wing mediasphere, which includes the right-wing blogs, FOX News, redneck radio stations, and such, has made smearing, swiftboating, misrepresenting, and spreading utter BS about people they don't like an everyday, regular practice, and you guys are relentless about it when it involves a national figure.

And this also applies to your claims that the left does this stuff or especially to your laughable dumbass assertion that the left does it worse. No. There is no comparison. The right, especially since it's now so unified (people like Michelle Malkin serve as sort of nexus between the blogs and the other right-wing media like FOX), it gets to act like a 800 pound gorilla on crack when it targets someone, be it a Joe Wilson or an Amanda Marcotte.

And when a rightwinger calls foul on the left for lying or smearing, you can safely assume that it's a BS call, like Michelle Malkin with this claim:
Last night, hate-filled liberals on MSNBC attemped to smear Marine Corporal Matt Sanchez and conservatives who honored him at CPAC for his support of the military at Columbia University. They gleefully showed photos of Cpl. Sanchez at the event--including ones I took--in mockery after his gay porn past was outed by left-wing blogs. They cackled "Semper Fi."

The guy had been a male escort and "acted" in porn flicks under names like "Pierre LaBranche" and "Rod Majors." WTF?! Where is the "hate" in having a little bit of fun with the obvious goofiness in all of this? But compare this to what happened to Marcotte -- bits and pieces of her past writings were taken completely out of context with the orginal points completely gone (before you sputter a denial -- sorry, yes, they were. I kinda well documented this in another debate on Wizbang) in yet another deliberate and concerted swiftboating episode.

And that again shows the utter hypocracy of the right -- blissfully and egregiously lying about taking the high road to the left's supposedly sinful ways.

No. Let's make this very clear and please don't take it personally -- you guys are the bad guys. Sorry to break the news.

What I love about BC's posts is that he usually - as in the case above - proves himself wrong.

@BC:
(and back on topic)
The facts don't support your contention that Fox is some RNC mouthpiece.

www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664

from the report on the UCLA study:

While this [Special Report With Brit Hume on Fox News] news program proved to be right of center, the study found ABC's "World News Tonight" and NBC's "Nightly News" to be left of center. All three outlets were approximately equidistant from the center, the report found.

IMO, fleeing from this debate makes the Democrat's candidates look like cowards.

To OhioVoter -- what part of this didn't you understand:

To jhow66 and the other fools claiming I'm wrong -- prove it. I gave plenty of cites, excerpts, and sources. Point out where I'm wrong and not just restate utterly unsupported right-wing talking points nonsense. Put up or shut up.

But then again, asking fools to "put up or shut up" may be a logical conundrum: one of the basic points of being a fool is never having to "put up or shut up".

To _Mike_:

Thanks for getting back on topic. I'm well aware of the UCLA study, and when I first heard about it, I went looking into it and discovered that it wasn't at all a scientific study in any meaningful way -- it was actually technically a survey comparing the citing pattern of the media, that is how often they cited conservative or liberal sources like think tanks, versus the voting record of politicians as rated by the organization, "Americans for Democratic Action" (aka the liberal ADA).

I suspect some of you are going "WTF?" already and are doubting that I'm describing it correctly, but go look at an official description on an UCLA site:

Groseclose and Milyo based their research on a standard gauge of a lawmaker's support for liberal causes. Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) tracks the percentage of times that each lawmaker votes on the liberal side of an issue. Based on these votes, the ADA assigns a numerical score to each lawmaker, where "100" is the most liberal and "0" is the most conservative. After adjustments to compensate for disproportionate representation that the Senate gives to low-population states and the lack of representation for the District of Columbia, the average ADA score in Congress (50.1) was assumed to represent the political position of the average U.S. voter.

Groseclose and Milyo then directed 21 research assistants -- most of them college students -- to scour U.S. media coverage of the past 10 years. They tallied the number of times each media outlet referred to think tanks and policy groups, such as the left-leaning NAACP or the right-leaning Heritage Foundation.

Next, they did the same exercise with speeches of U.S. lawmakers. If a media outlet displayed a citation pattern similar to that of a lawmaker, then Groseclose and Milyo's method assigned both a similar ADA score.

