Learning with Freedom Tickler
One comment I've gotten about this site from a number of people is that they have heard about things that haven't appeared in the mainstream press.
You shouldn't reveal your sources and all, but I feel I should level with my public and point out that most of the news items that go up here are culled from other political blogs much more well-connected than mine. (Particularly good is Talking Points Memo, from whom I am pinching material for this post.) It's not that these guys are uber-journalists or anything, it's just that they are in front of their computer all day, reading e-mail and comments from their readers, who send in local stories or tips because they know that the blog will have a rapid response. The Sinclair boycott was a perfect example (Sinclair backed down, in the end).
The other side of the coin, and the point of this post really, is that the mainstraim press, including the big papers and more thoughtful outlets like the New Yorker, are simply not covering some of the most important issues during this campaign. Like, say, massive voter disenfranchisement. And when I say "cover", I don't mean getting opposing quotes from GOP and DNC officials, throwing your hands up in the air, and reiterating that it's a tight race. I mean investigating, evaluating claims, and drawing conclusions.
I won't repeat previous posts here. But Talking Points has a good piece up today on the Bush team's efforts to neutralize Kerry's "You let Bin Laden get away at Tora Bora" argument. You may have seen Gen. Tommy Frank's op-ed in the Times dismissing the notions that we knew Bin Laden was there and that we outsourced the job to local warlords. It certain feels like a definitive refutation. Until you go back to what the administration said at the time:
The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge. -- Washington Post, April 17, 2002
This was not contested in any way by Franks or the administration at the time. Indeed, Kerry's charge is really not controversial at all: it's based entirely on the accepted, conventional wisdom view of what happened. And the major news agencies could prove that by simply going back to their own coverage of the event. But they have done no such thing. This is really kind of stunning. The president is having another one of those "I never said I'm not concerned about Bin Laden" moments, but where is the split-screen with the original footage? I suspect the difference is he's got Gen. Franks and Dick Cheney doing the lying, so the press can't just pretend it's a short memory or verbal slip.
You shouldn't reveal your sources and all, but I feel I should level with my public and point out that most of the news items that go up here are culled from other political blogs much more well-connected than mine. (Particularly good is Talking Points Memo, from whom I am pinching material for this post.) It's not that these guys are uber-journalists or anything, it's just that they are in front of their computer all day, reading e-mail and comments from their readers, who send in local stories or tips because they know that the blog will have a rapid response. The Sinclair boycott was a perfect example (Sinclair backed down, in the end).
The other side of the coin, and the point of this post really, is that the mainstraim press, including the big papers and more thoughtful outlets like the New Yorker, are simply not covering some of the most important issues during this campaign. Like, say, massive voter disenfranchisement. And when I say "cover", I don't mean getting opposing quotes from GOP and DNC officials, throwing your hands up in the air, and reiterating that it's a tight race. I mean investigating, evaluating claims, and drawing conclusions.
I won't repeat previous posts here. But Talking Points has a good piece up today on the Bush team's efforts to neutralize Kerry's "You let Bin Laden get away at Tora Bora" argument. You may have seen Gen. Tommy Frank's op-ed in the Times dismissing the notions that we knew Bin Laden was there and that we outsourced the job to local warlords. It certain feels like a definitive refutation. Until you go back to what the administration said at the time:
The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge. -- Washington Post, April 17, 2002
This was not contested in any way by Franks or the administration at the time. Indeed, Kerry's charge is really not controversial at all: it's based entirely on the accepted, conventional wisdom view of what happened. And the major news agencies could prove that by simply going back to their own coverage of the event. But they have done no such thing. This is really kind of stunning. The president is having another one of those "I never said I'm not concerned about Bin Laden" moments, but where is the split-screen with the original footage? I suspect the difference is he's got Gen. Franks and Dick Cheney doing the lying, so the press can't just pretend it's a short memory or verbal slip.
posted by Benjamin Lessing at 8:51 AM
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