Can you support out troops and still be against the war?

[Popeye]

That's a pretty stupid philosophy and it is not only hypocritical (because you surely wouldn't apply the same principle to Clinton)

The same kind of hypocrisy applies to you. If Clinton were president, the right wing would be harping, no end, on his failure to capture Bin Laden. Instead, as you have demonstrated, we get justifications for this historic failure.

I'm not talking about just the war here but there are 513,000 elected officials in this country. The President is just one (albeit an important one) in this whole system. Why is he the only one to blame when things don't go perfectly?

The right wing never has any trouble giving Bush credit for perceived successes, should not the reverse be true?

Secondly, since he is the most powerful man in the country, a lot accountability ultimately does fall on him but his job could be made a hell of a lot easier if the press and this country's liberals would throw him a bone once in a while.

"Throw him a bone"? Don't you really mean, gloss over one of the most dismal presidencies in modern history?

The whole "they're doing it for ratings" argument can't even work for the NY Times because everytime they splash another major tool in tracking terrorists all over the front page, they lose a large percentage of readers. (In the last six months, their daily circulation was down 4.51% to about a million readers (1.5 million on Sunday). To put it in perspective, the Drudge Report has 16 million readers a day.)

Thats ridiculous. Print media circulation is down uniformly. Daily circulation for reporting papers in the six-month period ending in September is down about 2.5% while Sunday is closer to 3.5%.

Several major papers have suffered declines in daily circulation of over 7%, including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Miami Herald and The Dallas Morning News. I'm sure you've noticed that several of those are hardly bastions of liberalism.

You know full well, that the decline in the circulation of the print media is not due to the outing of administration terrorist tracking tools. Many people are preferring to get their news on line, thats all.

 

[USMC the Almighty]

The same kind of hypocrisy applies to you. If Clinton were president, the right wing would be harping, no end, on his failure to capture Bin Laden. Instead, as you have demonstrated, we get justifications for this historic failure.

Make no mistake about it. I extremely upset about the fact that bin Laden is still alive (though I don't think he's 'laughing' about it). What I was trying to say is that the fact that bin Laden is still alive is not 100% the fault of the President. The left wing certainly has been anything but helpful in capturing bin Laden, dating back to the Clinton Administration.

The right wing never has any trouble giving Bush credit for perceived successes, should not the reverse be true?

What does the 'right wing' have to do with anything? I said your position "demonstrates a major issue with people's view on the role of government" and that is they only focus on 1 person out of all 513,000 elected officials.

"Throw him a bone"? Don't you really mean, gloss over one of the most dismal presidencies in modern history?

By throw him a bone I mean don't keep splashing crucial tools used to catch terrorists all over the front pages of our newspapers.

Thats ridiculous. Print media circulation is down uniformly. Daily circulation for reporting papers in the six-month period ending in September is down about 2.5% while Sunday is closer to 3.5%.

Several major papers have suffered declines in daily circulation of over 7%, including the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Miami Herald and The Dallas Morning News. I'm sure you've noticed that several of those are hardly bastions of liberalism.

We're getting away from the important things here but which of these papers would you argue are not liberal? The AJC officially supported Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. Anyone who has every read something from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel can cleary discern that it is overwhelmingly liberal. The op-ed pages of the San Diego Tribune are clearly liberal. The Miami Herald and Dallas Morning News are both two of the most consistenly liberal newspapers in the country.

You know full well, that the decline in the circulation of the print media is not due to the outing of administration terrorist tracking tools. Many people are preferring to get their news on line, thats all.

I understand your point but when you look at the numbers, most glaringly after the NY Times bewilderingly exposed the terrorist financial tracking tools, you cannot argue that people did not drop their susbscriptions out of anger at the paper's blatant treason.

 

[Popeye]

Make no mistake about it. I extremely upset about the fact that bin Laden is still alive (though I don't think he's 'laughing' about it). What I was trying to say is that the fact that bin Laden is still alive is not 100% the fault of the President. The left wing certainly has been anything but helpful in capturing bin Laden, dating back to the Clinton Administration.

