IT'S KLYMER KLIMBAUGH READING THE NY SLIMES PREPARING FOR HIS NEXT SHOW/ATTACK AGAINST PRESIDENT BUSH!
KLYMER KLIMBAUGH LOVES WORKING FOR THE RATS, THE NY SLIMES AND APPEALING TO THE THIRD PARTY LOSERS.
Posted on 06/05/2002 7:49:08 AM PDT by Pokey78
Is the two-day global warming controversy an example of Raines Power -- the ability of the new populist, activist, bigfooting editor of the NYT to singlehandedly shape the national debate? That's what Andrew Sullivan suggests:
A reporter finds some tiny and insignificant change in the wording of administration policy, and Raines puts it on his front page. Drudge takes the bait and Rush follows.
Sullivan's on to something, I suspect. The original NYT story, written by Andrew Revkin, does have a lot of artificial story-heightening language ("stark shift ...sharp contrast") seemingly designed to justify front-page placement -- including this prize-winning attempt to manufacture confrontation from ambiguity:
Despite arguments by oil industry groups that the evidence is not yet clear, the report unambiguously states that humans are the likely cause of most of the recent warming
If it's only "likely," then the evidence isn't really unambiguous, is it? (Actually, the report said "likely mostly"!) ... Two qualifications to Sullivan's Raines theory:
1) Signs suggest it wasn't a lone reporter finding some tiny and insignificant change in the wording of a report, but rather a tacitly coordinated campaign by enviros to embarrass the Bush administration with the report of its own EPA. The smoking gun for this theory? The NYT ran an editorial on the global warming report the same day as Revkin's news story. Normally, when a lone reporter gets a scoop, he doesn't call up the editorial page to let them steal some of his glory. Rather, once the story is out, the ed page follows a day or two later. In this case, everyone in the enviro community apparently knew the report was due, including the NYT ed board.
2) The main (likely!) bogus, aspect of Revkin's story -- a selling point that helped get it on the front page and that sold it to Drudge -- was the idea that the EPA's report represented some sort of deliberate attempt by Bush to go a bit green to enhance his political appeal. Revkin offers basically no evidence of this, aside from his own speculation that
The distancing could be an effort to rebuild Mr. Bush's environmental credentials after a bruising stretch of defeats on stances that favor energy production over conservation, notably the failure to win a Senate vote opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to exploratory oil drilling.
Indeed, it's hard to believe that Revkin didn't know this "green shift" angle was phony (as Bush now says it is). Revkin himself noted that the report proposes no change in policy and has "alienated environmentalists." Plus a "senior administration official involved in climate policy played down the significance of the report" to Revkin himself. When the Bush administration wants to make a deliberate credential-burnishing shift to the left or the right, they leak it to the Times, but also call a press conference and maybe stage an event to get the word out. They don't quietly put a report on the Web and then, when the Times calls, pooh-pooh it. ... So why is the bogus angle in there? It's just as likely to be Raines bigfooting -- exhibiting the I-instinctively-know-what's-really-going-on-so-stick-this-in-your-piece arrogance described in Ken Auletta's New Yorker profile. Or it could be a reporter doing what he had to do to get his story on Page A-1. The least likely possibility is that Raines, pursuing a liberal environmentalist agenda, stuck in the bogus angle in order to get the story on the front page (where it could enrage Limbaugh, etc.) Raines didn't need a phony angle to put the piece on the front page -- he could have stuck it there anyway. He's editor of the paper! And a more accurate angle of "Bush's own EPA contradicts his global warming position" would be just as anti-Bush, and more in keeping with the goal of enviro activists, than a piece giving Bush points for having deliberately shifted in a green direction when he hasn't. ...
P.S.: If the Times really is going to use the A1-to-Drudge-to-Limbaugh megaphone in an attempt to actually influence administration policy, it may find itself running into the Dowd Effect, which is George W. Bush's instinctive tendency to react against any idea suggested by the libs at the NYT. The effect is familiar to Mary Matalin, whose favorable mention in a Dowd column hurt her standing in the White House In this case, if Bush was ever going to embrace the E.P.A. report, he isn't going to now. ... Of course, that may mean the Times story was a bit of fiendishly clever reverse psychology on Raines' part to maneuver the President into un-burnishing his environmental credentials. But I doubt it. And a real enviro would want Bush to actually embrace the conclusion that humans are causing global warming. That would shift the baseline of the debate and raise more powerfully the question, "what are you going to do about it?"
P.P. S.: If you are looking for something to do about it (that doesn't involve embracing the onerous Kyoto Protocol), Gregg Easterbrook lays out an effective, do-able, non-Kyoto agenda in this excellent New Republic piece.
Good policy!
that may mean the Times story was a bit of fiendishly clever reverse psychology on Raines' part to maneuver the President into un-burnishing his environmental credentials. But I doubt it.
You and me both, pal.
As the author notes, the NY Times really made Limbaugh look like a fool. The fact that he would buy the spin that Raines put on the story so utterly and completely has got to be embarrassing for him.
This article was an excellent look at the motivations of the Raines and the Times and was a great read.
Achieved through the repeated, vigorous application of Scotch to the affected area.
IT'S KLYMER KLIMBAUGH READING THE NY SLIMES PREPARING FOR HIS NEXT SHOW/ATTACK AGAINST PRESIDENT BUSH!
KLYMER KLIMBAUGH LOVES WORKING FOR THE RATS, THE NY SLIMES AND APPEALING TO THE THIRD PARTY LOSERS.
But, of course, what do I know. I'm just a Bush Bot!
Heaven knows I have bashed GWB for enough things, but this particular one seemed much less substantive than the others. GWB is right on this one, Drudge and Rush are in the penalty box.
