What the biased NYT failed to discern from Obama's speech

[ProSense]

For details of the NYT coverage of Obama's speech, see this DU post: New York Times is working to undermine Obama

Yesterday in an interview on MSNBC, John Kerry made the following comment about Obama's speech in Berlin:

...Obama told the Germans "not what they wanted to hear, but what they needed to hear" -- that America will return to leadership with the next president.

Link posted here.


This post at Democracy Arsenal elaborates:

Obama sends a message to Germany on Afghanistan

Posted by Max Bergmann

Midway through his speech in Berlin, Obama brought up the awkward subject of European efforts in Afghanistan. Germans have become very opposed to the war in Afghanistan as well as Iraq. CRS noted that support for the war in Afghanistan declined to just 34 percent in Germany. The Germans continue to maintain strict caveats on their troop deployments which prevents them from being deployed into intense combat. Germany has also resisted calls from Secretary Gates among others to increase their meager 3,200 troop deployment and to remove the caveats on their use. But Obama did not shy away from confronting Germany and Europe on this issue.

This is the moment when we must renew our resolve to rout the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan, and the traffickers who sell drugs on your streets. No one welcomes war. I recognize the enormous difficulties in Afghanistan. But my country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO’s first mission beyond Europe’s borders is a success. For the people of Afghanistan, and for our shared security, the work must be done. America cannot do this alone. The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, to develop their economy, and to help them rebuild their nation. We have too much at stake to turn back now.

Part of the reluctance of Germany to do more in Afghanistan is that it has been tainted by the war in Iraq. As Secretary Gates acknowledged, linking Iraq and Afghanistan under one rubric of the "war on terror" has led many in Europe to view them both as Bush's wars and as a result severely lowered the popularity of the Afghanistan mission. The relationship with Europe will no doubt improve greatly with an Obama administration, but regaining the trust of Europe and convincing to do more in Afghanistan will be quite a challenge.

From the link at the top, here is what the NYT wrote:

But he was vague on crucial issues of trade, defense and foreign policy that currently divide Washington from Europe and are likely to continue to do so even if he becomes president — issues ranging from Russia, Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan to new refueling tankers and chlorinated chickens, the focus of an 11-year European ban on American poultry imports.

The NYT not only ignored the significance of Obama's comments on Afghanistan, but they also went out of their way to label him vague because he didn't roll six or seven foreign policy issues into one speech.

This isn't poor journalism, it's intentional bias.




edited for clarity.

[Joe Bacon]

1. What do you expect from the Screw York Times?

Since Reagan came to power, they have NOT published "All The News That's Fit To Print", but they sure do post "All The Talking Points the GOP Demands"! When was the last time you saw an article in the Screw York Times that told the truth?

[cliffordu]

2. Doesn't Rupert "Fox News" Murdoch own the NYT now???

How the fuck did that take place??

[Cha]

17. Turns out there's other mediawhores besides

murdoch.

"NY Times publisher: Our goal is to manage the transition from print to internet

By Eytan Avriel

Despite his personal fortune and impressive lineage, Arthur Sulzberger, owner, chairman and publisher of the most respected newspaper in the world, is a stressed man."

<more>
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/822775.html

The blurb in the link calls the "nyt the most respected paper in the world"

But, that's outdated..ain't nothing but a mediawhore.

[Youphemism]

3. Quite the red herring...

They know this bit is crap:

> "But he was vague on crucial issues of trade, defense and
> foreign policy that currently divide Washington from Europe"

If Obama *had* gotten more specific, he would have been skewered for being a presumptuous candidate who was trying to establish foreign policy from outside of American soil -- like Bush recently did in Israel.

Obama was smart and talked about common goals rather than US policy. They know this, of course.

[sui generis]

4. Okay, for the record

We are in perma-war, due to our own lack of vision, experience, and planning.

Let's review:

1. Afghanistan was taken over by the Taliban, an islamic fundamentalist hate group.
2. U.S. was taken over by the republicans, a christian fundamentalist hate group.
3. Some people from Saudi Arabia went to Afghanistan to plot a terror strike
4. Using box cutters, (not lip gloss, as the TSA seems to think), they hijacked some planes
and flew them into a skyscraper in NYC. 3000 people died as a result.
5. Americans discovered what the rest of the world has known for over a hundred years:
there are terrorists in the world!

We apparently are still in shock over the discovery that merely being American does not grant us immunity.

So, we were pretty unanimous: let's invade Afghanistan and topple the Taliban, and free the poor oppressed people. So we sent like, 15 soldiers with remote control bombs and a bunch of purple ink to go avenge our wounded nation and show the bad guys that they really shouldn't have.

Then we discovered what 2000 years of war in Afghanistan have INEVITABLY yielded:

1. you can't fight fundamentalism and tribalism in subsistance level countries. They have to evolve.
2. no matter how much money and blood you dump into the country, there will still be fundamentalists and fertile ground for fundamentalism. They have to evolve.

