Media Bias

The closer we get to the election, the more emotional our "Off Topic" political debates seem to be getting. I do not pretend that I'm not just as guilty as anyone else in that regard & feel we need to step back, take a deep breath, & remember a few basic concepts here:

1. We are all patriotic Americans here.......... debating our views on how to improve this country. We differ on how to achieve that goal, but do not differ on the goal itself. (the same goes for all the candidates, imo)

2. No one media outlet, be it newspaper, radio, television or whatever is really "Fair & Balanced".....They all have a pretty obvious bias to one camp or the other.

It is therefore impossible for a well informed voter & see the whole picture without taking the time to at least scan a number of different media sources covering all sides of an issue.

I always try to scan through MSNBC, CNN, Fox, Talk Radio & other sources to get a feel for what both sides are saying. I admittedly have more time to do this than most of you, but suggest that you cannot get the whole story if you don't at least try to listen to both sides. It seems that all I ever see here are things from Fox News or other conservative media outlets & just hope that you at least scan some media on the other side to get both sides of any story.

I again recommend CSPAN as the media source to watch for totally unbiased coverage of any event they cover. No talking heads, no advertising, no bias.

Devil505 wrote:no wonder he crashed 5 aircraft in his naval career (Referring to Senator McMain).

Statements like that bring zero to the table.

"Patriotic American"????

Dick the problem is you rarely post hard facts to bolster your argument, its always "four more years of Bush & then you throw in a few many insults.
Since you have time, post some facts from CSPAN, MSNBC, CNN, Fox & other reliable sources to reinforce your argument, we all do.
Enlighten us with more than just your opinion.

I remember reading that 'crashed five airplanes in his career'.. and it pissed me off.. big time..

An aviator in a fighter aircraft does not 'crash' his plane when he ejects.. he is trained and under orders to eject from an un-recoverable situation, either from combat damage, or from aircraft system failures.. The pilot is MUCH more valuable than the plane.. Saying he 'crashed' a plane is very derogatory and totally a BS statement.. pilots rarely survive a 'crash', most survive an ejection. If Senator McCain ejected 5 times in his career, that means he had lots of combat time and some bad luck with the actual airplanes.. it has NOTHING to do with his skills as a pilot...

Dick, I agree that tempers are going to flare, more than they do now.. but I have to say, that 90+% of the political topics and threads are started by you, so I'd suggest that if you want to tone down the tempers on the forum, that YOU can have a very big influence on accomplishing this..

Greg L

LsFarm wrote:Dick, I agree that tempers are going to flare, more than they do now.. but I have to say, that 90+% of the political topics and threads are started by you, so I'd suggest that if you want to tone down the tempers on the forum, that YOU can have a very big influence on accomplishing this..

You'll get no argument from me on that Greg. It is a standard family joke that I can tend to be argumentative & abrasive sometimes. I tend to shoot from the hip, get emotionally involved in any debate, have no ability to be PC (politically Correct) &...........God help me.....Actually enjoy confrontation!.....In other words.......I'm no "Day at the beach" to be around many times........& I know it!
Part of this is my basic personality......I've always had too big a mouth & never learned when to keep it shut!

The other part (in my defense) is the Head Injury I suffered back in 1989. A Head Injury is something you never actually recover from, but you just learn how to live with. I don't want to get real medical here but I feel I should explain a little about Head Injury to explain things better:
In my case, I was run down by a car & ended up going straight through the windshield, ending up...upside down with my head on the passenger floor. What happens medically is this: Your skull smashes into something (in my case a windshield) & stops instantly.....your brain, floating in fluid within the skull, keeps going until it slams into the inside of your skull. This is where the real damage is done...this 2nd impact of the brain itself. The instant the brain is injured like that (Closed Head Injury is the medical term for what I had) many brain cells are killed outright..Brain cells do not regenerate themselves & you can't grow new ones. What you have now ,is all you'll ever have.
In adapting to life after the injury, whatever functions the now dead braincells used to control are either impossible to perform any more or you brain learns to re-wire itself & find new paths for the neurons to accomplish what you are trying to do. It is like being reborn in that you must re-learn all the things you learned to do as a baby.....eat, talk, speak, walk, goto the bathroom....everything.
Sorry about that but I just figured a little background would be useful.

Among the many common effects of Head Injury is lessened ability to exercise self control & a propensity to be impulsive....Just do what you normally would have only thought about doing!

Anyway, I guess what I am making excuses for is my lack of self control to stop myself from often getting obnoxious in these verbal debates & for that I do apologize to anyone I have offended in my many posts. I can only say I will try to tone myself down, but I do enjoy the verbal gymnastics, & feel it is almost therapeutic for me.

I know I test Richard's patience too but he seems to have no problem in letting me know when I've gone too far!


Edit: In reference to my comment about Sen. McCain's loss of 5 Naval aircraft, I don't think that his military service his somehow off-limits for discussion of a man running for President of the U.S.....Was John Kerry's treatment by the "Swiftboaters" or Rush Limbaugh off limits when his multiple Purple Heart awards were publicly ridiculed in the 2004 election? John McCain is not the only man severely injured in the service of his country......He is not owed the Presidency do to his injuries.

Greg: I totally agree and was amazed at how the media made it sound - almost like he was out hot rodding around. Anyway, I read that ejecting from a plane is very dangerous and the g's can compress veterbrates or worse. It's amazing that he did it 5 times and was totured for 5 years. While he isn't my candidate of choice I surely respect the man for his service and toughness.

(Closed Head Injury is the medical term for what I had)

Wow! That's SSS, Some Serious Stuff.
Do you think maybe Obama had a similar incident?
Sorry, I couldn't resist. All in good nature.
I had stage 4 cancer in 2001, hopefully never grows back.

