The Weekend "Must Read"

Writing in the NY Times Book Review, Richard Posner talks about the economics of media bias and blogging.

Can I summarize four pages in one sentence?  Low costs of entry to the media business have driven news outlets away from the political center in search of readers who want entertainment and validation rather than "news".

Hmm, Posner says many nice, interesting things about blog as a new media, which did not get into that sentence.  Oh, dear.  However, we welcome reader's suggestions for a "Shorter Posner" in the comments below - anyone who can summarize this article would be doing the rest of us a favor.

And of course, there are bonus points for anyone with a sensible alternative view.

Meanwhile, as Mark Twain almost said, sorry for the long post; I didn't have time for a shorter one.

Los of excerpts after the leap; the Becker-Posner blog may have a follow-up, too.

UPDATE:  Posner mentions Harvard economists Sendhil Mullainathan and Andrei Shleifer.  Virginia Postrel described their work in the Times; Sissy Willis has highlights.  Posner certainly liked one of their ideas - a Fox News coming in on the right may actually drive a CNN further to the left.

Strip these [liberal and conservative critiques of the media] of their indignation, treat them as descriptions rather than as denunciations, and one sees that they are consistent with one another and basically correct. The mainstream media are predominantly liberal - in fact, more liberal than they used to be. But not because the politics of journalists have changed. Rather, because the rise of new media, itself mainly an economic rather than a political phenomenon, has caused polarization, pushing the already liberal media farther left.

The news media have also become more sensational, more prone to scandal and possibly less accurate. But note the tension between sensationalism and polarization: the trial of Michael Jackson got tremendous coverage, displacing a lot of political coverage, but it had no political valence.

The interesting questions are, first, the why of these trends, and, second, so what?

The why is the vertiginous decline in the cost of electronic communication and the relaxation of regulatory barriers to entry, leading to the proliferation of consumer choices. Thirty years ago the average number of television channels that Americans could receive was seven; today, with the rise of cable and satellite television, it is 71. Thirty years ago there was no Internet, therefore no Web, hence no online newspapers and magazines, no blogs. The public's consumption of news and opinion used to be like sucking on a straw; now it's like being sprayed by a fire hose.

To see what difference the elimination of a communications bottleneck can make, consider a town that before the advent of television or even radio had just two newspapers because economies of scale made it impossible for a newspaper with a small circulation to break even. Each of the two, to increase its advertising revenues, would try to maximize circulation by pitching its news to the median reader, for that reader would not be attracted to a newspaper that flaunted extreme political views. There would be the same tendency to political convergence that is characteristic of two-party political systems, and for the same reason - attracting the least committed is the key to obtaining a majority.

One of the two newspapers would probably be liberal and have a loyal readership of liberal readers, and the other conservative and have a loyal conservative readership. That would leave a middle range. To snag readers in that range, the liberal newspaper could not afford to be too liberal or the conservative one too conservative. The former would strive to be just liberal enough to hold its liberal readers, and the latter just conservative enough to hold its conservative readers. If either moved too close to its political extreme, it would lose readers in the middle without gaining readers from the extreme, since it had them already.

But suppose cost conditions change, enabling a newspaper to break even with many fewer readers than before. Now the liberal newspaper has to worry that any temporizing of its message in an effort to attract moderates may cause it to lose its most liberal readers to a new, more liberal newspaper; for with small-scale entry into the market now economical, the incumbents no longer have a secure base. So the liberal newspaper will tend to become even more liberal and, by the same process, the conservative newspaper more conservative. (If economies of scale increase, and as a result the number of newspapers grows, the opposite ideological change will be observed, as happened in the 19th century. The introduction of the ''penny press'' in the 1830's enabled newspapers to obtain large circulations and thus finance themselves by selling advertising; no longer did they have to depend on political patronage.)

The current tendency to political polarization in news reporting is thus a consequence of changes not in underlying political opinions but in costs, specifically the falling costs of new entrants. The rise of the conservative Fox News Channel caused CNN to shift to the left. CNN was going to lose many of its conservative viewers to Fox anyway, so it made sense to increase its appeal to its remaining viewers by catering more assiduously to their political preferences.

Now, do news readers want the truth?  They can't handle the truth:

The argument that competition increases polarization assumes that liberals want to read liberal newspapers and conservatives conservative ones. Natural as that assumption is, it conflicts with one of the points on which left and right agree - that people consume news and opinion in order to become well informed about public issues. Were this true, liberals would read conservative newspapers, and conservatives liberal newspapers, just as scientists test their hypotheses by confronting them with data that may refute them. But that is not how ordinary people (or, for that matter, scientists) approach political and social issues. The issues are too numerous, uncertain and complex, and the benefit to an individual of becoming well informed about them too slight, to invite sustained, disinterested attention. Moreover, people don't like being in a state of doubt, so they look for information that will support rather than undermine their existing beliefs. They're also uncomfortable seeing their beliefs challenged on issues that are bound up with their economic welfare, physical safety or religious and moral views.

