Majority supports Bush on terrorism (HEADLINE on BUSH Poll changed)

USA Today ^ | 3/29/2004 | Richard Benedetto

[Heff]

Majority supports Bush on terrorism

By Richard Benedetto, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Most Americans still approve of President Bush's leadership in the war on terrorism, even after a week of accusations that he failed to pay enough attention to intelligence warnings before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Although a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll finds that 53% believe the Bush administration is "covering up something" about its handling of intelligence before 9/11, 67% say it could not have prevented the attacks. But 54% say Bush still could have done more beforehand.

[Heff]

I never really post anything to breaking news, and move it if need be, but I think this is very strange.

USA Today changed this headline...orignally it was posted with a headline that made it appear that Bush's numbers were declining...in fact I think they used the word "decline". I emailed the editor and thought I had posted it here, but I can't find...but there was News Story earlier and now I can't find it! I think its very strange that they changed the Headline.

[wardaddy]

Anything Gannett and that sleazy blowhard Neuharth prints is bound to be Leftist and they will posture any news to that end.

[KQQL]

Poll: Bush credibility down (BS Title Alert)(Bush 51% Kerry 47%)
USA Today ^ | 3/29/2004 | Richard Benedetto


Posted on 03/29/2004 1:21:34 PM PST by icwhatudo

[Heff]

You nailed it...that was it. I wonder if they got a few more complaints? I just can't believe they changed the title of the story...or am I missing something? Thanks KQQL!

[kcvl]

Howard Fineman said the same thing on Chris Matthews tonight. I had already heard that President Bush was NOT down on Fox News before that. We must remember that Howard Fineman was ONE of the "reporters" who met with John Kerry in Al Franken's apartment. Anything he says should be ignored because his credibility has been compromised.

[Admin Moderator]

Please use the published heading only. Thanks.

[FairOpinion]

Link to earlier USA T article you mention:

Poll: Bush credibility down (BS Title Alert)(Bush 51% Kerry 47%)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1107393/posts

Now the USA T link from there goes to the article with the new title.

Perhaps the editors realized ( possibly after some e-mails?), how totally outrageous and deliberately misleading their title was, and finally changed it.

Well, at least they changed it!

[kcvl]

Activists Should Not Be Journalists
By: Bill O'Reilly for BillOReilly.com
Thursday, Mar 25, 2004

A few weeks ago in this space, I opined that partisan journalism was getting out of the control in America, and that ideological fanaticism was badly damaging journalistic standards because, in some cases, facts were being altered to fit the agendas of certain reporters and commentators. Now comes more disturbing news about the news.
According to an article in The New York Times Magazine, a non-publicized meeting was held in New York City early last December, attended by Senator John Kerry and a number of liberal leaning journalists including CNN's Jeff Greenfield, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, Richard Cohen of the Washington Post and Frank Rich of the aforementioned New York Times. (He left out Howard Fineman)

Now this pow-wow might have been just an innocent 'get to know you' soiree, but there are hints it might have been quite something else. One of the attendees, Jim Kelly, the managing editor of Time Magazine, was quoted as saying that Kerry was asked a number of times about his vote on Iraq and, according to Kelly, "by the third go-round the answer was getting shorter and more relevant."

The "third go-round?" That sounds like coaching to me but I could be wrong.

Maybe the Senator simply wasn't making himself clear. What I'm not wrong about is that more than a few so-called journalists have turned into "activists," people who are dedicating themselves to getting a certain party or person elected and are using their positions in the media to do it.

There is nothing wrong with news organizations endorsing a candidate or a columnist writing about his or her political preferences. But actively participating in political campaigns by coaching candidates and strategizing with them is absolutely against every journalistic standard, and it is happening, usually under the radar.

John Kerry invited me to his Nantucket home a couple of years ago, and I went over to chat with the Senator and meet his wife. Nice time. We both have deep New England roots, and that's what we talked about. I stayed away from politics, and so did he. Nothing wrong with a journalist getting a personal look at a Senator.

But let's face it, with the rise of entertainers like Rush Limbaugh and other radio talk show people who openly root for the Republicans, those on the left feel they are at a disadvantage. Thus, we now have that vacuum being filled by some opinion journalists who never met a left-wing cause they didn't espouse. Again, fanatical news analysts are allowed, even though they're boring. But crossing the line into actively helping a political campaign cannot be tolerated by any news operation.

The exposure of the liberal journalists who met with Kerry received scant attention from the media. Can you image if executives from The Fox News Channel, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Times had gathered at Camp David for a little slap and tickle with W? ...and nobody was told about it? And The New York Times found out about it? Can you say PAGE ONE BOLD FACE HEADLINE?

So, you, as a news consumer, should know that American journalism is becoming increasingly partisan, and that ideologues on both the right and the left have infiltrated the news business at very high levels. But remember this: passionate news analysis is one thing--abusing the public trust is quite something else.

[goldstategop]

John F. Seinfeld is sad, deeply saddened.

[Heff]

Not sure what you mean...should I have only posted the article headline and not ANY part of the story? Also, you took this from breaking news...understandably, but do you move it somewhere else?? Thanks

[jwalsh07]

Please use the published heading only. Thanks.