The primary researchers Timothy J. Groseclose and Jeffrey D. Milyo have ties with conservative think tanks (that's a oxymoron phrase), primarily The Independent Institute, and if you look at how they scale key organizations like the NRA on terms of conservative or liberal leanings, you realize that their "zero point" is very much what is generally considered highly conservative or outright right wing. Hence a neutral news source will be ranked as "liberal" by their half-ass, indirect comparison of political voting records versus who and what the different media outlets cite.

The biggest failing of the survey is that it doesn't measure whatsoever or even consider news accuracy. The whole point of watching, reading, or listening to the news is to be informed of what's going on. Does reality have an inherent liberal or conservative bias? Also journalism, like pretty much all the arts and sciences in general, attracts people with a progressive, liberal philosophy because that type of career requires critical thinking skills and insightful, questioning skepticism to do the job well, and they are not the characteristics of a conservative mind set. FOX news, for example, generally comes out last among the major media outlets when you actually measure how well it does in its basic journalistic responsibility of collecting and presenting the news to its viewers accurately and fairly -- they basically just suck at it, pure and simple. They are essentially just a mouthpiece for big business and Republican right-wingery.

As I wrote in a recent Usenet article (just as Google Groups flaked out big time):

The thing is that even if you are hard core right wing, you really should always want your press to be truly free and not beholden to a profit-minded corporate master, and you should also want it to be always skeptical and investigative of government and big business. People being people will always try to get away with stuff, especially when there is big time power and money involved. And while you may get annoyed and pissed off by the editorial leanings of atruly liberal/progressive press, nobody else is going to aggressively ferret out misbehavior involving big government and business. The big Catholic Church priest scandal started with an investigation by a liberal alternative weekly, The Boston Phoenix, which led to further investigation by The Boston Globe, which in turn spread to other news media and further investigation. It was disheartening and disgusting stuff, but would you have rathered that it never came out? That why you need an aggressive, truly *liberal* media, which unfortunately is not in the best of shape these days. The Boston Globe is suffering, and even the Phoenix has become more corporate in tone.

BC:
The biggest failing of the survey is that it doesn't measure whatsoever or even consider news accuracy. The whole point of watching, reading, or listening to the news is to be informed of what's going on

My take on the purpose of the UCLA study was to see how closely the language used by politicians (a somewhat known quantity via their voting records) compared to the language used by the various media outlets. The theory being that outlets that exhibited a bias would tend to use language similar to politicians. That would seem to be valid metric in my book.

You assert that it's the factual accuracy that indicates bias. Other than anecdotal evidence, which is very much subject to one's own biases, do you have any studies or statistical data to support this ? I haven't seen any.

I'll also add the following:

BC
The primary researchers Timothy J. Groseclose and Jeffrey D. Milyo have ties with conservative think tanks

If you consider this as a valid basis for 'proving' the lack of objectivity, it would logically follow that the media has a Liberal bias based upon your own statement that journalist tend to be Liberal.

I don't know why you guys even entertain BC, the second he repeated the ridiculous figure of 600K dead in Iraq, he lost all credibility, not that there was much to begin with.

If someone on Fox tells a lie about a person it's called *slander* and it's actionable in court and people can sue and the *facts* will show they are right and they will win.

The problem with your whining, BC, is that by and large the news on Fox is accurate. See, the thing is that the left nutters (I admit there are some who aren't nutters, we're talking about nutters, okay?) feel that anything they don't like is a lie or else, like the war, illegal.

Big example since you brought it up... swiftboating. Don't like it, therefore it's all lies, lies and more lies, when in fact they weren't telling any lies at all. If they were Kerry could have shut them down or else released his military records and proved it. But it *works* to claim people are lying if you say it often enough. It *works* to twist the language so that "swiftboating" becomes an unanswerable charge that simply means it's all lies. Telling the truth about someone is redefined as lying about them.

Then take the Rathergate BS. It was *shown* to be untruth, to be an utterly fake memo, and somehow that wasn't lying at all, it was telling the truth of the matter with forged documents. And this is okay. It's okay to lie if you're telling the truth?

