Mainstream Media Spins The Crap Out Of Surge Testimony Today
Good grief, do these people have no shame?
From an article in Newsbusters by Brent Baker:
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams led Tuesday’s newscast by listing the burden of the Iraq war in years, troops, deaths and cost before Jim Miklaszewski, unlike reporters on ABC and CBS, found it newsworthy to show a man, in the Senate hearing for General David Petraeus, shouting “bring them home!” In the next story, Andrea Mitchell decided to highlight, again unlike ABC or CBS, how John McCain “stumbled…by again describing al Qaeda as Shiite” and Williams turned to Richard Engel, NBC’s Iraq reporter, who described Petraeus’ decision to end troop withdrawals in July as “frustrating and disheartening in that the rules of the game have changed.” Williams opened:
The war’s now five years old. That’s longer than U.S. involvement in World War II. There are currently 162,000 U.S. troops serving in Iraq. Death toll is now over 4,000. And the price tag of this war for military operations alone: nearly half a trillion dollars so far.
Before and after audio of a man yelling “bring them home!”, Miklaszewski helpfully suggested: “A protestor voiced what some Americans are demanding for U.S. troops.” In a piece by Mitchell on how the three presidential candidates approached Petraeus, she pointed how that “the Republican Senator also stumbled, briefly, by again describing al Qaeda as Shiite.” She countered: “Al Qaeda is Sunni, not Shiite. McCain immediately corrected himself.” So, if he immediately corrected himself, why highlight it?
NBC has been the most-interested in McCain’s references to al-Qaeda as Shia or the Shia Iran helping the Sunni al-Qaeda. My March 20 NewsBusters item, “Moving on from Obama’s Pastor, NBC Focuses on McCain ‘Mistake,’” recounted:
A day after Barack Obama’s speech in reaction to the bigoted and hateful rants of his long-time pastor, the network evening newscasts moved on — with only ABC briefly mentioning the topic — while NBC Nightly News, which has run just one clip of Jeremiah Wright and on Friday had instead featured a whole story about Obama’s childhood friends cheering him on, centered a Wednesday night story around “a mistake” by John McCain. Anchor Brian Williams provided an ominous plug: “Did John McCain slip, or was his mistake intentional? His choice of words making news tonight.”
Kelly O’Donnell soon proposed: “Defense and national security are central to McCain’s campaign. So a mistake he repeated this week has stood out. At least three times McCain incorrectly asserted that Iran is aiding al Qaeda.” After video of Senator Joe Lieberman whispering in McCain’s ear, McCain corrected himself as O’Donnell explained: “The mistake, al Qaeda is a Sunni group while Iran is a Shia nation.” O’Donnell highlighted how “Senator Obama seized on the error,” concluding with the suggestion the one comment undermined McCain’s image: “Leaving McCain to defend his expertise during a trip in which he intended to showcase it.”
How ABC and CBS framed the story on Tuesday, April 8:
Charles Gibson, ABC’s World News:
Good evening. The senior commander of forces in Iraq told Congress today that significant, buty fragile, progress had been made in the war. And then, as expected, General David Petraeus called for an indefinite pause of troop withdrawals this summer. He refused to say if or when troop withdrawals might resume. And he would not offer an estimate of how many American forces would still be in Iraq after the election in November. Among those questioning the General on Capitol Hill today, all the presidential candidates. ABC’s Jonathan Karl is at the Capitol.
Katie Couric, CBS Evening News:
Good evening, everyone. Seven months ago, America’s top General in Iraq went before Congress to declare the surge was working and the U.S. could start bringing some troops home. Today, General David Petraeus returned to Capitol Hill, but this time he announced plans to stop those troop withdrawals in July with no timetable for resuming them. David Martin begins our coverage tonight.
On and on and on, read the full article here.
Nods to LftBhndAgn.
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Pat, you know Brian Williams has this project about Medal Of Honor winners, and he had a nice piece tonight on Navy Seal Monsoor, who just received it posthumously. After Williams reviewed the story of Monsoor’s sacrifice (quite well, btw), he pointed out, “This is just one of the countless examples of heroism shown by American forces in Iraq…”
SO I INSTANTLY THOUGHT: THEN WHY DON’T YOU MORONS EVER TELL US ABOUT THEM? MOH GUY LIKE MIKE MONSOOR– ONE STORY IN 6 MONTHS…
April 8th, 2008 at 8:37 pmIDIOTS LIKE THE ABU GHRAIB BUNCH–24/7/365 FOREVER…
Well … THAT’s not completely accurate if you refuse to count our men who went to Canada and England, etc. to join their ranks and fight before the USA got formally involved.
