Usually this phenomenon exhibits itself subtly. For instance, the Talking Heads continually refer to the estate tax as the much more nefarious-sounding "death tax" or refuse to critique a Republican's pronounced issue stances against their past legislative votes. And of course one can point out the myriad ways in which the corporate media has kowtowed to John McCain.
But every so often, an example of media bias comes along that is so blatant, so egregious and so misleading that it renders the "liberal media" canard utterly indefensible. Yesterday, Olbermann exposed a shockingly obvious whitewashing of a potentially self-damaging McCain quote by CBS.
From their exclusive interview:
Couric: Senator McCain, Sen. Obama says, while the increased number of U.S. troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What's your response to that?It just so happens that McCain's depiction of this "matter of history" is flat-out false. The Anbar Awakening happened months before the surge. Here's some clarification by EquationDoc at DailyKos:
McCain: I don't know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarlane (phonetic) was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history. Thanks to General Petraeus, our leadership, and the sacrifice of brave young Americans. I mean, to deny that their sacrifice didn't make possible the success of the surge in Iraq, I think, does a great disservice to young men and women who are serving and have sacrificed.
In making a statement such as this, either McCain has memory issues or he is simply lying. An editor at CBS likely recognized the inaccuracy of his statement. Thus, CBS chose to scrub out these words and replace them with another, much more on-message answer from earlier in the interview:The colonel was Colonel Sean McFarland, the head of 1st Brigade, 1st Division. They were redeployed to Iraq in January, 2006, in Nineveh province. In May, 2006 they were transferred south to Ramadi, in Al Anbar province, the site of the "Anbar Awakening." The 1st Brigade, 1st Division was redeployed out of Iraq in mid-February, 2007.
That is, the unit McCain is referring to left Iraq approximately one month after Bush announced the surge on January 10, 2007 (troop surge timeline). A month later, on March 20, troop strength was up from 132,000 (in January) to 152,000. Additional commitments to the surge would eventually bring the total to 168,000, in September, 2007.
The Anbar Awakening, or Anbar Salvation Council, was founded by Sheik Abdul Sattar Buzaigh al-Rishawi in September, 2006, again, long before Bush's January 10, 2007 announcement of the surge. And ironically, at the same time troop surge levels peaked and US casualties were in the process of declining, al-Rishawi was killed in September, 2007 by a roadside bomb in Ramadi. It's even more ironic when considered in the context of McSame's claims that we were "able to go out and protect that sheik and others."
Sen. Obama has indicated that by his failure to acknowledge the success of the surge, that he would rather lose a war than lose a campaign.
I dare Marlowe and any other McSame apologists out there to give me an explanation for this switcheroo other than that which I contend: pro-McCain and pro-Republican media bias.
We can see here why those in the traditional press are so condescending towards bloggers and the internet in general: We are a direct threat to their ability to control the narrative. I, for one, hope they keep it up. It will only lead us to shine a greater spotlight on their fatal flaws and ultimately expose corporate newsrooms as the largely charlatan operations that they have become. And when the chickens finally come home to roost, it must be acknowledged that this failing industry will have wrought its own demise by shilling for the followers of a failed ideology.
UPDATE:Here is the segment where Keith Olbermann exposes the story:
6 comments:
What's the problem? Causes can come after effects right?
It's funny because the administration had been putting the word out that things were getting better in Iraq for pretty much the entire duration of the war.
They credited every policy they had with improving stability. CBS was just trying to help people keep things straight, it can be hard to keep up with their rhetoric on your own.
"CBS was just trying to help people keep things straight"
Yup. Just like Pravda, Leni Riefenstahl and, well, Fox News are crucial for clearing up that pesky reality-based confusion.