And so did many Freepers. Just goes to show that we should NEVER depend on the media to form our opinions. The report was posted on FR for review, but some on here preferred to pile on with Rush and Drudge rather than do their homework until Sullivan saved the day by ACTUALLY reading the danged thing! God Bless Andrew Sullivan!
He refuses to allow the KKKKKKers starting with Kristol and Kagan when they set up a hangman's noose on some phoney life or death so called conservative issue. GW refuses to walk up and stick his neck into the noose and say, drop the boards to prove what a good conservative I am. He did this with CFR, this non issue and many other non issues.
This drives the phoney conservatives who hate GW into absolute manic hysteria. They scream and shout and warn how he is losing his core (more on the rotten core later) and make utter fools out of themselves like Rush did on this issue this Monday.
Kristol, the lead Rat/mole has for decades lured republicans into sticking their neck into one of his hand tied hangman nooses and then dropping the platform under them. He has shortened the political careers of many Republicans who were foolish enough to listen to him re what stances to take.
GW has on purpose isolated himself from the Beltway pseudo elites of the conservatives, their even phonier peers in NY City and others who hate him and Republicans. These Klassless Klowns are so far out of GW's decision loop, they are in another solar system.
Many like me said without reading the article or the report shouted the warning that no real conservative will ever use an oped written by the Slimes or any other maggot infested left wing fish wrap.
What the NY Slimes did here as Sullivan pointed out, has been done by them for most of the last century. They create the news with their lies via opeds and editorials. Then, the rest of the mediot rats scurry over and pick up the poison and spread it as gospel.
Now Klimer Klimbaugh is more than willing to spread their Bravo Sierra without checking it out in his 24/7 attacks on GW.
What connection do the third party losers have re their quick response to this Bravo Sierra Lies of the Slimes. Are they part of the package? Do their so called think tanks get emails ahead of the printing of these opeds to call in their rabid mongrels to post and go nuts on Free Republic and other sites?
Like what I heard in the first 20 minutes of his show this morning on the way in to work. He played a clip of Tom Brokaw's news program last night in which Brokaw gives his entirely false — deliberately false — take on the president's comments yesterday about the EPA global warming report. According to Brokaw (delivered with a snide tone and increasingly heavy lisp), the president did a 180-degree turn from previous policies in issuing the report, then did another about face in dismissing the report yesterday. This was the "news" Brokaw was "reporting": that the president made two 180-degree turns in less than 24 hours. Brokaw went on to slyly mention that Limbaugh and other "conservative" talk show hosts had excoriated the president for the report and implied that their supposed increasing anger was the reason for the president's "second" about face. Limbaugh, of course, played this clip solely because his own name was mentioned, and for no other reason.
All sounds so grave; so indicative of a president being whipsawed around and controled by those dastardly "right-wing conservatives"; so threatening to the president's re-election chances — which is why the Brokaws of the world so gleefully report "conservative" angst over the president's policies. There is just one teensy weensy problem with the entire premise of the story — it is completely false.
The EPA does what it's supposed to do, which is muck around with environmental studies and policy, and issue various and sundry reports. The information contained within its reports is not something created by ANY president, nor has this president changed his global warming policies one iota. He essentially said so yesterday when, IN RESPONSE TO A QUESTION FROM A REPORTER, he dismissed it out of hand. The whole range of media whores from "serious" types like Brokaw to entertainers like Limbaugh know the truth, but it doesn't stop them from spinning all sorts of drama out of nothing. Happens every day — not just in the political realm nor just to famous people. Sadly, whether you are just some poor soul caught up in the latest media stampede, or a rich and famous celebrity, or the president of the United States, there is virtually nothing that can be done about media lies. Somewhere along the way, our libel laws were so drastically weakened as to essentially eliminate any check on media power.
Actually, what Limbaugh and everyone else in the broadcast media love to do is gin up ratings anyway they can. If that means destroying a good president in the long run so they can have short-term gain, their attitude seems to be, "So what!" In Limbaugh's case, he already makes gigantic bucks and could walk away never having to work again in his life. I think most of what he does on his show these days is ego-driven.
All sounds so grave; so indicative of a president being whipsawed around and controled by those dastardly "right-wing conservatives"; so threatening to the president's re-election chances — which is why the Brokaws of the world so gleefully report "conservative" angst over the president's policies. There is just one teensy weensy problem with the entire premise of the story — it is completely false.
Great analysis of what happened and is happening re this completely falsehood so shamelessly pushed by Rush.
The one gigantic difference between the media and other for-profit businesses in this country is that freedom of the press is enshrined in our Bill of Rights. Over the course of 226 years, this has been interpreted in such a way as to essentially remove ANY check on media excess. So they can and do lie, manipulate, cheat, and otherwise screw anyone they please with near total impunity. They don't have to reveal their sources, so reporters can even make those up and/or put words into the mouths of unsuspecting or nonexistent people!
We have only the media's collective word that it makes every attempt at being accurate, honest and unbiased. Yet, although there is a mountain of evidence to contradict such assertions, most consumers of news still tend to accept what is reported as irrefutable fact. There is nearly universal, instantaneous, unquestioning acceptance of anything printed in a newspaper or heard in broadcast news-related programming. Name any — ANY — other business on the face of the earth whose product receives so little skepticism. Name any other business or organization which is virtually immune from lawsuits due to damage caused by their product.
As I said, tilting at windmills, but I wish more people would learn to aviod snap judgements and let a news story play out for a few days before forming an opinion on the subject. Particularly in these dangerous times, our nation will be much better off.
Please keep it up with your on target analysis!
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