Tough to do that nowadays, they're spinning faster than dervishes.

[Admin Moderator]

True ;)

[FairOpinion]

IN fact, they rewrote the article, unfortunately neither the person who posted the earlier article, nor you posted the entire article, so we could do a paragraph to paragraph comparison. From the first few paragraphs it appears that they pulled the earlier article and rewrote it, at least parts of it.

As far as I know, we don't need to excerpt USA Today.

[FairOpinion]

Posted 3/29/2004 3:30 PM Updated 3/29/2004 11:11 PM

Majority supports Bush on terrorism
By Richard Benedetto, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Most Americans still approve of President Bush's leadership in the war on terrorism, even after a week of accusations that he failed to pay enough attention to intelligence warnings before the Sept. 11 attacks.
Although a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll finds that 53% believe the Bush administration is "covering up something" about its handling of intelligence before 9/11, 67% say it could not have prevented the attacks. But 54% say Bush still could have done more beforehand.

For the first time since mid-February, Bush leads Democrat John Kerry, 51%-47%. With independent Ralph Nader in the race, Bush leads 49%-45%, and Nader receives 4%.

The poll suggests that Bush's recent campaign ads, which say Kerry has a record of flip-flopping while serving in the Senate, are taking a toll.

Before the ads began running, 60% rated Kerry favorably and 26% unfavorably. Now, 53% view him favorably and 36% unfavorably. In "battleground" states where the ads have run — states where polls and historic trends indicate the race will be close — Kerry has gone from a 28-point lead to a six-point deficit.

"Bush seems to be having some success in selling the idea that Kerry's voting record in the Senate is all over the place," says Maurice Carroll, polling director at Quinnipiac University in Connecticut.

Stephanie Cutter, spokeswoman for the Kerry campaign, sees the poll another way. "What is surprising is that after $28 million in negative, misleading ads (by Bush), that the race is neck-and-neck," she says.

When the poll asked who would be more trustworthy in making a decision about sending U.S. troops to war, Bush beat Kerry, 52%-41%. That's a considerable shift from Feb. 1, when Kerry led 50%-45%.

Those polled were split on whether to believe Bush's former counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, who said last week in interviews, at a Capitol Hill hearing and in a just-released book that Bush mismanaged the use of intelligence before the Sept. 11 attacks and made poor decisions in the aftermath. Clarke said Bush was more interested in ousting Iraq's Saddam Hussein than battling al-Qaeda. The White House said it was fighting both al-Qaeda and Saddam.

The split — 44% believe Clarke and 46% back the Bush administration — is largely along party lines: 76% of Democrats side with Clarke, and 83% of Republicans with Bush.

"The media played up this story pretty good, and Bush and his people were pushed onto the defensive," says Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta. "It is appropriate in a democracy to have such open discussions. But the Democrats are in danger of overplaying their hand by looking like they are rooting for things to go wrong."

Bush has made his leadership in the war on terrorism the centerpiece of his campaign. Most still approve, but at 58%, that approval is the lowest since the Sept. 11 attacks. It is down seven percentage points from December and 28 points from its peak just after the attacks.

The president's overall job approval is up three points to 53%. Matthew Dowd, a Bush pollster and strategist, says that is a key measure. "No incumbent president with a job approval over 50% in March has lost re-election," he points out.

Bill Clinton was at 52% approval in March 1996 and won re-election. Bush's father was at 42% approval in March 1992 and lost. Ronald Reagan, who won a second term in 1984, was at 54% in March of that year.

Kerry pollster Mark Mellman says charges that Bush has not performed well in the war on terrorism are undermining confidence in his ability to carry the fight and will further erode over time.

"A lot of questions have been raised about his core issue," Mellman says.

Overall, 56% of those polled say it was worth going to war in Iraq, little change from the 55% who said that in early March. And 50% see Iraq as part of the war on terrorism, down from 57% last August.

[wardaddy]

Posting to Breaking News is what really bagged ya.

Some Mods don't care if you editorialize Headers in parenthesis but others do.

Oh well...Breaking News is really only for over-the-wire stuff and is abused here hourly at least..lol

Regards

[wardaddy]

Who was the last objective mainstream media man?

Eric Severeid maybe?

Chet Huntley?

[sam_whiskey]

I may get attacked for this...but Jim Lehrer has always seemed fairly objective to me...even though he works for PBS.

[banyanroot]

Yes, USA Today changed more than just the title. I tried to grab the original article from Google's cache but could only find it via Google's News search - so no cached page, just this:

Poll: Bush credibility down
USA Today - 10 hours ago
... last week with accusations that Bush minimized the al-Qaeda threat to focus on getting rid of Iraq's Saddam Hussein, according to a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll. ...

Does anyone know of any other search engine that caches web pages?

(Nice catch Heff!)

[KQQL]

Part of the reason for the shift is that a more equal number of Democrats and Republicans now say they are likely to vote this year. In earlier polls taken in the heat of the primary season, Democrats had expressed more enthusiasm about voting than Republicans, which buoyed Kerry's numbers among likely voters

----

YEA RIGHT ..GALLUP!!!!!!!!!

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/29/bush.kerry/

[LdSentinal]

Check out post #19.

Gallup is putting less sauce in their polls.