While CNN and other media outlets continue to give invaluable free coverage to the discredited liars attacking Senator John Kerry's Vietnam record, they continue to ignore President George W. Bush's own Vietnam-era record.
Week ending September 3, 2004
www.mediamatters.org
action@mediamatters.org
This week:
The video CNN won't show you: Media ignores Ben Barnes, while lavishing attention on Swift Boat liars
The other video CNN won't show you: Cable network airs ads that falsely attack Kerry but rejects truthful ad critical of Republicans
Lying liars and the lazy reporters who let them lie
GOP Convention speaker Zell Miller came unhinged; will media treat him the way they treated Dean?
Media continues to ignore Bush's flip-flops
The video CNN won't show you: Media ignores Ben Barnes, while lavishing attention on Swift Boat liars
While CNN and other media outlets continue to give invaluable free coverage to the discredited liars attacking Senator John Kerry's Vietnam record, they continue to ignore President George W. Bush's own Vietnam-era record.
On August 25, a Media Matters for America analysis found that in 2004, Bush's Alabama National Guard record (or lack thereof) had come up in only 752 news reports available on Nexis. By comparison, 1,924 reports discussed Kerry and swift boat veterans.
The disparity in coverage has only grown: From January 1, 2004, to September 3, 2004, 4,199 reports have mentioned Kerry and swift boat veterans; only 803 reports have mentioned Bush and the Alabama National Guard.
This growing disparity in coverage comes despite the fact that, last week, a video surfaced showing former Texas Speaker of the House Ben Barnes admitting he got Bush into the National Guard. The Barnes video was virtually ignored by the broadcast media; according to a search of the LexisNexis database, from the time the video surfaced a week ago through September 2, CNN had mentioned Barnes six times but only once aired a few seconds of the video. CBS had mentioned Barnes three times; FOX had mentioned him only once; and ABC, CNBC, MSNBC, and NBC had all completely ignored him. A search of the LexisNexis “All News” directory for Ben Barnes and Bush yields only 65 hits for the period August 27 to September 2 -- less than one-tenth the hits for Kerry and the swift boat vets during the same period.
As Paul Waldman, editor-in-chief of the online magazine The Gadflyer and co-author of The Press Effect: Politicians, Journalists, and the Stories That Shape the Political World, noted:
Speaking of George W.'s lost years, this Sunday Ben Barnes -- the man who, as Speaker of the Texas House, got George leapfrogged over 500 less fortunate young men to obtain a spot in the “Champagne Unit” of the Texas Air Guard -- will at long last be telling his story on 60 Minutes. Let's see if Barnes' story -- which no one has offered a factual refutation of -- gets one-tenth the coverage given to the fabrications of the Swift Boat Veterans for Bush.
(There have been conflicting reports about when the 60 Minutes interview will air; CBS has not made an announcement.)
The other video CNN won't show you: Cable network airs ads that falsely attack Kerry but rejects truthful ad critical of Republicans
CNN is refusing to air an ad produced by Log Cabin Republicans, a group of gay Republicans. The Log Cabin ad, described by writer Joshua Micah Marshall as a plea for an “an inclusive, rather than an intolerant Republican party,” was rejected by CNN for being “too controversial” -- presumably because it accurately depicts right-wing gay-basher Fred Phelps, carrying his trademark placards emblazoned with the words “GOD HATES FAGS.”
But while CNN rejects ads critical of Republicans as “too controversial,” the network airs false attack ads lying about John Kerry's Vietnam record -- and gives them near-constant free airtime. Vicious lies and distortions about John Kerry are apparently acceptable to CNN, but truthful criticism of Republicans is “too controversial.”
Lying liars and the lazy reporters who let them lie
Columbia Journalism Review noted the persistent tendency of the media to report lies as facts, without challenging or correcting them:
If there's a theme to this campaign season, it has to be vicious, misleading spin, and the press corps' collective refusal to promptly call politicians to account for it -- not even when the spin that is spun has already been thoroughly debunked.
