Letters to the Editor
AaronZ
Published Letters: 7
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Truth will out
[Read the article: The warped reality of our media stars]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The thing I find interesting, looking down the road a bit, is that ultimately there will come a time when the media pundits have to recognize what the polls are already showing. What happens then?
My guess is that they will wait until a scandal breaks or unfolds to the point where the pundits themselves simply can no longer abide the status quo. Then they will trot out the polling numbers that week and state that the American public has finally had enough. This, despite the fact that the people "had enough" a long time ago, and the pundits will just finally be catching up.
When that day comes, they will be in a quandry: the will have to somehow spin that it was whatever the scandal was that the pundits disliked that made the people lose faith in the Bush administration. But what will it be? DoJ scandals? More on illegal wiretaps or citizen detention? A new terrorist attack? The long slog in Iraq? Something else? And how will they be able to say that the public has favored the Republican party line for so long and then point to polls showing a 25% Bush approval, or 65% Dem approval? The sudden shift will seem all the more dramatic because they've been disguising the truth of public opinion for so long. And that will lead, depending on how dramatic the "change" is in what they report the public thinks, to a cognitive dissonance that will only make them look out of touch, or disingenuous.
How to explain a +38 change (or whatever) in Democratic approval without admitting that the change occurred over several years, thus implicating themselves -- that will be the story when the Big One finally comes.
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random points
[Read the article: The warped reality of our media stars]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Paul Dirks: I'm sure Digby or someone would be able to explain this better than I ever could. Pelosi is the first female Speaker -- a woman in a position of great power, and third in line to the presidency. This scares most of the media elite because, as the Imus flap has demonstrated quite ably, most of the media elite are misogynistic and/or racist (or at the least, will prop up and support those of their own who are).
shooter242: "85% of respondents believe that extraterrestrial civilizations are visiting the Earth"
And if that's not crazy enough for you: 95% of respondents believe that their is a higher power in the universe, whether you call it God or divine intelligence or something else.
Neither belief is currently provable. And yet there are more unexplained aerial sightings than there are seas parting of their own volition these days. Extrapolate.
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trolling for trolls
[Read the article: The warped reality of our media stars]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]People, we do realize that an entire page of letters (in a thread called "The Warped Reality of our Media Stars") is one big off-the-rails sidetrack, right?
My view of shooter, and trolls in general: a couple of people did what they should have done. They addressed the inaccuracy of shooter's statement, and in the process I learned something about poll methodology that I had never thought about before. Moving on.
Everything else that's been said has been nothing more than an illustration of what not to do if you ever appear on a TV show hosted by a media star with a warped reality. Think about it.
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I may have missed this
[Read the article: A bizarre, unsolicited e-mail from Gen. Petraeus' spokesman ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Maybe this was mentioned already, but I wanted to post before I got through the whole exchange (I'm a little behind):
From the alleged "fake email" --
"You are not a journalist nor do you have any journalistic ethical standards as we found out from the last time I engaged with you."
And from his actual "real" response later --
"Whether I agree with what the email says or not is not an issue I wish to discuss with you, as I decided after our last exchange that I would not take the time or efforts to engage with you."
The choice of phrasing is oddly similar.