T1B

Bizzarofelice wrote:

Variable wrote:If you put any weight behind that, you are a complete tool.

The retard is getting awful snippy. Musta missed his naptime.

Man's got nothing so he blames a liberal bias of the media. If those darned liberal journalists will continue to report bodies gettin' blowed up, think that'll bode well in 2006? I smell some fried incumbents.

Well, the mainstream media in 2004 did all it could to sour the public's opinion on both the war and the economy. Yet, Bush won while expanding the total number of votes relative to 2000.

Variable wrote:Besides, if you had been paying attention like the rest of the class

Don't say "like the rest of the class." It makes mvscal feel left out.

you'd know that I said that it was the respondents to the poll that were biased and not the newspaper.

Say what? Whether the media is overlooking beautiful successes or not, it seems that their coverage of the negative has picked up steam. They still proclaim "hero" left and right but the efforts of this administration to paint a rosy picture are getting sliced and diced.
Are they doing this because public opinion is positive about the war?


Republican congressmen have started distancing themselves from Dubya fearing this war will hinder their reelection campaigns. Its no longer all about supporting the President while their ass is on the line.
Are they doing this because public opinion is positive about the war?

BTW, the ex-con who cleans up the shop late at night called...he wants his ignorant political viewpoint back.

right backatcha

DrDetroit wrote:you should focus more on the methods of sampling and the content of the questions being asked.

True. Most of the questions are dripping with bias to begin with.

Statistics, my friend. I've seen you ranting about this lately...the fact is that with a high degree of reliability you can predict the response of a large population with only a small sampling.

I think that rather than focusing on sampling sizes for criticism, you should focus more on the methods of sampling and the content of the questions being asked.

I'm fine with the concept, I just don't agree that you can get reliable results from that small of a pool.

I think that equally important is who they are asking the questions of. Frequently the polls that are touted in media reports are samples of the paper's readership.

Well, you can get such reliable results, Variable.

And media outlets will always tell you who conducted the poll so you can determine if that outlet's online poll is reliable versus the Gallup poll.

Gettysburg, Fredericksburg...those are the battles in a Civil War. A drive-by in Fallujah where a Sunni imam is gunned down by a shiite gunman is not a civil war. You need to raise your standards a bit.

Oh, and http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8667975/&&CE=3032506

Bizzarofelice wrote:

DrDetroit wrote:you should focus more on the methods of sampling and the content of the questions being asked.

True. Most of the questions are dripping with bias to begin with.

Not so much the bias angle...they're typically bad questions with equally bad response choices.

As well, many polls do not attempt to guage intensity of respondents.

Bizzarro:

Say what? Whether the media is overlooking beautiful successes or not, it seems that their coverage of the negative has picked up steam. They still proclaim "hero" left and right but the efforts of this administration to paint a rosy picture are getting sliced and diced.
Are they doing this because public opinion is positive about the war?

The reporting is not a response to the administration. It's the other way around. The administration has been oushing back, just not hard enough. It's the same with the economy as the administration is simply failing to communicate positive progress.

The negative coverage has been running at about the same level since the 04 election. It's just that right now the left has a new media darling which they can then recycle all of that odl reporting.

Variable wrote:Gettysburg, Fredericksburg...those are the battles in a Civil War. A drive-by in Fallujah where a Sunni imam is gunned down by a shiite gunman is not a civil war. You need to raise your standards a bit.

Sorry, but civil wars have not been fought in close order formation since 1865.

Oh, and http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8667975/&&CE=3032506

Let me know what happens after we pull out. I'm sure they'll all get along just fine. :roll:

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh...so it's a civil war because you say so.

Say what? Whether the media is overlooking beautiful successes or not, it seems that their coverage of the negative has picked up steam. They still proclaim "hero" left and right but the efforts of this administration to paint a rosy picture are getting sliced and diced.
Are they doing this because public opinion is positive about the war?

Depends on what newspaper you're talking about. A few papers go with the body counts because that's what their readership wants to hear about (heavily democratic areas like NoCal) and/or "if it bleeds, it leads" still rules in the news world. But with the major market rags like the LA Times and NY Times it's something completely different. They have a clear agenda and a clear bias. They put anti-Iraq articles on page one and pro-or-positive-Iraq stories on page 27 underneath an ad for supplements that treat canine erectile disfunction. ...and that's if they report them at all.

Personally, the main reason that I believe that public opinion is lower on the war and lower on Bush than it has been is that the public has been force-fed negative stories on Bush, Rumsfeld, Ascroft, Cheney, Gitmo, Iraq, etc, since about May 2003, when formal hostilities ended. Plenty of it has been deserved, but when the NYT runs Abu Gharib stories for 37 days straight, of course things like that will sway public opinion. AG wasn't a non-story, but it probably deserved a good week of coverage and that's about it. Anyway, regardless of people's opinions, they can only take so much without being swayed. It's just plain human nature. We're programmed what to think by our televisions sets and radios, whether it's Limbaugh or Lauer.

Republican congressmen have started distancing themselves from Dubya fearing this war will hinder their reelection campaigns. Its no longer all about supporting the President while their ass is on the line.
Are they doing this because public opinion is positive about the war?

It probably has more to do with Bush not being able to say "Nuclear." Would YOU want him making a speech on your behalf? :D

I never said public opinion was positive about the war, I just don't think that it's as negative as the media trys to portray it. I think that the war protestors are the loudest of the bunch, so they get the press coverage. I mean, when was the last time you saw a pro-Bush rally or a pro-Iraq war rally? There aren't any, right? Does that mean that no one supports Bush or the war? No, but that means there's nothing for the news media to cover on that angle, so they go cover another anti-Bush tirade from an angry parent of a deceased soldier or some hippie with a car that runs on rhinoceros anus butter who chants "no blood for oil".

