Los Angeles Times: We Repeat Lies, But Don’t Claim They’re True . . .
In a story about the Messiah’s Crackberry, the L.A. Times tells us:
Even if [Obama] won’t be scanning his own groceries or buying his own milk — former President George H.W. Bush was portrayed as out of touch with those markers of American life — he may be in casual contact with friends who are.
The paper neglects to mention the fact that the portrayal of Bush 41 as “out of touch” with supermarket scanners . . . is false.
But who cares about that? The key thing is that he has been portrayed that way. Whether the portrayal is true is of secondary importance.
That’s how editors would treat a slander about one of their own . . . right?
President Obama has been portrayed as being very familiar with the price of arugula.
And VP Gore has been portrayed as claiming to invent the Internet.
No doubt the LAT passes these canards off without a qualm, right?
Pious Agnostic (291f9a) — 1/23/2009 @ 5:45 am“That’s how editors would treat a slander about one of their own . . . right?”
But of course!
GM Roper (85dcd7) — 1/23/2009 @ 6:26 amThanks for that, Patterico.
Many on the left are driven by their hatred and it blinds them. It’s sad and scary.
tyree (77f686) — 1/23/2009 @ 6:34 am[…] outlines the LA Times’ repetition of hooey: In a story about the Messiah’s Crackberry, the L.A. Times tells us: Even if [Obama] won’t be […]
Perception Is Reality [Dan Collins] (7a2640) — 1/23/2009 @ 6:39 am“That’s how editors would treat a slander about one of their own . . . right?”
To be fair, that pretty much is how they treated Anita Busch. Just not in print.
Karl (2491e1) — 1/23/2009 @ 6:58 amNot too much cheer and unity lately, huh? I think that was another campaign promise.
Vermont Neighbor (ab0837) — 1/23/2009 @ 7:03 amI keep waiting for the infamous plastic turkey balderdash in this story – morons in the MSM are still repeating that bald – faced lie, so eventually it will be accepted as gospel truth.
Dmac (eb0dd0) — 1/23/2009 @ 7:29 amLiberal Democrats are dishonest liars and Pigs! They can not tell or admit the truth, nor can they leave a public venue untrashed. 160 tons of trash on the National Mall. Democrats from Obama on down ought to have had to clean the Mall at gun point.
PCD (7fe637) — 1/23/2009 @ 7:43 amDmac, they have no experience in the military to give them a basis to judge such libels. It’s as if I tried to describe what goes on at a gay pride rally. Who knows what goes on ?
Mike K (41787b) — 1/23/2009 @ 7:44 amDr. K., I generally cannot stand to read science-based stories in newspapers. The howlers I see there are amazing.
Yes, there are some science journalists that try hard to be accurate, but most do not.
Many journalists seem to feel that they are somehow expert on whatever story they are writing. Too much Woodward and Bernstein Syndrome, maybe?
All I know is that I trust little from the MSM these days. And a lot of Americans feel the same way.
Eric Blair (3e2520) — 1/23/2009 @ 8:18 amOh, great – I just saw this article being reprinted in today’s Trib. The lies just continue to spread – wonderful.
Dmac (eb0dd0) — 1/23/2009 @ 8:20 amWell, if we didn’t have lies, there’d be nothing to print. 😉
Andy (b63f79) — 1/23/2009 @ 9:08 amWell, let’s be fair: at the time of the supermarket scanner story, the elder George Bush had completed twelve consecutive years as vice president or president; it wasn’t very likely that he did much of his own grocery shopping! Bill Clinton, on the other hand, demonstrated the common touch by interacting with such ordinary people as Gennifer Flowers and Juanita Broddrick, and showed his commitment to keeping in touch with even the lower ranking state employees, like Paula Corbin Jones.
Even after becoming president, he wasn’t some aloof aristocrat, but took a keen interest in people as low-ranking as White House interns, to the point of giving them free legal advice and showing a concern for their diet.
The truthful Dana (3e4784) — 1/23/2009 @ 10:13 amInteresting post over at Powerline about how the NYT is having to make a correction that one of their vaunted journo’s misplaced Bulgaria (didn’t know the difference between the Baltics, and the Balkans), and another journo confused 8 square miles, with 8 miles square in reporting on Ft. Leavenworth.
They ain’t that smart folks.
AD (fbe62c) — 1/23/2009 @ 10:14 amBaltics, Balkans. You say toe-mae-toe and I say toe-mah-toe.
Can’t we just get along?
EBJ (2fd7f7) — 1/23/2009 @ 10:58 amComment by EBJ — 1/23/2009 @ 10:58 am
AD (fbe62c) — 1/23/2009 @ 11:05 amWell, the peoples of the Baltics generally do get along.
Those of the Balkans, not so much.
Dana, the Bush-scanner story was not even true. It was alleged that Bush had never seen a scanner. That was not the case, at all. It was similar to the “kill him!” cries at Palin rallies that were heard by a single reporter and were not audible on any tape and had not been heard by the Secret Service, who would be interested in such things.
Here is Snopes on the Bush story.
Mike K (ee3203) — 1/23/2009 @ 12:18 pmAD, I think it was Winston Churchill who said that the Balkans generate more history than they can consume locally.
SPQR (72771e) — 1/23/2009 @ 1:30 pmYou know they could save a lot on printing costs, if they only worked on the stories they know to be true, that does beg the question how do they know.
narciso (57971e) — 1/23/2009 @ 1:37 pmComment by narciso — 1/23/2009 @ 1:37 pm
If truth was the operative principle,
AD (fbe62c) — 1/23/2009 @ 2:05 pmthe LAT would be a one-page newsletter, with very wide margins.