So why do people consume news and opinion? In part it is to learn of facts that bear directly and immediately on their lives - hence the greater attention paid to local than to national and international news. They also want to be entertained, and they find scandals, violence, crime, the foibles of celebrities and the antics of the powerful all mightily entertaining. And they want to be confirmed in their beliefs by seeing them echoed and elaborated by more articulate, authoritative and prestigious voices. So they accept, and many relish, a partisan press. Forty-three percent of the respondents in the poll by the Annenberg Public Policy Center thought it ''a good thing if some news organizations have a decidedly political point of view in their coverage of the news.''

Being profit-driven, the media respond to the actual demands of their audience rather than to the idealized ''thirst for knowledge'' demand posited by public intellectuals and deans of journalism schools. They serve up what the consumer wants, and the more intense the competitive pressure, the better they do it.  We see this in the media's coverage of political campaigns. Relatively little attention is paid to issues. Fundamental questions, like the actual difference in policies that might result if one candidate rather than the other won, get little play. The focus instead is on who's ahead, viewed as a function of campaign tactics, which are meticulously reported. Candidates' statements are evaluated not for their truth but for their adroitness; it is assumed, without a hint of embarrassment, that a political candidate who levels with voters disqualifies himself from being taken seriously, like a racehorse that tries to hug the outside of the track. News coverage of a political campaign is oriented to a public that enjoys competitive sports, not to one that is civic-minded.

...Does this mean that the news media were better before competition polarized them? Not at all. A market gives people what they want, whether they want the same thing or different things. Challenging areas of social consensus, however dumb or even vicious the consensus, is largely off limits for the media, because it wins no friends among the general public. The mainstream media do not kick sacred cows like religion and patriotism.

...

The public's interest in factual accuracy is less an interest in truth than a delight in the unmasking of the opposition's errors. Conservatives were unembarrassed by the errors of the Swift Boat veterans, while taking gleeful satisfaction in the exposure of the forgeries on which Dan Rather had apparently relied, and in his resulting fall from grace. They reveled in Newsweek's retracting its story about flushing the Koran down a toilet yet would prefer that American abuse of prisoners be concealed. Still, because there is a market demand for correcting the errors and ferreting out the misdeeds of one's enemies, the media exercise an important oversight function, creating accountability and deterring wrongdoing. That, rather than educating the public about the deep issues, is their great social mission. It shows how a market produces a social good as an unintended byproduct of self-interested behavior.

The limited consumer interest in the truth is the key to understanding why both left and right can plausibly denounce the same media for being biased in favor of the other. Journalists are writing to meet a consumer demand that is not a demand for uncomfortable truths.

And how about blogs:

The latest, and perhaps gravest, challenge to the journalistic establishment is the blog. Journalists accuse bloggers of having lowered standards. But their real concern is less high-minded - it is the threat that bloggers, who are mostly amateurs, pose to professional journalists and their principal employers, the conventional news media. A serious newspaper, like The Times, is a large, hierarchical commercial enterprise that interposes layers of review, revision and correction between the reporter and the published report and that to finance its large staff depends on advertising revenues and hence on the good will of advertisers and (because advertising revenues depend to a great extent on circulation) readers. These dependences constrain a newspaper in a variety of ways. But in addition, with its reputation heavily invested in accuracy, so that every serious error is a potential scandal, a newspaper not only has to delay publication of many stories to permit adequate checking but also has to institute rules for avoiding error - like requiring more than a single source for a story or limiting its reporters' reliance on anonymous sources - that cost it many scoops.

Blogs don't have these worries. Their only cost is the time of the blogger, and that cost may actually be negative if the blogger can use the publicity that he obtains from blogging to generate lecture fees and book royalties. Having no staff, the blogger is not expected to be accurate. Having no advertisers (though this is changing), he has no reason to pull his punches. And not needing a large circulation to cover costs, he can target a segment of the reading public much narrower than a newspaper or a television news channel could aim for. He may even be able to pry that segment away from the conventional media. Blogs pick off the mainstream media's customers one by one, as it were.

And bloggers thus can specialize in particular topics to an extent that few journalists employed by media companies can, since the more that journalists specialized, the more of them the company would have to hire in order to be able to cover all bases. A newspaper will not hire a journalist for his knowledge of old typewriters, but plenty of people in the blogosphere have that esoteric knowledge, and it was they who brought down Dan Rather. Similarly, not being commercially constrained, a blogger can stick with and dig into a story longer and deeper than the conventional media dare to, lest their readers become bored. It was the bloggers' dogged persistence in pursuing a story that the conventional media had tired of that forced Trent Lott to resign as Senate majority leader.

