Last night Bill Moyer returned to Public Television with a critique/debate of the 4-th Estate (so-called) and it's performance in "setting us all up" for the "Iraqi War", (Ooops! I meant the "Iraqi Resolution" of course!). Howcome a tired old Vet has too?

Is it cuz we're all still blind? Cuz you're too young to remember? So to not speak, hear or see evil? Something else?

Well I think we should take it on and so I propose for debate:

1. What did you think of Bill Moyer's "expose"?

2. Did you feel a semi-fake mea culpa by those who did this to us before in Vietnam? (Moyers on LBJ's White House staff and Dan Rather forgetting his Vietnam gamesmanship reporting)?

3. Why was there no coverage of the Congressional roles in "all that"?

I have not seen it but we can be sure it is typical Moyers on the left.

I did see a interview with a man who made a PBS paid for documentary Islam vs. Islamists that he said was to be aired with the Moyers piece and others but was dropped, he says, for political reasons by the new liberal head of PBS.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/l...sroads0410.html

I thought it was a powerful, and fair, indictment of the media's "coverage" of the run-up to war. some in the media got it right, but many played the government's cheerleader. they were all portrayed as they were. I didn't notice anything in the piece that was inaccurate.

no, I fail to see what this has to do with the program that aired the other night.

Perhaps because congress didn't have a role in what the media did? I fail to see what this has to do with the program, either.

Ted, can you back the bolded new liberal head of PBS up. I read the citation and only found this as we know Bush selected a very partisan person to run it and he has apparently been removed/fired. So please disclose the background of the new partisan at the helm.





Here is what I found. hardly a liberal.....

http://www.cpb.org/aboutcpb/leadership/exe...s/harrison.html

President and Chief Executive Officer

Here is what I found interesting.... would this put you in the minority of 20%
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,157574,00.html


1. What did you think of Bill Moyer's "expose"? I think he needed to put the reporters on a hotter seat... I would really like to know if Judith Miller is or ever was employed or had connections with the CIA. As we know the CIA had over 400 reporters on its payroll at one time, was she one. And we know the military put in syops people in the media only 10 or so years ago. Or is it we just do not have a real media, which I tend to think is the higher probability.

On Friday nite's "Moyer", he did acknowledge a recently deceased reporter, in a to me degrading pseudo-eulogy for one who did call Vietnam "right for what it was" (and I won't mention any names, out of my very personal respect for that man!!); but, he said nothing about any others who also did, nor about himself and all the many others who didn't!

He also made a psychologhical, or was it more likely a logical, "slip", calling the Iraq War the Vietnam War. A very interesting "aberrational personality", to me at least! (But then I was on the wrong end of his cameras and microphones (not that it matters, I couldn't have been seen cuz I was too low in that muddy red sand/dirt, and couldn't have been heard over that very close gunfire!)

Surely he meant ot call them both "Resolution Reactions", not "Wars"!!

here is my link to the above. http://danwismar.com/uploads/Bernstein%20-...and%20Media.htm

1. What did you think of Bill Moyer's "expose"?
I thought it made its point. Most of the MSM fell in lockstep with the administration line in the runup to the war powers vote and subsequently the war. There was very little critical questioning. Backing the administration seemed pretty much consistent with patriotism and folks who didn't back the president took heat from the letter writers and the advertisers.

2. Did you feel a semi-fake mea culpa by those who did this to us before in Vietnam? (Moyers on LBJ's White House staff and Dan Rather forgetting his Vietnam gamesmanship reporting)?
Let me put this in a form that makes some sense to me. Moyers was LBJ's press secretary and apologist for his Vietnam policy. Is Moyers trying to cleanse his conscience for his sell out by criticizing Bush on the war? I doubt it. Moyers is a professional and has been doing critical pieces for years.

3. Why was there no coverage of the Congressional roles in "all that"?
Well they did show a number of Senators on the issue of the war powers vote on both sides of the issue. For instance Hillary Clinton voted for the war powers for the president and Ted Kennedy voted against them.

Moyers is a famous liberal – no argument there. So for his piece to play and the other to be cancelled stinks to high heaven. And their “survey” seems to disagree sharply with other surveys that show the majority of the general public believes all media is liberal biased. The “survey” no doubt was taken of people on the mailing list

Then of course there was the PBS scandal here in Boston a few years back. PBS here was selling their mailing list to liberal/left organizations like DCN and HCI. Now why do you think they were doing that sir???