BTW, the ex-con who cleans up the shop late at night called...he wants his ignorant political viewpoint back.

I laughed.

Personally, the main reason that I believe that public opinion is lower on the war and lower on Bush than it has been is that the public has been force-fed negative stories on Bush, Rumsfeld, Ascroft, Cheney, Gitmo, Iraq, etc, since about May 2003, when formal hostilities ended. Plenty of it has been deserved, but when the NYT runs Abu Gharib stories for 37 days straight, of course things like that will sway public opinion. AG wasn't a non-story, but it probably deserved a good week of coverage and that's about it. Anyway, regardless of people's opinions, they can only take so much without being swayed. It's just plain human nature.

That, and all the stupid fucking quotes various members of this administration have made over the last 2 plus years to make us all think they are as clueless as the media paints them up to be.

Besides, NO ONE likes a parade of dead bodies.

Also, show me something that someone in this administration has said or done that would make me feel that the media is way off base regarding their handling of this war.

And today in a speech Bush compared this war to the two world wars, meaning they were of similar nature.

And you still wonder?

Top that off with the fact he can't even go face to face with a grieving mother. WTF kind of leader walks away from that like it does not exist?

Bushice:

That, and all the stupid fucking quotes various members of this administration have made over the last 2 plus years to make us all think they are as clueless as the media paints them up to be.

"As the media paints them to be."

Thank you for finely admitting that the media does the painting.

Besides, NO ONE likes a parade of dead bodies.

a) Who's running the parade? The media and the American left.
b) Of course no one enjoys it. However, when casualties and deaths are paraded day in and day out within a 100% negative context by journalists who believe that their jobs are to be skeptics of Republicans and are citizens of the world...well...no surprise that public opinion polss reveal what they do.

Also, show me something that someone in this administration has said or done that would make me feel that the media is way off base regarding their handling of this war.

The administration has said plenty.

The problem is this - you never agreed with this war. You don't agree with the strategy. You feel that the US violated international law and are committing war crimes. So who are you kidding? As if your opinion would change based on what this administration says. :roll:

And since when is the "media" the only arbiter of whether a war is being handled properly?

Well?

It's abundantly clear that the media has portrayed this war in a negative way. Very little positive news is ever reported and when it is reported the context is also very negative.

We've seen Eason Jordan, when he was the CNN's head news man, asserting that US forces were targeting journalists. We also saw a similar comment by the head of the American journalist's group (cannot remember the name, but I'll get it).

And today in a speech Bush compared this war to the two world wars, meaning they were of similar nature.

It's a global war, idiot.

As well, it's a more accurate characterization than calling Iraq another Vietnam, fool.

Top that off with the fact he can't even go face to face with a grieving mother. WTF kind of leader walks away from that like it does not exist?

Um, liar, he already met her, privately, at the WH.

In Crawford, Sheehan met with his NSA and Dep Chief of Staff...for hours.

So do not lie about how he has responded to Sheehan.

That, and all the stupid fucking quotes various members of this administration have made over the last 2 plus years to make us all think they are as clueless as the media paints them up to be.

There's plenty not to like and we've hashed, rehashed and double-ultra-hashed it plenty of times. I felt I address that directly with "plenty of it has been deserved". The fact remains though, that a significant portion of it has not been deserved. Until the newsworthiness of Clinton's Lewinsky affair outweighed their desire to fellate him for another couple of years, the media absolutely adored Clinton. It's pretty clear to see why that changed 180 degrees when "their guy" lost in 2000.

Besides, NO ONE likes a parade of dead bodies.

So the problem isn't that soldiers are dying while fighting for a cause they believe in, the problem is that their bodies are paraded in front of us in the name of selling ad space. Glad we agree on something.

Also, show me something that someone in this administration has said or done that would make me feel that the media is way off base regarding their handling of this war.

Mis-steps or gross errors in specific areas mean that the media should essentially never report anything positive out of the war in Iraq? ...Wow. The LA Times called. They have an opening for an Assistant Editor they'd like you to fill.

And today in a speech Bush compared this war to the two world wars, meaning they were of similar nature.

And you still wonder?

This is no different than BSmack and other lefty kooks comparing it to Vietnam. It all depends on perspective. All wars have similarities and differences and ten people can look at the same war comparisons ten different ways. Hell, you could argue that WWI and WWII were so different in so many aspects that they really shouldn't be grouped together as "the world wars", if you wanted to.

I didn't hear the remarks, but you yourself could probably rattle off twenty ways that the world wars were similar to the Iraq war in a few minutes. Really, what's the big deal?

Top that off with the fact he can't even go face to face with a grieving mother. WTF kind of leader walks away from that like it does not exist?

She's not a grieving mother, she's a spotlight-loving attention whore. Were I in Bush's shoes, I wouldn't meet with her either. All she wants is a chance to try to embarrass the dude in front of the media with some finger-poking-in-the-chest diatribe that she's practiced in front of the mirror 57 times. She doesn't want an explanation from Bush, she wants to go off on him so she can claim "Scoreboard, bitch!"

There are plenty of true grieving parents out there and I feel empathy and sadness for their losses. For Cindy Sheehan I feel nothing but disgust for the how she's turned her son's death into a big spectacle about her.