Well, I don't think the media "tired of" the Trent Lott story - I think they ignored it altogether.  That said, his mention of specialty sites does ring a bell here at the Plame Blogcasting Network.

Truth can get its boots on pretty quickly in the blogosphere:

What really sticks in the craw of conventional journalists is that although individual blogs have no warrant of accuracy, the blogosphere as a whole has a better error-correction machinery than the conventional media do. The rapidity with which vast masses of information are pooled and sifted leaves the conventional media in the dust. Not only are there millions of blogs, and thousands of bloggers who specialize, but, what is more, readers post comments that augment the blogs, and the information in those comments, as in the blogs themselves, zips around blogland at the speed of electronic transmission.

This means that corrections in blogs are also disseminated virtually instantaneously, whereas when a member of the mainstream media catches a mistake, it may take weeks to communicate a retraction to the public.

...

The charge by mainstream journalists that blogging lacks checks and balances is obtuse. The blogosphere has more checks and balances than the conventional media; only they are different. The model is Friedrich Hayek's classic analysis of how the economic market pools enormous quantities of information efficiently despite its decentralized character, its lack of a master coordinator or regulator, and the very limited knowledge possessed by each of its participants.

In effect, the blogosphere is a collective enterprise - not 12 million separate enterprises, but one enterprise with 12 million reporters, feature writers and editorialists, yet with almost no costs. It's as if The Associated Press or Reuters had millions of reporters, many of them experts, all working with no salary for free newspapers that carried no advertising.

And what does it all mean?  From their Big Finish:

Yet what of the sliver of the public that does have a serious interest in policy issues? Are these people less well served than in the old days? Another recent survey by the Pew Research Center finds that serious magazines have held their own and that serious broadcast outlets, including that bane of the right, National Public Radio, are attracting ever larger audiences. And for that sliver of a sliver that invites challenges to its biases by reading The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, that watches CNN and Fox, that reads Brent Bozell and Eric Alterman and everything in between, the increased polarization of the media provides a richer fare than ever before.

So when all the pluses and minuses of the impact of technological and economic change on the news media are toted up and compared, maybe there isn't much to fret about.

"Isn't much to fret about"?  We'll find something!

Comments

[kim]

And some day the barrier to entry to political communication will be as low the barrier to entry to electronic communication is now.

[Tommy V]

Good analysis, some great stuff in there, even if it delights in its own cynicsm. But a few poor conclusions.

The mainstream media was just as liberal before increased competition. Much of the competition was born vecause of that liberal dominance.

"they look for information that will support rather than undermine their existing beliefs."

I would agree with this, but clearly it is as true for Mr. Posner as it is for me.

[kim]

I like the old saying that Rupert Murdoch discovered a niche market, half of America.
=================================================

[Jor]

This was a great read. Whether you're liberal or conservative, you just don't have time to care nor do you want your beliefs challenged.

[jor]

Cynicisim I approve of

Journalists are reluctant to confess to pandering to their customers' biases; it challenges their self-image as servants of the general interest, unsullied by commerce. They want to think they inform the public, rather than just satisfying a consumer demand no more elevated or consequential than the demand for cosmetic surgery in Brazil or bullfights in Spain.

[Black Jack]

Who can't handle the truth?

Although Posner does a fairly descent job of explaining how markets can shape news coverage, he fails to include institutionalized bias among his list of active forces. His own bias is a good example and it shows in rather sharp relief when he slimes both Conservatives and the Swift Boat Vets while he claims the public has little interest in accurate reporting.

"The public's interest in factual accuracy is less an interest in truth than a delight in the unmasking of the opposition's errors. Conservatives were unembarrassed by the errors of the Swift Boat veterans, while taking gleeful satisfaction in the exposure of the forgeries on which Dan Rather had apparently relied, and in his resulting fall from grace. They reveled in Newsweek's retracting its story about flushing the Koran down a toilet yet would prefer that American abuse of prisoners be concealed."

Posner has confused the public's interests with his own political agenda, and his own delight in bitch slapping Conservatives. Posner and the MSM shows little interest in "factual accuracy" when it comes to "unmasking" the errors by the Left or by MSM. Note the lack of interest in the UN Oil for Food Scandal, or in John Kerry's Christmas in Cambodia story, or that Air America secretly took money from programs for children and the elderly.

Yet, Posner claims that, "...because there is a market demand for correcting the errors and ferreting out the misdeeds of one's enemies, the media exercise an important oversight function, creating accountability and deterring wrongdoing."

Those are pretty high sounding justifications for outright looking the other way when your guys are caught with their pants down.

