We’re Not Losing the Culture Wars Anymore

City Journal ^ | 27 OCT 03 | Brian C. Anderson

[stands2reason]

Damn....we already put up with F. Christian, now we got another?

[stands2reason]

WE MUST HAVE SOMETHING MORE SUBSTANTIVE TO SAY!!!

You go first.

[Vigilantcitizen]

It did move....I saw it. ; ^ P>

[stands2reason]

Tell us the truth, O Wise One. What are we supposed to know that "the left" and "the right" aren't telling us?

[whd23]

Actually, I believe that 2004 may very well yield a filibuster-proof Republican majority. THEN watch the liberal house of cards implode.

To dream the impossible dream....

A "filibuster-proof" repub majority? Give me a break! We've got "Republicans" ACTIVELY supporting anti-American legislation (Hatch and "The American Dream" bill). A president that signs into law an anti-First Amendment bill (CFR).

Don't be fooled, the majority of repubs in power now are NOT on the side of the average american citizen.

[Guillermo]

Bump for later. I love the City Journal.

Gotta get back to the game, the Griese II era has started in Miami.

Super Bowl bound!

[aculeus]

Excellent article. Only flaw: FR not mentioned.

[Cannoneer No. 4]

don't miss these comments

[Graybeard58]

To respond to this article, click the link and click "respond to this article" when you get there. You do not have to register but they ask for your email address.

[Lancey Howard]

bttt

[reformed_democrat]

Yeah, I was somewhat disappointed that they mentioned Lucianne.com but not FreeRepublic too.

Its the oddest thing . . . everyone knows of Free Republic -- Sean Hannity often refers to FReepers -- but no one wants to cite it.

I'm beginning to suspect its a well-kept secret. Show prep for all the bleeding edge conservatives, but no one mentions it because they don't want to give away their secret weapon.

Yeah, that's probably far-fetched. I ran out of coffee today and my batteries are low.

[livesbygrace]

This is a GREAT article!

Actually, I believe that 2004 may very well yield a filibuster-proof Republican majority. THEN watch the liberal house of cards implode.

I agree with you ... If we could just get the judges, THEN watch the libbies squirm!

[Buggman]

lol You may not be far off. By the time your favorite commentator has a chance to speak about a given story, it's been on the wires for a few hours and has already been painstakingly picked apart and analyzed right here. They may simply not want people to come here en masse lest they be accused of simply copying us.

Of course, that could be just the collective Freeper ego speaking. ;^P

[GeronL]

How could he not mention FR???

[Doc On The Bay]

"..without the mention of Free Republic!"

"They" ALL TREMBLE WITH FEAR when "Free Republic" is mentioned; "they" KNOW FR is something Potent, but, like the Legend of the "Sleeping Giant," They Hope to "Tiptoe Past It," & not Awaken It.

FR is an Internet Giant which Terrifies the Left; they Know that--somehow--FR was partly responsibile for their defeat in the 2000 election.

They know that FR represents the "Tip-of-the-Iceburg" of the VAST conservative majority in America. They know that Some of us awakened in the last Presidntial Election.

They are TERRIFIED that a Majority of us are now "waking up."

SADLY for the LEFT, America is awaking from it's long, peaceful slumber, & the SHOCK of 9/11 has stirred our collective moral outrage.

The Amoral varmits who have murdered our fellow citizens (& those under our Protection) are, sadly, unable to comprehend how deeply culturally rooted our concepts of "fairness & civilized behavior" are.

If one "tap's into" the smoldering rage of our Nation's Citizens, you see VERY LITTLE mercy for the subhumans who associate themselves with 9/11.

Most Americans would approve that ANY associates of those who perpretrated 9/11 be questioned "down to the Molecular level,"--& Discarded--at the molecular level.

After 9/11, most Americans REQUIRE that "Islam" PROVE it did not--& Would not condone such an atrocity.

"Islam" has certainly failed, Miserably, to disassociate itself from similar atrocities.

Short of It's repudiating--& offering up the perpetrators of--atrocities committed "in It's Name,"--ANY rational observer MUST CONCLUDE that "Islam" is COMPLICIT in the atrocities committed in It's Name!

If "Islam" want's a "Holy War,"-- then COME OUT & SAY IT!! Stop this Cowardly guerrilla Crap, & ACT WITH HONOR!!.

After 9/11, we in the west are Ready! But, after 9/11, DON'T expect any "mercy."

