{OT} editors vs generals

You disappoint me; uncritically parroting Rightards this way...

Over 50% of the nations papers endorsed Bush in 2004. The paper I read endorsed Bush. Three of the four opinion pieces in it today lean Republican. One of those supports the war. The fourth simply points out that Republicans risk 22 Senate seats in 2008 whereas the Democrats risk only 12. You could call it "leftist," I suppose, but that hardly fits.

Reality leans heavily to the left. Well, it leans away from that universe in Dubya's head, anyway.

"In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency. "

"The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'' "

-- Ron Suskind

And it turns out that the reality-based community was on to something. We weren't welcomed as liberators. Shinsecki, whom the Administration canned, was right; we couldn't do it on the cheap with 150K troops. Invading Iraq turns out to have consequences - foreseeable adverse consequences - and fuels our enemies. It turns out that you can't just do shit on faith, you actually have to work to understand the relationship between what you'd like to achieve and the way others will react to it and what could go wrong if you take Action A as opposed to Action B. It turns out that you should look for objections to a planned course of action and consider it carefully.

And you read quotes but you do not put them in historical context and understand them. This is why your Robert E. Lee quote falls flat.

Looking at Jefferson's quote, at that time, there was no such thing as objective reporting, no standards and no paper was published without an overt agenda. Jefferson had been racked by much of the press and was, to say the least, a bit miffed about it.

In fact, in 1863 when Lee was bemoaning Monday-morning quarterbacking by the newspapers, he had been at war for just two years. The Bush Administration's short, fast war has been dragging on for over 4 years. Probably about time to send in a new quarterback, I'd say.

Bush should force Cheney to resign, persuade McCain or some other smart, canny, sensible Republican to take over as Veep and then resign himself. We could get a fresh start and persuade other countries that it was a fresh start. Something good might come of it. Whoever succeeds Bush might even have an advantage in the 2008 election, helping to put a Republican win on the horizon.

Sounds a lot like Colin Powell as Secretary of State. Doing his damnedest to do his duty in unpleasant circumstances for clueless leaders.

Which paper would this be??

Not the Red Star. That other one.

Pioneer Press. I used to deliver it when I was 13, LOL.

Good paper, I wish I could get it delivered here.

The Mpls star is giving me the weekday, 13 weeks for free. They are hurting for ad dollars and have to show subscriber numbers.

GWB is the man. The dims are at their wits end.

It is not a good paper. It was once a good paper but it has gone steadily downhill for the last few yeas. On any given day, it will have far less news content than the Red Star, fewer classifieds; just less of everything useful. And I don't so much mind the stance of the editorial page as I am offended by the quality of it. They won't spend the money to routinely get first-class talent, so their right-leaning screeds are often a bad joke. They do carry David Brooks and a few others but not anywhere near often enough. I don't mind paying to read first-class right-wing talent; I might learn something but most of the time, that page is a dead loss. The quality of the letters is low, too.

But you pay for weekends? They've offered me that deal but my spouse won't switch. I'll bet you can keep that deal when the 13-weeks expires. When they call, threaten to stop and see what they offer.

Better to be at the end of them than to have lost them altogether, as GWB has.

At least you did not ask another question this time LOL

mike

You're too much of a coward to handle more than one question a day. Does your dad know what a coward you are?

Oh...wait...you have no idea who your dad is.

ALL newspapers are hurting of subscribers and ad dollars. When readers are asked why they are dropping subscriptions the answer is generally because they are no longer getting straight news in the papers but opinions. Opinions mixed into news articles are not what readers expect. Opinions belong on the editorial page. Networks news is suffering the same fate for the same reasons. Networks need to keep their opinions in shows like 60 Minutes and 20/20 not in their new reports.

mike

What's killing newspapers is loss of revenue from advertisers. It's the Internet, not the crooked opinions lurking in the news.

When corporations have a vested interest in public policy and at the same time own stations that report news you will *always* get the "news" slanted the way it serves corporate interests.

"Friendly Fascism" or Manufacturing Consent."

Do you have a source for this?

I don't like the editorial stance of the paper I read but the news section is just that - news. The other paper in town is the same way and many articles are written by AP or other press services; if they slant them, half the papers in the country wouldn't want the article.

People might argue that slant affects selection but no news organization can afford to ignore a story just because it's inconvenient.