The Gallup Organization
Since 2001, Gallup has polled American adults on the question: Now thinking for a moment about the news media: In general, do you think the news media is [sic] too liberal, just about right, or too conservative. For six consecutive years, the number of Americans saying the media are too liberal has outnumbered those seeing a pro-conservative bias by about a three-to-one margin. Gallup also found that while a large majority of Democrats said they had trust and confidence in the media, a similarly large percentage of Republicans expressed little or no trust in the media.

http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/biasbasics4.asp

Ted as much as you or the right hate and distrust PBS and call it based liberal. Well why would you think I believe anything Pew owned by Tribune company which is a ultra conservative group.

from your source,
http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/biasbasics4.asp


I grew up in the Chicago area and I know how right wing they are, they do not even try to be balanced.
http://www.tribune.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribune_Company
The Tribune Company (NYSE: TRB) is a large American multimedia corporation based in Chicago, Illinois. It's the nation's second-largest newspaper publisher

Here is the head of the board

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-me-chan...74.story?page=2


or lets look specifically who is now funding Pew now,

http://www.undueinfluence.com/pew_charitable_trusts.htm

wow who's who of the oil industry.... I did not know how many oil companies there were. Gee I bet all these give some unbiased research to the media........ Now can you see a conflict in interest by the Pew group..........

I have to say that I'm disappointed that Moyer's argument is not being addressed head on by those who just plaster the "liberal" sticker on him and call it good. A thorough and precise argument would be to provide proof that the press didn't give the president a free ride. A case would have to be made that the president and his cronies overcame the criticism of an onslaught of an "adversarial" press corpse in order to sell the war. After all, the media is liberal right? So where is that evidence that the press didn't give this administraion a free pass?

There seems to be a strange idea that liberals are naturally oppossed to war. It was classical liberals that got us into the Revolutionary War. It was a liberal whose election led to the Civil War. It was a liberal that got us into WWI. It was a liberal that got us into WWII. It was a liberal who got us into the Korean War. It was a liberal that escalated our presence in Vietnam. Why would not a liberal press favor a war to extend civil rights to the Iraqi people?

Neo-conservatism has its roots in Wilsonian liberalism. Notice the prefix neo. There is nothing classically conservative about neoconsevatism.

nice to have another person who says they are a very liberal posting. Now just because you are a very liberal does not mean we very liberals will not challenge your positions. My friend of the very liberal persuasion, I hope you do not take offence to some direct questions. We will start with one I see right away since we are in a media PBS Moyers thread.

I could be jumping to a conclusion here but I take your comment that there is a liberal press. Since I have never heard someone with a very liberal background infer this, it is particularly interesting to me to see what brings you to this conclusion factually. Can you back that up. The Moyers show if onething shows there was no liberal voice being put out.

I can address the rest of your blanket statements later. But they seem to me to be off topic.

My only point is you usually cannot equate an anti-war position, or, for that matter, a pro-war position with any political ideology. Therefore questions on medias suppossedly favorable pre-war actions cannot be labeled either conservative or liberal. I am a true liberal, inventor, don't confuse the term liberal with socialist. The pre war actions of the media do not reveal a ideological bias. The war in Iraq was a bipartisan mistake.

1. I enjoyed the critique very much. Moyers spread the scrutiny around to the major networks, newspapers and PBS as well.
The media went soft and in the desire to be patriotic and supportive became cheerleaders for the war in Iraq. It's not the job of journalists to accept the official version of events as the gospel truth. They have to be skeptical and look for the facts no matter whom is discomforted by it.

2. Not really. If anything, Vietnam was one of the last times the media did its job as a watchdog well.

3. Because you can't shame Congress? Between the timidity of the Democrats on refusing to challenge The Bush Adminstration taking the nation into the wrong war and the blind allegiance of the Republicans there were few profiles in courage displayed by the politicians.

My very liberal friend, See I am getting crossed signals here. you now mention you are a true liberal and I also am beside myself, I have also never met a true liberal that would even come close to confusing the term liberal with socialist.

So you did not back up your blanket statement that the media is liberal, I did ask if I was putting words into your mouth.

I would also differ to what a true or very liberal persons perception of what the purpose of the media is. I believe it is to challenge power and especially absolute power. Don't you think it is so? And I think we have the perfect example of we know we do not have a real media because they did not challenge the absolute powers that be.

I believe the talking mouths on virtually (99%) all of today's media leading up to the war were/are cheerleaders or defenders of the present powers that be. IE paid hit men of those who would disagree.

Never stated the media was liberal. I have no idea, from the content of my posts, how you came to that conclusion. The purpose of a corporation, which makes up most of media, is to increase shareholder value. When aggression in Iraq was popular they did the cheerleading. Now they are doing the critiques as the war has lost its popularity. The media gives the people what they want to watch. I expect accurracy in the facts presented and can sift out the partisanship whether it be socialist, conservative or truly liberal. No true liberal confuses socialism with liberalism. A lot of socialists intermingle the two terms. Individual liberty and socialism are on opposite ends of the spectrum.