Global warming - watch it happen from the comfort of your home:
A story this week that hasn't hit the American press is about the transformation of the ecosystem along the coast of Scotland and adjacent areas. Warmer ocean water (up 2C in 20 years) cause plankton to move north, the fish that feed on them move as well, and the birds that normally fed on the fish are left with nothing to eat. This is a harbinger of things to come.
If the president's approval numbers fall in the woods ...
We took a look at Newsweek's just-out post-convention poll, and it looks bad for Bush.
Highlights:
BUSH in March
BUSH
KERRY
trust more with handling the situation in Iraq
15 point lead
46
46
prefer to handle terror and homeland security
21 point lead
48
43
trusted “to make the right decisions during an international crisis”
48
53
A couple of questions.
If Bush lost a up to 20% on issues of national security and foreign policy over the last four months, why didn't it manifest itself in some sort of public phenomenon? Stuff like protest marches, e-mails*, posters, bumper-sticker, etc. Or is this a "silent shift" of some sort?
Will somebody from the press please interview that 7% of independents who say they support Nader? What in the world is going on in their heads?
* - We're sure that at some point in time, e-mail service providers (like Google's g-mail) will have a treasure trove of data that will be useful to politicians - not just marketers.
We watched the Tucker Carlson show, "Unfiltered" last night. He is transparently bad. We get the feeling that in this new forum he has - which allows him free reign - he uses his techniques too crudely and frequently - not having the restraints (such as they are) of the CNN programs he usually appears on.
In an interview with Al Sharpton, the discussion got to the point where Sharpton asserted that:
The Iraq war was unjustified.
He (Sharpton) supported the soldiers that went to Iraq and risked their lives; in once case he presided over the funeral of one that died.
Clearly, there are two distinct things Sharpton was opining on (national political issues and individual duty to country). But Tucker conflated them. Wearing his Boy Scout face, Carlson said:
"So it's the duty of Americans to serve and fight in unjust wars."
"Your point seems to be, whether or not the war was a good idea, all Americans have a moral obligation to support their Commander in Chief."
Implying that Sharpton supports (or should support) unjust wars and president Bush.
Anybody can play that game. Take, for instance, a conservative that opposes bilingual education but also admires a teacher he knows personally. The Tucker-like attack would be on the order of, "So, you support teachers that are mis-educating our children."
It's so high school.
At the end of the interview, Carlson hurled this at Sharpton:
"So now the Democratic party is now, kind of like the straight-laced, mortgage-paying, conventional-sex life party?"
Which is not what the Democrats are, nor what they are portraying themselves as - at least not the "straight-laced" and "conventional-sex-life" part. Democrats have a libertarian view on personal behavior. Carlson was slipping in a subtle reference to the gay-friendly stance of Democrats by claiming the opposite.
Sharpton, cleverly picking up on a weak point in Carlson's jab, replied:
"Well you know after Clinton gave us so much surplus money and income, we've got to worry about mortgages. We never had to worry about them with Democrats - I mean Republicans, because we didn't have homes."
Carlson, seeing that he was bested on that one, responded with:
We have been receiving complaints about the formatting of this weblog. Users of MS Internet Explorer and Mozilla say that text is rendered in wide lines - requiring scrolling back and forth.
Due to our posting of diagrams, we modified our Template. We will re-examine the HTML, but what should happen is this:
If there is a wide diagram somewhere within the page, then the browser takes that diagram's width and applies it when rendering text for all posts (not just the one with the diagram). For example, in a post below we have a diagram (bar chart) that is 750 pixels wide. Add a few pixels for padding and what happens is, if your browser/display is smaller than, say, 760 pixels in width, text may be hidden to the right (requiring scrolling).
If there is no diagram, then all text should be constrained to the dimensions of the browser window.
NOTE: We try our best to reduce the size of the diagrams, but can't go too small or the text becomes unreadable.
We will re-examine our Template HTML and see if there is a bug or if this problem can be eliminated.
