DU help please. Is Capital Hill Blue a good source?

[Botany]

Or does it trade in non sourced rumors?

Any examples would be appreciated.

thank you.





Take a sandwich and or a bowl of black bean soup (with ham or veggie)
on your way out.

[Marnieworld]

1. Yay!

This should be fun. :popcorn:

[GrpCaptMandrake]

2. There are people here

who spit on the ground at the mere mention of CHB.

Its claims are seldom provable, although the mis-Administration's actions often belie the accuracy of CHB's assertions.

[mtnsnake]

3. Does the sun rise in the west?

[madokie]

4. yummy, yummy. Hope you have an asbestos suit,

[Wickerman]

5. Bartcop said it best the other day

Note: Capitol Hill Blue is possibly as reliable as The Onion.

[LisaLynne]

9. I get all my news from The Onion!

Oh, yeah, and DU. ;)

[Cocoa]

14. or like Penthouse Forum

nice stories. :-)

[Wickerman]

20. Hey, I WAS a student in a small Midwestern University!

alas...

Hey, I once knew someone who purported to be an editor of the PH Forum. She would never admit if the letters were real or if they were made up there at Penthouse Central. :argh:

[lectrobyte]

19. The Onion is dead on. This bit from January 2001 pretty much

pegged it:

http://www.chak.org/pages/onion/bush_nightmare.html

WASHINGTON, DC—Mere days from assuming the presidency and closing the door on eight years of Bill Clinton, president-elect George W. Bush assured the nation in a televised address Tuesday that "our long national nightmare of peace and prosperity is finally over."


Above: President-elect Bush vows that "together, we can put the triumphs of the recent past behind us."
"My fellow Americans," Bush said, "at long last, we have reached the end of the dark period in American history that will come to be known as the Clinton Era, eight long years characterized by unprecedented economic expansion, a sharp decrease in crime, and sustained peace overseas. The time has come to put all of that behind us."

[madokie]

23. shit i missed it

[90-percent]

29. nice link, there, electro

Whoever wrote this at the Onion 5 years ago had a better handle on predicting the future than Nostrodamous and Edgar Cacey COMBINED.

A highly reccomended link!

-85% Jimmy

[MrBenchley]

6. It's a pantload

The publisher pulls his stories out of his ass, based on what he thinks his readers want to hear.

All you need to do is go back a few years to see what he was publishing during the Clinton years. The dishonesty becomes transparent.

[Bushwick Bill]

7. Here's a thread from yesterday.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=109x24903

[tularetom]

8. Did you do this on purpose?

This is the best way I know to start a flame war on DU. Personally I doubt that it is fact based but the writer has a pretty good fix on *'s personal problems and like a stopped clock, occasionally gets it right. Besides, it's always an entertaining read.

[Botany]

11. No I don't want a flame war .....

.... somebody I know is quoting CHB as a source and it doesn't smell right.

[LisaLynne]

10. Hey! No fair posting pictures of black bean soup when ...

I've still got 2 hours until lunch. That looks yummy!

[lectrobyte]

12. I find it hugely entertaining, but I'd not want to use it as a reference

in a serious debate.

[Orangepeel]

13. they are like historical fiction

they take an event that is true (or probably true) and then make up a whole elaborate story around it. Often, the elaborate story is full of anonymous quotes that, of course, can't be verified.

Recent examples: Cheney was drunk during the hunt and bush said the constitution was just a goddammned piece of paper. The first is almost certainly true and the second is true in sentiment, even if the quote itself is bogus. But, the details of the story are always things that nobody who was actually there would ever talk about.

It's entertaining, but it is, IMO, kind of like a TV movie about a historical event. Dramatized for our enjoyment.

[htuttle]

15. CHB's stories, while often not factually correct,..

...are still usually 'true', nonetheless.

[Cocoa]

28. truthiness

exactly right, CHB is very truthy.

[htuttle]

30. That's precisely the word!

They are FULL of truthiness. Knee deep in it.

[librechik]

16. Stephanie Miller was just talking about them

she said some of CHB's stories (the temper tantrum one esp) have later been picked up by "reputable" news sources (Newsweek, if that counts)

I think hey're fine for the average debate on the street. If I used them for an article, tho , my editor would toss it back to me with a "source this better" comment.

They are pornography for progressives. I do love to read and drool over their tantalizing tidbits.

[Marnieworld]

26. "pornography for progressives" ? LOL!

I agree CHB confirms our secret beliefs and fantasies.

[Richard Steele]

17. No, it is not a good 'source'. It is no source at all.

It is patently obvious to me that CHB is fiction.

It simply takes publically-available info,
assumes things which are PROBABLY true,
and then annpunces these things as 'News'.

All the "scoops" he claims to have made
strike me as little more than OBVIOUS CONCLUSIONS
based on public info.

ALWAYS without sources
ALWAYS things the average DUer knew already
ALWAYS exactly what WE want to hear, the way WE want to hear it.

It is fiction;
it is brain-candy for non-Neocons.

The only other possibility is that this lone blogger
somehow has more 'inside sources' than all REAL reporters combined.

EDIT: P.S., thanks for the soup!

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. Is the pope baptist?

[Plaid Adder]

21. Depends on what you use it for.

It is an excellent source of humor. News, not so much.

The way I look at CHB is that they are writing the script for the made-for-TV miniseries based on the Bush presidency which will be produced on CBS in about 25 years. Every time you read one of their stories, you think, well, I bet that's true, but there's no way it actually happened.

C ya,

The Plaid Adder

[kentuck]

22. If you notice, they never quote a source....

Enough said?

[bunkerbuster1]

24. It's like Drudge

which is to say, worthless.

I am normally in favor of using all the same slimy-ass, underhanded tactics of the RW noise machine, but even I draw the line at laughably crappy "news" sources like CHB.

[Caution]

25. Under no circumstances would I use it as anything other than entertainment

Even if (and that's a BIG if) they print something accurate, they have been wrong so often and have so many questionable articles (do a search on "clinton" sometime to see just how opportunistic CHB is) that I would never use them as a primary souce. Wait until a story is picked up by a reputable news outlet before using anything they say for anything other than a good chuckle.

[BurtWorm]

27. A good source for what?

For rumors? Definitely!

For facts? Who knows? :shrug:

[abluelady]

32. In My Old Age

I have found where there is smoke there is fire. Most rumors have some truth in them. I have learned that lesson the hard way over the years. The difference between facts and rumors is awfully hard to determine nowadays. Go with your gut!

[BurtWorm]

33. Life is too short to allow yourself to be led astray after a hollow rumor.

That's what I keep coming back to.

[abluelady]

34. There are too many truths

to the rumors I have heard in my life. Sometimes is takes months for them to show themselves, but just don't disregard everything you hear and don't spread it around! :-)

[BurtWorm]

35. I'm too much of a skeptic, but I take rumors with lots of grains of salt

(I'm doing what I can to get you to 1000! :toast: )

[abluelady]

36. Thanks!

[Nye Bevan]

31. I think Will Pitt's take is about right

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=5297986

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

37. No. Not By A Long Shot. Not By Any Stretch Of The Imagination. No.

Do not ever trust them and take all they say with a grain of salt. They are there for entertainment purposes not informative purposes. They would rather tell you what you want to hear than the truth itself.

Do not trust them. They are crap.