Wednesday, November 01, 2006

The Seattle Times at it again, this time excusing and giving cover to John Kerry

UPDATE - 10:45 AM

Okay, the original slanted story is now gone from the Seattle Times website. Both the original link and the archive link have been pointed to different stories. The search engine cannot locate the original.

Good thing I saved it myself, or I'd be wondering whether it ever really existed.

It's also too bad that the Times can't delete it from the 200,000 printed papers circulated today, but then they don't bias their coverage by accident.

UPDATE - 9:15 AM

The Times has apparently moved the article off its webpage and replaced it already. What is very interesting, though, is that the new story has the same link as the old story did, and the old story is now an archived story found here:
GOP rips Kerry over Iraq quote; he comes firing back

Did the Times get slammed already this morning for such a biased and apologetic report on Kerry's remarks?

But why would the times give the new story the URL for the original story? That is a very interesting decision.

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Leave it to the Seattle Times to spin, distort and excuse a grotesque statement by John Kerry into something far different than what was actually said. For those that continue to insist that there is no bias in the media, look at the first paragraph in this story printed in and authored by the Seattle Times:
GOP rips Kerry over Iraq quote; he comes firing back

John Kerry’s remarks, suggesting that those that don’t take advantage of education will “get stuck in Iraq, was an assault on the intelligence of the men and women who volunteer to serve in the United States military. They were also the statements made by a person who returned his own medals more than three decades ago after alleging that all servicemen in Vietnam engaged in war crimes.

But instead on focusing on the remark, the Times jumps immediately into spin mode to help out Kerry and place his comments into a more excusable context:

“Frustration over the prolonged Iraq conflict exploded Tuesday as Republicans pounced on a remark by Sen. John Kerry a night earlier, and the Democrat slammed back at President Bush's "broken policy."

In the first sentence the Times places Kerry’s repugnant comments into a context of the “frustration” over the “prolonged” Iraq conflict. The Times then finishes up that first sentence quoting Kerry’s charge of Bush’s “broken policy” in Iraq before even printing what Kerry said that has ignited the firestorm.

Here is a message for the editors at the Times. Kerry was not attacking Bush with his comment. He was attacking the men and women serving in the military. He didn’t correct his statement and only alleged that it was a botched joke hours after he had come under fire. He even refused to apologize for the statement and tried to blame it all on some right-wing conspiracy. It is no stretch that he meant every word when you consider the disdain for the military that he has displayed since he wounded himself after 4 months in Vietnam, and started his own efforts to undermine that war and the men and women who were serving in it.

Imagine an article beginning like this when the Foley scandal broke:

“Frustration over the loneliness of being a gay politician exploded Tuesday as Democrats pounced on flirtatious emails from Mark Foley from 3 years ago, and Foley slammed back at the Democrat’s “total hypocrisy” in matters of child molestation.”

How many laughs would such a start to the Foley scandal have garnered?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Even O'reilly admits it was a flub and not meant.