| Mainstream Media | Bias Revealed! |
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| Set the mood with the headline. No information yet, but lets put Bush on the ropes; get people asking: What? What happened? What did Bush do? the article says: "White House disputes...." must be scandalous! Great headline; gets your attention, get's you asking questions, makes you read on ... everything a good headline is supposed to do. Just be sure to stop yourself short of the Oh, cool, Bush is toast now! feeling, because we haven't been told ANYTHING yet! ... welcome to the world of spin! |
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Wednesday, October 20, 2004 Posted: 6:31 PM EDT (2231 GMT)
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EAU CLAIRE, Wisconsin (CNN) -- A White House spokesman denied Wednesday that President Bush told Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson that he did not expect casualties from the invasion of Iraq. "The president never made such a comment," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. | So, the news so far: "A White House Spokesman denied it ..." So, the news so far: Scott McClellan said "The president never made such a comment," |
| Senior Bush campaign adviser Karen Hughes, a longtime confidant of the president, said she was "certain" Bush would not have said anything like that to Robertson. | So, the new so far: Karen Hughes doesn't think the President said anything like that, either. In the immortal words of Hamlet: " ... methinks the lady doth protest too much!" By the time denial is reported so many times, almost anybody is thinking the guy's guilty; that's just the mechanics of how the human mind works. That's what spin and bias work on. CNN wishes this was a story about George W. Bush ... but actually, all CNN's got here is another opportunity to embarass Pat Robertson. CNN loves to embarass Pat Robertson, or to embarass those associated with Pat Robertson by reporting Pat Robertson. Go to CNN.com and do a search on Pat Robertson. You'll see how much he's reported on and what kind of reportage he draws. |
| "Perhaps he misunderstood, but I've never heard the president say any such thing," Hughes said on CNN's "Inside Politics." | So, the news so far, Karen Hughes resists being led into calling Pat Robertson a liar. |
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| Robertson, an ardent Bush supporter, told CNN in an interview Tuesday night that he urged the president to prepare the American people for the prospect of casualties before launching the war in March 2003. | Having set up the embarassment, recognize the phrase: "an ardent Bush supporter" as the verbal glue with which CNN seeks to stick George W. Bush to Pat Robertson. |
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| Robertson said Bush told him, " 'Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties.' " | Wow! With a scoop like this, the required course is to ask the party reported to have said it to corroborate. I wonder why all the "denials" above are third-hand; oh, they're White House, but they're all about what people think Bush would or wouldn't have said; conjecture. To remember a phrase from another election: "Where's George?" If this is news, let's get the news! Did he really say it? Is it an accurate quote? Is it taken out of context? Also notice that this one sentence is the whole story. All of what comes before and after this one sentence is CNN trying to spin straw into gold. |
| More than 1,100 American troops have been killed in Iraq since the invasion, most of them battling an insurgency that followed the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. | |
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| Sen. John Kerry, Bush's Democratic challenger, quickly seized on Robertson's account. | Grasping at straws. |
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| Kerry's campaign issued a statement Wednesday challenging Bush to say whether the "700 Club" founder and 1988 GOP presidential candidate was telling the truth. | Kerry's campaign speaking here. |
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| "We believe President Bush should get the benefit of the doubt here," Kerry spokesman Mike McCurry said in a news release. | The tone sounds like Bush is on trial. Very generous of them, here, to give him the benefit of the doubt; is this consistent with the tone of this article? |
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| "But he needs to come forward and answer a very simple question: Is Pat Robertson telling the truth when he said you didn't think there'd be any casualties, or is Pat Robertson lying?" | |
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| McClellan said Bush did meet with Robertson in Nashville before the invasion, as Robertson recounted. But McClellan said Bush always has recognized that war "requires sacrifice" and that there would be American casualties. | Here is the crux. The press approach, here, shows confusion on their part. It's as if they're thinking: " ... if we can only get him to admit he said something stupid, it would prove that he is stupid ... " |
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| In a statement issued Wednesday afternoon, Robertson restated his "100 percent" support for Bush's re-election and said he began and ended his CNN interview "with my warm endorsement and praise of President Bush." But he did not back away from his comments. | |
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| "I emphatically stated that, 'I believe 'the blessing of heaven is upon him,' and I am persuaded that he will win this election and prevail on the war against terror in order to keep America safe from her avowed enemies," Robertson said. | |
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| In his CNN interview, the religious leader described Bush on the eve of the invasion as "the most self-assured man I've ever met in my life." | |
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| "You remember Mark Twain said, 'He looks like a contented Christian with four aces.' I mean he was just sitting there like, 'I'm on top of the world,' " Robertson said on CNN's "Paula Zahn Now." | Remember Mark Twain was a political satirist ... who also said, speaking of blue jays: "A jay hasn’t got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; and four times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise." ... hey, Kerry is a congressman! |
| "And I warned him about this war. I had deep misgivings about this war, deep misgivings. And I was trying to say, 'Mr. President, you had better prepare the American people for casualties.' " | |
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| He said that's when the president told him he did not expect casualties from the invasion. | |
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| In the interview, Robertson also said he wishes Bush would admit to mistakes made. | This is why CNN so enjoys interviewing this man; his ingenuousness is grist for their mill. |
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| "I mean, the Lord told me it was going to be A, a disaster, and B, messy," Robertson said. "I warned him about casualties." | |
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| Asked why he thought Bush has refused to admit to mistakes on Iraq, Robertson said, "I don't know this politics game. You know, you can never say you were wrong because the opposition grabs onto it: 'See, he admitted he screwed up.' " | Nice of CNN to include this bit. It ingenuously uncovers their whole game and explains this news article. |
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| Even as Robertson criticized Bush for downplaying the potential dangers of the Iraq war, he heaped praise on Bush, saying he believes the president will win the election. | |
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| "Even if he stumbles and messes up -- and he's had his share of stumbles and gaffes -- I just think God's blessing is on him," Robertson said. | |
| CNN's John King contributed to this report. |