Posner deludes himself if he actually thinks that the public prefers gossip and gotcha journalism to "factual accuracy." Foolishly he claims, "That, rather than educating the public about the deep issues, is (the media's) great social mission."

Gossip and finger pointing is what Posner says are the overarching values produced by media competition. "It shows how a market produces a social good as an unintended byproduct of self-interested behavior."

Please, permit me to doubt.

[Joe Mealyus]

"The degree of parasitism is striking in the case of those blogs that provide their readers with links to newspaper articles."

Links? What about blogs that provide their readers with supersized extracts from the original articles? Not that any examples come to mind just now....

[Joe Mealyus]

"They know that anyone can create a blog at essentially zero cost, that most bloggers are uncredentialed amateurs, that bloggers don't employ fact checkers and don't have editors and that a blogger can hide behind a pseudonym."

There is something here that really bugs me. "Don't have editors." My feeling is that the average post on the blogs that I like is actually *better* edited than the average column or editorial in the newspaper I read the most, the Seattle Times. The Times is constantly running pieces where I think "an editor should have caught this." And from the blog-analyses of the New York Times (via JustOneMinute, Kaus, DeLong, et al) I've read the past few years, it appears that even the best newspapers have this "unedited quality" that I find lacking in (better) blogs.

Note: I'm referring to the posts, not the comments....

[kim]

Hey, Posner, what Swiftie errors?
================================

[Joe Mealyus]

"However, we welcome reader's suggestions for a 'Shorter Posner' in the comments below - anyone who can summarize this article would be doing the rest of us a favor."

I would summarize Posner's thesis with the following extracts:

1. "A market gives people what they want, whether they want the same thing or different things."

2. "Only members of the intelligentsia, a tiny slice of the population, deliberate on public issues." [What everybody else wants from the news is implied in the next extract].

3. "Still, because there is a market demand for correcting the errors and ferreting out the misdeeds of one's enemies, the media exercise an important oversight function, creating accountability and deterring wrongdoing. That, rather than educating the public about the deep issues, is their great social mission."

4. "The limited consumer interest in the truth is the key to understanding why both left and right can plausibly denounce the same media for being biased in favor of the other."

5. "Yet what of the sliver of the public that does have a serious interest in policy issues? [It turns out that] "...serious magazines have held their own and that serious broadcast outlets, including that bane of the right, National Public Radio, are attracting ever larger audiences."

[MaDr]

Black Jack

To validate Posner's point about the self correcting/error checking ability of blogs, but at the same time provide an exception to his "The public's interest in factual accuracy is less an interest in truth than a delight in the unmasking of the opposition's errors." (I'm not your opponent); I offer the following:

Sir you are incorrect/misleading in your statement posted above:

"when your guys are caught with their pants down."

I respectfully submit that it is "panties", not "pants".

[Joe Mealyus]

"Posner ... fails to include institutionalized bias among his list of active forces. His own bias is a good example and it shows in rather sharp relief when he slimes both Conservatives and the Swift Boat Vets..."

And the Intelligent Design people (who aren't really all religious nuts, which is the besides the point anyway). But Posner is perhaps using the examples of the Swift Boat Vets and the Intelligent Design advocates because

1) he thinks their opponents have the upper hand in the respective debates;

2) he is well aware that NYT readers as a group are highly biased (if not filled with righteous rage) against these groups and using them as examples is an easy way of gaining credibility with the people he's addressing.

[Steven J.]

KIM - "I like the old saying that Rupert Murdoch discovered a niche market, half of America."

O'Reilly has Fox News highest rated show. It draws less than half of what CBS does and CBS is in third place, behind ABC and NBC.

PBS's Newshour has about the same draw as Falafel Boy.

[Steven J.]

BLACK - "His own bias is a good example and it shows in rather sharp relief when he slimes both Conservatives and the Swift Boat Vets "

It's almost impossible to slime the Shifty Vets. Case in point:

In Oregon, several pro-Kerry veterans called on a Clackamas County district attorney's office employee
to resign after he appeared in an ad sponsored by an anti-Kerry group. Alfred French said in the ad and swore in an affidavit, ''I served with John Kerry. ... He is lying about his record.'' French subsequently acknowledged he relied on the accounts of other veterans and did not witness Kerry in combat.

Kerry Accuses
GOP of 'Fear and Smear' Tactics
Democrat Speaks in New York
By MARY DALRYMPLE, AP, 8/24/04

[Steven J.]

BLACK - "Note the lack of interest in the UN Oil for Food Scandal"

Jeez, I guess the NY Times goofed when they put it on the front page so many times.

[Attila (Pillage Idiot)]

Mark Twain almost said it, but Pascal did.

