I read this article yesterday on AOL news. It begins:
“White House chief of staff Andy Card has resigned and will be replaced by budget director Joshua Bolten, President Bush announced Tuesday amid growing calls for a White House shakeup and Republican concern about Bush's tumbling poll ratings.” (my emphasis)
Does anyone besides me see anything missing from this article? Here’s a hint:
It doesn’t say why. Why did Andy Card resign? It really doesn’t say. It assumes. It suggests. It may be misleading about why. But it really doesn’t say.
This is the Liberally biased media’s typical manipulating of the facts. There was no indication anywhere in that article that Card resigned because of sagging poll numbers or Democrat pressure tactics. Except the AP’s leap of logic.
That may be exactly why he resigned, but there are no actual facts to back that up at this time. I suspect we may never know the true reason for his resignation until the book comes out. You know, the book that Card will inevitably come out with in a couple of years after Bush is out of office.
The article goes on to say, “Alarmed by Bush's declining approval ratings and unhappiness about the war in Iraq, Republicans have been urging the president to bring in new advisers with fresh ideas and energy. Bolten has been with Bush since his first campaign for the White House. There was no immediate indication of other changes afoot.”
Again, This is mere supposition on the part of the AP, but I think there is more to it than just supposition. This, I believe, is wishful thinking on the part of the Liberal media. They want so badly to be able to report that a Conservative couldn’t handle the Left’s attacks, that they jump to that conclusion.
Opponents of Bush have leapt upon the bandwagon as well. Before the ink is even dry on the letter of resignation, Chuckie Shumer gleefully proclaimed victory saying, "The good news is the administration has finally realized it needs to change its ways“, while warning, “but the problems go far deeper than one staffer. "Simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic by replacing Andy Card with Josh Bolten without a dramatic change in policy will not right this ship."
Savor your victory, Chuckie, and quick, before the real reason he resigned comes out.
Then, the AP goes once again to the well to add this unnecessary statement:
“The move comes as Bush is buffeted by increasing criticism of the drawn-out war in Iraq and as fellow Republicans have suggested pointedly that the president bring in new aides with fresh ideas and new energy.”
That is blatant partisan reporting, in my humble opinion. The criticism is not increasing. It has been constant since he won the 2000 election. The left clearly can’t get over the fact that he won.
He might have resigned because of pressure from the Democrats, but let’s consider this before we jump to conclusions:
According to the AP article, “Associates said that Card, who was secretary of Transportation and deputy chief of staff for the first President Bush, had wanted to establish himself as the longest serving White House chief of staff. He would have had about another seven months to go to beat Sherman Adams, who served as President Dwight D. Eisenhower's chief of staff and will keep the longest-serving distinction.”
On the surface it may seem to some that Card was giving up while still short of his goal, and that would lend credence to the idea that he was forced to resign, but there is another way to look at this. No one lasts very long on this job. Clinton’s chief of staff didn’t. Neither did Carter’s. Or Reagan’s, or Johnson’s, or Nixon’s. If you look at it that way, he must have been a very good chief of staff and there is nothing to suggest otherwise. It is not unusual for a President's chief of staff to resign before finishing his term.
Here’s another reason he might have resigned: “Card did not immediately disclose his plans. His resignation immediately prompted questions about whether he would return to Massachusetts to run for governor or perhaps challenge Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., who currently faces no major GOP challenge for re-election this fall, or Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., whom he helped defeat as the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee and who faces re-election in 2008.
Card, a Holbrook native, served as the state representative from his hometown from 1975 to 1982.”
Maybe he thinks he can unseat Kennedy in Massachusetts.
Not likely, in my opinion, since the media already has decided he is a failure. It has to be hard to overcome the political smear campaigns mounted by the press.
By the way. For those of you who think I get my opinions from talk radio- My favorite talk radio host is Laura Ingraham, and she thinks Card resigned for exactly the reason the media implies he did. I don't. So there.
16 comments:
“White House chief of staff Andy Card has resigned and will be replaced by budget director Joshua Bolten, President Bush announced Tuesday amid growing calls for a White House shakeup and Republican concern about Bush's tumbling poll ratings.”
