Salon rips MSNBC and Tweety a new one. http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/10/06/veepmedia/index.html Basically, they document what I wrote about last night, how MSNBC was declaring the debate a crushing win for Cheney when most others had it close or a draw. I think they probably got criticized for being so outspoken last week in saying Kerry was the winner. At the time, I was surprised at how emphatic they were. Maybe it's just a group of people with the emotional stability of a 12 year old.
Tonight, Hardball did a pre-debate special. The panel? Andrea Mitchell, Ron Reagan...and Ben Ginsburg and Pat Buchanan. The equivalent panel from the other side would be Joe Klein, The Opposite of Ron Reagan (not sure who that might be), James Carville and Ralph Nader.
Having not watched much TV Thursday: Did any TV news network/ 24hr cable news channel call out Bush and/or his campaign for promoting a prime time "major policy speech" that ended up being a free hour long Bush attack ad?....
Brokaw is talking to two Missouri voters they've been following for 8 months, one on each side. He starts by asking the Kerry person what Bush's best moment was. Then he asks the Bush person what Kerry's best moment was, then adds, "or did he have one?" Of course, given that opening, what do you think she said? More conservative media bias.
I reamain in my chair, slck-jawed that conservatives continue to rant and rave about the liberal media. What on earth do they want? PBS, with Gwen Ifill ,was the ONLY network I found that was willing to challenge the Bush/Republican spin. They also pointed out Kerry weaknesses, most of which I thought they were corrrect about. Brokaw was pathetic and barely coherent. MSNBC had Pat Buchanan and a damned lawyer who helped steal the 2000 election as commentators. Why not James Carville? The more I look around me the more I think Amerika deserves Bush. If both my brother and sister were not suffering with Alzheimer's and crying in their confusion hoping for a stem-cell breakthrough, I might even campaign for Bush just so I could see America suffer appropriately for supporting lies and ignorance the way we continue to do. We celebrate stupidity and arrogance. We glorify the killing of people different from us. How did we get so hateful and so full of hubris? Thank god, even the biggest heros fall victim to hubris sooner or later. The piper will get his pay. Too bad so many innocent people will have to suffer. Damn all conservatives and their money grubbing, self-righteous, judgmental moralism.
I'm watching the local news on the NBC affiliate, and they have a story about the debate, and how they brought voters from DC, VA and MD together to watch and get their reactions. They interviewed three Replublicans who said that Bush won. All three of them seemed to be intelligent and were wearing professional looking clothes. Then they interviewed two Democrats who said that Kerry won. The first Democrat used very poor grammar and basically sounded pretty stupid. The second Democrat was able to speak better tan the first, but was not as well dressed as the Republicans. Then they interviewed one Independent who said that Bush won. He was also very well-spoken and was wearing what I would consider "business casual" clothes. The Republicans were a black male wearing a suit and tie, a white woman wearing a suit, and a white woman wearing business casual clothes. The Democrats were two black women and as I noted above, she used poor grammar and sounded like she was clueless, but unlike the second Democrat she was wearing decent looking clothes. The Independent was an Hispanic male who was wearing a suit. Liberal media? Yeah, sure.
You must not get out of Maryland often because, by and large, based on your descriptions that was a representative sample of Republicans and Democrats.
I did not mention that there appeared to be about two dozen people that the station had watching the debate. They purposely skewed the results by interviewing about 1/4 of those partcipants on camera.
God, I hate Sinclair. In a just world those idiots would drive themselves off of a cliff. Every time I see Mark Hyman I want to throw my shoe thru the screen.
This is the kind of people who want a bigger share of the media market? Fantastic! Vote Bush, increase my business revenue.... Nothing like being fair and balanced....
Never mind the fact that Bush is the first president to ever provide government funding for stem cell research or the fact that it's not outlawed, or banned by Bush as most democrats want you to think. Don't let the facts get in your way.
What? I wasn't aware that you're a leading researcher. That's why researchers want embryonic stem cell lines open - so they can RESEARCH the possiblity.
My understanding is that the science has only very, very recently progressed to the point where it's an issue. It's kinda like criticizing Lincoln for not working on SDI.
That may or may not be true, but what is true is that the spinner's on the left took a situation where Bush provided GVT. funding for stem cell research and tried to make it appear that he had banned all stem cell research. I haven't had time to catch up on this thread, has anyone mentioned the MSNBC Chief's staff memo?
That's not true. I'm no expert on the subject, but the critique of Bush is very simple and very consistent. Namely, that the conditions Bush has set make useful research somewhere between difficult and impossible. Do you mean The Note? Where the guy said that because the GOPs are lying more than the Dems, it's OK to point that out? IOW, the memo where the ABC guy said, stop being conservatively biased and be fair? THAT memo? I think you just made a boo-boo there.
It is true. He cut off all funding for embryonic stem cell research beyond the limited existing lines. Given the public-private and corporate-university partnership models of early-stage research funding that has developed in this country, that effectively killed off embryonic stem cell research. The one from Mark Halperin, who was a speechwriter for Bob Dole?
Leading scientists and researchers have said that stem cells research is not going to help with Alzheimers. It's just a fact and with a simple search you could've seen that what I said is true.
While that may be true, many leading scientists and researchers think stem cell research could lead to major breakthroughs in understanding and eventually treating Parkinson's disease.
No, most have said that an immediate DIRECT application is unlikely. However, the use of stem cells in understanding Alzheimers is still valid and being used as an approach by researchers. Therefore, it certainly could "help" with Alzheimers, despite not providing a direct "cure".
You are right. At present embryonic stem cells cannot do anything for Alzheimer's. But, that is one of the most specious arguments I have ever been badgered with. It is in the experimental stage. The stage which Bush's policy has severely curtailed. You may not remember polio but in my youth it was a major public health threat. Jonas Salk worked for years on a vaccine. One year before he developed his vaccine, it would have been true to say that Salk's work had done "nothing" for vicitms of polio. Should he have stopped his research because it had not succeeded yet? Your argument does not take into account the nature of medical research. Until the doctors or researchers have worked and experimented to the point of achieving success can one say that their research has helped anyone. No one has been saved from AIDS as a result of the thousands of projects going on to find a cure. Should they stop looking because they have not achieved success yet? Even the president said in the second debate that of the 70 odd strains that he approved for research, only about 20 are still viable for research. Hundreds of research centers do not have access to any of those 20 strains. Don't you think that MIGHT have something to do with the slow progress of the research? I have no idea what your medical/scientific credentials are so I cannot speak to that, but thousands of reputable people of science believe there is a significant potential for considerable help for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases from stem-cell research. No promises, just potential. (If that argument seems weak to you, please remember that Bush has repeatedly stated that even though Iraq had no WMDs, it had the "potential" for WMDs and that was enough to go to war.) Surely, the potential for a treatment or cure for AD justifies the war against dementia and paralysis. You seem to be making a political/religious observation rather than a scientific one. If you have religious objections to stem cell therapy, don't avail yourself of it if you or a family member contracts a disease for which they have developed a treatment. Your conscience can remain clear. In the 1950s and 1960s there were major religious/moral/political objections to organ transplants. Doctors were playing like they were god, etc. One rarely hears a person with a diseased heart or kidney complain about doctors playing god when THEY need a transplant. Political pandering should not determine the nature of scientific inquiry. Certainly, the medical community is obligated to establish and enforce a code of ethical conduct in this line of development, just as they have for all other new directions in medicine. Will there be professionals who violate the code? Sure. Is that true of every code of professional conduct? Sure. Should that fact of human nature stop medical progress. Of course not.