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/b/blaisepasc108650.html

[kim]

So SJ, are you trying to suggest that French didn''t serve with Kerry and that Kerry didn't lie about his record? And just why was he forced to resign? You didn't get into that part. Why you blankety-blank blank. I can see why you like people like Kerry and Wilson.
================================================

[TCO]

If you parse all the statements of the Swift Boat Vets, I'm sure you will find an error or two. But in large, there assertions of fact and on the large things were correct. Their assertions of opinion are debatable. They have been top notch about correcting things that were wrong and have made a serious effort to restrain those who would throw everything against the wall. FYI: I've met and talked with Roy Hoffman. He is impressive. So is Paul Galanti. I'd trust those guys with my six over a careerist/climber like Kerry.

Certainly, Kerry did the following strange things:

-served only 4 months in country
-applied for his own medals (I've got 13 years service and I've never seen anyone else do that)
-received his 3rd purple heart (first chronologically) despite his CO and medical officer disagreeing (one felt the injury self-inflicted, the other thought the scratch inconsequential).
-lied about a secret mission in Cambodia on christmas eve ("seared into his memory")

---------

the other things are really not issues of debate on what happened, but whether it was right: John Kerry dragged his fellow service-men through the mud, calling them in effect a bunch of Lt. Calley's when this was not true and when the people who said it were many exposed to not even have served.
-he also had private discussions with the North Vietnamese.

[kim]

They're gonna mumble about lying Swifties and Florida election fraud for a long time and for the same reason. They think it explains why they lost.
===================================================

[Tommy V]

There are quite a few things that make liberals scream like the chickens in CHICKEN RUN.

Among Them are...

1. George Bush (and anyone that works for him).

2. Fox News

3. Swift Boat Vets

4. Florida Electoral Votes

They never get over any of these. The list gets longer, it never gets shorter.

[Steven J.]

TCO - "applied for his own medals "

No he didn't. Below is just one example of the baseless smears about this matter:

"The group says Mr. Kerry himself wrote the reports that led to the medal. But Mr. Elliott and Mr. Lonsdale, who
handled reports going up the line for recognition, have previously said that a medal would be awarded only if there
was corroboration from others and that they had thoroughly corroborated the accounts.
"Witness reports were reviewed; battle reports were reviewed," Mr. Lonsdale said at the 1996 news conference,
adding, "It was a very complete and carefully orchestrated procedure." In his statements Mr. Elliott described the
action that day as "intense" and "unusual."
Several veterans insist that Mr. Kerry wrote his own reports, pointing to the initials K. J. W. on one of the reports and
saying they are Mr. Kerry's. "What's the W for, I cannot answer," said Larry Thurlow, who said his boat was 50 to 60
yards from Mr. Kerry's. Mr. Kerry's middle initial is F, and a Navy official said the initials refer to the person who had
received the report at headquarters, not the author."

Friendly Fire: The Birth of an Anti-Kerry Ad
Veterans' Group Has Ties to Bush Family, President's Top Political Aide

By KATE ZERNIKE and JIM RUTENBERG,
The New York Times 8/20/04

[Steven J.]

TCO - "John Kerry dragged his fellow service-men through the mud,"

You are mistaken:

TOMMY FRANKS (continuing directly): -the things that Senator Kerry said are undeniable about
activities in Vietnam. I think that things didn't go right in, in Vietnam. SOURCE:
HANNITY(8/3/04)

[Steven J.]

TCO - "lied about a secret mission in Cambodia on christmas eve ("seared into his memory")"

I would classify this as a simple mistake and note that O'Neill did admit to operating in Cambodia:

O'Neill said no one could cross the border by river and he claimed in an audio tape that his publicist played to CNN that he,
himself, had never been to Cambodia either. But in 1971, O'Neill said precisely the opposite to then President Richard Nixon.
O'NEILL: I was in Cambodia, sir. I worked along the border on the water.
NIXON: In a swift boat?
O'NEILL: Yes, sir.

CNN NEWSNIGHT AARON BROWN

Two Russian Passengers Planes Crash Within Minutes of Each Other; Cheney Cites States' Rights in Gay Marriage Debate;
Najaf Standoff
Aired August 24, 2004 - 22:00 ET

[kim]

Oh, SJ, it is obvious that you can be eaten alive.

1. One of the main reasons we want his reacords released is to see who wrote the after action reports. It was likely Kerry.

2. His report re: Winter Soldiers is specifically and generally wrong.

3. Go listen to the audio of O'Neill's conversation with Nixon. It is obvious that his saying he was in Cambodia was a mistake, he immediately corrected himself to say 'along the border'. O'Neill was in Vietnem later than Kerry at a time that it is documented that Swift Boats ran along the border.

4. "Christmas in Cambodia" a simple mistake? Fah, it was one he repeated often enough that he believed it himself.

