Nope ... no doctors here ...
Posted on 08/18/2004 3:53:11 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
"WHERE HAVE ALL THE READERS GONE?" headlined the August edition of Washingtonian magazine's Post-watch page, in reporting that the Washington Post's average daily circulation has – in just one year – dropped 23,814 – or 64 losses per day.
"We can guess. We can speculate. We can estimate," said Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie, who did not deny circulation was dropping. Newspaper analyst John Morton noted: "Theoretically, this is the best newspaper market in the country. It's surprising that the Post is losing ground like this." The Post, now down to 772,553 daily, is this nation's fifth largest.
Washingtonian magazine notes: "The Washington area is booming with college graduates ... The Post's internal surveys say readers want more local news and more positive coverage of the news, sources say."
Not only the Post's editorialized reporting, but its notorious editorial page are cause for public concern and circulation loss.
On Aug. 12, a Post editorial headlined "Swift Boat Smears" attempted to defame 12 of John Kerry's fellow SWIFT-boat veterans, who appeared in a devastating one-minute commercial produced by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
The fact that 254 of Kerry's fellow naval officers and crewmen in SWIFT boats substantiated charges in this one-minute spot is not mentioned in the Post editorial.
Neither is the new book "Unfit for Command," the meticulously documented outline of Kerry in SWIFT boats and how he returned home early and maligned his U.S. comrades in Vietnam before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
This is written by Naval Academy graduate John O'Neill, who took over Kerry's SWIFT boat – and who debated Kerry just after Kerry's malediction of his Vietnam comrades, Kerry's tossing his medals and ribbons over the fence, and Kerry's appearing with "Hanoi Jane" Fonda.
Why was this book, by O'Neill and Harvard Ph.D. Jerome Corsi, unmentioned in this Post editorial on alleged "smears"?
Possibly for the same reason that this one-minute TV spot (available on the Human Events website) also provoked such ferocity in a legally threatening letter to TV stations.
Lawyers for the Democratic National Committee and the Kerry-Edwards Campaign, Marc Elias and Joseph Sandler of Washington, D.C., wrote that some of the statements in this one-minute spot are "demonstrably and unequivocally false and libelous."
This letter also charges:
One statement by a man pretending to be the doctor who treated Sen. Kerry for one of his injuries ... the man pretending to be his doctor was not. The entire advertisement, therefore, is an inflammatory, outrageous lie ... Further, the "doctor" who appears in the ad, Louis Letson, was not a crewmate of Sen. Kerry's and was not the physician who actually signed Sen. Kerry's sick call sheet. In fact, another physician actually signed Sen. Kerry's sick call sheet.
Was it really another physician? Or was it actually signed by Hospitalman First Class J.C. Carreon – who was assigned to Dr. Letson?
Were there any SWIFT boats in the entire U.S. Navy which had any doctors as crewmates? (Did JFK have a doctor as a "crewmate" on PT109?)
Since Kerry's wound consisted of a grenade fragment one-half of an inch long and the width of a toothpick, which was removed by Dr. Letson using tweezers and then covered by a Band-Aid – with no need for sutures – why was there anything wrong with this notably minor and instant medical treatment report to be signed by Dr. Letson's assistant?
These two Democrat lawyers also charge in writing: "The advertisement contains statements by men who purport to have served on Kerry's boat." They said they served with him – which they did, in the SWIFT boat program in Vietnam.
How many of the Big Media networks, daily newspapers or newsmagazines have featured Dr. Letson, who was my WCBM Baltimore radio guest on Aug. 10?
He is retired after three decades of medical practice in Scottsboro, Ala. I was deeply impressed with the sincerity and courtesy of this man who responded, without hesitation, to my questions and those of more than a dozen callers – two of them critical in the one hour he was my guest.
Sen. John Edwards, whose statement opens the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad, said: "If you have any questions about what John Kerry's made of, just spend three minutes with men who served with him."
I spent 55 minutes with Kerry's Navy doctor in Vietnam, who the Democrat lawyers have – quite desperately – tried to smear, as has the Democrat-dominated Washington Post.
In the new book "Unfit for Command," which was commended by the Washington Post's nationally syndicated columnist Robert Novak, the authors quote at length Dr. Louis Letson, who they report treated Kerry after the incident. "It did not require any sutures to close the wound," Letson says. "The wound was covered with a Band-Aid. No other injuries were reported and I do not recall that there was any injury to the boat ... I remember that Jess Carreon was present at the time and he, in fact, made the entry into Lt. Kerry's medical record."