Doc

[GeronL]

I'd have thought that the Media Research Center would also have gotten a nod.

I thought FR should have too

[GeronL]

*SOMETHING* is missing here. *WHATEVER* could it be?

ideas? lol

[Jorge]

Save for print-out and read later.

[Cacique]

There are certain places where decorum demands a certain uniform, ie. a suit and jacket to differentiate us from the unwashed peasants. There are other places where a camouflage suit is necessary such as in the jungle hunting commies.

Casual? That's only when we are trying to infiltrate the lefties or are ready to rumble. There is nothing casual about political warfare. In most other countries it is fought with bombs and bullets. There may come a time when we will have to face the Bolsheviks in likewise manner.

[lpricanprynces]

Fact-Free News

By Harold Meyerson
Wednesday, October 15, 2003; Page A23


Ever worry that millions of your fellow Americans are walking around knowing things that you don't? That your prospects for advancement may depend on your mastery of such arcana as who won the Iraqi war or where exactly Europe is?

Then don't watch Fox News. The more you watch, the more you'll get things wrong.

Researchers from the Program on International Policy Attitudes (a joint project of several academic centers, some of them based at the University of Maryland) and Knowledge Networks, a California-based polling firm, have spent the better part of the year tracking the public's misperceptions of major news events and polling people to find out just where they go to get things so balled up. This month they released their findings, which go a long way toward explaining why there's so little common ground in American politics today: People are proceeding from radically different sets of facts, some so different that they're altogether fiction.

In a series of polls from May through September, the researchers discovered that large minorities of Americans entertained some highly fanciful beliefs about the facts of the Iraqi war. Fully 48 percent of Americans believed that the United States had uncovered evidence demonstrating a close working relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. Another 22 percent thought that we had found the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And 25 percent said that most people in other countries had backed the U.S. war against Saddam Hussein. Sixty percent of all respondents entertained at least one of these bits of dubious knowledge; 8 percent believed all three.

The researchers then asked where the respondents most commonly went to get their news. The fair and balanced folks at Fox, the survey concludes, were "the news source whose viewers had the most misperceptions." Eighty percent of Fox viewers believed at least one of these un-facts; 45 percent believed all three. Over at CBS, 71 percent of viewers fell for one of these mistakes, but just 15 percent bought into the full trifecta. And in the daintier precincts of PBS viewers and NPR listeners, just 23 percent adhered to one of these misperceptions, while a scant 4 percent entertained all three.

Now, this could just be pre-sorting by ideology: Conservatives watch O'Reilly, liberals look at Lehrer, and everyone finds his belief system confirmed. But the Knowledge Network nudniks took that into account, and found that even among people of like mind, where they got their news still shaped their sense of the real. Among respondents who said they would vote for George W. Bush in next year's presidential race, for instance, more than three-quarters of the Fox watchers thought we'd uncovered a working relationship between Hussein and al Qaeda, while just half of those who watch PBS believed this to be the case.

Misperceptions can also be the result of inattention, of course. If you nod off for just a nanosecond in the middle of Tom Brokaw intoning, "U.S. inspectors did not find weapons of mass destruction today," you could think we'd just uncovered Hussein's nuclear arsenal. So the wily researchers also controlled for intensity of viewership, and concluded that, "in the case of those who primarily watched Fox News, greater attention to news modestly increases the likelihood of misperceptions." Particularly when that news includes hyping every false lead in Iraq as the certain prelude to uncovering a massive WMD cache.

One question inevitably raised by these findings is whether Fox News is failing or succeeding. Over at CBS, the news that 71 percent of viewers hold one of these mistaken notions should be cause for concern, but whether such should be the case at Fox because 80 percent of their viewers are similarly mistaken is not at all clear. Rupert Murdoch, Roger Ailes and the other guys at Fox have long demonstrated a clearer commitment to changing public policy than to reporting it, and an even clearer commitment to reporting it in such a way as to change it.

Take a wild flight of fancy with me and assume for just a moment that one major goal over at Fox is to ensure Bush's reelection. Surely, anyone who believes that Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were in cahoots, that we've found the WMD and that Bush is revered among the peoples of the world -- all of these known facts to nearly half the Fox viewers -- is a good bet to be a Bush voter in next year's contest. By this standard -- moving votes into Bush's column and keeping them there -- Fox has to be judged a stunning success. It's not so hot on conveying information as such, but mere empiricism must seem so terribly vulgar to such creatures of refinement as Murdoch and Ailes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27061-2003Oct14.html