I'll tell you right now, SJ, you are naive about the Swifties. You may as well give it up, now.
===================================================

[kim]

I am convinced the Swifties cost Kerry the election. His poll numbers dropped in mid-August from leading to losing and he never recovered. He hid from reporters for 6 critical weeks. Vets, including many like me who spent most of our adult lives conflicted about Vietnam, saw the light about Kerry. "Unfit for Command" sold 800,000 copies and got passed around. Vets and those they talked to swung the election.

I'm also convinced that the Swdifties will garner intense and objective research efforts. The Swifties were at the conjunction of three important phenomena, the '04 election, the Vietnam War, and the blogosphere.

I'll refer you to Beldarblog and Captain's Quarters and comments during Aug. and Sept. of 2004.
==================================================

[kim]

It was just a year ago he was 'reporting for duty'. The problem was that neither he nor we could see his duty clearly.

He was a loser, a bad one, and just why and how the Daemocratic Party picked him is a question it should ask itself if it doesn't want to lose again. Bush was extremely vulnerable.
===============================================

[kim]

The measure of Kerry, today, or last year, is not so much the ambiguities of his service in 'Nam(there were admirable things he did there), nor even his anti-war activities afterwards, but rather his response to the challenge of the Swifties in August. Did he answer them? No, it was smear them and their backers, threaten legal action against media outlets and bookstores, hide from reporters for....forever.

Telling, my child, telling.
====================================================

[kim]

Hiding from reporters, still? Well, has any reporter asked him about these events and gotten a response? And this is a country with a free press?

Free only in the blogosphere. The laborers of MSM act as if they heard galley proof and thought they were galley slaves.
================================================

[kim]

John who?
==========

[Steven J.]

KIM - "1. One of the main reasons we want his reacords released is to see who wrote the after action reports. It was likely Kerry."

There is absolutely no evidence for this claim. NONE.

[Steven J.]

KIM - "2. His report re: Winter Soldiers is specifically and generally wrong."

Not according to Tommy Franks.

[Steven J.]

KIM - "3. Go listen to the audio of O'Neill's conversation with Nixon. It is obvious that his saying he was in Cambodia was a mistake, he immediately corrected himself to say 'along the border'. "

Nope. He said he was stationed near Cambodia and went on missions inside Cambodia.

[Steven J.]

KIM - " Bush was extremely vulnerable."

Exactly! That's why the Noise Machine had to smear Kerry.

[kim]

1. The most compelling account is in the archives of Beldarblog. The initials are clerks. Direct and indirect evidence is that they are Kerry's. The writing is susceptible to expert examination.

2. I ignore selective quotation. The topic is extremely controversial. Bad things happened(morale and discipline were poor) but not to the scale Kerry claimed. He exaggerated for effect; a habit of his, I might add.

3. O'Neill has never claimed he went into Cambodia. Kerry has claimed that, repeatedly, including once for strong(I almost said powerful, but collapsed in hysteria) effect on the Senate floor. But Kerry wasn't there, he lied.

4. No, the Swifties challenged Kerry's claims about his service, and the noise machine could hear itself think.

[kim]

Uh, in point 1 I meant to say that direct and indirect evidence is that the after-action reports are Kerry's. He did not sign them; the initials belong to clerks who handled the reports.
========================

[zarryo]

This is a great read.

[Les Nessman]

Didn't Kerry repeatedly promise to make public all his military records?

Did he do this yet or did he just release some of his records to a couple of newspapers?

[Steven J.]

KIM - "Direct and indirect evidence is that they are Kerry's."

Please give examples & sources. (NEWSMAX and WEEKLY STANDARD don't count)

[Steven J.]

KIM -

HANNITY (8/3/04): I want to play a tape of John Kerry, and I want to get your
reaction to this tape.
KERRY (videotape, Dick Cavett Show, 1971): I personally didn't see personal
atrocities in the sense that I saw somebody cut a head off or something like
that. However, I did take part in free fire zones. I did take part in harassment
interdiction fire. I did take part in search and destroy missions in which the
houses of noncombatants were burned to the ground.
And all of these, I find out later on-these acts are contrary to The Hague and
Geneva conventions and to the laws of warfare. So, in that sense, anybody who
took part in those, if you carry out the application of the Nuremberg principles,
is in fact guilty.
HANNITY: What does that mean to you?
FRANKS (continuing directly): I think we had a lot of problems in Vietnam. One
was the lack of leadership of young people like in-in John Kerry's position. He
was a young officer over there, and I'm not sure that, that activities like
that didn't take place. In fact, quite the contrary. I'm sure that they did.
HANNITY(8/3/04): I mean, raped, murdered, all these things. But he never told
names. Does that anger you? I mean, this is the guy now that is the leading
candidate for the Democrats.
FRANKS (continuing directly): I don't know. I think Vietnam was-I think
Vietnam was a bad time. I think that what I've learned in my life, Sean, is that
it's a heck of a lot easier to protest than it is to step up and take responsibility
for the actions of a unit or for-or for your own actions. And so, I don't-I don't
like what I saw. But at the same time, I wouldn't say that-the things that
Senator Kerry said are undeniable about activities in Vietnam. I think
that things didn't go right in, in Vietnam.
TOMMY FRANKS (continuing directly): -the things that Senator Kerry said are undeniable about
activities in Vietnam. I think that things didn't go right in, in Vietnam. SOURCE:
HANNITY(8/3/04)

