While I try to maintain the belief that mainstream journalists do not intentionally allow their political bias to direct their reporting, the recent behavior of the press threatens to sweep it away.
The latest?
Editor & Publisher will summarize, under the headline: "Media Confirms: Palin Exaggerated Trip to Iraq:"
The Boston Globe covered another today. It seems that Sarah Palin's visit to Iraq in 2007 consisted not of a trip inside a "battle zone" in Iraq, as claimed, but "a brief stop at a border crossing between Iraq and Kuwait, the vice presidential candidate's campaign said yesterday, in the second official revision of her only trip outside North America," the Globe reports.
I've been trying to find the original exaggeration. The original statement appears to come from a campaign aide. The task is made more difficult by a "hole" in the reporting. The reporting contains references to Palin's exaggeration and her statements about a trip to Iraq--but without any quotation and no reference to time or place.
Even if the statement exists somewhere, the reporters shame themselves by failing to report it.
This the the closest so far:
Following her selection last month as John McCain's running mate, aides said Palin had traveled to Ireland, Germany, Kuwait, and Iraq to meet with members of the Alaska National Guard. During that trip she was said to have visited a "military outpost" inside Iraq. The campaign has since repeated that Palin's foreign travel included an excursion into the Iraq battle zone. (The Boston Globe)
From what I can tell, the campaign has not made an issue of a Palin trip to Iraq. The issue apparently came up while reporters sought the extent of Palin's travels and the aides provided erroneous details. The press responds with stories that imply that Palin lied. The Obama campaign takes its cue from the press and makes outright assertions (according to the press, anyway!):
WASHINGTON -The question of whether Sarah Palin has ever been to Iraq pushed Obama aides Saturday to accuse the McCain campaign of outright lies, distortions and distractions to the American people. (AP)
If the Obama campaign offers no examples of the McCain campaign playing (in even some minor way) the importance of a past trip to Iraq by Palin, then I'm inclined to think the Obama campaign is the one engaged in distraction.
As for the mainstream press ... just shameful. Really shameful.
The "lipstick on a pig" thing has received ample print treatment, but with PolitiFact weighing in you get this post simply as a counterbalance.
While I think it's inarguable that Barack Obama's primary intent was to disparage McCain for sporting the change/reform mantle, PolitiFact's Angie Drobnic Holan takes it a step further than that and ends up on thin ice.
The background is on the mark:
“I love those hockey moms. You know the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.”
The line drew cheerful applause and has echoed ever since, which seems to explain how Sen. Barack Obama found himself in the middle of an uproar when he uttered a time-worn phrase to denigrate Sen. John McCain’s proclaimed agenda for “change” in Washington.
This is a key point. Palin's pit bull/lipstick remark "has echoed ever since" and cannot be unknown to Democrats including Barack Obama.
"John McCain says he's about change, too," Obama said. "And so I guess his whole angle is, 'Watch out, George Bush! Except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy, and Karl Rove-style politics, we're really going to shake things up in Washington.'"
"That's not change," Obama said. "That's just calling something the same thing something different. But you know, you can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change, it’s still going to stink after eight years. We’ve had enough of the same old thing."
Gasp! He just said lipstick! Did he just call Sarah Palin a pig??!!!
That’s the charge.
Yes, that's the charge. It is a plausible charge on its face given that Palin's line about lipstick "has resonated ever since," and it seems that the facetious "Gasp!" is intended to mock as reactionary those who make the connection.
But throughout the PolitiFact analysis, the reaction of Obama's audience is completely overlooked. Watch the video.
Obama delivers a somewhat unusual version of the "lipstick on a pig" metaphor. He states "You can put lipstick on a pig" and then pauses. The audience keys in to his statement and starts to react, then Obama finishes the line.
The audience reaction, judging from the sound and appearance, took cues from the fact that Palin's line about lipstick and pit bulls "has resonated ever since." Writer/researcher Angie Drobnic Holan tunes out that resonation for purposes of her analysis.
The ad has two big problems, as does the complaint of former Gov. Swift. First, in the full text of the remarks it’s clear that Obama isn’t talking about Sarah Palin. He’s talking about McCain’s argument that he represents change.
Good-bye "has resonated ever since."
It's fair to grant that Obama clearly had policy in mind as the primary object of his attack. It is naive, however, to think that Obama could not have had Palin in mind as a secondary target of the remark, given "has resonated ever since." We would have to believe that Obama would not have any inkling that using the "lipstick on a pig" line would not recall Palin's line from her RNC speech. Is Barack Obama a stupid man?
Second, “putting lipstick on a pig” is a popular put-down, especially among politicians. It generally means taking a bad or unattractive idea and trying to dress it up.
