Posted on 07/20/2002 2:12:19 PM PDT by Pokey78
Originally printed in the New York Sun, July 19, 2002.
We all knew the poll was coming. At regular intervals since he took over the New York Times, hyper-liberal new executive editor Howell Raines has tried to get traction on a president he despises. Usually, this is done by crude front-page editorializing - most memorably R.W. Apple's front-page prediction of the Afghan campaign as a "quagmire," or the saturation Enron-coverage a few months back. But polls are particularly tempting methods for advancing naked political agendas under the guise of objective journalism. They work well because a poll gives a patina of empiricism to the prejudices of its architects.
Raines' M.O. on this is familiar by now. You shift your newspaper's resources in large bulk to the pursuit of a single ideological theme - e.g. that Bush is a corrupt businessman who supports the thieves who have stolen shareholders' money by accounting fraud. You devote legitimate story after story to this theme, weaving important news and analysis with sly insinuation and character assassination. You try and get the network news and local papers around the country to run the same line repeatedly, and, given the Times' influence in this regard, you often succeed. Then you cap this campaign with a poll "proving" your point, taking the story to a new level of legitimacy.
Yesterday's front-page anti-Bush polling story was a classic of the genre. "Poll Finds Concerns That Bush Is Overly Influenced By Business," the headline blared. The copy continued breathlessly on the front page: "With the stock market falling, concern about the economy intensifying and the United States facing the continued threat of terrorist attacks, the poll found a surge since the start of the year in the percentage of people who think the country is on the wrong track." Got the vapors yet? Bush is finally coming down to earth, the reader will inevitably conclude.
And then you read the poll itself. By far the newsiest part of the poll is what hasn't happened. The poll shows that, despite some of the worst economic news since he came to office, president Bush's approval ratings are still at a sky-high 70 percent. (That statistic is buried on page A12.) Is the president the uncaring plutocrat that Maureen Dowd continually contends, using fiction when the facts won't support her? The Times poll showed that 68 percent agreed with the notion that the president "cares about the needs and problems of people like yourself." For a member of the Bush family, after the most serious evidence of corporate corruption in decades, that's stunning. More stunning still: 80 percent said the president shares their moral values - despite the Times' relentless attempt to portray the president as a crony capitalist. When the Times asked if the president had behaved ethically in his past business practices, a 2- 1 majority said yes. Almost half the respondents also said that the Democrats were overly influenced by business. Both those findings wer left off the online polling table - best not to confuse the readers you're trying to indoctrinate. Then there were questions merely designed to foment left-liberal beliefs about a president who is merely a puppet of corporate pay-masters. Here's a classic: "Do you think George W. Bush is in charge of what goes on in his administration most of the time or do you think other people are really running the government?" Who wrote that question? Terry McAuliffe?
Of course, some of the poll's findings are indeed troubling for Republicans - as an era of anti-corporate anger always would be. They may well suffer from guilt by association and deserve some hits for being too complacent about corporate malfeasance. But the poll also found that 58 percent believe the economy is either staying the same or getting better, as opposed to 41 percent who think it's getting worse. Am I being ideologically blind to the real story here? Check out the Washongton Post's coverage of almost excalty the same polling results a day before. Here's the Post's headline: "Bush's Ratings Weathering Business Scandals." Now compare the lead paragraphs. Here's the Post's:
"The recent barrage of congressional and media criticism directed at President Bush for his handling of the widening corporate financial scandal has failed to damage his popularity, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. The survey found that Bush's job approval rating stands at 72 percent, virtually unchanged from a month ago. An equally large proportion of people still view the president as honest and trustworthy, despite recent news accounts that he benefited as a business executive from some of the same practices he now publicly criticizes."And here's the Times':
"Americans worry that President Bush and his administration are too heavily influenced by big business, fear that Mr. Bush is hiding something about his own corporate past and judge the economy to be in its worst shape since 1994, the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll shows. The survey suggests that the unfolding revelations about corporate misconduct and inflated earnings hold considerable peril for the White House and Mr. Bush's party in this Congressional election year."Get the picture?
NYT is fulla poopoo. NYT is wholly owned by the DNC and NAMBLA
Funny. The experts of malfeasant and corrupt journalism, whining about 'corporate' corruption.
"All the news that fits the script."
On the liberal message boards, the Dims despise both the NYT and the WP, but they hate the Post most.
...and to me. They sure don't use the flattering, positive pictures that we see daily in Rintense' thread. They usually choose an expression in which he looks weak or goofy. They have a huge number of pictures to choose, including many when he is speaking. The choice is an editorial comment itself.
LOL
The New York Times = The Monkeys Write
Lets not forget hysterical "BUSH KNEW!" (about 911) headline ...
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