Devil wrote:
Edit: In reference to my comment about Sen. McCain's loss of 5 Naval aircraft, I don't think that his military service his somehow off-limits for discussion of a man running for President of the U.S.....Was John Kerry's treatment by the "Swiftboaters" or Rush Limbaugh off limits when his multiple Purple Heart awards were publicly ridiculed in the 2004 election? John McCain is not the only man severely injured in the service of his country......He is not owed the Presidency do to his injuries.


Dick, this is again, very deragatory and argumentative.. Senator McCain DID NOT LOSE 5 airplanes... 5 airplanes FAILED . the planes let the pilot down... NOT the pilot letting the plane down... DO YOU GET IT??

The correct way to state the facts would be to say that 'Senator McCain had to eject from 5 damaged or unrecoverable aircraft in his career'

Greg L

LsFarm wrote:Dick, this is again, very deragatory and argumentative.. Senator McCain DID NOT LOSE 5 airplanes... 5 airplanes FAILED . the planes let the pilot down... NOT the pilot letting the plane down... DO YOU GET IT??

My point is that while John McCain supporters take great exception to any remarks about his war record & injuries, many of the same people voiced no complaint about the ridiculing of Naval Officer John Kerry's war injury's & Purple Hearts earned in Vietnam. The hypocrisy here is just overwhelming!

How about this from the actual Republican Convention of 2004:

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Delegates to the Republican National Convention found a new way to take a jab at Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam service record: by sporting adhesive bandages with small purple hearts on them.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/ ... le.hearts/

If one side is going to play a sleazy, underhanded & cowardly game of attacking the legitimate war injuries of the opponent, they should expect the same treatment in response.

BOTH McCain & Kerry equally deserve our admiration & respect for their injuries suffered while heroically defending their country, but by starting this "food fight", the Republican party can't cry "Foul" when they get it right back.

The difference between McCain and kerry, as you well know, is that kerrys purple heart was a farce. He had a scratch on his pinkie.

And those "swiftboaters" were in fact people who were there, who deflated kerrys grotesque claims. Kerry never released his COMPLETE military record, to this day. Kerry was/is a fraud.
The swiftboaters statements were true, and kerry never refuted them, he just resorted to name calling.

Don't sully McCains name by comparing him to kerry.

We all feel bad for your injuries*. Vote for ron paul and you will feel better.

*assuming anything at all you say is true in the slightest.

orvis wrote:The difference between McCain and kerry, as you well know, is that kerrys purple heart was a farce.

Thank you for exactly making my case! What gives YOU the right to disparage THREE purple Hearts awarded to a Naval officer in war?...Were YOU there? Can YOU testify that his injuries were a farce?!? Have YOU ever fought in a war?


If John Kerry can be attacked like that, based on right wing media, never even served in the military cowards like Rush Limbaugh & Sean Hannity..........then so can John McCain!


OK...Rant over.

Even man's best friend knows it.

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/polit ... orter.html

Good dog Barney.

HAHAHAA!!! That was great!

What a dolt -- you can tell the dog is pissed that all these people are surrounding it.........so lets stick a hand in his face!

Reuters has some rocket-scientists employed there!

Devil505 wrote:

orvis wrote:The difference between McCain and kerry, as you well know, is that kerrys purple heart was a farce.

Thank you for exactly making my case! What gives YOU the right to disparage THREE purple Hearts awarded to a Naval officer in war?...Were YOU there? Can YOU testify that his injuries were a farce?!? Have YOU ever fought in a war?


If John Kerry can be attacked like that, based on right wing media, never even served in the military cowards like Rush Limbaugh & Sean Hannity..........then so can John McCain!


OK...Rant over.

You're right, I was not there either (and neither were you), we should listen to the men that were actually there, like...oh...say maybe these guys!!!

http://www.swiftvets.com/index.php

Devil505 wrote:

orvis wrote:The difference between McCain and kerry, as you well know, is that kerrys purple heart was a farce.

Thank you for exactly making my case! What gives YOU the right to disparage THREE purple Hearts awarded to a Naval officer in war?...Were YOU there? Can YOU testify that his injuries were a farce?!? Have YOU ever fought in a war?


If John Kerry can be attacked like that, based on right wing media, never even served in the military cowards like Rush Limbaugh & Sean Hannity..........then so can John McCain!


OK...Rant over.

The Navy Doctor who treated him said that the one injury Mr. Kerry had treated, hardly required a Band-Aid. At the time, if you received three Purple Hearts, you were entitled to be removred from the Combat Zone. Mr. Kerry got his third one, for a scratch, and Goodbye Vietnam!!!

Ah, yes, all 5, or 7, planes that John McCain bailed out of "had problems" that had "NOTHING" to do with his skill as a pilot. (No doubt, it also had nothing to do with the fact that his father and grandfather were Admirals that they kept giving him new planes to fly.) One wonders how many other Navy pilots (outside of test pilots) ever got the chance to toast so very many "defective" aircraft.

But, even though he made something like 36 vids for the North Vietnamese, nobody envies him the 5 yr stay at the Hanoi Hilton and, for the most part, he's an honorable man. He's where he belongs, in the Senate, where his maverickiness can be put to best use.

I've missed you all but I've been using my spare time this fall to work (a little) on Democratic campaigns and (a lot) on my party's multi-state voter rights project. And, by the way, we put our poll watchers in the field to protect our vote but that's as far as it went; once there, they helped voters to understand their rights regardless of political affiliation. Just another dastardly thing that we lawyers do. For free.

And be proud, all you Pennsylvanians: You proved Jack Murtha wrong!