John McCain and the Discovery Institute

Don't make the mistake of confusing all conservatives nation wide with those in politics. I agree that a lot of the talk from our so-called leaders is political posturing and pandering. But think of it this way, it's pandering to people who largely agree with what they are saying. That's kind of necessary to pandering, isn't it?Just because those with a national voice may be disingenuous in their criticism, that doesn't mean that grass roots conservatives aren't genuinely offended. That doesn't follow at all. The top TV show last week was American Idol with around 33 million viewers. The U.S. population is over 300 million. That means that a hit show doesn't even need to have 10% of the population watching. That 10% doesn't have to include any conservatives.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

During the first two years of Clinton's presidency, when dimwitcrats controlled Congress, 65% of those who appeared were dimwitcrats. It's evidence that when repugnantcans are in power, more repugnantcans get asked to appear on those shows.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

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During the first two years of Clinton's presidency, when dimwitcrats controlled Congress, 65% of those who appeared were dimwitcrats. It's evidence that when repugnantcans are in power, more repugnantcans get asked to appear on those shows.

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So, when Clinton was in office, there were more Democrats on the shows. How is this not bias towards Democrats in the media?And now that Bush is in office, with also a Republican congress, there were more Republicans on the shows. How is this not bias towards Republicans in the media.also, what about the fact that anti-Iraq invasion politicians, pundits, or journalists were pretty much absent from ANY of the shows on during the run up to the war?Is it "balanced? TV journalism to have ignored the people against the invasion(and there were more than a few)?

Has anyone mentioned that the article linked to in the OP is mistitled and has a rather glaring error?

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But last year, he said the intelligent design theory should not be taught in the science classroom:

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This is supposed to be a contradiction, but it's a misunderstanding on the part of the writer. He goes on to quote John McCain:

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I respect those who think the world was created in seven days. Should it be taught as a science class? Probably not.“

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Intelligent Design should not be confused with 7-day creationism. It is true that ID can and should be called creationism, but suggesting Intelligent Design be taught in schools while agreeing that a 7-day creation ought not to be is not a contradiction. Those are two quite different thoughts. Most IDers believe in an old earth and some sort of evolution.

Why is it biased to recognize when one party or the other seems to hold more of the power and seek more input from them during those times? Your recollection is different from mine. I recall that there was relatively little opposition during the run up.Let me reiterate something. I'm not looking at this just in terms of political programming. I'm looking at all aspects of all media in the U.S. I'm sure that for just about any time in the past 30 or 40 years you could look at some isolated part of media in the U.S. and find some sort of slant in one direction or the other. That's far from any kind of systemic bias.If all you're trying to prove is that from time to time political talk shows focus more one on side or the other of some issue, I'll grant you that. So what? Do you expect all segments of the media to be perfectly balanced across all issues for any time period one could select?If you're trying to prove some other point, please elaborate.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

There is no difference, since neither creationsism, or the current form of "I.D." is science, but rather they are religious concepts.

ramoss, they may both be religious concepts and both be completely useless as science, but that doesn't change my point.Of course, I don't know how important my point is. An article falsely accused McCain of a contradiction. That doesn't seem very significant, but it's hard for me to leave a glaring error like that alone.

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Why is it biased to recognize when one party or the other seems to hold more of the power and seek more input from them during those times?

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Er, because just because one party or the other is in power doesn't mean that theirs is the only arty that exists.You were talking about balance in journalism before, weren't you?What is "balanced" about allowing the people in power a greater platform?If the media wasn't biased, we should see no change in the political inclinations in panelists on those Sunday talk shows depending upon which party was perceived to be in power, shouldn't we?

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Your recollection is different from mine. I recall that there was relatively little opposition during the run up.

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There was plenty of opposition from journalists and political activist groups in the run up to the war. There were enormous domestic and international protest rallies that were largely ignored by the press. Even major newspapers like the New York Times (IIRC) later admitted that they shirked their journalistic duty by simply taking too much of the administration's claims as truth without really investigating them.Perhaps you don't "recollect" them becasue the mainstream US and conservative media didn't report the events and and didn't invite the objectors on their shows.Becasue they were biased in favor of this administration and the war.That this happened is pretty much common knowledge these days, subbie.

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If all you're trying to prove is that from time to time political talk shows focus more one on side or the other of some issue, I'll grant you that. So what? Do you expect all segments of the media to be perfectly balanced across all issues for any time period one could select?

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I am simply addressing your claim that it all "balances out in the end".It doesn't.

A made-up story... like the one CBS aired about George W Bush a few weeks before the 2004 election that was based on forged documents? The one that was exposed by bloggers who did the fact-checking CBS staffers were supposed to do and didn't?Plenty of people all across the political spectrum share your feelings about the existence of substandard work in the press. But that's neither here nor there.Your thesis was not that the press is sloppy. Your thesis was that the press is biased. Different thing.You asserted a 'systematic bias' (your words) against liberal Democrats on the part of journalists who are, you say, liberal Democrats 'personally' (your word).In the absence of any explanation as to how this can be so, the assertion appears to be self-contradicting and thus irrational. It is thus fair to ask you, as I have done, to show how it is not.I'm sure you can produce more anecdotes. But, as we all know, the plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data.'Data would be more persuasive. Can you support your statement with any statistical analyses of news stories and their slants? Or were you just offering a subjective opinion?

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

A bias in favor of incumbency is not the same thing as a bias in favor of a partisan viewpoint.Which kind of favoritism is being asserted here?

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Okay. Other than establishing what Archer quite cogently calls "a bias in favor of incumbency," what else have you got?

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Lol! That's the made-up story - that the story was based solely on forgeries!The truth of the matter is that the documents were never established as forgeries, nor were they the actual foundation of the CBS story. The whole issue was just another right-wing manufactured controversy. Lol! Fact-checking like false claims that a typewriter couldn't kern text in the 1960's? Ten minutes speaking to anybody older than 30 would have "checked" that fact.But, no. The cravenly media turned on their competitors at the behest of half-assed arguments from the right wing nutosphere and repeated false claims as truth - like they did with the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" claims, which were all eventually proven false.Forging government documents is a serious crime, of course. Can you think of the guy that they eventually arrested for forging the documents?No, of course you can't - because no one did it. Once the story was sufficiently clouded by the right wing noise machine, and CBS folded as everyone turned on them, the wingnuts had what they wanted - too much noise about the story for people to remember the actual truth of the claims - Bush was proven not to have met his ANG service requirements, but by the time that was established, people were tired of the whole issue.And, like you, the only thing they remembered were the false allegations of "forged documents."But, hey, you know. Liberal media! Lol!

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A bias in favor of incumbency is not the same thing as a bias in favor of a partisan viewpoint.
Which kind of favoritism is being asserted here?

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What I'm asserting is that the "liberal media" crap that the conservatives insist is the case is a myth.

Not just anybody, Crash. I didn't know that. My wife is also over 30, and I'd say it's unlikely she has ever heard of kerning text.This is totally off topic, but I found this fact very interesting. Typewriters could kern text in the 60's? I'm impressed. It seems obvious with thought that electric typewriters must have existed then and much earlier, but I never saw one till I was in high school (70's). My family didn't even get a color TV until 1980.

Not common ones, but they weren't unknown, at least not according to office machine experts.And, of course, this doesn't even get into the explanation that the documents were retyped versions of originals, something that the government quite commonly does.