CNN does a "fact check" hatchet job on kerry

[SoCalDemocrat]

I'm too disgusted with CNN to respond right now. Feel free to email their editors and take a crap on what has to be the most biased, partisan "fact check" review I've ever read.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/08/factcheck/

[noamnety]

1. what they said was accurate

I can't fault them for that, I wouldn't call it a hatchet job unless you can find something incorrect in it. Is there specific rhetoric that you think inserts a bias? Or you don't like the facts themselves as they state them?

I notice they omitted some obvious bushlies, however, like the timber fiasco - and while that's good for a chuckle, the real lie embedded in it is that Bush lied about the impact of Kerry's tax plan on small businesses. So it might be more productive to email and ask them to include the other bushlies that we caught during the debate.

[w4rma]

2. If CNN hasn't included Bush's "Wood" lie by now, they aren't going to.

That information has been all over the place. They are ignoring it.

Also, note that lying by ommission (which CNN did on quite a few of those explanations) means they are NOT accurate.

[Kimber Scott]

3. They did the Bush "fact check" on Thursday.

I didn't get to see it, but my sister left me a message and said they basically said everything he's ever said is a lie! They weren't too kind to him, anyway.

[w4rma]

6. So why is this one *extremely* different from that one? (nt)

[damntexdem]

9. But I have seen it in other fact-check articles:

including in the Dallas Morning News. If it gets there, then it must be pervasive in the press.

[damntexdem]

8. Yes, this is the point.

What gets left out of the fact-check lists.

And note that the fact-check articles have to look 'even handed,' so toss in minor points with major lies and inaccuracies. They also lack context -- e.g., do a good job on discussing the specifics of how the National Journal rated Kerry but say nothing about the validity of the criteria used in the rating.

[RichardRay]

4. Sorry, seems OK to me...

I wish JK would start saying $200 billion committed rather than spent, it would be more accurate. The Shinseki thing is pretty open to interpretation, too, but I don't fault JK for keeping it on the table. The rest of the 'fact check' piece seems to do a pretty good job of pointing out places where GeeWubya got things wrong.

Not everything negative about our guy is a hatchet job. He's a politician, sometimes he behaves like one....

Richard Ray - Jackson Hole, WY

[KC21304]

12. I agree about the 200 billion. When Kerry is corrected about the

number he should ask how much would be spent if every American was pulled out tomorrow. They would have to admit the 200 billion would still be spent so there is no turning back from that number.

I think Kerry should say Shinseki was marginalized by having his replacement announced as soon as Shinseki made his comment about the number of troops needed.

[Guaranteed]

5. Huh? It seemed pretty fair to me.

Definitely not one-sided.

[AntiFascist]

7. CNN is so biased its laughable....

They keep broadcasting how the Afghanistan elections are such a raging success. There is some controversy over the ink that is used to mark voters so they don't vote more than once, in that it can be washed off easily. The truth, which they aren't reporting, is that terrorists are threatening to kill anyone who is found that is marked because they voted.

[Sparkly]

10. They always do this, and not just CNN

It's just re-defining the terms, and all campaigns will go for the max in the terms they're using. For example, the cost of the Iraq war. Kerry's talking about appropriations through September 2005, so they "correct" him with figures actually spent. It's just two different definitions -- different scopes.

Same with the number of jobs lost, net. Kerry counts private sector; others would say the public sector (growing government beaurocracy and military personnel I guess) offset that, so the number of jobs lost is less huge. It's still huge.

Shinseki was ostracized. General Clark spoke about this but I've forgotten the details. But Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, and other examples show the same thing: people who don't tell BushCo what they want to hear, but try to tell them the truth instead, get pushed aside.

Edited to add: Brian Williams did a much WORSE job on his "fact check" shown both last night and today. He complained that Kerry's claim that Chimp didn't fund No Child Left Behind was "flat wrong" -- explaining that Chimp increased funding for education, just not at the level required by No Child Left Behind.... Duh!! It's an unfunded mandate -- telling the states to do this that and the other, and then not giving them resources to do it. Kerry was absolutely, spot-on correct.

[papau]

11. the fact check is only "biased" by avoiding reviews of many Bush lies.

But they did note:

75 percent of al Qaeda's membership has been brought to justice REALLY MEANS 18 of the 24 folks that we think had leadership positions in al Qaeda leaders, as of September 11, 2001, have been killed or captured.

They had more than 24 leaders.

They have more than 24 leaders.

There are perhaps 18,000 potential operatives in al Qaeda - and indeed CNN includes this factoid in their fact check.


This more truthful (to Bush this means negative) re the 75% Bush lie than any other media outlet!

:-)

[Kimber Scott]

14. As I said in an earlier post, they did Bush's "fact check" on Thursday.

I'm hoping they'll play it again.

[louis c]

13. I think the "fact check" actually favors Kerry.

What am I missing, here?