Glenn Reynolds, furthering the agenda of the hard-right yet again, takes pleasure in linking to this bit of “detective work” by Dan Riehl. According to Reynolds and Riehl, media coverage of possible bad acts by the American military is not receiving the same amount of coverage as a terrorist bust in Canada. Proving… well, what exactly? Here’s a guess - the New York Giants get a lot more coverage in America than the Toronto Maple Leafs. The right would like to tactily approve what apparently went down in Haditha by bullying the press into to not covering it - but the fact of the matter is - we don’t make any headway by pulling the same tired “not as bad as Saddam/Al Qaeda/Pol Pot” sliding scale of justice. That’s really not how America works nor is it in the spirit with which our nation was founded. “Be better” is the creed America should continue to stand by… even when the President is a Republican.
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you keep harping on this imaginary standard of “better than saddam”….and I am tired of the leftist mewling.
What should the realistic standard be? Obviously perfection would be nice…but what about a working standard?
The media has covered Haditha up,down and sideways, without an actual report being available yet.
Yet something that happened last week, in the middle of a western country full of journalists and we get a vague “some misguided yoots (about 50% of them named Mohammed) had 3 tons of ammonium nitrate and remote control detanators….move along, nothing to see here…”
This is “ok” in Ollie and the flaming leftists world?
yeah, im trying to resolve the issue
It deserves coverage, agreed. But how many other war “atrocities” have there been that have been “covered” and then been found to be false.
Cover it reasonably. Give the Marines their investigation and possibly day in court though. I note that your tone has become more moderate toward the Marines, less Murthized, and I applaud that. We (Amercians) want our fighting forces to be Captain-America like in their squeaking cleaness.
Your other point of what is newsworthy is well taken. And it really points out how journalist can drive public opinion as well, not nefariously or as biased observers, but simply by how they report things.
When you have free society with free media, every wart and every pimple of that society becomes newsworthy, particularly if it is a very ethical one. The lapses are news. But when you have a despotic dictator such as Saddam, not a word gets out, or as you put it, it isn’t news. This tends to drive the opinions of people. After all, if all they see about the US is the bad stuff (since it is newsworthy) and all they see about the despot is good stuff (likewise out of character and newsworthy, more importantly, all the government will let out), you are going to see the good guys as the bad guys.
I truly believe this is how the left wing in america is driven into its hatred of conservatives and I honestly think to some extent this country. The conservatives belief the best of America, so they understand the bad news is a “blip”. The liberals believe the media is “unbiased”, so it is easy to find ways to hate the way things are done.
Imaginary standard? You’ve used it yourself. The line usually goes: well, Abu Ghraib was bad but not as bad as Saddam. That’s a slippery line - and you know it! Should the arrest in Canada be covered? Absolutely, and it is - but its bad guys acting like bad guys. The record of the marines has been so good, that this apparent incident is such a red flag that it deserves exhaustive coverage - and you know it! What’s more newsworthy - if you put them head to head - bad guys acting like bad guys or good guys acting like bad guys? It’s a story as old as time, and it doesn’t change just because the president is a Republican.
OW, I’ve been having trouble accessing your site from time to time - is your host server on the blink?
Do you think its an atrocity if a marine kills a civilian in cold blood? I do, and so do most Americans. Is it an atrocity when an insurgent kills civilians or our guys in cold blood? Yes. But the marine is more impactful, more worthy of coverage because it is an aberration from the norm. Why can’t you get this simple thing? My tone has been consistent, you simply hear what you want to hear. The right simply does not want bad things reported - especially when its a con president - the left wants all the news to be out, damned who’s in the White House.
Liberals do not hate conservatives the way cons hate us. Aside from the ruling class, liberals mostly see conservatives as confused in the way they see the world. As you’re evidence of, and as many other cons are - you see us as the enemy.
We do NOT want it reported that a “Marine killed a civilian in cold blood” unless that has been unequivocally determined!
You know, you want to wait for years to determine if Jefferson REALLY was taking 100K bribe, as seen on a video tape. But when something happens thousands of miles away, in the fog of war…yup, no question, that young Marine just killed in cold blood.
Why the double standard? Is it because we expect a black democrat from new orleans to be corrupt? It isn’t therefore newsworthy?
Also, Haditha coverage has been going on longer than coverage of the Canadian bust, because the Canadian bust happened more recently.
If you do a search for “My Lai” you find 2.25 million references, but if you search for “Emma Valdez” in today’s news you ony find 5 references. (She was shot in Indiana yesterday.) I’d be interested in Dan Riehl’s conclusions from that.
Yet something that happened last week, in the middle of a western country full of journalists and we get a vague some misguided yoots (about 50% of them named Mohammed) had 3 tons of ammonium nitrate and remote control detanators& .move along, nothing to see here&
It didn’t happen last week, it happened 48 hours ago; right about this time Friday evening. And already there are more than a 1,000 newspaper articles and thousands of blogposts about it.
I called for Jefferson to be reamed out of town long before the money in the fridge incident. The only double standard here is you.
alrighty, how about Mollohan?
I believe your quote was “how can we believe the accusation of a right wing group” right?
Why not give our men the benefit of innocent until proven guilty?
Did you know that there was more coverage of the Yankees game in the nations newspapers than there was of Our Dear Leaders speech to the E. Quogue Lions Club? What an outrage by the liberal media! Why do they hate America!
By constantly reporting on the Yankees, who come from that liberal bastion of New York, the press has chosen to ignore Richard Jefferson. They are sending a subtle signal that even a mere baseball team is more important than Democratic alleged crimes.
/sarcasm
Careful what you wish for, Perfesser: If the Toronto round-up gets more press coverage here in the States, or someone might point out that Canada can fight terrorists effectively without wholesale gutting of Canadians’ civil liberties…
I would too, ever since Vince Carter joined the team.
“Why not give our men the benefit of innocent until proven guilty?”
They are innocent until proven guilty. What you and dugger and others keep overlooking is that the dust up over this was about what the military investigation into Haditha was expected to report, namely that marines fired on civilians unprovoked. You keep overlooking this because you want to blame the New York Times for pre-judging the marines when all the Times did was to report on what the military itself is expected to say. If you refuse to see the difference between the two things, well, I’m not surprised. You are, afterall, idiots.
At the same time, Murtha himself released a statement asserting his faith in the fairness of the military justice system before acknowledging that the fog of war may have played a role in the situation. http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/pa12_murtha/PRhaditha.html
Of course you ignore that as well. Because you are, again, a total idiot.
Thanks for not reading any of the articles Jamey….because internet surveillance played a large role in these arrests. So are you now a big supporter of the Patriot act, and phone surveilance since it works?
“A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, said Web surfing and e-mail among the suspects led to the start of the probe in 2004.
“The Internet was, according to the police, was a very important part of their activities,” Canada’s ambassador to Washington, Michael Wilson, said in an interview on CNN’s “Late Edition.”
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20060605/D8I1PIE80.html
At Fact, your sarcasm is telling. If your only “argument” against the current facts is to make up snarky little stories, it lets the rest of us know that you don’t actually have any good rebuttal.
you still there Janey…?
Oh, and I am an MD, not a Phd…
“you still there Janey& ?”
Pedro you’re an idiot and a dipshit. The argument has never been against surveilance, just illegal surveilance. See the difference? Obviously not.
so who has been arrested Paul?
I guess there hasn’t been any illegal surveillance then eh, comrade?
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