At this point in time we think events over the past months and years have begun to take on the dimensions that allow us to see how history will regard Bush's term as president. This is an exercise in prognostication - always fallible - but what the heck? Here are our thoughts:
The Iraq war will be seen as a footnote to history. At least so far, it hasn't resulted in much good or bad from the perspective of the United States. (When we say bad, we mean sunken warships, massacres of troops, wholesale rioting in Iraq.)
Bush will be blamed for ignoring warnings that lead up to the attacks on 9/11. Eight months in office is enough time to be responsible for defending the country. The datum: Most killed in an attack on the U.S. - is part of Bush's legacy and he knows it.
Politically, Bush was beginning to lose his edge at the start of 2004 but he took a huge hit around April. That was when we were hearing about Abu Ghraib, Richard Clarke's book and testimony, the public 9/11 hearings, and the high troop casualty count that month. There were two issues that fed on each other: incompetence (Iraq/WMD/Abu Ghraib) and incompetence (9/11). Why have Bush's polls on Fighting Terrorism gone down? It's not because the Iraq adventure isn't working out perfectly. It's because the poor planning and leadership demonstrated in Iraq has lead to a revised assessment of Bush's performance around 9/11.
You've got to admire the droll humor in this Reuters lead paragraph:
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Reuters) - After launching two wars, President Bush said on Tuesday he wanted to be a "peace president" and took swipes at his Democratic rivals for being lawyers and weak on defense.
We also read that Bush said "The next four years will be peaceful years". How does he know?
Now that we've examined the film in detail (post below) we're free to discuss the merits of the film. Basically, it provides people something to point to when discussing Fox's bias, non-journalism, and overall tone. Because the film consists of may clips from the channel (instead of pundits grousing), it's a database of Fox's misbehavior.
We think the film was very carefully constructed. For about the first three-quarters of the movie, it portrays Fox News as failing all sorts of journalistic norms, guided by a conservative ideology that just happens to dovetail neatly with Republican politics. But that's putting the cart before the horse. The top node - as the movie points out - is partisanship. From that all else flows: The various Techniques, the pro-war stance, flattering coverage of Bush and hostile coverage of Kerry.
At least that's how it impressed us. By bringing up the partisan issue late in the film, the viewer is finally given a clear explanation of the prime motivator for FNC. Sure, good ratings are nice, but don't forget that Fox didn't get big numbers for a while after starting up in 1996. Like the Weekly Standard and the New York Post, Fox News Channel is primarily designed to promote a Republican agenda.
While we didn't manage to attend any of the moveon.org events this Sunday, we did have a copy of the film and watched it at about the same time everybody else did. Overall, we think it was pretty good. The high point of the film was at the 50 minute mark. Up until then one is treated to all sorts of examples of Fox Techniques - but as with anything, selective editing can make any enterprise look bad, so you have to trust that the filmmaker has integrity. Does Fox mislead their audience? Yes. That's driven home when the results of a poll are shown. In a way, it doesn't matter about the details of the Techniques, if they are deliberate, or what the agenda is at Fox. The fact is that Fox viewers believe in things that aren't true. Important things like WMDs, world opinion, Iraq - al Qaeda links.
A minor nit: We think there was a bit too much of O'Reilly at the expense of Fox's "news", but that's a matter of taste. (Also, our videotape did not appear to have closed-captioning.) For those interested, we've broken down the film into broad categories and listed the information in a table and a graphic.