I always know if someone uses "swiftboating" to mean lying about someone that they are using words in a way that makes them meaningless. You can decide that the criticisms from the vets weren't relevant (and I'd agree that some were just silly) but what they said was the truth. The Kerry they describe during his service isn't even that unusual and if he hadn't been trying to claim those four months as worthy of making him president it wouldn't have mattered so much. The fury of the vets toward Kerry wasn't about that, it was about what he did after he got home, and if you've accepted the delusion that vets could not hold on to that fury and disgust *honestly* considering what Kerry did, then there's no help for it. Believe your masters that it was a political hack job and that no one, Republicans and Democrats, could honestly or legitimately still be upset about the anti-war movement and how it screwed them and how Kerry was part of that.

Swiftboating, verb:

What do you think it means? Go ahead and keep believing that conservatives are the bad guys, or even that there are good guys and bad guys and that you're a good guy because of your political affiliation. Group membership is, after all, a foundation stone of the left.

_Mike_ wrote:

My take on the purpose of the UCLA study was to see how closely the language used by politicians (a somewhat known quantity via their voting records) compared to the language used by the various media outlets. The theory being that outlets that exhibited a bias would tend to use language similar to politicians. That would seem to be valid metric in my book.

Think about it -- the survey looked for cites of particular, say, think tanks, and compared those that to ADA-ranked politicians using similar cites. But how do allegedly liberal think tanks compare to allegedly conservative ones in terms of absolute political philosophy and most especially that of credibility? In past debates on global warming, for instance, I discovered a pile of alleged conservative think tank sites that were no more than propaganda sites funded by companies like ExxonMobil and Phillip Morris for the sole purpose of spreading disinformation about things like global warming.

And when you look further into some of these dubiously funded, alleged think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, you often find that they are no more than BS mouthpieces for big business with no genuine credibility; hence no legitimate news organization should be using these as sources, ever. But not citing organizations like these would mark you as liberal by the UCLA survey, so all of this basically makes the entire study worthless.

You assert that it's the factual accuracy that indicates bias. Other than anecdotal evidence, which is very much subject to one's own biases, do you have any studies or statistical data to support this ? I haven't seen any.

How about the PIPA studies like this that show FOX viewers to be very confused about what's real or not?

And if you Google up the Zogby and Harris polls of the past couple of years that surveyed how many people still believed Hussein had something to do with 9/11 and such, like this one, you find scary percentages of Republicans and conservatives in general really badly misinformed on such basic, elementary issues. While unfortunately those polls didn't identify what those confused folks were using as their primary news sources, it wouldn't exactly be an unreasonable presumption to assume that they were using conservative/right wing sources like FOX news, which of course would tie in perfectly with the PIPA results.

D-Hoggs made a really big mistake when he wrote:

I don't know why you guys even entertain BC, the second he repeated the ridiculous figure of 600K dead in Iraq, he lost all credibility, not that there was much to begin with.

I did the math, dumbass, here and here. It kinda shows that your President has blatently lied to you once again.

I double dawg dare you to find any fault with it. As I have been civilly asking others, put up or shut up.

The study was a good one, BC, because it compares one thing to another. Congress was used as a baseline as representative of the country as a whole in order to have something that media could be compared to. It was necessary to find a philisophical middle point. Is it the middle point by some absolute sense of fact? Not at all, since political opinion isn't a constant how could they use a constant?

So it took a picture, as it were, of Congress and then compared that to media. So Fox is to the right of Congress and most all other media outlets are to the left of Congress.

Yet what you seem to want is for someone to compare the bias of the media to some standard of credibility? Why, who is credible and how do you make that determination? The silly "describe and elephant" parable comes to mind. If one group is more concerned with the elephant's leg and the other group is more concerned with the elephant's belly, who is more credible? If you think that the elephant's belly is obviously more important than the elephant's leg, then that's the group you view as credible and the other group as not credible.

I took a fun test the other day called "Don't Vote" that is a simple and very honest example of the concept. It was a test of how prepared you are to vote responsibly. All it was was a series of pictures of world leaders with some actors thrown in asking that they be identified by their name and their title.

No issues. No "facts". Just pictures of people.

