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2008-07-21 Home Front: Politix
NYT REJECTS MCCAIN'S EDITORIAL; SHOULD 'MIRROR' OBAMA
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Posted by Uncle Phester 2008-07-21 12:14|| || Front Page|| [11129 views ]  Top

#1 To be rejected by the NYTs is the highest form of flattery.
Posted by JohnQC 2008-07-21 13:04||   2008-07-21 13:04|| Front Page Top

#2 The few people who still read the NYT editorial page would not read a McCain editorial anyway. They have drunk deeply of the dark blue Obama KoolAid. They are for the most part supercilious wannabe elitists, thoroughly indoctrinated but woefully ignorant socialists, "useful idiots" all.
Posted by RWV 2008-07-21 13:11||   2008-07-21 13:11|| Front Page Top

#3 Nice of the NYT to be overt abotu being an arm of the DNC and an organ of the Obama campaign, run by former Clintonites.
Posted by OldSpook 2008-07-21 13:22||   2008-07-21 13:22|| Front Page Top

#4 Of course, if the Fairness Doctrine had been implemented, as the Democrats seem to want, the NYT would have no choice but to run the editorial.
Posted by Rambler in California">Rambler in California  2008-07-21 13:29||   2008-07-21 13:29|| Front Page Top

#5 Hmmmmmmmm? I wonder...

Belief Growing That Reporters are Trying to Help Obama Win

The belief that reporters are trying to help Barack Obama win the fall campaign has grown by five percentage points over the past month. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey found that 49% of voters believe most reporters will try to help Obama with their coverage, up from 44% a month ago. Just 14% believe most reporters will try to help John McCain win, little changed from 13% a month ago. Just one voter in four (24%) believes that most reporters will try to offer unbiased coverage.

A plurality of Democrats—37%-- say most reporters try to offer unbiased coverage of the campaign. Twenty-seven percent (27%) believe most reporters are trying to help Obama and 21% in Obama’s party think reporters are trying to help McCain. Among Republicans, 78% believe reporters are trying to help Obama and 10% see most offering unbiased coverage. As for unaffiliated voters, 50% see a pro-Obama bias and 21% see unbiased coverage. Just 12% of those not affiliated with either major party believe the reporters are trying to help McCain.

In a more general sense, 45% say that most reporters would hide information if it hurt the candidate they wanted to win. Just 30% disagree and 25% are not sure. Democrats are evenly divided as to whether a reporter would release such information while Republicans and unaffiliated voters have less confidence in the reporters. Republicans and unaffiliated voters are more likely to trust campaign information from family and friends than from reporters. Democrats are evenly divided as to who they would trust more.

A separate survey released this morning also found that 50% of voters believe most reporters want to make the economy seem worse than it is. A plurality believes that the media has also tried to make the war in Iraq appear worse that it really is.

A survey conducted earlier this year found that 30% of voters believe having a friendly reporter is more valuable than raising a lot of campaign contributions. Twenty-nine percent (29%) believe contributions are more important and 40% are not sure.
Posted by tu3031 2008-07-21 13:43||   2008-07-21 13:43|| Front Page Top

#6 The DRUDGE REPORT presents the McCain editorial in its submitted form:

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.
Posted by tipper 2008-07-21 14:29||   2008-07-21 14:29|| Front Page Top

#7 Imagine that: McCain is critical of Obama, and the NYT tells him to 'mirror' Obama instead.
Posted by Steve White 2008-07-21 14:31||   2008-07-21 14:31|| Front Page Top

#8 What happened to my comments?
Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2008-07-21 14:36||   2008-07-21 14:36|| Front Page Top

#9 I figured it out. Fred's software kicks out the word "Po**ograph*", which I originally used in the context of the only remaining skill available to the MSM once the current collapse is complete.

In any case, bias is not really the problem with the media-industrial complex, the ridiculous pretense of objectivity and "fairness" is the problem. Nobody faults the Daily Worker for not running McCain pieces, or Rush Limbaugh for not slobbering on Obama, but somehow the dinosaur media pretend to be different. This only means that the dinosaurs can support their agenda by deceit rather than by open discourse.

The public isn't buying it anymore and the dinosaurs are headed for well-deserved extinction.

Posted by Atomic Conspiracy 2008-07-21 15:09||   2008-07-21 15:09|| Front Page Top

#10 Well, that was a fine editorial by John McCain . . . nothing the NYT shouldn't want to print as a news organization (now rather a front line campaign megaphone for the Dems --oh, except McCain isn't bowing down to "Obummer Messiah" like they are, nor is he lapping up everything Obama blabs like the rest of the cult members.
Posted by ex-lib 2008-07-21 16:00||   2008-07-21 16:00|| Front Page Top

#11 I agree. McCain should just send them a picture of a case of White Out.
Posted by swksvolFF 2008-07-21 17:20||   2008-07-21 17:20|| Front Page Top

#12 With a state controlled press, you only get to know what those who run the government want you to know. With a free press, you only get to know what those who think they should run the government want you to know.
Posted by Procopius2k 2008-07-21 18:08||   2008-07-21 18:08|| Front Page Top

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