Letters to the Editor
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Maybe it's not concussion
Sally G... Searching for "Obama and patriotism" after 2/4/2008 (60 days before your post) still gives me 1,104. Nice try.
Maybe she's just having a blonde momemt.
I bet if she included the quotation marks "Obama and patriotism" she'd get fewer hits than without. Try it with any search function.
Are you having an Ann Althouse moment, Sally G, or are you a real blonde?
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"Reality-based community"? Please...
Cocktailhag - It's actually the difference between 589 and 1,607 for one search, and 406 and 1,043 for another. It's only the difference between 1,200 and 1,600 if you give Greenwald the benefit of the doubt and assume he made the most egregious (and unlikely) possible "errors" when searching.
Obviously I've never posted a comment in here before, but it's beyond belief that people in here consider themselves part of the "reality-based community." It's not just a statistical anamoly, it's Greenwald more than doubling the results for two of his searches. And the search results are the basis for his jeremiad against the press. Greenwald responded by admitting that he can't replicate his results, and saying, "I'll email Lexis and ask what went wrong." Then he basically said, "Sure, I falsely stated that there were 1,043 stories about Obama's bowling game when in fact there were only 406, and I can't provide a believable explanation for my results, but my point was that the press is reporting too many stories about Obama's bowling game." Oh, once you explain it that way, all is forgiven! And you guys are part of the "reality-based community"?
I'll admit that I've been mean to Greenwald, but the inability of people in this thread to see beyond their hero-worship for Greenwald precludes them from the "reality-based community."
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@Sally G
You are my new hero, Sally G. Your command of the calendar, mastery of NEXIS and facility with accusations of intentional duplicity make you a triple threat.
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Sally G
Now you're just lying repeatedly -- about what I said and about what the actual results are.
When you first voiced your criticism, I gave you the benefit of the doubt, responded to it point by point, and went and immediately replicated every search I did, and reported what I found. In the two instances where there were negligible discrepancies - ones that you acknowledge don't change the point remotely - I speculated as to what may have caused those discrepancies.
I'm perfectly content to leave it to others to decide what happened here based on all the facts. But it's become clear that your increasingly shrieking, reckless accusations were made with anything but good faith.
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A Head for Figures
Call us what you will, and debate the figures as you must, but the "reality" is that it has been virtually impossible to avoid the stories about Obama's bowling, while it has been equally daunting to find any news source discussing, say, the Mukasey lie.
I'm glad that you can be shielded under your green eyeshade against the baking sunlight of the point here, but the numbers differential remains unassailable.
None are so blind as those who would Nazi.
And nothing is less convincing, except to a newbie like you, that readers here engage in any sort of groupthink. Hell, until you came along, we were happily arguing amongst ourselves about everything. Finding technical flaws in the minutiae, while ignoring the thrust, and obvious truth, of the main thesis, is all rightie automatons like you ever do here, and such drearily familiar tactics naturally draw rivers of deserved derision. And, of course, whiny, predictable, ad hominem, bleating like yours. Sorry about that.
Now, will you let the grownups have a discussion? You're wanted over at Townhall.
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Glenn
So I guess you won't be posting a correction? You're fine with misleading your readers into believing that there were 1,043 stories about Obama's bowling game, when in fact there were only 406? That speaks to your credibility.
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I wonder how they feel about this...
I wonder how they feel about this:
Bush officials mount campaign against media shield bill, say it could harm national security
By PETE YOST
Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
updated 8:00 a.m. ET, Fri., April. 4, 2008
WASHINGTON - Attorney General Michael Mukasey and three other top Bush administration officials are weighing in against legislation that would allow reporters to protect the identities of confidential sources who provide sensitive, sometimes embarrassing information about the government.
The "Free Flow of Information Act" proposed by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., could harm national security and would encourage more leaks of classified information, the four officials wrote in letters to senators made public Thursday.
The legislation gives an overly broad definition of journalists that "can include those linked to terrorists and criminals," wrote Mukasey and National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell.
"All individuals and entities who 'gather' or 'publish' information about 'matters of public interest' but who are not technically designated terrorist organizations, foreign powers or agents of a foreign power will be entitled to the bill's protections," Mukasey and McConnell stated in their joint letter.
Specter, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, responded: "My staff met today with DNI and DoJ officials regarding the concerns expressed in the letter, and we are considering them."
"I think the legislation has an important purpose," Specter added. "I think we can make reasonable accommodations to their concerns, and we're working on it."
In a separate letter, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the nation would be more vulnerable to "adversaries' counterintelligence efforts to recruit" those shielded by the bill.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the bill would erect roadblocks to gathering information "from anyone who can claim to be a journalist, including bloggers" and Internet service providers.
The opposition of the top Bush administration officials follows recent high-profile episodes in which reporters have fought efforts to reveal their government sources.
Former USA Today reporter Toni Locy is seeking to reverse a contempt of court citation for refusing to reveal her Justice Department and FBI sources for stories about the criminal investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks.
Among the government leakers of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, it turns out, were President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail for refusing to identify Libby to investigators.
The leaks of Plame's identity occurred after Plame's husband publicly accused the administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald eventually won convictions against Libby for perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI. Bush commuted Libby's 30-month prison sentence.
Co-sponsors on the bill include Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Charles Schumer of New York and Tim Johnson of South Dakota, along with Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Richard Lugar of Indiana.
"We've already sought to address these security concerns in a careful way," Schumer said in a statement. "The administration ought to overcome its visceral dislike of the media and do the right thing."
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23952454/
But they would probably easily give up their sources and sing like a bird in the spring time. Traitors...