That's certainly true, but it does nothing to establish that Obama did not deliberately refer to Palin as a subtext. It serves as a red herring in terms of this issue. And red herrings constitute much of the remainder of her analysis.
We weren’t able to pin down the origins of this folksy expression, but we found tons of instances of people using it.
Save it. It's not relevant where nobody made a comment regarding lipstick that "resonated ever since." Regardless, Drobnic Holan regales us with several irrelevant examples.
After that she makes the Grand Pronouncement on behalf of PolitiFact:
It is simply impossible to view the complete remarks by Obama and conclude that he’s making a veiled and unsavory reference to Palin.
I suggest that dozens in Obama's audience would aver otherwise if compelled to testify under oath.
Her name never is used in the preceding sentence.
No need. "(R)esonated ever since." Remember?
We think it’s very clear that Obama was saying McCain’s effort to call himself the “candidate of change” is like putting lipstick on a pig, trying to dress up a bad idea to look better. Agree or disagree with Obama’s point, but his remark wasn’t the smear that McCain’s people have tried to make it.
The judgment appears to appeal to a false dilemma. If Obama is referring to McCain's policies then he can't be referring also to Palin. Angie Drobnic Holan provides nothing other than that implied fallacy in favor of the conclusion.
Chalk up another grand flub for the folks at PolitiFact.
***
As for my own judgment of Obama's intent, I now lean toward the view that Obama did intend for his audience to pick up on a reference to Palin. The evidence is simple: Palin's pit-bull line "has resonated ever since." Obama is taking a beating in the polls in the wake of Palinmania. Obama made an unusual pause in his delivery of a oft-used line. Obama's audience appeared to pick up on the line as a reference to Palin. Taking those things together, it is difficult to see how anyone could argue that Obama could not have been referring to Palin.
There will never be any definitive proof that Obama intended to catch Palin with the blast, however, unless he just comes out and admits it.
Update:
Since YouTube removed the originally embedded video, I've added a different embed.
It's also worth adding that Obama's speech doesn't just talk about "lipstick on a pig." It also trots out the fish wrapped in newspaper line. But not just any fish. Obama refers to an "old" fish that will stink after eight years. Now ask yourself: Is it important to say that the fish is old if we're looking at whether it will stink in eight years? The first was very probably an intentional veiled reference to Sarach Palin. The second was very probably an intentional veiled reference to John McCain.
Yes, the mainstream media are dominated by ideological leftists top to bottom. But I've always thought them eager to report fairly, on balance.
Yes, we have many indications that the mainstream press sustains a preference for Barack Obama in the upcoming election.
But the reporting on Sarah Palin is so far over the top as to virtually defy belief. The week's news provides some absolutely stunning examples of reporter ineptitude. I pointed out one where Newsweek reported a judge's order barring Palin from disparaging her sister's ex-husband in front of the couple's children as though the judge's order applied as well to the ex's supervisors.
Power Line and others point to Charlie Gibson's cluelessness in asking Governor Palin about a portion of one of her public prayers that he took out of context.
In the interview with Sarah Palin broadcast on ABC last night, Charles Gibson tried to trip her up in the following exchange:
GIBSON: You said recently, in your old church, “Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.” Are we fighting a holy war?
PALIN: You know, I don’t know if that was my exact quote.
“Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God,” she exhorted the congregants. “That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan.”
To borrow a Lincolnian formulation in honor of the Lincolnian formulation of Palin's prayer: the difference between what Palin actually said and what Gibson quoted her as saying is akin to the difference between a horse chestnut and a chestnut horse.
As part of its campaign to discredit Governor Sarah Palin, the Washington Post carries a front page article this morning by Anne Kornblut that headlines, falsely: "Palin Links Iraq to Sept. 11 In Talk to Troops in Alaska." The article begins:
Gov. Sarah Palin linked the war in Iraq with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, telling an Iraq-bound brigade of soldiers that included her son that they would "defend the innocent from the enemies who planned and carried out and rejoiced in the death of thousands of Americans."
The idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, a view once promoted by Bush administration officials, has since been rejected even by the president himself.
News flash to Ms. Kornblut: the Alaska National Guard isn't going to Iraq to fight "the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein."
This type of shocking ineptitude underscores the problem with the ideologically tilted press: They can't report objectively any longer because they don't have an effective check on their own bias. These examples featuring Palin may only be the tip of the iceberg.
As I have opined in the past, the press routinely recycles its own misconceptions as factual background information for the (ahem) benefit of its readers.
A Newsweek story ("Newsweek Web Exclusive") from Tuesday perpetuates the Smear-a-thon being held in honor of John McCain's vice-presidential pick, Alaska governor Sarah Palin.
