Here are three short ones from some of my favorite sites on the net on the ferocious spinning we are getting following the Republican convention.
From David Dayen:
d-day
‘Tis the season for the press to be played by Republican spinners. You’d think that after eight years’ worth of lies told directly to their face they’d stop believing this stuff. But no.
Carl Cameron, who works for the other team so is little more than a propagandist, dutifully typed up a story about the Obama campaign tossing in the trash 12,000 flags after their convention. It’s completely untrue, yet other news outlets ran with it.
The McCain campaign refused to acknowledge the dumbest mistake in the history of political conventions by projecting Walter Reed Middle School behind John McCain’s speech instead of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which they clearly preferred. Instead they claimed that it was part of the images of Americana that played behind him, and public education was part of it. Except they stopped the parade of images when one of them was clearly wrong:
“But you don’t need the inside scoop to know what happened here. Those who watched the convention closely know that through the event, the screen backdrop had rotating video of what Bounds called “images of Americana.” Stuff would cycle in and out.
“But that’s not what happened with McCain. Our crack analysts at TPM HQ pulled the tape. And what happened in McCains case was that the green screen was up for 5 or 6 minutes. Then it got pulled. It was replaced briefly by a cornfield. And then after a few moments of that it was the picture of the flag, which appeared as a blue screen to viewers on tv. That remained through McCain’s entire speech. No more changes. It was pretty clear that someone on McCain’s staff realized the goof a few minutes into the speech, cancelled the pre-programmed order of images and hurriedly slotted in flag image to save the day.”
And yet the NYT bought that. Unbelievable.
Journalists really have the lowest self-image of any profession in America. They are lied to and lied to again and yet they print up the spin every time.
Here’s a good piece, actually, about the Walter Reed Middle School mixup, wherein middle school students show themselves to be keener than the New York Times:
“”McCain messed up. He was talking about Walter Reed hospital, and he used our picture by mistake,” said 11-year-old Joshua.”
Gov. Palin Interview Clock
From Craig Cheslog
President
Lamorinda Democratic Club
Given McCain campaign manager Rick Davis’ decision to take an un-American stance by stating that Gov. Sarah Palin requires “deference” before submitting to a media interview, I’ve decided to add a Palin Interview Clock to the “Osama Clock” and “Mission Accomplished” clock in the right column of this web site.
Our political leaders do not get “deference.” In case Davis has forgotten, we declared over 232 years ago that our nation would not play that game.
Sen. McCain asked Gov. Palin to be his vice presidential choice on August 27. So, the count is now 11 days.
Eleven days since a person who wants to be one heartbeat away from the presidency has had an unscripted moment with the media. That’s not leadership I can believe in, my friends.
And from Dave Johnson
Seeing the Forest
Sarah Palin could be the President of the United States in four and a half months. We tend to think of this as an abstraction; but it’s true. And yet today she’s so unprepared and knows so little about the challenges and tasks facing the country that she can’t even give a softball interview.
That’s really all we need to know.
They don’t even dare let her be interviewed on Fox or Rush. And she could be President of the United States in January.
These people have no respect for democracy.
