So I was in my vehicle tonight and tuned to a station where I was expecting to hear a talk show, but instead, I was greeted with the last few seconds of the Kerry speech at the convention. All I heard from Kerry was God bless America or something to that effect, and the announcer immediately came on. Just for the record, this was ABC radio coverage. Here's the first thing out of the announcer's mouth (not exactly verbatim, but close enough that I'm quoting it):
“We were told the speech would be fifty-five minutes, that was closer to forty-six minutes. He drove through that speech like he was back on the boat in Vietnam.”Come on. I don't recall the reporter's name, but he was soon followed by Sam Donaldson who sounded as elated as I've ever heard him. I think it's about time ABC took the lead from the NY Times and just admitted their liberal bias. Sheesh.
Originally posted at Evilwhiteguy's Blog.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Mac Diva
Hmmm. But, you defended deejays who referred to people using the words “spic," "nigra," "jigaboo" and "fag" in this entry. There is a problem with bias here, but I don't think it is the 'liberal media's.'
2 - simon hb
Eh? Could you explain for a non-American exactly how using a metaphor and commenting on how fast someone read out a speech is liberal bias?
3 - David Flanagan
I do think that Sam Donaldson is pretty moderate on the whole. Kerry's speech last night seemed to be delivered with a lot of power and enthusiasm, but he DID indeed go through it quickly, not even giving people time to cheer him before pushing on. Not sure why that was, but his timing seemed to be off.
As for the speech itself, I intend to post on that tonight but my one overarching thought on it was, "if this is 'moderate' and 'toned-down,' then I'd hate to see aggressive." LOTS of backhanded accusations and insults delivered in the speech last night. I'm going to get the text and go through it to show exactly where, but I do expect that the liberal media will shower love all over Kerry for his speech last night.
Thanks,
David
4 - Hal Pawluk
What did Fox have to say?
5 - bhw
he DID indeed go through it quickly, not even giving people time to cheer him before pushing on. Not sure why that was, but his timing seemed to be off.
He might have been trying to avoid Clinton's sometime habit of going on too long. Didn't he talk forever in one State of the Union speech?
6 - David Flanagan
I think each year Clinton gave his SOU speech it was longer than the last. The guy loved to go on, though, at least he was an exceptionally good speaker.
David
7 - jack e. jett
evilwhiteguy makes negative comments about positive commments that someone made on a speech that he (evilwhiteguy) only caught the "last few seconds" of.
bias?
jack
8 - Evilwhiteguy
It's biased becuase the metaphor was specifically used to remind everyone that Kerry served in Vietnam, which is one of Kerry's key selling points.
9 - Evilwhiteguy
Well, at least long enough to stage some battle scenes for camera footage, and get a purple heart for a wound treated with a band-aid. Oh, and to impress his superior officers enough that they banded together to let America know that he is unfit to be commander-in-chief (see the Amazon listing above).
www.swiftvets.com
10 - bhw
I just said something similar on another thread, but what is with the "yeah, he served in Vietnam, but ..." stuff? I'm so sure Kerry's plan was to put his life in danger so he could use the footage of it later.
Kerry volunteered for Vietnam. Bush served in the National Guard. Both joined the military during a war. That should be enough.
It seems like only men are involved in the usual machismo comparisons of whose service was real and whose wasn't.
11 - Evilwhiteguy
Personally, I just find it odd that Kerry, who was so opposed to the war after he returned home, and by his own admission committed war crimes, would use his Vietnam service as a reason that he should be elected.
12 - bhw
He's just doing it because, for some reason, people seem to think it matters more than other things. If voters didn't think that Vietnam service had some cosmic significance, then politicians wouldn't make such a deal over it.
13 - jack e. jet
john kerry fought in a war, then had the guts to say the war was wrong. everyone is so caught up in not wanting to be wrong about irag that they are in a massive denial. it is hard to accept that people are loosing their young lives because bush is a pussy and dick cheney is a fucking evil bastard.
this is just my own reverse fox bias.
this is bias v bias.
jack e. jett
soon never to be on fox tv
14 - Mac Diva
(Scratching head.) Isn't the fact Kerry served in Vietnam with distinction information? And, isn't it reporters' job to present information? What I am seeing here is not excesses of 'the liberal media,' but someone who doesn't grasp the role of journalists. Someone who wants them to reflect his biases back, not report facts.
15 - Distorted Angel
Re: comment #12 -- bhw, maybe the reason people think it's important is because they're remembering that the Republicans went after Clinton hammer and tongs over the fact that he didn't serve. The mystery surrounding Bush's guard service is just the sort of thing that the right would have had a field day with if that shoe were on the other foot. None of this speaks to the issue of whether or not service in Vietnam ought to be some sort of litmus test -- but it's a cultural flashpoint for people of a certain age, that's for sure.
16 - Evilwhiteguy
bhw,
I think that's close, but I see the cosmic signifigance as being seen as pro-military during a wartime election. And given Kerry's record of voting against nearly every major weapons system in his career in the Senate, and his vote against the $87 billion to keep the troops funded, his service in Vietnam seems to be the only leg he has to stand on in that regard.