Well, at least you're upset that bin Laden still lives. It may not be 100% Bush's fault, but as the president it's his job to accept responsibility.

What does the 'right wing' have to do with anything? I said your position "demonstrates a major issue with people's view on the role of government" and that is they only focus on 1 person out of all 513,000 elected officials.

That "1 person out of all 513,000 elected officials" is number one on the totem pole. He's like a football QB, too much credit when things go right, too much blame when they don't, but that's the job Bush wanted.

By throw him a bone I mean don't keep splashing crucial tools used to catch terrorists all over the front pages of our newspapers.

Don't you mean you expect the news media to employ a form of self censorship? The news outlets were already way too deferential to this administration leading up to the war in Iraq. Never questioning dubious assertions, such as WMD or the real immediacy of the supposed threat Saddam posed.

We're getting away from the important things here but which of these papers would you argue are not liberal? The AJC officially supported Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004. Anyone who has every read something from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel can cleary discern that it is overwhelmingly liberal. The op-ed pages of the San Diego Tribune are clearly liberal. The Miami Herald and Dallas Morning News are both two of the most consistenly liberal newspapers in the country.

The Dallas Morning News and the San Diego Tribune endorsed Bush in 2004. According to the list I got, the AJC did endorse Kerry, but endorsed Bush in 2000. The point is, that no definitive conclusions can be drawn, the print media is just dying a slow death. I personally, still enjoy reading the newspaper the old fashion way, hopefully the loss in readership will level off somewhat.

I understand your point but when you look at the numbers, most glaringly after the NY Times bewilderingly exposed the terrorist financial tracking tools, you cannot argue that people did not drop their susbscriptions out of anger at the paper's blatant treason.

Calling the NY Times treasonous is a bit much, don't you think? This is America, first amendment and all, remember?

The NY Times loss of print subscriptions is, as previously mentioned, reflected throughout the print media world. However, visits to their website are up. Maybe there were a few right wing reactionaries who canceled their subscriptions, but, in the pursuit of truth, you can't hope to please everybody.

 

[palerider]

Calling the NY Times treasonous is a bit much, don't you think? This is America, first amendment and all, remember?

The first amendment is not a suicide pact. Knowing a thing does not give one (even the press) the right to repeat it. Especially something as important as the means by which someone like bin laden might be tracked to ground.

 

[Popeye]

The first amendment is not a suicide pact. Knowing a thing does not give one (even the press) the right to repeat it. Especially something as important as the means by which someone like bin laden might be tracked to ground.

bin Laden should have been captured a long time ago if the Bush administration had remained focused on the job at hand. Instead, they made their choice, Saddam was more important than Osama. Attempting to shift blame, to the press, doesn't change that.

 

[USMC the Almighty]

bin Laden should have been captured a long time ago if the Bush administration had remained focused on the job at hand. Instead, they made their choice, Saddam was more important than Osama. Attempting to shift blame, to the press, doesn't change that.

bin Laden should have been captured long before 9/11 by the Clinton Administration (really falls on Sandy Berger) but I doubt you'd be willing to look past your partisanship. I agree, bin Laden should have been captured by Bush. You won't find many military arguing that what happened in the mountains of Tora Bora was not a fatal and costly error.

What you're still not getting is this: yes, Bush deserves some blame for not capturing bin Laden but so does the media. When every tool Bush is using to track terorrists and bin Laden is splashed onto the front page of the Times, it gets pretty difficult to (a) get people to trust you and (b) keep coming up with new ways to gather intel.

 

[Bunz]

Jarhead, how ultimately does the media share a responsibility? Are you suggesting that the worlds most wanted man not make the front page?

Clinton holds some blame, but Bush is the leader who said he would catch him and hasnt come through. It isnt necessarily lack of effort. But ultimately and you probably know this better than most. When the ship sinks, for whatever reason, it is the skipper who assumes the blame.

 

[palerider]

bin Laden should have been captured a long time ago if the Bush administration had remained focused on the job at hand. Instead, they made their choice, Saddam was more important than Osama. Attempting to shift blame, to the press, doesn't change that.