It is a fact that Card resigned. It is a fact that he did so amid growing calls for a White House shakeup.
Sometimes the media does bad reporting (sometimes with a left bias and sometimes with a right and oftentimes with a corporate bias), but I just don't see it here. There is nothing factually wrong.
They didn't say that Card resigned because of the shakeup calls - just that he did resign amid them.
Don't look for problems where they don't exist.
The Associated Press (AP) is notorious for its slanted, purposefully misleading & outright erroneous reporting on the Bush Administration. Facts do not stand in the way of these "professionals". Powerline (http://www.powerlineblog.com/) keeps on top of the AP when it strays from...well..reporting. A blog on AP errors would be a busy blog indeed.
Lmao so there!
That was cute.
I think Andy was tired and wanted to go home.
Call me crazy but I think it's just that simple.
Power Line on the AP "professionals":
AP Busted Again
Jim Hoft, the Gateway Pundit, catches the Associated Press in another whopper. This time, the AP, in reporting on the GAO report that found that some Hurricane Katrina relief money was wasted, tried to frame the issue as a Bush administration scandal by writing:
Some of the firms, including Gulf Stream Coach and Bechtel, have close ties to the Bush administration or have contributed significantly to the GOP.
The fact that two out of twelve companies have some kind of relationship to the Republican Party is hardly a shock; the law of averages would dictate as much. (How many have ties to the Democrats? The AP didn't research that question.) As Jim shows, though, the AP's claim that these companies have "close ties to the Bush administration or have contributed significantly to the GOP" is misleading, at best.
I would add a further comment: Bechtel is one of the largest and most respected engineering and construction companies in the world. For the AP to imply that a world-renowned company like Bechtel obtained federal contracts through corrupt ties to the Bush administration--when, in fact, the modest contributions made by the company and its executives are split evenly between Democrats and Republicans--displays an ignorance that really constitutes journalistic malpractice.
And again:
Why Let the Facts Get In the Way of the Story?
The Associated Press says that Republican politicians are fleeing President Bush as from the plague, while quietly benefiting from his fundraising:
Many worried Republicans on the ballot in November have been pushing away from the White House, not wanting to be dragged under by President Bush's sinking approval ratings and growing anxiety over Iraq. That doesn't mean they're also fleeing his cash offerings, however.
Despite approval ratings in the mid-to-upper 30s, Bush remains the nation's most successful fundraiser. Vice President Dick Cheney, whose poll numbers are even lower than Bush's, is not far behind. Both have raised tens of millions of dollars for GOP congressional and gubernatorial candidates running in this year's midterm elections.
Reporters wouldn't want a day to go by, of course, without referring to the President's "sinking approval ratings" and the voters' "growing anxiety over Iraq."
One of the Republican politicians who, according to the AP, dodged appearing with President Bush in public while benefiting from the President's fundraising is our own Mark Kennedy. The AP writes:
Last month, GOP Senate candidate Mark Kennedy in Minnesota did not attend an appearance by Bush at a 3M Corp. plant outside Minneapolis, but joined him later at a fundraiser.
Mark's campaign manager wrote us to point out that this is false. On February 2, the date of Bush's visit to 3M, Congressman Kennedy was in Washington, where, among other things, the Republican caucus voted on a new Majority Leader. The AP's statement that Kennedy attended a fundraiser with the President later that day is flatly wrong, as is the implication that Kennedy stayed away from the 3M event to distance himself from the President. Kennedy did, in fact, attend a fundraiser with Bush, but that was on December 9, nearly two months before the President's February visit to St. Paul, not later the same day.
Francis, sometimes I wonder what planet you live on,. If you think The AP is biased, then is abslutely NO source of news on this one -- this planet -- that you would ever trust, which means your paranoid. The AP makes mistakes like anyone does. Abd human beings work there. So, there's that. But it's the single most reliable and generally unbiased newsgathering organization in the history of the world.
Yes, Dan, You are absolutely right. They didn't say anything that wasn't true. It was the way they put the two unrelated facts together that created the implication that the tumbling poll ratings were the reason Card resigned.
