Something stinks over at snopes.com

[joeprogressive]

How come searches such as "bush abortion robin lowman garner" or "bush cocaine" yields nothing? Or try "bush jennifer fitzgerald"; once again nothing. They have looked into the ridiculous rumors regarding Clinton supposedly being responsible for dozens of deaths etc but haven't touched those mentioned above. Hell when you put "bush kennedy assassination" in it brings up stuff about Clinton and the so called coincidental deaths. The bush/kennedy assasination ties have been widely spread rumors on the internet. Isn't that the type of stuff they are supposed to look into? Are they afraid of what they might find?

I appreciate the site from the perspective that they usually get to the bottom of the things they investigate. However, I think they are intentionally avoiding certain topics.

[papau]

1. snopes.com has no spine to fight GOP Lawyers

They are become less important because of that.

[NYCGirl]

2. They only investigate popular urban legends, and I would bet that

at least 2 of those you mention are obscure. How do you narrow down "bush cocaine"?

[pretzel4gore]

3. snopes is bushevik? well, time to move on....

n/t

[NYCGirl]

4. No, they're actually fair. And if they make a mistake, they correct it. NT

[zbdent]

11. They did "apologize" to Michael Moore

for calling him a lunatic fringist when it came to "flying Osama's family out of the country after 9/11" . . . but they still managed to write the "apology" in a way which let Bush off the hook . . .

[realisticphish]

5. I disagree

for one thing, though all those are well known to US, they aren't necessarily known to the internet at large. And, how exactly would they investigate Bush's cocaine use? They aren't a newspaper or anything, just a site that looks at urban legends, and furthermore they have disproved quite a few legends about liberals and democrats

[joeprogressive]

6. They would investigate to the best of their ability

then declare undetermined. They are unwilling to do that because it creates doubt that it was just a rumor. Furthermore, the abortion thing was mentioned on Larry King. The Clinton death thing was always just an internet rumor. Why hasn't something that was mentioned on Larry King by someone that had already busted Livingstone and others not given more creedence?

[joeprogressive]

7. Yes they are fair to dems and repubs but

my point is they are unwilling to tackle anything major especially if it is true. When was the last time they put a true next to something of significance?

[Lancer]

Seems like Snopes deals best with a just a one- or two-word search,

no matter what the topic. JMO

[calico1]

8. I see it differently.

They are considered a believable and well respected site. They have disproved all those crazy rumors about Clinton. That is a good thing. Also the search engine at that site is like most search engines. If you type in "bush kennedy assasination" it will bring up the closest match. It brings up the Clinton coincidental deaths because that's how the search engine works, not because they are trying to link Clinton to Kennedy's assasination or anything like that. I prefer that nothing comes up when you search for * cocaine. It means that they have not definitely dismissed that theory.

[joeprogressive]

9. no it means they are not even looking at it

n/t

[realisticphish]

10. how do you know they AREN'T looking at it?

that just means they haven't posted a link about it

[newportdadde]

12. Because liberals dont make up dumb shit to debunk?

Snopes is debunking crap. I can't count the number of forwarded BS emails I'm seen ow about Clinton, about Edwards making us not have flu vacine because of his lawsuits, about Nagin killing everyone in NO.

Our side just doesn't work this lieing email tossing game. Therefore there isn't anything to debunk about Bush.

[tx_dem41]

13. I'm a liberal...but do you really believe that?

Just spend some more time around here. Plenty to debunk, sadly.

[deadparrot]

14. Snopes debunks the bulk of its urban legends from e-mails...

E-mail them and ask them to look into it.

Snopes is a fair site. Just because not every single legend is featured on it doesn't necessarily suggest some kind of conspiracy theory--there are just LOTS of urban legends out there, and they only have so much time on their hands. :)

[Czolgosz]

15. I have often found snopes biased in favor of Bush. Here's proof:

Why does snopes cover these 8 supposed "urban legends" about Bush when there never was any controversy or doubt about whether these stories were each a very real component of Bush's own PR machine?