Explain to me how the action in iraq has hindered the action in afghanistan? Are you suggesting that we should have just flooded afghanistan with the troops that would have gone to iraq and set them in the mountains wandering about looking for bin laden?

That is what it would have been because the left was announcing our methods of tracking him cia the press as quickly as the democrat leadership could leak the information.

 

[palerider]

Jarhead, how ultimately does the media share a responsibility? Are you suggesting that the worlds most wanted man not make the front page?

There is no doubt that the man would make the front page. It is treasonous, however, to announce to him via the front page the methods we are using to track him to ground.

There is no doubt that bin laden is an enemy of the US. There is also no doubt that telling him what methods were being used to track him was aiding him in a very big way. Aiding the enemies of one's country is treason. Simple as that. The press so hated bush and so wanted to punish him that they were willing to commit treason against their country to do it.

 

[Popeye]

Explain to me how the action in iraq has hindered the action in afghanistan? Are you suggesting that we should have just flooded afghanistan with the troops that would have gone to iraq and set them in the mountains wandering about looking for bin laden?

Might not have been a bad idea, bin Laden would have been captured, lives lost in Iraq saved, billions not wasted in Iraq. Of course, Iraq has the oil, Bush was keeping his eye on the real prize.

That is what it would have been because the left was announcing our methods of tracking him cia the press as quickly as the democrat leadership could leak the information.

If anything was leaked to the press, it's the fault of the source, not the press for printing it. This is not the old Soviet Union, or Putin's Russia, for that matter.

In case you're keeping count, it's been 2262 days since President Bush said he would get Osama bin Laden "Dead Or Alive."

 

[palerider]

If anything was leaked to the press, it's the fault of the source, not the press for printing it. This is not the old Soviet Union, or Putin's Russia, for that matter

So now we have a treasonous democrat leadership leaking the methods by which we were tracking bin laden and a treasonous press for printing it. Which do you believe we should go after first?

 

[USMC the Almighty]

Jarhead, how ultimately does the media share a responsibility? Are you suggesting that the worlds most wanted man not make the front page?

Clinton holds some blame, but Bush is the leader who said he would catch him and hasnt come through. It isnt necessarily lack of effort. But ultimately and you probably know this better than most. When the ship sinks, for whatever reason, it is the skipper who assumes the blame.

I understand Bunz, but what possible reason could there be for printing a story about our terrorist finance tracking program or that we are tracking him via satellite phone. There is absolutely no reason.

I could understand their thinking behind printing the story on the NSA wiretapping because they wanted to make Bush look bad at any cost, but the other two don't even fall under this category.

 

[Bunz]

So now we have a treasonous democrat leadership leaking the methods by which we were tracking bin laden and a treasonous press for printing it. Which do you believe we should go after first?

I could understand their thinking behind printing the story on the NSA wiretapping because they wanted to make Bush look bad at any cost, but the other two don't even fall under this category.

Both of my right wing pals on here want to blame the media for printing News that was told to them. You know it is interesting that the only person ever to get in trouble for anything close to classified information was Scooter Libby. I have little doubt that he is simply a patsy for a larger target but that is for another thread.

I will say this, when it comes to a story that cites a confidential source as the basis for the story I generally pay it less attention. I am one who thinks despite the freedom of the press there still needs to be accountability. If the media are not willing to disclose thier sources publicly than it isnt worth anything. If an informant leaks something that is being done that is questionable in terms of legality then whistle blower protection needs to be in place. If they leak something that is classified then they need to be held accountable.

The thing is that both sides play the media and the media plays right back. This isnt a GOP Vs. Dem issue, this is a corrupt party system versus the American people.

 

[PLC1]

Support the troops. Throw them a great welcome home party.

 

[Dr House]

Yes.

You'd have to be real cruel to hope they get hurt, even if you don't support what they're doing.

On the other hand, my compassion for them is limited, given they volunteered to serve. They took the risk, so they must take responsibility for the consequences. If we still had a draft, I would support them completely (from the safety of an apartment in Santo Domingo, of course, I won't serve if I can help it).

-Dr House