Posted on 02/27/2009 7:18:08 AM PST by Notoriously Conservative
From ripoffreport.com:
Perhaps you want to discover the origin of an urban legend or verify that the photo of a 45-pound cat someone emailed you isn't a doctored photo. Maybe you want to know if Proctor & Gamble's logo is really satanic. Snopes.com (hereafter “snopes") is good for verifying unimportant stuff like that, but don't count on them being “fair and balanced" when it comes to anything political or religious.
Although Snopes hasn't any political philosophy explicitly stated on the website, snopes' selectivity and analysis of political emails oozes with partisanship. Religious emails don't fare much better and typically get a liberal hatchet job. In a nutshell, although snopes has to reluctantly admit that most of the conservative political and religious emails are “true" as far as snopes can determine, there is always a caveat, disclaimer, footnote, or lengthy oratory explaining why everything from crime statistics to reports from Iraq must be viewed and understood through snopes' lens. Some examples and links follow:
An email made its way around the country recently showing a picture of John Kerry at an anti-war rally with Jane Fonda. If a picture is worth a thousand words, Snopes thinks ten thousand words is the only antidote to spinning this photo that Snopes had to admit was true. Indeed, Snopes has gone into high gear to rescue John Kerry from being associated with the extreme left. Snopes uses extensive quotes from Jane Fonda to demonstrate that John Kerry was not as much of a foaming at the mouth liberal as she herself was [is].
Snopes also quotes extensively from New York Times (and thought better perhaps of using their sources at Pravda and Granma) to prove what the “atmosphere" was like at these love-fests that Kerry participated in and spoke at. A small unexplained B&W photo appears on the right hand side of the screen depicting a cleaner-cut John Kerry being decorated in an apparent attempt to show he did in fact do something noteworthy and wasn't simply a hippie as depicted in the larger, color photo.
Snopes said the derogatory photo “purports" to show John Kerry, only to reluctantly admit in the next sentence that indeed the photo is real. Get your index finger and mouse ready to scroll down the pages and pages of voluminous material on Snopes beseeching you to ignore the photo and get to know the real John Kerry.
Snopes seems to have been exhausted by all the time it spent trying to exonerate Kerry that it lacked the energy to investigate a photo that is also real. In a photo depicting a soldier shaking hands with Hillary Clinton, the soldier crossed his fingers (visible in the photo) to memorialize his displease with being used in a photo-op by the hippie-turned-senator. Try crossing your finger right now the way the soldier did it in the photo. It's not a reflexive position and must have been deliberate on part of the soldier. Hillary made only one trip to see our troops, so it is not a Herculean task to track down the person who took the photo as well as the soldier in it.
Some more food for thought (all links removed by ripoffreport.com): Verifies quotes from democrats were true but goes on and on trying to defend democrats.
Attempts to speak to veracity of email urging boycott of Sean Penn and Tim Robbins' movies since they are Sadaam Hussein and Osama bin Laden sympathizers. Snopes says “still under investigation Nov 2003." I could wrap that investigation up in about 2 minutes. Those 2 are bona fide liberals and whackos (or is that redundant?)
You may have received this email yourself. It is an amazing and true litany of accomplishments of the US military in Iraq. Snopes can't seem to utter the words “it's true" so it gets a half green, half red light. It's truth is called into question by “an Iraqi citizen" A link to the criticism is provided, and just to prove to yourself how absurd it is, you should click on it.
A sample: the pro military email rightfully asserts one accomplishment as: the Iraqi judiciary is fully independent. The rebuttal to this fact: “We certainly hope so, but no one is sure about that yet." This invincible evidence seems to be enough to persuade snopes.com that the whole email is suspect and worthy of caution.
Another example: Email lists another accomplishment of the US military as: “All 22 universities and 43 technical institutes and colleges are open, as are nearly all primary and secondary schools." To which the best argument the detractor can come up with is: “That's true. But every now and then, a school gets a warning about a bomb, so many parents are afraid to send their kids to schools, and when they do so, they will be deeply worried." Again this vague and fuzzy “counter argument" is flawless logic and enough to satisfy the good people at snopes.com that the whole email is dubious and, to be on the safe side, the hapless visitor to snopes.com should remain anti-war and believe that nothing has been accomplished in Iraq. Visit snopes.com for yourself to really laugh out loud. I simply can't do it justice here.