[Tommy V]

Steven J,

I don't understand what your point is in quoting Tommy Franks here. Nobody is denying atrocities happened in Vietnam. Your quotes do not refute anything.

What you read there is Tommy Franks unwilling to condemn John Kerry.

Are we still debating about the Swift Boat Vets? Still? The MSM did everything they could to discredit the Swiftboat Vets and were unable to do it. I have no doubt they would have done so already if they could have,

The nomination of Kerry was a terrible mistake on the Democrats fault.

They thought nominating a military veteran would be a good stand against the "weak on defense" perception, and then Kerry made the mistake of RUNNING ON HIS VIETNAM RECORD, "I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty."

Most of the men in his unit took umbrage to military hero claims and they spoke up. They had every right to, and their story was compelling enough and withstood enough scrutiny that their claims rang true to a lot of people.

(Note that the counter attack on Bush National Guard Duty was not compelling enough and did not withstand scrutiny. More importantly, Americans were able to judge Bush on his last four years and did not care as much about his life previous to that.)

Steven, please get over it. It's not worth debating about. I know you guys feel you have to counter EVERYTHING, but I would think you would have learned by now not EVERYTHING can be countered. It dilutes the times when you will be absolutely right, and people will be less likely to see that fact if you counter EVERYTHING.

[Lesley]

Had Kerry signed his Form SF 180 during his campaign, this brouhaha could have been put to rest.

May 20, 2005: "During an interview yesterday with Globe editorial writers and columnists, the former Democratic presidential nominee was asked if had signed Form SF 180, authorizing the Department of Defense to grant access to all his military records.
''I have signed it," Kerry said. Then, he added that his staff was ''still going through it" and ''very, very shortly, you will have a chance to see it."

Once this information is made public, we will have an opportunity to evaluate the Swift Boater's claims. Let the chips fall where they may.

[gt]

I think a large number of people simply want to read things that support their world view. That's the only explanation why, after the last few years, anyone can still talk of a liberal media bias.

Blogging simply makes this easier. There is no editiing or fact checking in blogging. If a blogger posts something wrong nobody can force him to retract or correct.

[Steven J.]

TOMMY V - "The MSM did everything they could to discredit the Swiftboat Vets and were unable to do it."

Only traitors believe the shifty vets.

[kim]

SJ. OK, once again what were the Swifties wrong about?
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[gt]

Almost everything Kim.

The only possible exception is Cambodia, and that is still something we don't know about. But they made up or were officilally contradicted on their claims about the PH as well as the other medals.

They've been pretty thoroughly discredited by now, only loony right wingers still trust them. The combiantion of documents and witnesses destroyed practically all their claims.

[Slartibartfast]

Almost everything Kim.

Yes, of course: everything. Even when they said "Kerry", they were talking about someone else.

Or, you could give us a for-instance. Since it was "almost everything", all you really have to do is pick the first thing you can find.

[gt]

Slarti,

I really don't want to revisit this. By now, given all the information that has come out, including several new witnesses that all support Kerry and even the paperwork for the medals of one of the accusers, continuing to support the Swift Vet's claims is like saying the Jews were behind 9/11.

There were 6 Swiftie claims. One was not debated on the facts since they are well known (Kerry's actions after Vietnam)> Another is still open (Cambodia). But the other 4 Swiftie claims (2 PHs, SS, and BS) are all contradicted bynew witnesses and documents.

[TexasToast]

"There are quite a few things that make liberals scream like the chickens in CHICKEN RUN.
Among Them are...
1. George Bush (and anyone that works for him).
2. Fox News
3. Swift Boat Vets
4. Florida Electoral Votes

They never get over any of these. The list gets longer, it never gets shorter.

How about

1. Teddy Kennedy
2. NY Times, CBS, Reuters, LA Times,(I could go on)
3. Jane Fonda in Vietnam
4. there is no analogy for Florida (OTTOMH)

[Etienne]

The Swiftliar campaign will go down in history as one of the most disgracefully unprincipled actions of the Republican Slime Machine. In fact, there is an Iraq War Vet running for Congress right now in Ohio (our new hotbed of Republican corruption) who is being insulted by his opponent in much the same way (claimed to have been a combat vet, while "only" being a community relations person in places like lovely Fallujah)...and the tactic is now known as "Swiftboating". Nice legacy there, guys. Denigrating American veterans in the pursuit of political gain. Sometimes it makes your head spin to think how much the old political realities have reversed themselves.