And that's about as honest as it's possible to get since any questions about issues would include bias one way or another. It would have become a test of ideological rightness and no way to avoid it.

Recognizing pictures might not tell a lot, but it is an entirely ideologically neutral test to see if someone has been paying attention or not.

What you seem to want is a list of facts of which you approve to define neutral and see who is to the right or left... such as having the correct understanding of global warming or the correct understanding of foreign policy or the correct understanding of the connection between factions and history between personalities in the middle east.

Most people are uninformed about a lot of things and this is no surprise. But who are you to decide which things that they are wrong about matter and which things don't? Do you really think that liberals are better informed than conservatives just because they have the right answers for those things you have decided are important to know?

OMG, BC linked to a newsgroup discussion.

I'm in freaking awe.

Synova sniped:

OMG, BC linked to a newsgroup discussion.

I'm in freaking awe.

Those discussions contain some bits of math that I didn't want to repeat here. Have a calculator, a pencil, and a piece of paper handy before going through them, though, because you might, perchance, not like the end results and may, perhaps, want to try to catch me in a screw-up. Good luck with that....

The study was a good one, BC, because it compares one thing to another.

I agree wholeheartedly Synova. A common reference point is a great way of analyzing data. Is the earth warming? Well, unless we have a baseline we would never know. Is the media biased left? Unless we compare it to some standard of left and right ideologies then there is no way of judging.

Where this comes up in conversation is when liberals point to how much more liberal Europe is to the US so us dumb Americans have no idea of how conservative our media is. I disagree with this assessment on its face but even if we accepted that standard, it is meaningless since there are places on this planet that are also very conservative where they would view Fox News (especially shows hosted by Greta Van Sustren and Geraldo Rivera) as leftist and the rest of our media as ultra crazy left. So that is really not a useful way of measuring the bias of the media.

So we need a standard of what the norm is in this country to have any meaning at all. The UCLA study is an ideal way of quantifying the bias and I can hardly imagine people trying to criticize it unless they have a problem with the assumption of comparing against Congressional records.

Given that there really is no other study comparable to this one, any criticism of it fails to hold up on a statistical basis. Guys like BC can wave their hands around in the air about Fox News but in the end, it is just one person's opinion against actual research data.

By the way, I think that, in general, Fox News is left of center on social issues. It has a secular conservative bent at times (read "Libertarian/populist") especially on O'Reilly's show. The only social conservative on the network is Hannity and he is an opinion maker, not a journalist. Probably the most glaring omission from the American media scene is a representation of social conservative opinion, especially evangelical Christian viewpoints. Those interested in the Fairness Doctrine might want to consider that when they start promoting it. I would love to see 700 Club news segments on the CBS Evening News but I doubt we'll see that. Too many information fascists around to let that happen.

Of course, since you didn't back up your assertion about my underlying "statistical analysis"

Oh, sorry for talking over your head. I guess I shouldn't be surprised you wouldn't understand.

You suggest that because one media outlet has 5/10 stories favorable to a topic, then they are automatically "balanced" about that topic. You claim this makes them "even-handed" and are just giving "equal time".

So the same would hold true, I suppose, for an outlet that ran 5/10 stories positive about Hamas? Or Arafat? Or Al Qaeda? Or 5 stories about how terrible cancer is, then 5 stories about how great it is? After all, they wouldn't want to demonstrate any bias against cancer, right? They'd need to be "balanced".

Thus, your claims have nothing to do with your flawed understanding of math, and are just reflecting your own personal biases. Though I suppose this could just be another ignorant example of claiming science does not show what it actually shows.

Beeblebrox broxed:

By the way, I think that, in general, Fox News is left of center on social issues. It has a secular conservative bent at times (read "Libertarian/populist") especially on O'Reilly's show. The only social conservative on the network is Hannity and he is an opinion maker, not a journalist. Probably the most glaring omission from the American media scene is a representation of social conservative opinion, especially evangelical Christian viewpoints. Those interested in the Fairness Doctrine might want to consider that when they start promoting it. I would love to see 700 Club news segments on the CBS Evening News but I doubt we'll see that. Too many information fascists around to let that happen.

