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Praise
de Lawd! Ah’s got e-mails on my last John Kerry article!
Somebody is actually reading mah stuff! All kidding
aside, I was gratified that my last article provoked
some responses. Today I will deal with the e-mails I
received, and then address the inept fashion in which
the media is dealing with this election.
First off, “JP” writes:
Not
only does it not surprise me, but I agree with you 100%.
Instead of running an aggressive campaign, Kerry is
following on the heels and acting in the tradition of
George McGovern, Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis.
The
thing Kerry fails to realize is that this is not a traditional,
issue-based campaign. Karl Rove and the brilliant (if
not totally evil) Republican media consultants have
made it a campaign of emotions: a campaign for the hearts
(?) and minds (???) of America. And they are succeeding
brilliantly. Kerry, whom I want to win, looks like an
out of date, old-style patrician wuss.
God
help this country and the world.
Dileep
Rao writes:
Steve--
Here
are some other thoughts on Kerry:
I
think he has to laugh off this shit, all the spin and
just focus, over and over, on Iraq--the cost, the intelligence.
That this is the kind of man we have leading us now.
That this is the kind of jackassery we are going to
face day in and day out. That this is George W.
Bush’s America, one that squanders its powers and material
and most precious of all, its young people on stupid
wars, stupidly executed. He has to tie Iraq like
an albatross to Bush’s throat. He also has to
say these are the priorities of Bush: healthcare
for the wealthy, but not for you; jobs for the fat cats,
but not for you; tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans,
but not for you. For you he has debts and fiscal
calamity. Your children can die for his mistakes.
You get job insecurity while profits jump. You
get economic stagnation and job shrinkage while his
friends get dividend tax cuts. This is George
W. Bush’s America. Where no child gets left behind
because they’re all sent to the unemployment line.
Sharp-eyed
readers will probably recognize Dileep’s name from his
work on this site. His last review of Sky Captain
was particularly astute. (Mainly because his opinion
was the same as mine?) Having seen the movie, I have
to agree--the CGI looked phony. Instead of Raiders
of the Lost Ark, the film came across more like
Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
Back
to politics. “Chris” writes:
Don’t
despair! The best quality polls show the same
tie as before the RNC. The only polls showing
big leads for Bush showed big leads for him back in
April too! I’m telling you, we are one random
event away from having Bush over a barrel!
The
word I hear is that Kerry still leads among independents
and moderates. He has a 10 point lead among that
group nationwide and a 12 point lead among that group
in the so-called “Battle Ground” states. So why
the Bush lead? Several of the polls that show
a Bush lead have “normalized” their samples by over-representing
Republicans. TIME magazine was roundly criticized
for this.
Also
Kerry has shown leads in polls that look at registered
voters. If turnout is as big people expect, the “likely
voter” polls could be significantly underestimating
support for Kerry.
Don’t
let the idiot journalists tell you what to think, man!
Chris
blogs for a website called The
Citizens, which gives excellent informed opinions
(a rarity these days). It features insightful
commentary on the current election by a host of political
mavens. I really like this site; you should check
it out.
Chris
makes an excellent point about how the media is “mangling”
the election. Why do I feel that the media is
behaving like a headless chicken? Two reasons:
first, the polls. The esteemed pollster John Zogby
was the only one who got the disputed 2000 election
right, and here’s how he sees the current election:
Bush--46 %, Kerry--43 %. Those figures fall within
a margin of error that makes it a statistical tie.
An article
by Zogby debunks polls taken by Gallup, TIME
and Newsweek, showing that they employed a
flawed methodology that resulted in Bush registering
a double-digit lead.
What
I can’t figure out is why the idiotic mainstream media
doesn’t cover this story; instead, they stupidly keep
reporting the results of these polls. Why?
Do they want to create a bandwagon effect? TIME,
Newsweek and Gallup are all part of major corporations.
Do they want Bush to win? I would sincerely doubt
it, but it certainly appears that way.
By blindly going along with these polls, the media could
have a negative impact on the election.
Second
reason: CBS (now known as Can’t Broadcast Shit).
I’m sure all of us by now are familiar with the “Tiffany
Network’s” fiasco with forged documents showing Bush’s
“bad behavior” in the Texas National Guard. This
is a catastrophe for CBS and the mass media. It
plays right into the hands of the right-wing, who maintain
the media is biased against conservatives, and in this
instance, it looks like they’re right. (How would Kerry
supporters feel if CBS aired forged documents detrimental
to their candidate?) When you air assertions that
grave, you need empirical evidence to back it up.
CBS totally screwed up in that regard. A red flag
should have gone up when it was revealed that the source
of these documents was Jayson Blair. (I’m kidding.)
All
this displays Dan Rather’s liberal bias against the
Bushes, as evidenced by Rather’s combative interview
with GWB’s daddy in 1988. This was the final straw
for me. I was a viewer of CBS Evening News,
but now I'm switching to Tom Brokaw on NBC, where I’ll
be inundated by the same 25 minutes of Viagra commercials.
My
feeling is that Dan Rather should resign NOW.
Not only for the shoddy journalistic standards he displayed,
but because this sorry affair could energize Republicans,
sending them to the polls in droves. Worst-case
scenario, Democratic turnout could also be depressed
by the bogus poll numbers, leading to a victory for
Bush. And we don’t want that, now do we?
See
ya soon.
Steve
can be reached at steve@babblog.com.
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