time
topic
elapsed
00:00:00
Misc intro
00:01:20
00:01:20
Murdoch owns vast media enterprise
00:02:00
00:03:20
Start operation in U.S. (1980's)
00:02:10
00:05:30
Fox News Network starts in 1996
00:05:45
00:06:40
Employees monitored, fearful
00:04:35
00:11:15
Techniques: cut off guest
00:01:05
00:12:20
O'Reilly "shut up"
00:01:00
00:13:20
Techniques: Polling, Graphics, Music American flag prominent
00:02:10
00:15:30
Techniques: News/Commentary, Ad Libs Blur distinction btw news & comment
00:02:30
00:18:00
Techniques: "some people say" A way to slip in opinion
00:01:30
00:19:30
Techniques: Experts Conservatives: big names, professional Liberals: obscure, weak
00:02:20
00:21:50
Techniques: Character assassination Richard Clarke
00:03:05
00:24:55
Techniques: Fox Liberals Colmes, Estrich, don't challenge forcefully
00:02:00
00:26:55
Techniques: Guests FAIR analysis of Special Report w/Hume 5 times as many Republicans compared to Democrats
00:01:25
00:28:20
Techniques: Stories covered Jesse Jackson, immigration, 2000 election, Reagan's birthday, abortion, gays, church J. Wolcott: gay marriage not getting traction so FNC focused on religion
00:06:40
00:35:00
O'Reilly "shut up" P. Hart (media anal for FAIR): "Perfect example of everything wrong with FNC" Jeremy Glick interview
00:07:30
00:42:30
Fear / Build up to war anti-war = "enemies of state", "traitors"
00:04:15
00:46:45
If you aren't expecting propaganda, then it's more effective
00:00:15
00:47:00
Happy Iran
00:02:10
00:49:10
Poll results Fox viewers were 4x more likely to be wrong on 3 basic issues: WMD found: 33% (Fox), 11% (PBS/NPR) Global support of war: 35% (Fox), 5% (PBS/NPR) Iraq – al Qaeda links: 67% (Fox), 16% (PBS/NPR)
00:01:35
00:50:45
Partisan : adjunct of Republican party
00:01:00
00:51:45
Carl Cameron interviews Bush in 2000, his wife was campaigning for Bush
00:01:35
00:53:20
Fox called 2000 election, John Ellis (Bush cousin), networks followed, Ailes apologises
In the New York Post, John Podhoretz pens an essay entitled "CHENEY WAS RIGHT". He claims the recent Senate Intelligence Committee report and the Butler report exonerate Bush and Blair. In it we read: (excerpts)
... both reports agree that Iraq was trying to figure out ways to acquire yellowcake uranium from Africa.
Now let's flash back, shall we, to a speech many now consider notorious. That was Vice President Dick Cheney's address on the Iraqi threat on Aug. 26, 2002, which was the opening salvo in the Bush administration's relentless case for removing Saddam from power.
"We know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons," Cheney said — words that caused bloggers on the left and others to demand Cheney's resignation last year.
Well, Cheney's argument has now been validated by the findings of both the Senate Intelligence Committee and the British report.
We think the issue of Iraq and yellowcake is still debatable. But let's pass that up for now. What else did Cheney say? From the White House transcript of the August speech:
The Iraqi regime has in fact been very busy enhancing its capabilities in the field of chemical and biological agents.
What he wants is time and more time to husband his resources, to invest in his ongoing chemical and biological weapons programs ...
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
In the statements listed above, pace Podhoretz, Cheney was wrong.
Salon.com has an article about the hunt for Bush's Air National Guard service records. Great. We'd like to see all of them too. But in the story, we read: (emphasis added)
The missing month of July is important because that is when Bush skipped his flight physical and lost his clearance to fly fighter jets. He was scheduled to show up in Texas for a checkup no later than his birthday, July 6. Spokesman Bartlett has said that Bush did not report for his physical because he had made a decision he was "no longer flying" and because he was doing his duty in Alabama in a "non-flying capacity." Even a cursory examination of pay records for July 1972 would show whether that is true.
Really? A guardsman can decide for himself that he's no longer flying?
Again, while finding out what happened in Alabama is helpful (and getting the Board of Inquiry report would be even better) isn't it enough that Bush took it upon himself to decide how not to serve?
The vote was 48-50, 12 short of the 60 needed to keep the measure alive. Six Republicans joined dozens of Democrats in sealing the amendment's fate.
In all, 45 Republicans and three Democrats voted to keep the measure alive. Six Republicans joined 43 Democrats and one independent in opposition.