Last night, Vice President Dick Cheney and Democratic Senator Zell Miller delivered prime time addresses recapitulating a number of selective mis-statements that have been debunked repeatedly -- and, once again, like so many programmed robots, much of the press corps reported it all as if it were fact.
The Gadflyer's Paul Waldman added:
When this campaign started, George W. Bush aired an ad charging that John Kerry had “voted 350 times for higher taxes.” We quickly found out that the charge was just crap -- votes were counted twice, and votes for tax cuts were counted as votes for higher taxes. Now, the Bush campaign has come up with a new number, appearing in ads, convention speeches, and press releases: Kerry, they say, has voted to raise taxes 98 times. But is it true?
Come on -- do you even have to ask?
According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center, “Of the 98 votes for 'tax increases,' 43 were cast on budget measures that only set targets and don't actually legislate tax increases. Often, several votes are counted regarding a single tax bill...Most of the 98 votes were on procedural measures, such as votes to end debate or votes on amendments, and not on passage of the measure itself. More than once, the 98-vote total counts half a dozen votes or more on a single bill.”
Among these are the 1993 Clinton budget, which did indeed raise taxes, and which Kerry did indeed vote for. How many times does Bush count this one bill? Sixteen. That's right, sixteen.
I get tired of screaming this all the time, but when it has to be said, it has to be said. Dear reporters, POLITICIANS WON'T STOP LYING UNLESS YOU CALL THEM ON IT. If you won't do it because you're afraid of being called biased, then you're a coward, a tool of the most cynical campaign operatives, and a traitor to the public you're supposed to be serving.
To note just one example from the past week, CNN senior White House correspondent John King sat quietly by as Karl Rove grossly distorted John Kerry's 1971 Senate testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Rove echoed false claims made by the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth in a recent ad (which we're certain was simply a coincidence). Rove falsely suggested that Kerry accused all Vietnam veterans of committing atrocities in Vietnam. Yet Kerry said nothing of the kind and, in fact, was relating stories other veterans told him rather than speaking from personal experience; Kerry made it quite clear that he blamed military leadership rather than soldiers for the actions in question. But King said nothing as Rove viciously smeared Kerry.
GOP Convention speaker Zell Miller came unhinged; will media treat him the way they treated Dean?
In the wake of Senator Zell Miller's GOP Convention speech Wednesday, many commentators concluded that Miller was “full of hate.” For example, CNN analyst David Gergen -- who served as an adviser to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton -- said:
Forgive me for being intemperate about the Zell Miller speech. As I listened to him, Larry, I was reminded that Zell Miller began his career by working for Lester Maddox, a man of hate. And he unfortunately capped his career tonight by sounding like Lester Maddox. ... It was a very rough speech. It was full of hate. It came very close to accusing the Democrats of treason. I thought it was a surprising speech. ... I don't think it would strike a lot of Americans as being fair.
The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn added:
A critic could credibly describe Senator Zell Miller's speech to the Republican Convention as angry, misleading, or both. But to dwell on either the tone or veracity of Miller's text somehow misses the point given the scene that unfolded at Madison Square Garden last night. In an address originally billed as a critique of John Kerry's national security credentials, Miller essentially branded the Democrats as traitors because they haven't fallen in line with President Bush on all matters of national security. It was one of the most vile political speeches in recent American history, every bit as offensive as Pat Buchanan's infamous call in 1992 for “religious war” and, perhaps, a little more disturbing. Buchanan's speech, after all, was an assault on decency. Last night Miller declared war on democracy.
Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz wrote:
The former keynoter at the '92 Democratic convention totally overshadowed the vice president of the United States. He looked really hostile -- even if you turned the sound off -- as he eviscerated Kerry. No flicker of a smile ever crossed his lips. ...
“Miller went over the line into demagoguery,” said Mort Kondracke, by accusing the Dems of defaming American troops.
He really got kicked around on CNN. “I've never heard such an angry speech,” said Bill Schneider -- even angrier, he said, than Pat Buchanan's “culture war” address in '92.
“I don't think I've ever seen anything as angry and ugly as Miller's speech,” said Joe Klein.