Sounds to me like you went from hillbilly crack to something stronger. "Fox News is left of center on social issues"!!! WTF! And the 700 Club is about as close to being "moderate" on social issues as Michael Jackson is on personal conduct. Gawd.... (so to speak.)

In some respects your attitude points out another central fault with the UCLA study and also Synova's defense of it: most people believe they are well-balanced "moderates" politically the way they also believe that they are better-than-average drivers, lovers, and whatever. No.

I think a better definition of a true moderate and someone who make for a genuine middle point in something like that UCLA study would be someone who doesn't put ideology before facts and reality. If you look at the gradients of right-wingery, it goes from a simple spinning of facts to a total denial of reality -- pretty much FOX News's prime time line-up..

A true good, "moderate" social conservative would be someone like the Hank Hill character in "King of the Hill" -- well-meaning, reliable, tries to help, God-fearing, loyal, proud of country and lawn, but also gullible, afraid of change in culture and new ideas, and easily manipulable by the unscrupulous. A true good, "moderate" liberal progressive would be like any of the characters that use to be on West Wing -- smart, well-educated, wanting to make the world abetter place, but also cynical and skeptical about everything and everyone, including love. Neither really denies reality, but chooses to live in a compatible world.

A true middle would be between these two philosophies. Something like FOX News would be far removed from here.

Hey Brian, I was not saying that 5 out of 10 made them balanced. My argument was that even if an outlet has half their stories favorable to the right and the other half favorable to the left does not make them "right wing". The fact that you missed my point may have been because I was being too nuanced in my argument.

Let me try again. If news outlet A has one story out of 10 that are biased right and the rest biased left and meanwhile, news outlet B has two stories biased right and the other 8 left, by your "statistical" reckoning, outlet B apparently tilts right. My math shows that they are still 8 stories favorable to the left even though they aired twice as many stories as outlet A that were favorable to the right. IOW, they are just not quite as left as everyone else.

Of course, given that Fox News is more populist than ideologically conservative or liberal seems to be a reality that you have conveniently ignored.

Nice condescension though.

If news outlet A has one story out of 10 that are biased right and the rest biased left and meanwhile, news outlet B has two stories biased right and the other 8 left, by your "statistical" reckoning, outlet B apparently tilts right.

No, that's not what I said at all. I simply said that the fact that outlet B has 5/10 stories biased right does not automatically make them "balanced". Even in your revised example, if outlet A has 1 positive story about Hitler, and outlet B has 2 positive stories about Hitler, that doesn't automatically make outlet B more fair.

Of course, given that Fox News is more populist than ideologically conservative or liberal seems to be a reality that you have conveniently ignored.

Well, now you're just proving my point. Your biases, not the numbers, and certainly not statistics, drive your statements.

The funny part is that CNN was nailed for airing jihadi propaganda videos.
-=Mike

A true good, "moderate" social conservative would be someone like the Hank Hill character in "King of the Hill" -- well-meaning, reliable, tries to help, God-fearing, loyal, proud of country and lawn, but also gullible, afraid of change in culture and new ideas, and easily manipulable by the unscrupulous. A true good, "moderate" liberal progressive would be like any of the characters that use to be on West Wing -- smart, well-educated, wanting to make the world abetter place, but also cynical and skeptical about everything and everyone, including love. Neither really denies reality, but chooses to live in a compatible world.

How laughably myopic. You live a fairly sheltered life, no ?

To OhioVoter -- what part of this didn't you understand:

Per usual, the problem is not that we *don't* understand what you are trying to say, BC, but that we understand it better than you do.

I see that Synova made an attempt to explain my point to you in his 12:56 comment.

I'm not real hopeful that you understood it, but he made a valiant effort.

You said:

I think a better definition of a true moderate and someone who make for a genuine middle point in something like that UCLA study would be someone who doesn't put ideology before facts and reality. If you look at the gradients of right-wingery, it goes from a simple spinning of facts to a total denial of reality -- pretty much FOX News's prime time line-up..

In your description of a righwing POV, you said that it goes from a simple spinning of facts to a total denial of reality. Nothing else. No other choices.