But the identity of the three Democrats and six Republicans was not reported in the story. So, off to the Senate website where we get the roll-call vote. Democrats voting yes (considered a pro-amendment vote):
TECHNICAL GEEK NOTE: It appears that the URL for the Senate must include the www prefix (e.g. http://www.senate.gov). Typing in http://senate.gov results in a failure to connect. C'mon guys, reconfigure your server!
Twelve minutes into his three hour radio program this Wednesday, Sean Hannity was discussing the speaker list for the Democratic convention. Too many liberals, was Hannity's complaint. Then he said: (sorry, no audio clip; quoting from memory, emphasis added)
Is there any room for Zell Miller?
Oh, that's right, he'll be speaking at our convention.
There you have it. Hannity explicitly states that he's a Republican, and by extention, his show is Republican-radio.
21 mentions of "terror" or "terrorists" 3 mentions of "violence" or "violent" 4 mentions of "kill" 6 mentions of "peace"
That's a high scare-words to sentences ratio, especially when you consider that 1/3 of the speech was introductory thanks to the hosts. (Also many sentences were short. E.g these two: "I married a fabulous woman. She is a great First Lady.")
"Senator Kerry and Senator Edwards are criticizing the president for looking at the same information they did and coming to the same conclusion they did," Mr. Cheney said in Harrisburg, noting that they had voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq. "The president made the right decision, and John Kerry is simply trying to rewrite history for his own political purposes."
It's our understanding that the classified NIE - which contained qualifiers, caveats, and reservations - was only seen by a select few Senators (e.g. Graham, Roberts) and that most member of congress, including Kerry and Edwards, were given the assertive, declassified NIE.
If that's true, Cheney's claim that Kerry and Bush were "looking at the same information" is incorrect.
We were surprised at the White House's reaction to the Senate Intelligence Committee report. That report appears at first glance to exonerate the administration. It's the CIA's fault, don't you know. (Let's ignore for now the fact that caveats and reservations were present in clsssified reports the White House was privy to.) So Bush is off the hook.
But that's not a good excuse. Why? Because the attacks of 9/11 demonstrated a massive intelligence failure and from that point on it was the executive branch's responsibility to insure the CIA produce better analysis. Better, more accurate analysis. Not skewed either way - (neither more alarmist nor more optimistic).
In the aftermath of 9/11, the administration claimed that they were new on the job and had "only" eight months to get up to speed. We thought that was hardly an excuse, but putting that aside, after 9/11 the Bush administration was responsible for insuring the intelligence was better - especially in the case of an elective war.
Has the public picked up on this? Does Bush know he's responsible for the post-9/11 CIA? Have the press and pundits come to that conclusion?
Something is happening, that's for sure.
ADDENDUM: We've always thought the expression "It happened on his watch" to be glib and skirt over complexities, but in the case of the bad-CIA-intel-about-Iraq it seems apt.
Ladies and gentlemen, keep your eyes on the unclassified report. Ignore the one the Bush administration had access to. Now go back to whatever you were doing.
In the Los Angeles Times we read: (emphasis added)
In a classified National Intelligence Estimate prepared before the Iraq war, the CIA hedged its judgments about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction, pointing up the limits of its knowledge.
But in the unclassified version of the NIE — the so-called white paper cited by the Bush administration in making its case for war — those carefully qualified conclusions were turned into blunt assertions of fact, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on prewar intelligence.
So, the decision makers at the White House were aware of the CIA's reservations.
Initially, we wondered why the report was issued on a Friday, a day when news tends to get lost over the weekend, because it seemed to totally vindicate Bush. But now it's apparent that the report, dispite Pat Roberts best effort, does contain damning information about what the White House knew.
President Bush criticized Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards in his own home state on Wednesday by questioning whether Edwards has sufficient experience to be a heartbeat away from the presidency.
A day after Edwards was picked by Democratic White House hopeful John Kerry as his running mate, Bush raised the experience issue when asked how Edwards stacked up against his own vice president, Dick Cheney.
"Dick Cheney can be president," Bush said briskly.
