Sam Harris on Sarah Palin

[_LifeOnaPlate]

Kevin. You clearly do not understand journalism.

[_dartagnan]

Your response only elicits laughter from over here, Kevin. All I did was post an article. It actually made points you could have made good use of, (including when negative reporting was going on, and why these sorts of studies are flawed) but instead you viewed it as some worthless skewed study.

You rant and rant against bias. But you are incredibly biased about it.

Here is your problem.

You cannot come to grips with the fact that this is an open and shut case. Why? Because the media has already admitted bias. Just read the admissions above because they are overwhelming. So keep pretending its all in our "imaginations." We're not the ones deluding ourselves guys, you are.

I could have posted this stuff a week ago but hitting some people with too much truth at once is like expecting an addict to quit cold trukey.

But since you thought it was kosher to just paste web articles as if that constituted an argument, I figured the time was right to let you have it. Now you're pretending you're laughing as a way to avoid dealing with the evidence.

Your problem is that my article is far more detailed and compelling than what some liberal academian wrote up, using crappy methodology. I'm sure he sat at all TV stations for months and monitored every single thing the 24 hours news outlets were saying, and then checking off which one was anti-McCain and anti-Obama.

Yeah, and then we have to figure out what standard he's using to decide what constitutes negativity. He doesn't say. Surveys of political opinion are the best way to determine political bias. Journalists are overwhelmingly Liberal. This isn't persecution complex and it certainly isn't imagination. Its simply the facts.

You clearly do not understand journalism.

Coming from someone who says the media doesn't exist.

More than three out of four “elite journalists,” 76 percent, reported voting for Michael Dukakis in 1988, compared to just 46 percent of the voting public.

An even larger percentage of top journalists, 91 percent, cast ballots for Bill Clinton in 1992. That same year, only 43 percent of voters picked Clinton, who nevertheless won a three-way race.

ROFL!

Yeah, all in our imaginations.

[_dartagnan]

I just read this and about died laughing. CHris Matthews just goes to prove the point. The liberal media is literally forcing words into the mouths of young voters:

CHRIS MATTHEWS TO STUDENT: What are you looking for tonight?

UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: I'd like, I'd like a display of knowledge and expertise.

MATTHEWS: So you're on the Obama side, right?

MATTHEWS TO DIFFERENT STUDENT: Do you think the Vice President of the United States, the candidate for Vice President should be able to get into Washington University?

And what if the kid wasn't? He was on the spot on national television. We know how impressionable kids are, and to be sure, so does Matthews.

If anyone from FOX news had done this there would be blood in the streets.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

Here is your problem.

You cannot come to grips with the fact that this is an open and shut case. Why? Because the media has already admitted bias. Just read the admissions above because they are overwhelming. So keep pretending its all in our "imaginations." We're not the ones deluding ourselves guys, you are.

This is hilarious. You're not even engaging my points in any meaningful way. It seems you have formed some sort of belief about what my position is, and are now arguing very strenuously against it. Perhaps I am not making myself clear enough. Or perhaps you are allowing your- are you ready for it- "bias" about what you think I am saying color your entire view of the conversation.

Just to be clear, yet again, I have not argued that bias doesn't exist in the work of various media outlets. Not once. At all. In any way. Stop pretending that I have.

Perhaps if I go all out here and start throwing some "credentials" out you'll have something else to attack, something more directly related to my actual positions. I may only have 3 years of journalism schooling under my belt, a 1-year stint as news editor for weber state university's little student paper, and completed an internship at the little Ogden standard-examiner, but I am pretty certain I have a better grasp of how media in general operates.

Now, go find another 300-person poll and some sound-bites, because I don't think your last few posts actually addressed my position in any way, shape, or form. So you'll need some other awesome studies to approach me with. Maybe something from newsbusters. And by the way, talking to you inevitably leads to general jerkiness. It really spreads. Talking with you is an exercise in futility, and it is very impolite and frustrating.

Here's a little video from the extreme right posted by the liberal left, by the way:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/0 ... 30969.html

Chris Matthews? Slanted? You're kidding! I am shocked! (Extreme sarcasm).

Next time we talk try engaging in my points a little more. You'll be more successful.

[_dartagnan]

This is hilarious. You're not even engaging my points in any meaningful way.

You have no points. You scrolled the web to find something to defend the liberal media from being liberal, and you think you can just paste it here and leave it at that.

Just to be clear, yet again, I have not argued that bias doesn't exist in the work of various media outlets. Not once. At all. In any way. Stop pretending that I have.