So, if Dennis Kucinich agrees with a viewpoint expressed by a right winger what does that make him? A right winger? A complete liar? A man completely out of touch with reality? All are relevant questions because he did precisely that this week.

Or, is it just possible that each different party has some truth and - with an open mind - we could learn something from one another? That Dennis Kucinich could have the moral courage to say that the rightwing is correct on a particular issue at a particular point AND that he could win the respect of people, with whom he disagrees normally, for having that moral courage?

OhioVoter surprisingly wrote:

So, if Dennis Kucinich agrees with a viewpoint expressed by a right winger what does that make him? A right winger? A complete liar? A man completely out of touch with reality? All are relevant questions because he did precisely that this week.

Or, is it just possible that each different party has some truth and - with an open mind - we could learn something from one another? That Dennis Kucinich could have the moral courage to say that the rightwing is correct on a particular issue at a particular point AND that he could win the respect of people, with whom he disagrees normally, for having that moral courage?

Who are you and what did you do to the real "OhioVoter the Strawmanator"? I can only hope you buried him good and deep.

I personally normally don't have much use for either standard issue Democrats or Republicans, (or even standard issue liberals and conservatives). And actually I've long looked at the 2-party setup we have in this country as being inherently pro-establishment, with Democrats and Republicans as being at best complementary to each other: the Democrats of recent years have been more prone to be supportive of traditional liberal ideas of equality, fairness, government accountability and responsibility, and of new ideas in general; Republicans have -- up until very recently -- been supportive of traditional conservative ideas of fiscal responsibility in government, a strong military, and strong business. While conservatives by nature resist change, however benign, they do adopt eventually and serve as a balance and check to excessive Democratic/leftist ideology.

But things have been getting more and more out of whack. The traditional news media, which use to aggressively watchdog the government, has become increasingly weakened and beholden to profit-minded, corporate masters, and the "new media" is laughable as a substitute. I watch the Sunday morning talk shows very infrequently, but that has been enough to see a disturbing deterioration in the quality of both politicians and news reporters, regardless of political affiliation, but with the worst being on the Republican side. I constantly see and hear lies and snide comments presented with very little if any challenge or even comment by the gathered news people. It's like they are all waiting for the show to be over to have brunch together. I strongly recommend everyone interested in politics and the news media rent the Edward R. Murrow biopic "Good Night and Good Luck". Even the much maligned, liberal boogeyman, Senator Joe McCarthy, who plays himself via newsreel clips, comes across as shockingly erudite compared to what we've gotten use to these days for politicians.

I've been reading a lot about how Rudy Giuliani may be too moderate for mainstream Republicans -- what does that really mean? That he's too close to the center of something? (By the way, he'd make a terrible President, but a dandy head of the FBI or Homeland Security.) How would he fall in that UCLA bias report?

I've written before that good government is matter of being responsible, having good judgement, and balancing off conflicting interest groups. Most people, regardless of philosophy, pretty much want the same things: safe neighborhoods, good schools, a good economy with jobs, health care, free elections, freedom of expression, personal privacy, and an honest and responsibility government. You can focus on things like abortion and the right to bear arms, but nobody really wants to kill babies, and nobody really thinks an 8 year old should be able to buy a handgun at a 7-11. It's a matter of degrees and showing good judgement for coming up with compromises that either pleases or pisses off the so-called interest groups equally well.

But in no case do lies and abuse of power fit in with good government, regardless of ideology. And neither does allowing such lies and abuses to pass by without note or challenge. We are developing a culture of creeping corruption at all levels of government and the organizations that are suppose to watchdog them. There's this Zogby poll of US troops in Iraq from about a year ago that had one item that really bothered me: how about 90% of those troops thought they were in Iraq in retaliation for Hussein's role in 9/11. How does something like that come to pass? From a liberally biased media according to the UCLA survey? From a supposedly more centered news source like FOX, again according to the UCLA survey?

Is the extreme right now the new "middle"?

This gets back to my original point that the UCLA survey is essentially worthless as true measurement of "bias" with the way they set their middle point.

What a sad, sad reply.

You are so into blaming the ills of the world on just one group of people that you don't even recognize your name calling, lying and misrepresentation of their views for what it is.