A very similar email went around with quotes from leading Democrats attesting to their belief that Sadaam Hussein did in fact have WMD. Snopes naturally had to admit the quotes were true, but always with the caveat, quickly opined that, “some of the quotes are truncated, and context is provided for none of them." Please! We've all gotten emails like this. You use a quote to get a point across. You can't make people on your email forward list sift 35 pages of Medeline Albright in order to put her quote “in context" Just another example of snopes' “bend-over-backwards" policy to rescue Democrats from their own words.
Meanwhile, don't expect an snopes investigation to proceed much further, snopes is busy crafting explanations for Kerry's $25 million worth of real estate which is one of the biggest whoppers this web site unashamedly pulls.
Like baptism, being a liberal cleanses you from all stain in the mind of snopes. Former KKK member Sen. Robert Byrd got just such a catharsis and gets an open mic on snopes. Email snopes was “investigating" was “Senator Robert Byrd delivered a fiery floor speech condemning President Bush's calls for military action against Iraq." Was it true? Sure was, says snopes, which then proceeds to reproduce the whole speech (for the 9 people in America who want to read it). Instead of a caveat, such as ALL conservative emails get as a matter of course from Snopes, snopes can't contain itself and adds it's own 2 cents, “[Byrd's] eloquence in putting forth his opinions and arguments on this issue has captivated many like-minded members of the anti-war movement." I see a hyperlink to (link removed) coming any day now.
Many emails are forwards from either soldiers, judges, or military officers who are or were in Iraq. They all have the individual's name, hometown etc. in the email. Sue enough, snopes investigates and finds out the person exists and the email is true, but, never quite happy, snopes adds the disclaimer: “although true, the email resembles another email sent by someone else" etc. The reader is left to conclude that plagiarism or some form of falsification has occurred. Nonsense. With thousands of our servicemen and civilians in Iraq, many are bound to witness the same events or accomplishments and report on them individually. Snopes needs a basic course on hermeneutics.
Ron Springfield, Illinois U.S.A.
Thanks to ripoffreport.com
I’ve noticed this myself. They have to be dragged kicking and screaming to admit things that support a theistic worldview or paint liberalism in a bad light. There is definite prejudice in their own preconceptions and even the subject matter they cover. (I could suggest some well-documented and well-exposed myths for them to cover, but since they are atheistic myths I doubt they’d be interested in covering them.)
One interesting case is the infamous story of "Uncle Don" Carney's radio program in the early days of radio which snopes claims is an urban legend; my father tells me he heard it as it happened.
No kidding. The article missed a couple of doozies.
e-mail: Many statements by Democrats stating Hussein had MSM's.
Snopes: Well, yes those statements are true but some of them were said before the great Clinton wiped out the MSM's and all future capabilites to create them. (You can practically hear Snopes whine when they do this).
email: Hillary Clinton was a law student when she worked to get murderous Black Panther members released.
Snopes: She was only a law student at the time not their lawyers. And she only worked withing the law to help their lawyers. And they were released by the courts, not her.
Well whoopdy frigging do. How did they read the email. To them it must have said "And Hillary stood on the table with her shotgun, blew a hole in the ceiling and screamed "Release the brothers or I'll blow every pig muth******** one of you away!" And since she didn't do that you should never read one of those evil right winger emails.
Like the article says they confirm and dismiss.
I never did understand why everyone ran around thinking a few other people on a web site were the end all experts on everything. I routinely found issues with their reasoning.
It would have been nice for this article to also cite cases where the conservative email or viewpoint was treated differently or more harshly.
self ping
They also thought Mr. Ed (the horse) was a zebra. I saved that one Jan. 15 but they seem to have taken it down from their site since then.
What I found out is they only comment on the claim and not the "rest of the story".
I saw something they had as true and I sent them info on how the supporting story was fiction. I got an answer from them that they only comment on the claim as being true or false,and not the text outside of the claim.
- Tom
And here is what wiki says http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Ed
I never got a response.
Thanks. I couldn’t believe that story and wondered how they had been hoaxed. I didn’t find any link to that page until you posted it.
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