Semi Truths

Yeah, I’m a little late in finding this one, but there was so much fuss about Stephen Colbert’s performance at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner that it took awhile for me to hear that Bush’s performance was worth watching. I have to give him credit, it was funny. I think Bush got more laughs not just because it was a friendly crowd, which is a questionable claim, but because it’s funnier watching someone make fun of themselves than it is watching someone get made fun of.

It’s Official! FOX “News” viewers are certifiably dumber:

GOOD JOURNALISM VS. BAD. Supporters of Fox News like to argue that, by virtue of being more balanced and playing it down the middle, the network gets it right where other news outlets, mired in liberal bias and opinioneering, get it wrong. But a new study out from the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland suggests (among other things) that Fox News viewers are literally less well-informed about some basic facts than viewers of other, putatively slanted news sources.

And quoting from the report (Misperceptions, The Media and The Iraq War, available in PDF form):

Fox News watchers were most likely to hold misperceptions — and were three times more likely than the next nearest network to hold all three misperceptions. In the audience for NPR/PBS, however, there was an overwhelming majority who did not have any of the three misperceptions, and hardly any had all three.

Of course, the NEOCONPOOPS^© will just dismiss this is liberal media bias, which is why I am grateful that we have Young Republicans college students setting the record straight:

“I think he’s a person of morality. I’d rather have a good man be president than a smart man, hands down…He’s far from stupid. He’s your average Joe American. It would be great if you were the smartest guy in the world and a really moral person. But you’re not going to have that.”

— UW-Madison freshman on “President” Bush and in celebration of stupidity.

Bill Moyers, the great broadcaster called “one of the chief inheritors of the Edward R. Murrow tradition of ‘deep-think’ journalism” recently received the America’s Future Lifetime Leadership Award as part of the 2003 National Progressive Conference to Take Back America. His acceptance speech provides an informed overview of the history of the progressive movement in our country (yes, there actually is one) and is a magnificent read.

THE PROGRESSIVE STORY OF AMERICA

You are the heirs of one of the country’s great traditions — the progressive movement that started late in the l9th century and remade the American experience piece by piece until it peaked in the last third of the 20th century. I call it the progressive movement for lack of a more precise term. Its aim was to keep blood pumping through the veins of democracy when others were ready to call in the mortician. Progressives exalted and extended the original American revolution. They spelled out new terms of partnership between the people and their rulers. And they kindled a flame that lit some of the most prosperous decades in modern history.

You can read the entire presentation in glorious HTML at CommonDreams.org, or download the PDF from OurFuture.org.

Thomas L. Friedman, the NYT columnist that Neocons love to hate (’cause he’s so much smarter than most of them) proposes that `Democrats should be asking voters to substitute the word “services” for the word “taxes” every time they hear the president speak.�:

READ MY LIPS

Democrats have to show Bush for what he really is: a man who is not putting money into your pocket, but who is removing government services and safety nets from your life.
(read more)*

(*link to NYT website; registration may be required).