1. "During a hospital visit, President George W. Bush saluted an Army officer who had been badly injured during the September 11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon."

2. "Churchgoer describes encounter with President Bush at St. John's Church."

3. "President Bush spoke to Lindsey Yeskoo, the wife of a U.S. Foreign Service officer, after delivering a speech in Shanghai."

4. "The domain GeorgeWBush.com hosts the legitimate web site of President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign."

5. "President Bush prayed with an injured Special Forces soldier at Walter Reed Medical Center."

6. "In 2003, President and Mrs. Bush helped hand out Christmas gifts to children of inmates."

7. "Photograph shows President Bush jogging with a serviceman who lost a leg in Afghanistan."

8. "Photograph shows President Bush hugging the daughter of a 9/11 victim."

Since there was never any public doubt about these so-called "urban legends" (which not coincidentally portray Bush in the light which Karl Rove wanted Bush portrayed), there was obviously some motivation underlying the inclusion of this obvious PR material on the snopes website. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what that motivation is.

If you still doubt whether snopes is biased in favor of Bush, please explain -- ask the website to explain -- why this obvious pro-Bush PR is clogging up the site.

[NYCGirl]

16. If there wasn't any "public doubt" as you put it, why did people forward

to them emails questioning these "PR stunts"? That is how they choose what to "cover".

[Czolgosz]

21. So you are telling me that if we all agree to forward a message to snopes

saying "I got this email claiming that I should 'check out democraticunderground.com for the best and most insightful political discussion on the web' and I'm wondering if it's true," snopes will devote part of its high-traffic website to confirming or refuting whether or not the email saying that DU hosts a great political discussion is a true statement or merely an urban legend?

If so, we should do that.

If not, I think snopes simply reposted Bush PR materials as if there was some controversy about whether or not they were true when, in fact, there was never such a controversy (really, did you ever doubt that Bush's campaign re-election website was a hoax?).

[NYCGirl]

23. If they thought it was a worthy subject, they'd check into it.

That's the way it works.

Edited to add: And as far as the website hoax, check out whitehouse.org — which is why some might have questioned the website mentioned on snopes.

[Czolgosz]

24. Whitehouse.org is obviously a parody site; nothing about GeorgeWBush.com

suggests that it ever was anything other than Bush's campaign website. Why would anyone think that was "a worthy subject" unless they had the motive of garnering further publicity for the website?

I ask because you say that the people at snopes wouldn't run anything unless they "thought it was a worthy subject." This area of subjective topic selection is where snopes clearly favors "confirming the truth" of Bush PR stories about which no one ever had any doubt (while I doubt Bush's sincere motive in praying with injured soldiers, I don't doubt he actually went through the motions at a VA hospital while someone was there to record the event for PR purposes).

[tx_dem41]

17. Ummm...don't we question those stories all the time on this forum?

Just sayin'.

[Czolgosz]

19. The domain GeorgeWBush.com hosts the legitimate web site of President Bush

Can anyone say that there was ever an urban legend controversy about whether or not "The domain GeorgeWBush.com hosts the legitimate web site of President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign"? Of course there never was such a controversy.

Reporting on the web address of Bush's re-election campaign website that as if there was some sort of controversy is just a means of publicizing the website address.

Just sayin'

[Debi]

18. Wow, and I thought it was just an entertainment site, not 'hard news' n/t

[joeprogressive]

22. When the MSM fails us, anything can become hard news

in a relative sense. It was Flynt that brought down Livingston, Barr, and others. Is the NY Times hard news when writers like Judith Miller are shills for the Bush administration? Is the Daily Show hard news? Why are those viewers most informed? Is Fox hard news?

Hard news is anyone with the balls to stand up and tell the truth.

[Debi]

25. But as an entertainment site they should not be held to the strict

standards we (are supposed to) hold MSM sites.

They have the right to post/not post or investigate/not investigate what they want.

Our only recourse is to choose not to peruse their site and not patronize their advertisers.

It's not about whether or not they have the balls, but whether or not they want to show them.

[Beaverhausen]

20. search smokinggun.com

lots of fun there.