MSM will survive just fine. They’ve already been running to their mommies and daddies on either end of Pennsylvania Ave crying “radio isn’t playing fair!” The mommies and daddies will make radio play fair and then will make Algore’s internet play fair.
John Hitchcock (fb941d) — 1/23/2009 @ 2:26 pmThey ain’t that smart folks.
AD, you should have witnessed what Mike, Bradley, Eric and myself experienced during our days on Cathy Seipp’s old site (aka Cathy’s World). She criticized an article written by one of their long – time reporters (since retired), and he came on to defend his work. To his credit, he didn’t slink away and skulk over our many pointed criticisms of his sloppy fact – checking and general editorializing in what was allegedly supposed to be an “objective” news story. But he quickly degenerated into the hallowed “greater truth” theory espoused by those who get caught with their journalistic pants down, even resorting to hoary cliche’s about how he grew up poor and hardscrabble, etc. The whole thing was really priceless, and gave us a good look into how the ivory towers of our supposed media betters were really made out of clay.
Dmac (eb0dd0) — 1/23/2009 @ 3:08 pmI had an exchange with Hiltzik a year or two ago before he got into sock puppet trouble. He was a jerk. I had even recommended his book, Dealers of Lightning, which I thought was good. I’m now reading another book on Xerox PARC and it’s interesting because it is so much better than Hiltzik’s book. I figured out why. It doesn’t have his hostility to business. Xerox was dumb to miss the significance of PARC but the company was still a great story of technology and invention. To Hiltzik, they had no redeeming value.
I finally figured that out.
Mike K (ee3203) — 1/23/2009 @ 4:30 pmComment by Dmac — 1/23/2009 @ 3:08 pm
This discussion prompts me to think that there needs to be an addendum to the admonition that
Those who can, do; and
Those that can’t teach*….
for those not amenable to either avocation, there is always journalism.
*Sorry, EB!
AD (fbe62c) — 1/23/2009 @ 4:48 pmYou don’t hear me disagreeing, AD.
There is nothing worse than an academic with any kind of power. We are the folks no one wanted on their fourth grade kickball game.
“Oh, crap, we are gonna have Blair on our team….”
So when we do get power, look at the dangerous nonsense we generate. Wilson. Adlai Stevenson. Heck, we have an academic as President now. Hang on to your seats.
This is the reason I dislike the current political elitism these days. I know better.
Eric Blair (e92b94) — 1/23/2009 @ 5:07 pmYes, it is unfortunate that we allow them to escape their ivory-tower cloisters where they can only wound each others egos; whereas, with the acquisition of political power, they have the opportunity to do serious, and real, damage to property and lives – Ours!
AD (fbe62c) — 1/23/2009 @ 5:19 pmAdlai Stevenson was a Communist. He showed it when he pounded the podium with his shoes.
AD (d63e61) — 1/23/2009 @ 5:21 pmWell, I don’t know about the communist label, AD, but Stevenson was a huge snob.
I heard this great story, but I don’t have attribution. Stevenson spent years sniffing about the anti-intellectual, non-reading American public. After he died, folks cleaning up his apartment discovered that he only had one book in the place: the New York Social Register.
Sounds about right.
Eric Blair (e92b94) — 1/23/2009 @ 5:24 pmComment by Eric Blair — 1/23/2009 @ 5:24 pm
EB, that wasn’t me, much as I disliked Adlai, I would never call him a commie.
The original AD (previously known as Another Drew) (fbe62c) — 1/23/2009 @ 5:26 pmI’ve had my name hijacked.
Happened on the other thread too.
Sorry Original AD. That’s not cricket.
Eric Blair (e92b94) — 1/23/2009 @ 5:27 pmthe LAT would be a one-page newsletter, with very wide margins.And here’s something strange.
How coincidental. I read this today in a newsletter called the Daily Reckoning which might portend the evolution of less than stellar dailies…
“…We don’t know where else this might be going on…but a newspaper in Paris is taking articles off the Internet and putting them on paper. “A selection of the best of the Web,” says the cover, which comes out every Friday and sells for 1.5 euros..”
allan (30bfe7) — 1/23/2009 @ 5:39 pmSo, I should feel free to report on the rumor that the LA Times‘ ink contains substantial mercury, even if I think it false?
Kevin Murphy (0b2493) — 1/23/2009 @ 5:40 pmI didn’t think the LA Slimes would want us to recall exactly who Obama’s ‘casual friends’ who buy groceries (or maybe bomb grocery stores) were:
eaglewingz08 (c46606) — 1/24/2009 @ 10:27 amRev Wright, Pflegar, Ayers, Klonsky, Dohrn, Khalidi, Farakkan, etc. There was absolutely no reason to put in that snarky clause in the article. I don’t think that when Bush 41 was slandered about the scanners the media put in that he had friends who used scanners and thus was vicariously acquainted with such technology.
I didn’t even think that Mr. Obama drank whole milk, he seems like the Soy Milk (I know its an outright lie to call that product milk, but that’s how it’s marketed) type of guy.
^ Your comments go hand-in-hand with these, which make me both chuckle and grimace (and become even more annoyed by the mouthpieces of the left, the LA Times included):
Mark (411533) — 1/24/2009 @ 10:52 am
[…] paper recycled a hoary old fable about George H.W. Bush being surprised by supermarket […]
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