A footnote to this quotation states: "Kerry's campaign has tried to deny Dr. Letson's treatment of Kerry by pointing to the different signature on Kerry's medical report. The report was signed by the corpsman assigned to Dr. Letson, Jess Carreon, now deceased, according to U.S. Navy records."
They hand out a free mini-Washington Post at some metro stops every weekday, and have been doing it for months. That probably has a lot to do with the decline. It also has a lot to do with the increase in litter on our metro. Thanks, Washington Post (and slobs)!
Don't have the stats off hand.
I remember reading this rag when I was younger when I lived with my parents in PA. The newspaper sucked then (I only read it for the Comics anyway) and it really sucks now.
And it wasn't filled with college graduates before?
"Booming with college graduates"
Exploding college graduates?
Homicide college graduate bombers?
2nd problem is the anti-military stance. In case no one notice, the Pentagon is in DC along with numerous other military commands. The military, and its contractors, are the largest employer in DC (except maybe the World Bank / IMF - don't get me started). A pronounced tilt against the military is not going to win friends.
The 3rd problem is that the editorial pages and editorials that they call articles are such biased liberal hit-pieces that they are devoid of useful factual content.
The 4th problem is that the feral gubmint reporting is all about Georgetown parties held by rich socialites. I mean who cares. They may throw a mean party, but that is NOT where the work of the federal government gets done. For those familiar with the blogger Washingtonienne, the compost looks down their noses at her, but they are NO better. She dealt with the scandals on the staff level. The compost keeps it to the political socialite level and leaves out the titillating tid-bits, meaning there is even less factual content.
5th they - seriously - ran an add campaign plastered on all of the buses for the Post.com. It was too easy and the compost inversion stuck.
6th - the Washington Post is run by a bunch of irrelevant liberal hacks. They don't get it. Rabid dog liberalism is so so 20th century. You should hear my 14 year-old sons' friends discussion about liberals. You would think they thought they all came from another planet.
I'm pleased to see that someone over there is getting worried. I get the Times now, of course.
This is why I read the Washington times. The Post HOLE is an un-American newspaper. that is my feeling and I don't care what the rats think. God Bless America and all our people in uniform.
I lived in the DC metro area for more than ten years. I could read every story that interested me in the Washingon Times in about ten minutes. I could spend at least an hour with the Washington Post. I still read it online most every day. There is no more disputing that is a great paper than disputing that it is a liberal shill, but they do have about the most comprehensive paper outside of the NYSlimes, which I also read every day on the net. Both are liberal shills and the Slimes is far worse. The Post panders to the DC minority communities more than does the Slimes in NY. Remember the old saying, hold your friends close but hold your enemies closer.
Nope ... no doctors here ...
The day after the 9/11 terrorist attacks the question on every person's mind was: where and when will the terrorists attack next. As President and commander in chief, The United States has not suffered another terrorist attack.
That resoundingly confirms George Bush's qualification to be President.
What does John Kerry's military record show? Let those records show how qualified he is for the job.
My reason is simple... The internet and 24 hours news networks have made papers obsolete. I realized about 5 years ago that all the news I was reading in the papers I had already gotten "as it happened" on the internet and the cable news networks and it got so I barely even read the papers most of the time.
You are right about the 24 hour news cycle making daily papers obselete. The only paper worth getting is a local one that has news of local interest and sales fliers and coupons you can use locally. But I hardly even read that.
Does the Post include a barf bag when bought at the newstand?
I hope that memory isn't seared -- seared -- into you.
The Pentagon is near but not in D.C. proper. I guess the two were interchangeable at the time. There is a watery border, though. :=)
Proudly canceled my subscription about 6 months ago. When they called to ask me why, I told them that I expect to read editorials on the editorial page, but not in the feature articles, style articles, or the comics. I got a "un-huh" and the dude hung up.
I cancelled the local paper & USA today about a year ago. I had quite reading them quite a while before that, except for the sports pages. Finally I quit altogether since the internet is a much deeper source of sports news also. The other sections of the paper I care about are also exceeded by internet sources. It's just so much better on the internet. Easier, and I can go fetch old articles much faster if I need them. The only think I pay for out of pocket now is the WSJ online edition.
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