So you posted an article that says downplays the liberal bias.... because??????

Perhaps if I go all out here and start throwing some "credentials" out you'll have something else to attack, something more directly related to my actual positions. I may only have 3 years of journalism schooling under my belt, a 1-year stint as news editor for weber state university's little student paper, and completed an internship at the little Ogden standard-examiner, but I am pretty certain I have a better grasp of how media in general operates.

Then you should know it is dominated by liberal journalists.

Now, go find another 300-person poll and some sound-bites

Sound bites! Yeah, sound bites from some of the more important people in journalism that actually have the inside scoop on the liberal bias. They have no problems admitting it exists, so why would I take your word over theirs? Liberal bias is something you see as an outsider and something you learn from experience as a journalist. It isn't as if you're going to take a class on "being a liberal journalist" while in college. Good grief.

I don't think your last few posts actually addressed my position in any way, shape, or form.

Let's see. Your point in one post consisted of "LOL." In another you asseted, "the media doesn't exist. Your point in another post consisted of a cut and paste article defending the liberal media. Your point in another post simply asserted I didn't understand journalism. Which of these points do you think make for a compelling argument?

by the way, these responses are just as much a response to Trevor as they are to you. He thinks the liberal bias is just in the imaginations of conservatives playing the "persecution card."

[_LifeOnaPlate]

It goes like this, Kevin. I make some points, you respond to a straw man. Then I think, gee, Kevin isn't following. I'll throw an article up and see what happens. I throw it on there, you immediately see it as some weird apology for a liberal media. Your own approach to the article betrays your ignorance on the subject to someone who knows a little more than you on the subject. It's that simple. Given your overwhelming unwillingness to ever concede a point (I've never seen you do so) I tested the waters to see if you really had a grasp on things, and if you were interested in a dialogue. I feel your response demonstrated that you aren't.

Kevin, you clearly didn't understand the article I posted. Bottom line. I'm not going to spell it out for you, you're a grown up.

[_dartagnan]

Translation = You never had a point. You thought you made a point with an article that I immediately blew to pieces and now you're pretending your "real" point is somewhere else, but you won't say where. Nor will you say what it is. Presumably, its in that mass of one-liners you've been posting throughout the discussion. And now you're left with an appeal to your so-called education as a reason to jump ship.

Whatever.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

Translation = You never had a point. You thought you made a point with an article that I immediately blew to pieces and now you're pretending your "real" point is somewhere else, but you won't say where. Nor will you say what it is. Presumably, its in that mass of one-liners you've been posting throughout the discussion. And now you're left with an appeal to your so-called education as a reason to jump ship.

Whatever.

False. Whatever.

[_dartagnan]

There was one player on the stage in St. Louis on Thursday night that really failed to meet the standard of professionalism and national leadership: moderator Gwen Ifill. Her questions often failed the first journalistic test: they failed to press the candidates to take or defend a stand, instead of letting them unload their talking points. One came across as just plain incoherent: "Governor, on another issue, interventionism, nuclear weapons. What should be the trigger, or should there be a trigger, when nuclear weapons use is ever put into play?" That unfairly put Gov. Palin into a stumbling mode as she tried to figure out: what on Earth was bumbling Ifill trying to say?

While she offered a pile of liberal-tilting questions, Ifill offered Biden only one question from the right, about raising taxes on people making over $250,000 a year: "Why isn’t that class warfare?" Sadly, she didn’t let the sharp question stand. In the next sentence, before Biden could answer, she then went on to slam McCain’s health-care tax proposal as possibly "taking things out on the poor."

But the worst, most politician-indulging questions came at the end. This was the most distasteful question of the night: how would you abandon your running mate’s legacy if he croaked?

"Probably the biggest cliché about the vice-presidency is that it's a heartbeat away, everybody's waiting to see what would happen if the worst happened. How would -- you [Palin] disagree on some things from your principles, you disagree on drilling in Alaska, the National Wildlife Refuge, you [Biden] disagree on the surveillance law, at least you have in the past. How would a Biden administration be different from an Obama administration if that were to happen?"

Neither candidate was ever going to answer that directly, and each used it as a free pass to make their campaign pitches.

Here’s another Ifill question that was a free pass: tell us what your greatest weakness really is, as opposed to the conventional wisdom.

Let's talk conventional wisdom for a moment. The conventional wisdom, Governor Palin with you, is that your Achilles heel is that you lack experience. Your conventional wisdom against you is that your Achilles heel is that you lack discipline, Senator Biden. What is it really for you, Governor Palin? What is it really for you, Senator Biden?