But this idea that we are to now somehow measure the time acceptance for war by some past war’s time frame?
BTW -
Did you happen to see Gen. Petraeus’s face when the male Code Pinko was shouting? He looked right at the Senators with an ever so slight smirking glare of disgust as if to say, “You sack of shits think you’re going to set me up for an evening news soundbite? Fuck you very much …”
April 8th, 2008 at 8:46 pmOf course Obama would happen to be an expert on McCain’s “mistake.” It only just so happens that Obama is a Muslim - no surprise he understands rather intimately that Shia and Sunni routinely kill each other…or do they?
April 8th, 2008 at 9:03 pmThe LLMSM are still playing the spoiled brat role because of the 2000 election and the “swift boating” of their male version of Jane Fonda…Lurch Kerry.
Swift-boating…that’s a euphamism for truth-telling…except in the backward, upside down utopia of libistan…..where right is wrong and up is down…
I don’t buy their shit anymore. I don’t read their newspapers either. I don’t frequent their websites or care to listen to their talking-heads.
And they wonder why their ratings and subscriptions are running so low? Ha!! That’s cause the smart people aren’t buying their crap either.
The libs and their slumber party Congress, their Code Stink allies, Daily Crapolla (Kos) and the beeyatch from Greece can all kiss my ass.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:14 pmf*ck nbc and GE. don’t watch it and don’t buy it.
April 8th, 2008 at 9:23 pmNBC, Nothing But Crap, been that way for a long time. I am surprised you watch. OK, so it’s for educational purposes only, because there is no intellectual content on NBC anything, just propaganda. Over-bight could do the news and no one would notice the difference.
If you ask, when did we leave Germany after WWII, we are still there, aren’t we? Same with Japan.
April 9th, 2008 at 1:20 am“And the price tag of this war for military operations alone: nearly half a trillion dollars so far.”
Dollars and cents. The cost the cost!! OMG do they not understand how much it will cost to not fight this war? The cost our children and grand children will pay in the loss of freedoms and security.
April 9th, 2008 at 6:52 amYep I switched back and forth between Nightline and Charlie Rose. It was quite funny how Keene kept handing both Rose and Jack Reed their asses. Same with one of the moderators of Nightline Terry whatever. He was completely befuddled by each and every answer that was given to him. Another ass handed over.
So why did the clips of all the dems at the “hearings” keep citing NYT and Boston Globe for their “facts”?
How anyone cannot see through this is beyond me.
April 9th, 2008 at 7:09 amAll the journalism schools in America should be sued for malpractice, because of all the idiots they have turned out over the past 40 years or so…they have no shame, no integrity, no honor, no objectivity, they barely do their fact checking. They must have been taught that those values have absolutely no worth to their “profession.”
April 9th, 2008 at 8:11 amAlso, is Kelly O’Donnell a complete freaking moron? Al Queda operatives escaped to Iran after 9/11. Some of Osama’s family are probably still there. In northern Iraq, before the war, an Al Queda group was active, commuting across the Iran/Iraq border. So…she is purposely deceiving people. And how about highlighting Obama’s “mistakes” — saying he didn’t know his Wright Reverend was a virrulent anti-Semetic booster of the enemies of the United States, visiting Libya when they were avowed enemies of the US and he was never present when Wright was slamming this country and white people. Oh yeah, is that a “mistake”?
April 9th, 2008 at 8:16 amI may be wrong but, I believe that American troops fought Nazi terrorist for about 10 yrs after the official end of WW2. Clean up as is was.
April 9th, 2008 at 8:19 amLonger than the involvment in the war against Germany? Yeah, we are rebuilding the country while clearing out terrorists. We had to defeat Germany before we began the decades long process of helping THEM rebuild. What is the current value of the costs of WWII and EVERYTHING the US spent on rebuilding Germany, Japan, Italy France and evry place else, OF WHICH WE NEVER RECEIVED A DIME BACK?!?!?!?
April 9th, 2008 at 9:16 am