X-Tra Rant

Here’s an update on the Bush “Mission Accomplished” Banner lie. Got the transcript from MSNBC and their guest, Terry Jeffrey, is a total shill for Bush. Read this exchange, replace “Bush” with “Clinton” and tell me this guy and the ‘liberal’ media wouldn’t be having a collective stroke and callign for impeachment. Something tells me they wouldn’t be saying that the president just ‘misspoke’. The president outright said that it was the sailors tha tput it up, not someone on his staff. THAT IS A LIE, NOT A MISSTATEMENT.

Let’s break down Mr. Jeffrey’s spin:

• “Well I kind of doubt, Bill, that the commander-in-chief personally had that sign painted and ordered to be put aboard the Abraham Lincoln” Here he is framing the debate. he’s trying to make the whole debate about whether Bush himself ordered the sign to be put there. That is NOT the point. The point is that his administration ordered the sign put there and his administration wrote him a speech about how the mission was accomplished when in fact it is FAR from accomplished. This isn’t about whether Bush went down to the D.C. Kinkos and had the sign made and put it up himself.
  
• “So if he misspoke, he misspoke. I’m not sure that’s a major issue when we’re talking about war and peace.” Now the spin is that he just ‘misspoke’. Trying to say “this isn’t a big deal because we’re at war and just a little misstatement isn’t important”. This, again, is trying to frame the debate. But the fact is, Bush lied. There is no way to hide or spin that fact. But because the conservative press and the GOP got their panties into such a wad over a lie about a blowjob, they have to find a way to make it look like it’s not a big deal that Bush lied about this. So instead they call it a ‘misstatement’ and hope that the press will pick up on the meme.
  
• “Well, assuming that your reporting is correct, then the president misspoke at his press conference. Is that a major issue in terms of how we’re going to determine the future of what we do in Iraq and what’s going down in Iraq? No.” Ahhh yes. place the doubt on the reporter. This is a form of the old ‘liberal media’ slam. THEN try to frame the debate again by saying that this doesn’t have anything to do with the situation in Iraq, so it’s not important that the president ‘misspoke’.
  

Imagine the collective screams of horror from the press and from the right if it was Clinton that ‘misspoke’ about this. Don’t believe the corporate media spin.

Oooohhh another lie!!! Got this from MWO. Even though they are now a blatant mouthpice for the Clark campaign, ignoring the fact that he’s a Republican-turned-Democrat when it became ambitiously convenient, MWO still links to some great articles so I’m going to keep it on the blogroll for now. Unless they start irrationally attacking Dean again.

Anyway, on to the most recent Bush Lie:

In his press conference yesterday Bush said:

On last night’s Buchanan & Press (not exactly the liberal media when one of the hosts is freakin’ Pat Buchanan) I give you the following:

But that’s not all! From a June 2003 speech to American troops in Qatar

More proof (as if we needed any) that Bush is a habitual liar. But is the ‘liberal media’ screaming about this? Are they saying, day after day after day, how Bush has a lack of moral character because he is a serial liar?

Nope. That kind of criticism is reserved for liberals like Al Gore, even when they aren’t liars. Heck, that ‘liberal media’ will even make up stories about lies liberals have told. (See Al Gore: Love Canal, Al Gore: Love Story Inspiration, Al Gore: Invented The Internet, etc. Read The Clinton Wars‘ chapter on the 2000 election or LIes & The Lying Liars Who Tell Them for more info on this).

MWO attacks Dean, yet has a history of condemning within-the-party attacks.

Go ahead MWO, keep up your Dean slams, I’m done with your site…

At least until after the primaries. Your all too obvious Yay Rah Go Clark (who’s got more waffle in his policies than IHOP) mantra, day after day is getting a little tired. There’s a reason that Clark just had a ‘bounce’ instead of a surge. There is a reason that Dean is motivating more grassroots support than a candidate has seen… well, almost ever? The reason is Dean says what he thinks, gives you the reasons why, and outlines the facts.

Also, I’m still unclear on how long Clark was a Republican before he decided to all of a sudden become a Democrat… can you clear that up for me, or is that another taboo subject on MWO? Funny how you’ll rip Dean’s tax policy, but you won’t even touch the fact that he set a RECORD FOR DEMOCRATIC FUNDRAISING last quarter to the tune of $14.8 million. I’d think that would be a prime subject for MWO to tackle - the defeat of special interests via the donations of the common man… why oh why didn’t you cover it? Oh yeah. Because it makes Dean look good. You guys can’t handle that, hmm?

As for your slam on Dean’s stance to repeal the tax cut - FACT: The “middle class tax cut” as Kerry is so fond of calling it DOES NOT EXIST. What little the middle class got is going or will go to one of a few places:

1) Due to many states linking their taxes with the federal rate, states have had to lower taxes, but cut programs or do things like increase tuition at state college (which hurt the middle class the most!). And they can (and have) always raise(d) sales tax (again hurting the lower and middle class).

2) States that don’t link to the federal rate have to raise taxes to cover the unfunded mandates from Bush (such as No Child Left Behind).

3) The Alternative Minimum Tax will TAKE IT ALL AWAY after 2004, when the AMT ‘fix’ that was in the tax cuts is set to expire (just read the Krugman book, he lays it all out).