Well done Jeremy with the offensive Holocaust analogy. Being a conservative media organization doesn't turn someone into Goebbels - and I hope the ADL doesn't read this blog. Though you are right - John McCain should get his facts straight, you're really just making a fuss over a distinction which isn't a difference. True, the Anbar uprising started before that. However, we can say this much about Mr. McCain. He was the first prominent politician to call for the surge. The surge was what was largely responsible for turning around Iraq. The Anbar uprising was supported by the surge and succeeded due to the surge (since we didn't have to do the old hold and retreat, which is what was happening before). In short, because of the leadership of McCain, the brilliance of Gen Petraeus, various neoconservative scholars, and the US military, and President Bush, the greatest counter-insurgency operation ever is currently smashing the terrorists into the sands of Iraq. Barack Obama can only be given an F on this one. If it would have been up to him, we would have left Iraq in March of 2008, and we would have had genocide, civil war, and a terrorist enclave in Iraq. We would have been demoralized and humiliated. It's an embarrassment to this country when a candidate for President of a major party is so selfish that he cannot give credit to the US military for all that it has done, one of the finest organizations in modern history. Instead, he plays into and along with the bias of the leftist, anti Bush press which has consistently downplayed the surge's success in Iraq to remove any chance of political gain by the administration. Obama does want to lose the war to gain politically, and is playing stupid to avoid acknowledging any success, because to give our soldiers credit, would simultaneously mean that he must admit what he knows already to be true: that he has 1) no accomplishments, 2) no experience 3) an embarrassing lack of knowledge. In terms of press bias - give me a break. When all the network anchors trail him overseas, when only a single reporter meets Mr. McCain in New Hampshire - I think we know who they are in the tank for. When they continuously play into his bogus "post partisan" politics, when his record shows him to be nothing other than a leftist partisan fanatic, we know the media is biased.
As for bloggers - I love em! They're great, when they brought down that rat Dan Rather for smearing the President with fabricated documents, and showing Rather to be the leftist liar that he is, it made me cheer. By the way, McCain's gettin closer in the polls, WOO HOO!. Vote John Sidney McCain, NO SURRENDER.
He was the first prominent politician to call for the surge.
I don't think that's true. As recall Bush started various rumors about a surge (which often masked as the first part of a pull out) and then other politicians started falling in line.
Regardless high ranking military officials had been saying more troops were needed since before the invasion even started. If you contention is that the surge worked then what you're also saying is McCain deserves credit for for only taking around 4 years to get with the program. That's a crap learning curve.
As I said it the earlier comment, every change in strategy for 4 years was supposed to stabilize the situation. John McCain supported all of them. Sooner or later the level of violence was bound to go down.
The theory is that the violence diminished because the Sunni population realize Al Qaeda was nuts. That was bound to happen since they are totally nuts. Also the ethnic population reorganized themselves into separate enclaves reducing sectarian violence.
Also it's not like Iraq is exactly ready to start going into the tourism industry. It's still a terribly violent place, just because its not the hell hole it used to be doesn't mean we should all be patting ourselves on the back.
P.S.
Not every Nazi reference is holocaust analogy.
Senator John McCain in November of 2003: "The simple truth is that we do not have sufficient forces in Iraq to meet our military objectives."
Here is a link to a 2003 article in USA Today of Senator McCain calling for a surge, while criticizing Sec Rumsfeld and President Bush: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-11-05-mccain-usat_x.htm
FWIW, Marlowe is actually correct that McCain took the lead on saying we needed more troops in Iraq before anyone else (except a couple fired generals). However, he never quite explained how we were going to find those troops. Just because McCain disagreed with some aspects of Rumsfeld "sleeker" military organization, doesn't mean he was right on the war.
I will be willing to grant that the surge was part of the reason why violence in Iraq has decreased. But there are also other reasons, and McCain is denying that fact, as recent events have definitively shown.
By the way, I applaud you Marlowe on effectively changing the subject and answering a nonexistent strawman argument instead of the claim I made that CBS' distortion of the interview as shown in this diary was on par with some of the worst propaganda the world has seen over the past century. You will make an effective lawyer indeed.
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