Month: October 2004
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The return of “ban” rhetoric from Kerry on stem cells
Kerry is back to the rhetoric about stem cell research being banned: Three years ago, George W. Bush put in place a ban on federal funding for stem cell research – a ban that’s tied the hands of our scientists and shut down some of our most promising work on spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer’s, Diabetes,
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Massachusetts liberal – then and now
Time Magazine, 3/1/04: The Bush political team, though, believes it is getting the kinks out of the system. One example: campaign and Republican National Committee (R.N.C.) rapid-response makers had been labeling Kerry a “Massachusetts liberal,” not knowing that Bush likes attacks to be more specific. “He doesn’t like it because it doesn’t tell you anything,”
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Stop Grokster or the terrorists have won
In an appearance in Los Angeles to showcase a new federal antipiracy effort, John Ashcroft somehow managed to link the issue to the terrorist threat. As my Spinsanity co-editor Ben Fritz reported in Variety (his day job): The attorney general even drew on the scariest of associations, warning that due to the lucrative nature of
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Jon Stewart vs. the national media
People my age are obsessed with Jon Stewart. It’s a cliche at this point. But I have to give my own personal hallelujah here. In addition to being hilarious, the show is very important (as we explain in the conclusion of All the President’s Spin) because of the way it publicly shames the media and
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Lazy, lazy, lazy
Bob Somerby is right – it is shockingly lazy that Bob Scheiffer didn’t look up the exact quote for this question: QUESTION 18 (of 20): Mr. President, let’s go to a new question. You were asked before the invasion, or after the invasion, of Iraq if you’d checked with your dad. And I believe, I
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Four days every four years is not enough
One of the most striking things about this campaign has been the quality of news coverage of the presidential and vice presidential debates. In particular, the AP and Washington Post have published long and thorough fact-checking articles within hours of the end of each debate that effectively help voters to sort through the spin. The
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A media fact-checking scorecard
At Spinsanity, we hold the media to a high standard, which we lay out in detail in All the President’s Spin. The nation’s press corps has a responsibility to fact-check the claims of politicians and expose any that are misleading, whether it’s the first time the politician has made the claim or the 500th. Unfortunately,
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Repairing the civilian/military breach
Peter Feaver, a professor here at Duke who is pretty much the nation’s leading expert on civil-military relations, published an op-ed in the Washington Post on a new Military Times poll showing 70+% support for President Bush among active duty troops as well as the National Guard and Reserves. Feaver, who is a crafty point
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Pot, meet kettle
Today’s New York Times op-ed page has more proposed debate questions for the candidates from various public figures, including Charles Murray (aka Mr. Bell Curve), who offers this: You promise to create millions of jobs, but many people who run businesses say that nothing in your life has taught you how much effort, risk and
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From the annals of flimsy fact-check headlines…
Today’s Washington Post features a Howard Kurtz story under the headline “Bush’s Health Care Ads Not Entirely Accurate.” You think? It’s right up there with the headline on Dana Milbank’s 2002 article “For Bush, Facts Are Malleable”. What are the editors so afraid of? And this is from the Post, which has been the most