No matter how you slice it, the middle class either got pennies that are quickly snatched away by states in fiscal crisis, or didn’t get a damn thing to start with.

He puts it as plainly as no other candidate I’ve ever seen: Do you want what little the government gave you as a ‘cut’, one that’s eaten up by the states anyway? Or would you rather have truly funded homeland security? Would you rather have your pittance from the rich, or medical coverage for anyone that doesn’t break the bank and isn’t single payer? (there go those ’socialist’ arguments!) Would you rather have the laughable, near useless tax cut W gave you to pretend he’s nice to the masses, or would you rather have a public education system that works?

For too long, Democrats have sold Americans short - that they just can’t understand things. The Republicans have turned everything black and white, and Democrats haven’t figured out how to be black and white yet still get a progressive message across. Dean has shown us how: Spell out your stance, tell them why and show them the facts. Most Americans will (and have been) responding to that.

So you are doing this to get one of your favorites elected (Kerry/Clark) because of personal interest (it’s been long rumored that The Horse is someone powerful or linked to someone powerful within the Democratic Party). Or, you think the 478,223 Americans who have signed up to support Dean, as well as the 129,000-plus Americans that MeetUp every month to get him elected, are stupid and uninformed.

But either way, I’m out. I had hoped your site would have been more balanced in its coverage of the candidates, but apparently it’s only “fair & balanced” in a Fox News sense of the word.

Pending how they respond to criticism on this topic, I may be taking Media Whores Online off the blogroll. We’ll see.

Doing a little lunch time surfing and foudn a few gems scattered throughout the blogosphere.

Wampum: Don’t beleive the ‘jobless claims down’ spin!! It’s the same as the Enron phony accounting. See, what you do is revise revised numbers down, so they are still up, but the revised went down. Tricky huh? Let’s give a big hip hip hooray for corporate media spin!

The Expat: Make sure to follow The Expat’s new series of posts on Conservative Lies. First up? “Clinton sent troops to Somalia”.. or did he?

The Daily Kos: Kos highlights a big win for Dean - the pretty much in the bag endorsement from the SEIU.

Eschaton: Take a trip into the wayback machine of partisan spin. Who really raised the drinking age as opposed to who is popularly identified with it?

Hammerdown: Wonders how exactly we are trying to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis when we bulldoze their fields and destroy livlihoods in retaliation for not telling us information they don’t know.

Blah 3: Just because it’s funny, makes it no less true. A great “Bush goes to heaven” joke, as well as another wonderfully funny (but no less true) anti-Bush joke down in the comments.

And if you haven’t seen it to the right on the main page, I have a “now reading” section as well as a link to my Amazon.com guide “So You’d LIke to… Be An Informed Liberal” - which I’m proud to say is listed on the Amazon pages for such books as The Clinton Wars, What Liberal Media and Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them! Yay me!

Heyyyy everybody. Jason is updatign two days in a row! Wake the neighbors! Get the cows to come home! Put the children and feeble minded to bed!

Anyway, not a ton to update on. First want to mention that I FINALLY got around to adding Kos to the blogroll. Welcome to obscurity, my friend!

Anyway, a couple links to pass on this morning. Nothing real big. Hope you enjoy. And make sure to read when you’re done here. As Bartcop says, “it had everything.”
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I’m still keeping busy but I have a collection of a couple days worth of links and articles to share with everyone. But first, go check out the wonderfully angry-yet-makes-no-point right wing comment I got on my post awhile back about “Fairly Unbalanced”. Scroll down to the bottom of that page to see the comment and my response. Good times.

Anyway, on to the fun. Tons of links once again so sit back and enjoy!
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Made an update on the travel blog about Kelly and I’s trip to Brown County on Monday. There are some really good pictures too, so you should check it out.
It was a really great day. Just a year ago I would have thought I was uber cheesy for putting this on my blog, but I love you, Kelly. I hope to take a lot more trips like this with you.

Finally, I can do a big giant super humungous politcal linkage and commentary update. It’ll probably take me all day to finish, but hey. Some of the links might be a couple days stale, but they’re good for a few of my non-political junkie readers. And let me tell ya, there are some realllllly disturbing things to link to today. So let’s get right to it, shall we? Grab some popcorn, this is a long one.
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I don’t know what to say to this. Go over to Calpundit’s examination of the Texas Republican Party Platform. And keep in mind, it’s pretty much the Texas Republican Party taking over the entire Republican Party (Bush, DeLay, Rove, et al). If this doesnt’ totally scare the bejeesus out of you, then congratulations! You’ve been totally brainwashed!
(Thanks to K for the link!)

but hey, at least Margaret Cho has a blog. That’s pretty cool.

Okay, so the second half was MUCH better. Wow. What a game. Even if the penalty called against Tampa at the end to give the Colts another shot at the winning field goal was dubious, they never should have been in that situation to begin with. Up 21 points with 4 minutes to go, it shouldn’t have ever made it to OT.

Not that I’m complaining. What a game.

As for the California recall, I haven’t had a chance to pay much attention to it as it’s went on today. Hopefully California voters won’t be so insanely stupid as to elect Ahhh-nold, the Nazi loving serial sexual assaulter with no platform. If he wins, I weep for democracy.