Writer Joshua Micah Marshall, meanwhile, made an excellent point, referring to the relentless media coverage of Howard Dean's speech the night of the Iowa caucus:
After all the grief Howard Dean got way back when, I'll be watching to see how much follow-on there will be after Miller went from delivering that speech to going on Chris Matthews' show and challenges him to a duel.
Wall-to-wall media coverage of Dean's speech led to a summer of media references to Dean and Democrats being "unhinged," "insane," and in danger of a "meltdown."
Will Zell Miller and the Republicans get the same treatment?
And now that Republicans are trying to disassociate themselves from Miller's intemperate remarks by saying he spoke only for himself, will the media accept this spin -- or will the media point out that Miller was chosen to give the keynote address at the Republican National Convention, where he spoke at the request and pleasure of President George W. Bush and the Republican Party leadership? Will the media point out that the GOP read and approved Miller's speech in advance?
Media continues to ignore Bush's flip-flops
Back in July, Columbia Journalism Review noted:
As The Bush campaign has been remarkably successful at getting the press to buy the notion that John Kerry is a flip-flopper. ... But reporters have been much less quick to look at various Bush reversals of policy through the same lens.
Media Matters for America has previously detailed an apparent media double standard on the candidates' flip-flops.
The last week has brought several new examples of the media ignoring Bush flip-flops.
For example, Bush has recently flip-flopped dramatically on the subject of political advertising by 527 groups. In 2000, Bush strongly defended such advertising as “what freedom of speech is all about”; he now condemns such ads (and, apparently, “freedom of speech”) as “bad for the system.” Yet while the media gave heavy play to Bush's condemnation of 527s, his prior support for them went virtually unnoticed.
But the big Bush flip-flop of the week was his striking indecision over whether the United States would win the war on terrorism.
For years, Bush has made firm pronouncements such as "Let me be clear about this: We will win the war on terrorism." Time after time, Bush has said we would win the war on terror.
Then, in an interview that was broadcast on August 30, Bush abruptly changed his mind. Asked “can we win” the war on terror, Bush said, “I don't think you can win it.”
But the very next day, the steady, resolute Bush had gone back to his earlier position, declaring: “We will win” the war on terror.
Surely, this shocking flip-flop (and flip back again) by the leader of the free world about the winability of the war on terror got extensive media coverage? Surely, it was portrayed as not one but two about-faces on a crucial issue in only three days?
Of course not. The media story line on Bush is that he is a firm and resolute leader; that if he has a weakness, it's that he's too stubborn. So this extraordinary indecision and inconsistency on an issue so important (coming from a man who declared in his convention speech, “If America shows uncertainty and weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch”) got relatively little attention.
How little attention? Less than Teresa Heinz Kerry's request that a hostile right-wing reporter “shove it.” That's right: Teresa Heinz Kerry's comment shows up in 681 news reports available on LexisNexis in the first four days after she said it. Bush's abrupt change in opinion -- that the United States can't win the war on terror -- was only mentioned in 397 news reports.
And several of those were actually defenses of Bush's comments. Los Angeles Times reporter Ron Brownstein -- one of the most respected political reporters in the country -- said on CNN that he wanted to “defend” Bush's comments that the United States can't win the war on terror, because:
I think the president was acknowledging that honestly to the American people that this is a world we are going to have to live in for a very long time. It may not always be a hot war as it is now, but it's going to be an ongoing condition. And he basically said what everybody deep down, I think, knows to be true.
Many reporters seem to have given Bush a pass for that reason: because they agree that a “war on terror” isn't something that can be won; that it betrays a lack of understanding of what terrorism is and how the world works to suggest otherwise. Why, then, have those reporters (like Brownstein) not been taking Bush to task for three years, during which Bush frequently promised that we would win the war on terror? Why aren't they criticizing him now for going back to that position?
The media largely gave him a break when he flipped, apparently because they thought he had finally adopted the correct position. Now he's flopped back, and they're still giving him a pass. Why? Who knows? But it probably won't be long before they call him “steady” and “resolute” again.
Jamison Foser is Executive Vice President at Media Matters for America.