It's called spin, and I don't think it was an accident. Especially since the alluded to it three times, and left out other possible reasons until the last two paragraphs.
Redneck - It is certain that I am not from your home planet of Denial - you know,the one waaaaay out there. If you are so naive as to think that the AP or the New York Times or other liberal news organiztions make only "mistakes" in their reporting, then stop visiting this planet. Geesh - Mistakes happen, sloppy reporting happens - though with an elitist rag like the New York Times who woulda thunk - but when it is a continuous, on-going series of mistakes, we in reality world call it purposeful distorting. Same with factual "mistakes" - we call it dishonest.
Slanting is in all media - should be reserved for the editorial page, but whatever. A willful agenda is another thing & it is mostly in the liberal media that you get this.
If the Times has a choice of putting a car bombing on page 1 or a major speech by the Iraqi Prime Minister praising Bush...well Bush is relagated to page 20. It's call manipulation of the news. The liberal media is infected with it.
Ya can never find a Death Star when ya want one.
Francis, I said nothing about the NYT or about news in general -- or about placement of news stories on front pages versus inside pages versus anything else.
The AP is the least biased of all the news organization in the word. What you detgect as spin is actual the opppsite: the lack of ass-kissing of thiose in power that you apparentoy prefer in all your "news."
Whoever is in piower gets asked tough questions, gets the harsh light shined on them and sometimes is allowed to hang by the facts.
If you think The Ap was any easier on Clinton, you're wrong. They never cut HIM any slack either. Nor should they have.
QUESTION AUTHORITY should be the mantra of all news people.
As for the NYT and others, that's another discussion. And you're right about the NYT being liberal. Thank God Almighty for it and Wapo -- because most daily newspapers in this country are pro-effing-business, warmongering rags.
Mark, if you think there is no reasonable, unbiased way to to relate Card's resignation to the Bush administration's unpopularity, then you have no awareness of current policital thought from either party. Everybody on both sides, inlcuding Laura Ingraham as you point out, has suggested that a White House shake up was likely in view of the administration's unpopularity.
You are making an issue here where none exists. There is really nothing that you cite here that any reasonable and informed person would consider biased.
Jim. As I stated, there isn't any evidence to suggest that turmoil in the Bush administration contributed to Card's resignation at all.
But if one reads the article I lined to, if he isn't looking for it, he will get that definite impression. The article daoesn't say that is the reson, it just places those two facts together and it looks as if it relates.
For more information regarding how media manipulates peoples perception, click here
Interesting site, Mark. Most of that is what we call "news judgment." Bias? Sure. But all bias is neither bad nor deliberate. SOMEBODY has to decide what's important enough to report, or to put on the front page, or top give a big headline versus a small one. That's what editors do.
And that's what's cool about the dmocratization of news via blogging: Every man, and woman, is an editor. Enjoy it. Feel free to kick around the mean old MSM, too. But they (we) ain't going anywhere. Just changin' form.
ER, When I was looking for something else, I came across that site and some others that were similar, but I didn't bookmark them. Consequently, I can't find the site that offered several examples of intended and unintended bias in the news. So I linked to that one.
Just know, Mark, that for every example of "liberal media bias" you can provide in the MSM, I can provide an example of "conservative media bias."
If you look for it, you can find it.
That's true, Jim. I won't argue that point at all.
Well, except for the part about being able to find an example of Conservative bias for every example of Liberal bias. There are many more Liberals in media than Conservatives. I believe I saw a figure somewhere around 85% more Liberal news people than Conservatives.
"There are many more Liberals in media than Conservatives."
And the companies that own the media are by and large conservative. As they say, the media is only as liberal as the conservatives that own them...
The bottom line for the media is the bottom line. They're in it to make money and while the writers and reporters may tend to be democrat, it doesn't make their writing especially liberal. As I said, I can find plenty of conservative bias.
Mark, if you read any newspaper or watch any news channel or read any blog, you will know that there is AMPLE justification to SPECULATE that the current unpopularity of the Bush administration had something to do with Card's resignation.
This is not a proof thing. Only Card, President Cheney (I mean Bush) and Rove have the "evidence."
But there is nothing inherently biased about speculation.
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