As for media bias, AnnCoulter said it best herself recently on the Sean Vanity show. When explaining why Bush should have nominated the most extreme candidate possible for the Supreme Court, she said "This is our time. We HAVE the media now." Truth found in the most unexpected of places.

[Slartibartfast]

The Swiftliar campaign will go down in history as one of the most disgracefully unprincipled actions of the Republican Slime Machine.

The connection between the Swift Boat Vets and the RNC would be interesting, indeed. Got a link?

[TexasToast]

The "link" is Perry. That's where the Swirties money came from. He and GWB go waay back.

[Slartibartfast]

Perry's on record as contributing just under 1% of their total budget. Where'd the rest come from?

[TexasToast]

His was the seed cash. I'm not at all surprised they got more contributions later.

[Slartibartfast]

Weird. Perry's down for $200k on one page at opensecrets; $4.5 mill on another. I sit corrected. I guess, though, that we can poison any well funded by George Soros in a similar way?

[kim]

Etienne: Ask a few vets about the Swifties. Oh, and very parenthetically, what do you think of John Edwards attempting to make a campaign issue out of Carolina mill jobs going overseas, jobs that had come to Carolina from Massachusetts half a century ago for the same reasons they are now fleeing Carolina?

gt: You've said the Swifties were debunked. I've asked how. You repeat that they have been debunked. I'm bored. Tell me something they got wrong and we'll talk. Otherwise, you're just exposing your sorry bluff.

TT: Check out how many total donors the Swifties had. Check out how many copies of 'Unfit for Command' were sold. Think how many people these politically aware and active buyers and donors talked to before the election. Why, it adds up to millions.
==============================================

[kim]

TT: What you fail to understand is that the Swifties seed was their outrage at Kerry's claims. The money came later, and most of it was small individual donors.
==============================================

[gt]

Kim,

I already did, however not in great detail.
I explained that of 6 main Swiftie accusations one is not debated on the facts since all agree, another is still open, but the 4 relating to the medals have all been contradicted by both new witnesses and official documents.

Do I need to repeat which witnesses and which documents for each medal?

Just one example of many. On the Silver Star accusations, where Kerry picked a Marine from the water under enemy fire, not only did several new witnesses come out, all supporting Kerry, and including one who was in the boat led by one of the Swift Boaters, but the official documents supporting a medal given to one of the accusing Swift Boaters that same day mentions the enemy fire. And the witness is one of the crewmen in that boat.

Like I said, I could go on and on.

[kim]

gt: That was the Bronze Star event, when he picked up a Special Forces guy who, in his panic, Kerry had dumped in the water. Like I said, I could go on and on.

So I will a little. Of the many accounts now in the record a few mention the distinct ack-ack of the AK-47. I don't doubt these aural memories. It also makes sense that they would fire at the site of an ambush. But they were few and don't put the lie to the main testimony of that day, of Kerry's cowardice.

Now here's the kicker. Had there been enemy fire, Kerry's panicked run down the river is even more damning, particularly when all the other boats rallied around the injured sailors.

So now, you go on. I'm eager to hear more of what you have to say about the Swifties. Your saying you could go on and on is a bluff. Sorry, Buddy, but you don't know jackshit.
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[kim]

Purple Heart #1: When he got tired of firing his machine gun at Vietnamese(likely noncombatants) "fleeing like gazelles" he picked up a grenade launcher and injured himself with it. There is no documented return fire.

Purple Heart #2: Likely legitimate.

Purple Heart #3: Injured himself setting off a grenade in a pile of rice. Also injured himself that day as he accelerated off in a panic after dumping the soldier in the water.

Silver Star: Shot an armed, fleeing enemy soldier. No big problem there. However, his grounding his boat on the shore was foolish. I know it was commended; it was still foolish and may have helped cause the death of his best friend a few weeks later as he attempted a similar feat of 'valor'.

Bronze Star: Bogus, bogus, bogus for sooooo many reasons.
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[gt]

Jackshit? That's your comeback?

Oh well.

[kim]

No, Jackshit was the feint. You got flattened by the Roundhouse.
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[kim]

And the crowds gone home. But you're gonna be alright; I could always wake you up.
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[GT]

Then again after reading that Bush proposes that intelligent design be taught as a competing theory to evolution I understand that his supporters can't be very well educated or knowledgeable.

[kim]

ID criticizes the evolutionists on a point the evolutionists take on faith.
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