17 - Mac Diva
LOL @ evilwhiteguy! He's concerned about bias, yet he posts a triptych of distortions of Kerry's record in Comment 15. As I said before, I think he is concerned about objectively reported information -- not bias. If the material matched his biases, he would not be complaining, as in the entry about the deejays. In other words, Evil is seeking propaganda, not information. So, factual content, such as references to Kerry's military service, gets his goat. Too bad. The reporters are doing their job.
18 - Evilwhiteguy
I'm guessing you meant Comment 9, since Comment 15 wasn't mine. And those aren't distortions. The staged battle scenes are documented in the book listed above in the Amazon section. And quoting directly from swiftvets.com, "More than 250 Swift boat veterans have now signed an open letter to Senator Kerry challenging his fitness to serve as commander-in-chief of America's armed forces."
As for the band-aid, that is a direct recollection of the doctor in Vietnam who treated him.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38341
So no distortions there, sorry. And I don't purport to be impartial, but the major news media, with the exception of the NY Times, do.
19 - Mac Diva
So, a far Right propaganda site, World Net Daily, is a fine source of material, but Kerry's military records and investigative reports by major media, aren't? Thanks for proving my point about what you want to perceive as 'news,' Evil.
20 - Evilwhiteguy
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-swift5may05,1,1840890.story?coll=la-home-politics
Same story, Los Angeles Times. Surely you're not going to try to say the the Los Angeles Times is a "far Right propeganda site" are you?
And the Chicago Tribune:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/jobs/promo/chi-0405050282may05,0,5270480.story
It's been reported everywhere, that's what his doctor said. Just because WND reports it along with other media outlets doesn't make it any less true.
21 - Mac Diva
The original source is Byron York, a Right Wing propagandist. Other media may have alluded to his allegations, but they have not affirmed them. The claim is too fishy. Why would a doctor remember giving someone a Band-Aid (that is what Letson says was the treatment for Kerry's injury) 35 years later? Why would the same doctor specifically recollect that the same someone considered himself the next J.F.K. from Massachussetts? What other innocuous events does he remember so clearly from that long ago? Letson would not last five minutes under cross-examination.
Not that this silly story matters much. The injury referred to is only the first of three Kerry received in Vietnam. It is alleged by a Neanderthal from Alabama who is part of a group attacking Kerry. Byron York was last in the news trying to claim Charles Pickering, a member of the White Citizens Council of Alabama who still holds white supremacist views, is a civil rights hero. The far Right's effort to discredit Kerry needs to do much better than this to have any credibility.
22 - Justene
Kerry became very public very quickly as a war protestor. We certainly have enough pictures from back then. It's very easy to believe the dr would have seen or heard of him and remembered then that it was a bandaid injury and kept that memory intact as Kerry rolled through public life.
He also might have heard after he treated him that Kerry had applied for a Purple Heart and that annoyed him enough to remember the name and the treatment for all these years.
I can tell you right now the name of kids in my third grade class where I was in 69. I could repeat verbatim a conversation I had about a Laughin episode. Memory is a funny thing and I wouldn't assume that just because it was a minor incident a long time ago that someone doesn't really remember.
23 - Evilwhiteguy
Not to mention the fact that, according to his commanding officer, the injury was suffered as a result of his own negligence, not enemy fire. An account of the events leading to his first purple heart:
"As an officer in command (OIC) in training, Kerry reported during this mission to William Schachte, who eventually retired as a Rear Admiral. Schachte flatly contradicts Kerry's claim to have been wounded by enemy fire, saying that after his M-16 jammed, Kerry picked up an M-79 grenade launcher and fired a grenade that exploded too close to the boat, causing a small piece of shrapnel to stick in the skin of his arm. Kerry himself did not report receiving hostile fire that night, which would have been required, and there is no record of hostile fire for the mission.
Kerry succeeded in keeping the small piece of shrapnel in his arm until the following day, when he was treated by Dr. Louis Letson, whose version of the event matches William Schachte's account rather than Kerry's."
So that's two people individually verfifying the story. Again, just because you call Byron York a right wing propegandist doesn't make the doctor's, or Kerry's commanding officer's story less true.
24 - Mac Diva
Horsefeathers! What we have with this silly anecdote is far Right Wingers making up a story that fits today's circumstances and retroactively applying it to events more than three decades ago. Not only does Letson claim to have given Kerry a Band-Aid, he says he committed the supposedly minor injury to memory and can tell you its size, location and describe the shrapnel sticking out. Fat chance. Most people can't remember what they had for dinner last Friday. Even current eyewitness testimony is suspect because people allege their biases, not what they saw. Either this man has an extraordinary memory, or more likely, he tells whoppers, especially when being encouraged by fellow liar Byron York. This nonsense plays with fellow travelers. But, their hope of it seeming anything but a convenient lie to most people is futile.
25 - Evilwhiteguy
Let's see, so we have more than one person recalling the same story. If they're lying, that makes it a conspiracy. And since a lot of people give credence to the story, that makes it vast. And since they're supposedly "Right Wingers", that would make it a...VAST RIGHT-WING CONSPIRACY!
Thank goodness we have uncovered it! And you saw it first right here on Blogcritics.org, people. Don't forget to credit your sources.