If people wondered why the debate seemed sharp at the beginning, but lost focus and took on boilerplate barnacles at the end, blame the moderator for unfocused questions that didn’t press the candidates on the issues. Ifill obviously avoided abortion as a topic, since liberals are afraid that could be a strong point for Palin. She also avoided the question of judges and the courts, which could have really generated strong exchanges, as Biden declared his ardor in taking out the Robert Bork nomination.

Ifill seemed to run out of gas so badly that she asked the same question at the beginning and the end of the debate about ending divisiveness in Washington. At the beginning, she asked: "Senator Biden, how, as vice president, would you work to shrink this gap of polarization which has sprung up in Washington, which you both have spoken about here tonight?"

At the end, she repeated herself: "Let's come full circle. You both want to bring both sides together. You both talk about bipartisanship. Once again, we saw what happened this week in Washington. How do you change the tone, as vice president, as number-two?"

You could call it "full circle." Or you could it a complete waste of air time.

Her first question was too open-ended, on the week’s struggle over a bailout bill: "Was this the worst of Washington or the best of Washington that we saw play out?" But the first question is probably the best place for an open-ended question, as candidates get pleasantries out of the way.

Here’s one more badly constructed question from Ifill: "I'm curious about what you think starting with you Senator Biden. What's the greater threat, a nuclear Iran or an unstable Afghanistan?" Both candidates answered "both," a sign that it’s a bad question.

So how many questions leaned to the left? First, there was the hardball at Palin, before Biden could answer his:

"You proposed raising taxes on people who earn over $250,000 a year. The question for you is, why is that not class warfare and the same question for you, Governor Palin, is you have proposed a tax employer health benefits which some studies say would actually throw five million more people onto the roles of the uninsured. I want to know why that isn't taking things out on the poor?"

Ifill’s question on the subprime mess leaned left in avoiding any blame for government policy:

"Who do you think was at fault? I start with you, Governor Palin. Was it the greedy lenders? Was it the risky home-buyers who shouldn't have been buying a home in the first place? And what should you be doing about it?"

Ifill suggested John McCain was opposed to "debt-strapped mortage holders," not in favor of people being responsible for their borrowing and spending: "Last year, Congress passed a bill that would make it more difficult for debt-strapped mortgage-holders to declare bankruptcy, to get out from under that debt. This is something that John McCain supported. Would you have?"

On climate change, Ifill pressed Palin to admit it was man-made, the cockiest contention on the left, instead of asking a question about the potentially onerous regulation of a "solution" to our carbon footprint: "What is true and what is false about what we have heard, read, discussed, debated about the causes of climate change?"

The gay question to Biden clearly came from the left: "Do you support, as they do in Alaska, granting same-sex benefits to couples?"

The Iraq question focused on an exit strategy, and like most liberals, Ifill didn’t discuss a victory strategy, just an exit: "You both have sons who are in Iraq or on their way to Iraq. You, Governor Palin, have said that you would like to see a real clear plan for an exit strategy. What should that be, Governor?"

Ifill also came from the left at Biden on military matters, making him sound like a right-wing war supporter when it comes to humanitarian combat, and suggesting the American people are peaceniks: "Senator, you have quite a record, this is the next question here, of being an interventionist. You argued for intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo, initially in Iraq and Pakistan and now in Darfur, putting U.S. troops on the ground. Boots on the ground. Is this something the American public has the stomach for?"

Ifill also came across as tilting to the left in pressing Palin (twice) to respond to Biden’s charge that McCain wanted deregulation of health care, just like banking. She clearly suggested that Palin needed to respond to the charge, since it was so powerful.

The Commission on Presidential Debates ought to get a low grade for this debate. It selected a weak moderator, and then failed to respond – just like a bobbing and weaving politician – to the conflict-of-interest questions swirling around Ifill’s forthcoming book on the "Age of Obama."

Ifill should not get another invitation to moderate a national debate of this importance, not before tens of other qualified national journalists who have not been so honored.

—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center

[_LifeOnaPlate]

Ifill should not get another invitation to moderate a national debate of this importance, not before tens of other qualified national journalists who have not been so honored.

—Tim Graham is Director of Media Analysis at the Media Research Center

One could almost see a similarly biased assessment of the debate saying something like "Palin should not have received an invitation to participate in a national position of this importance, not before tens of other qualified national politicians and others who have not been so honored."