Posted on 09/16/2004 10:13:56 AM PDT by quidnunc
In case you’re wondering if the new definition of truth was limited to the New York Times, here’s the local headline: “Ex-Guard secretary: Bush memos are fake, but accurate”
The story in the paper says “Asked about her politics, she said she had never voted for Bush.”
That line does not appear in the online version. That piece says:
“She said she had never voted for Mr. Bush because she disliked his record in office.”
Relevant info? I paste and copy, you decide. In any case, the whole “fake but accurate” line shows how tone-deaf these people are; it’s like saying a body in a pine box is “dead but lifelike.” It boggles, it really does: the story is true, the evidence is faked, but the evidence reflects the evidence we have not yet presented that proves our conclusion — ergo, we’re telling the truth. They just can’t give it up; they just can’t say the memos were typed by the guy in the “Dude, you’re getting a Dell!” commercial and leave it be, because that that puts the knife in the story regardless of what happened. So they keep going.
They’re not alone. Again, from the Times, a quote from the lawyer re: the fellow who, it seems likely, may have forged the docs, or passed them along.
Asked what role Mr. Burkett had in raising questions about Mr. Bush’s military service, Mr. Van Os said: “If, hypothetically, Bill Burkett or anyone else, any other individual, had prepared or had typed on a word processor as some of the journalists are presuming, without much evidence, if someone in the year 2004 had prepared on a word processor replicas of documents that they believed had existed in 1972 or 1973 … what difference would it make?”
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at lileks.com ...
It's right up there with the most absurd things we heard from Clinton, like, "It depends on the meaning of 'is.'"
We certainly live in a target-rich environment these days.
Rush just quoted some other diddys of the 86 yr old secretary. Seems she admitted to being a democrat and stated that Bush was selected not elected.... you know the drill. In other words, she's yet another partisan democrat hack (who happens to be elderly).
"Someone needs to do a Flash animation to that beat. Rather Rather Rather Rather Rather Rather Rather Rather Rather Rather Rather BURKETT! BURKETT! Rather Rather Rather Rather Rather Rather Rather Rather Rather Rather Rather FAAAKE! IT’S A FAKE! IT’S A FAAAAKE
You have the time? Put on your pajamas and get to it, then. "
me likes. :)
Imagine for a moment that we are back in the summer of 1998 at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. A reputable news icon comes out with a story of new evidence that includes a stained blue dress obtained from unimpeachable sources who claim it belonged to Ms. Lewinsky. The news station stands behind its story that implicates the President in a lurid scandal and everyone believes it to be true because it was reported by the network news.
After much investigation, it is determined that the stain on the dress does not contain human DNA and is believed to be mayonnaise. Still the network and its famous newscaster stand behind their story because it was based on more than just the dress. Their experts had concluded that the dress was indeed a dress and did in fact have a stain. They insist the President must answer to the facts of their story even though it relied on discredited evidence and the testimony of people who are known to be working to get the President removed from office.
The other major networks and newspapers question the validity of using phony evidence yet give their competitor the benefit of a doubt that they just made an error in judgment when they aired the story. The story is debated but none of the major journalists is willing to call it a scandal that was engineered by the opposition party or that there was any hint of complicity.
Should the President be expected to answer to accusations made in this story using faked evidence? Should this network and their once reputable newscaster apologize or should we just pretend that the dress doesn’t matter and assume that the story was based on truth? Is the rest of the media just being impartial?
Now let’s assume that this was the middle of a reelection campaign and the dress was traced back to a fundraiser for the other party’s candidate. The opposition party produces an ad campaign based on the story and refuses to condemn the reporting of the story using faked evidence.
Is this a scandal yet or just another case of nasty politics as usual? Would anyone believe the ludicrous claim that the story was factual even though the dress was a fake? Would anyone believe the story if another dress were to be produced as evidence?
This story is just fiction. We all know what really happened in the summer of 1998. The question is why should we accept this as just nasty politics and not a political scandal that would dwarf Watergate?
Jayson Blair?
We've been focused on them, as well. The difference is that what CBS did was so egregious, and so easily disproven, that it's become a huger deal.
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