Editorial and my reply (amazing elitist journalist)

Rockford Register Star | June 3, 2004 | Pat Cunningham

[LifeTrek]

print friendly e-mail story e-mail headlines subscriptions Published: June 3, 2004

COLUMNIST: Pat Cunningham Rhetoric at odds with actual record

One of the big disappointments of this presidential campaign year -- for me, anyway -- is that Illinois probably won't be one of the so-called battleground states.

Polls show presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry so far ahead of President Bush in this state that neither party is likely to put a lot of money into campaign efforts here.

THE SITUATION COULD change, of course, but most political observers don't expect that it will. Too bad. That means our local television stations won't be airing many of those scurrilous and deceitful, but somehow entertaining, campaign advertising spots in which one candidate or the other is cast in a negative light.

Oh, well. I can still turn to www.factcheck.org to catch up on the delicious distortions of Kerry's or Bush's records in ads airing in other states or on national cable networks. There is no shortage of fabrications on either side, and we've got five months to go. Or I can count on the occasional misleading letter to the editor, like the one published on this page in Tuesday's edition under the headline "Misplaced blame."

In this little epistle, the writer wasn't content to merely misrepresent Kerry's record. He also had to take a swipe at our own Sen. Dick Durbin, who's not even running for office this year.

"These are two senators," the letter read, "who voted against every defense bill that was brought up for a vote. And these votes go further back than the Bush administration."

So, Durbin and Kerry have "voted against every defense bill," have they? Let's check the record.

Durbin, Durbin ... ah, here it is. A couple of hundred billion for defense here, and a couple of hundred billion more there. Well, Durbin clearly has not voted against every defense bill.

NOW, LET'S CHECK Kerry, who's obviously the real target of this letter. Kerry, Kerry ... wow! It turns out that he's voted in favor of 16 big defense authorization bills over the years, and that's not counting all the amendments and other related measures that have come along.

Let's get out the old calculator here and see how much money this is. We'll add this figure and then these and ... surprise! Kerry has voted for more than $4.4 trillion in defense spending, and the biggest single increase he supported was during the presidency of George W. Bush.

BUT WE BETTER ALSO take a look at Kerry's record on certain weapons and defense systems. Did he support the Air Force's F-22 fighter jet? Check. The Joint Strike Fighter? Check. The JSTARS aircraft? Check. The B-1 Bomber Defense System Upgrade? Check. New variants of the Blackhawk helicopter? Conversion of the Trident submarine? Acquisition of more C-17 transports? Check, check, check.

Wait a minute! What's this? When Kerry first ran for the Senate in 1984, he called for canceling the AH-64 Apache helicopter. Oh, yeah. I read about that on the Republican National Committee's Web site just a few weeks ago.

But what have we here? Uh-oh! It looks like Dick Cheney was against that Apache thing, too. Before Cheney became Bush's vice president he was secretary of defense under Bush's dad. In 1989, he told the House Armed Services Committee that he favored canceling the Apache helicopter program, even though the Army wanted it.

The more you look into Cheney's record, the more fascinating it becomes. He favored cutting or eliminating all kinds of weapons programs -- the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the A-12 Stealth attack plane, the F-14, the F-16, the V-22 Osprey, the F-15E, the M1 tank, the Phoenix missile ... and on and on.

When he was in Congress, Cheney voted against pay raises for uniformed members of the armed services. He voted against Veterans Administration funding in 1980, '81, '82, '85, '86, '87 and '88. He voted against additional education benefits for Vietnam veterans, against Agent Orange studies and against job training for vets.

FUNNY HOW THEY don't tell us about these things on the Fox News Channel, isn't it?

Funny, too, how some people question Kerry's national security bona fides but don't have a thing to say about Cheney's.

Pat Cunningham is Page One editor of the Rockford Register Star. His e-mail address is pcunningham@registerstartower.com

[LifeTrek]

My reply: Cheap Shot

Mr. Cunningham,

Your cheap shot at Fox News in Thursday's opinion piece is exactly why Fox News has 53% of the cable news market. It also shows that you don't watch Fox News and consider yourself and your elite attitude to be the mainstream, as if you were above that type of low class news.

You didn't even bother to check your facts - something that should have been easy for someone who is writing a story about "facts."

You stated, "FUNNY HOW THEY don't tell us about these things on the Fox News Channel, isn't it?"

Unfortunately a QUICK search of the Fox News Web site would have shown you the following:

Search, "Cheney Apache," (the first item mentioned in your false premise) you would have found no less then six (6) stories all stating the point you made.

A Google search that includes "Fox News" and "Cheney record" brings up an astounding number of Fox News reports including these facts.

Did you even bother to check before you lashed out in a feeble attempt to undermined what is (although you and your elite crowd will never believe it) fair and balanced news? Are you really that worried that your slanted views are no longer being accepted on the face as "facts"?

These elite attitudes are why people are tuning to alternate media every day. We want the news, not your slanted, elite, unverified, and inaccurate blather. Are you are so blinded you can't see facts when they are right there - as if you were saying, "I am mainstream, I am the news! I don't need to check for facts!"

Your apparent fearful lashing out has undercut your credibility in ways your high minded opinion of Fox News could never accomplish. Until you change this attitude you will continue to lose us mainstream Americans.

---- Of course it does no good, but it was worth a try. DKK

[LifeTrek]

He sent me an article by Fair that downplayed Fox ratings.

I replied:

Your point? The facts you failed to address are still unaddressed!

We can do dueling articles all day - this is another display of your elite, and may I say immature attitued. An unsigned attitude at that, not even proud enough of your own standing to sign it.
DKK

[T'wit]

An editorialist who actually admits getting his thinking from FAIR is not just lazy and intellectually dishonest, he is feeble-minded and doesn't mind that we all know it.

[randog]

He sent me an article by Fair that downplayed Fox ratings.

LOL!! Every once in a while I'll click the e-mail button on the bottom of a particularly obnoxious liberal screed (like the one above) and pump a few sourced facts their way. I get the same reply you did--something short and irrelevant. They'll never debate the facts bacause they always lose, and they know it. They've grown too fat and happy because they've had no competition for so many years and the general public had no real means of checking their assertions.....until the internet came along.

Now they're learning about debate, something us conservatives have had to learn since we were denied a voice for so long and something liberals never developed because they didn't have to. They have no clue, so they just start name calling, or in this case do a drive-by e-mail and call it good.

[LifeTrek]

So true - OH, and he didn't bother sourcing the Fair article, I had to find it by searching the author's name!
DKK

[Tamzee]

Your response was a terrific read and it was a pleasure to see it sent to that journalist political activist.

[LifeTrek]

Thanks, I try - but you know he can't see anything but his need to get Bush out of the White House.
DKK

[narby]

It's always surprizing when the "real" issues begin to take hold during any election. It always seems to be something no one would have thought of a year before.

In 1960, it was the "missle gap", and the little details of a couple of islands off Formosa.

I believe when we get to September, the issues will be the media, and whether Kerry is believable as a hawk.

Everyone knows who Bush is, and they love him or hate him.