My personal view is that the Taliban should be wiped from the face of the earth. They should be invited to the table and given this speech: you will change your ways or we will hunt you to extinction. You have one hour to give us your decision. Anyone who disagrees with us that this form of fundamentalism should be made illegal will be hunted to extinction. Good thing I'm not a politician, but deadlines are important.

ONWARD TO IRAQ.

Iraq had oil. We wanted it. We thought we could get it. We went to war. We didn't get it.

We're still at war.

So, Obama, Europe is WAY smarter than us, or perhaps, just more experienced and tired of war than their war loving American counterparts. We need to admit we've made a mistake before being brazen enough to ask for help. While many many Americans who were originally for the war now have perfect 20/20 hindsight, many more of us said, "don't do it", and now we're saying "I told you so".

Well, Europe was saying "don't do it", and now we're asking them for help?

Yes, the world needs to unite, but for the world, not to clean up America's problems.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. Did anybody here bother to fucking READ the...

article I have sitting here before me? The one on the front page with the huge 4-column picture of Obama in front of a cheering crowd? The one that's generally positive but does mention a few things that some consider missing.

Betcha didn't read the article on page A19 either. That's the one with Obama in a heroic pose in front of the pillar.

Just because some asshole on a blog posts a paragraph he doesn't like does NOT mean the NY Times hates Obama.

(Kool-Aid comes in more than one color.)

[ProSense]

8. I tend to read articles, and this

But he was vague on crucial issues of trade, defense and foreign policy that currently divide Washington from Europe and are likely to continue to do so even if he becomes president — issues ranging from Russia, Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan to new refueling tankers and chlorinated chickens, the focus of an 11-year European ban on American poultry imports.

...is fucking unacceptable. Besides the fact that this was not a major foreign policy speech, how many people roll seven issues into one speech? Also, who says Obama is "vague on crucial issues"? Also, what does the speech, which did discuss Afghanistan (see OP), have to do with poultry imports and trade?

If you want links to various NYT articles that are evidence of either bad journalism or bias, I can collect them for you.

Next time you want to defend the NYT, the paper that sold the Iraq war, maybe you can do it without accusing people of being Kool-Aid drinkers.

[TreasonousBastard]

11. Is it true or not?

[mrreowwr_kittty]

12. Obama didn't talk about chorinated chickens?!? WTF??

That's it, the man completely lacks in substance. :sarcasm:

[Joe Bacon]

9. Yes, and we WANT to know why the Screw York Times buried it

They will put that liar Ad Nags on the Front Page with his propaganda puff pieces filled with GOP asskissing. Since President Pruneface manipulated his way into the White House thanks to the Republican enablers who run the media, the Screw York Times has a Republican bias. Whether it's covering up Contra Cocaine, lying about Dr. Lee, lying about Hillary's health care proposal, frontpaging every fabricated lie about Whitewater, or putting that other celebrated liar Judith Miller's fabricated fantasies on their cover, to the latest puff piece on the Pigboy, the Screw York Times shows that it will publish "ALL THE LIES THE GOP WANTS US TO DISTRIBUTE" in their cheery little fascist rag.

[TreasonousBastard]

10. Buried it with 4 columns on the front page and...

almost a full page inside?

You didn't read shit.

[Joe Bacon]

13. Yes and the bias was there.

I really appreciate the civility.

[SOS]

14. The front page article wasn't news

For heaven's sake, they labeled it as an opinion piece.
Do you understand the difference between news and news analysis?

The editors buried the real news story "Obama, in Berlin, Calls for Renewal of Ties With Allies" on A19.
That was the actual news report which should have been on page one.

[TreasonousBastard]

15. Yeah I know all about that, and I know that...

for the forty years or so I've been reading the Times, they put what they think are important analysis pieces on the front page. By the time the paper comes out everyone knows the W's of a big event, so they lead with "analysis." It's no secret, it's nothing new, and it's nothing to get bent about.

And that was still a puff piece, even if you don't like the "failure" mention in the headline.

(Headline writers are known to have their own little giggles at times)

[woolldog]

6. k

[depakid]

7. I watched the speech and read the article and didn't see any particular bias

other than the fact that it attempted to take a European perspective on what Obama may (or may not have been) proposing.

Regarding trade- there have been a host of major issues and disagreements with the states which are quite important to European businesses and consumers, yet as the article correctly points out, we were left to glean from the inclusion of several code words (both ways) what the likely US policies would be were Obama to be elected.

As to Afghanistan, students of history (which are few and far between in the states) understand that the area has repeatedly been a quagmire for invading armies and meddling foreigners. If I were a citizen of German (or Canada, for that matter) I'd want to know a lot more about an Obama administration's intentions- particularly if my country were being admonished about its participation....

While it's a given that most Americans are profoundly ethnocentric, we don't have to be. Every once in a while, we can try to look at the world through other people's eyes. That's the beauty of the world wide web.

[Cha]

16. Damn straight it's intentional bias..

Follow the money and it will lead to the top moneywhore.