The reporter, Mark Hosenball , reveals in his Web exclusive that a judge hearing the custody case involving Palin's sister ordered the family not to disparage the ex, Mark Wooten. Somehow Hosenball is able to overlook the fact that the order seems almost certainly limited to comments made around the children involved in the custody case.
Court records obtained by NEWSWEEK show that during the course of divorce hearings three years ago, Judge John Suddock heard testimony from an official of the Alaska State Troopers' union about how Sarah Palin—then a private citizen—and members of her family, including her father and daughter, lodged up to a dozen complaints against Wooten with the state police. The union official told the judge that he had never before been asked to appear as a divorce-case witness, that the union believed family complaints against Wooten were "not job-related," and that Wooten was being "harassed" by Palin and other family members.
Court documents show that Judge Suddock was disturbed by the alleged attacks by Palin and her family members on Wooten's behavior and character. "Disparaging will not be tolerated—it is a form of child abuse," the judge told a settlement hearing in October 2005, according to typed notes of the proceedings. The judge added: "Relatives cannot disparage either. If occurs [sic] the parent needs to set boundaries for their relatives." (bold emphasis added)
Fortunately for the denizens of the leftward Fever Swamp, Hosenball was able to connect the barred disparagement to criticisms the Palin family have registered to various adults apparently well out of the hearing of the children. Hence the juxtaposition of the two paragraphs quoted above where the former deals with Palin's attacks on Wooten's fitness for duty with law enforcement. On the second page (Web), Hosenball makes a more direct effort to establish the connection in the reader's mind:
At the heart of the continuing "Troopergate" flap is evidence that despite Judge Suddock's warnings back in 2005 and 2006, Palin and her husband continued to make disparaging allegations against Wooten, even after she went to the statehouse.
I can only hope that I'm the first to say that Hosenball and his editor have demonstrated an incredible degree of incompetence. The story offers no reasonable indication that Judge Suddock was doing anything other than barring the Palins from disparaging Wooten in front of his children. If the judge ordered anything broader than what Hosenball quoted then somebody should have had the sense to put it in the story.
As expected, the Newsweek pratfall led a parade of followers from the left blogosphere. This version from TPM Muckraker (with Zachary Roth as composer) concentrates the faulty inference into a taut little assertion that Palin defied the judge:
Newsweekreports that in 2005, a judge warned Sarah Palin and her family to stop disparaging Mike Wooten, the state trooper who at the time was undergoing a bitter divorce from Palin's sister and is at the heart of the ongoing Trooper-Gate investigation.
According to court records of the divorce proceedings obtained by the magazine, Judge John Suddock called the attacks on Wooten by the family "a form of child abuse." And an official with the troopers' union told the judge that he had received up to a dozen family complaints against Wooten. The official said he believed the complaints were "not job-related" and that Wooten was being "harassed" by his estranged wife's family.
Unless Alaska's ex-public safety commissioner, Walter Monegan, is unusually young it is difficult to imagine how making him listen to criticisms of Wooten amount to child abuse.
Though perhaps Christy Hardin Smith of FireDogLake can explain it to me since she apparently sees the legitimacy of the Hosenball Inference:
No idea what the underlying reasons for divorce were, but it is a huge concern that the family court judge warned Palin's family -- repeatedly -- to stop making unfounded accusations and trying to poison the well about Wooten. Judges only put material like that on the record where they perceive a real and present problem -- and those warnings could not have been more clear.
And yet Palin continued well after those multiple warnings in her first meetings with the head of the AK state police and the public safety chief after she was elected governor. Seems to me that she was fairly single-minded in her intent to continue with multiple people in authority over her former brother-in-law, despite a judge's order to cease and desist.
Her next paragraph implies that Smith is a lawyer, for what it's worth.
On the other hand, BigTentDemocrat over at TalkLeft seems to have at least one foot planted in Sanesville:
Here's my bottom line politically - let this alone Democrats. The facts are bad on this and the actions (or likely inactions now) of Judge Suddock are impossible to defend. But I await instruction from family law practitioners here to lecture me how Alaska family law court orders trump the First Amendment.
BTD buys into the notion that the judge's order went far beyond comments made within the hearing of the children. But at least he recognizes the nutty implications that result from that type of order.
Matt Volz, writing for the AP, appears to regard the Hosenball Inference with skepticism, as he goes no further than offering the same type of juxtaposition that Hosenball produced. Volz makes no attempt to effect a clear logical/literary transition between the judge's order and complaints about Wooten made known to adults out of the hearing of the children.
But with a little luck the reader will reach the unstated conclusion?
It is difficult to conceive that this type of journalistic idiocy could come from a mainstream media not sold out for Obama.
