the bad media habits that helped install the worst president ever in the White House haven’t changed

[BurtWorm]

If anyone knows where a free version of Krugman lives on the Net, please share it.

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/06/08/opinion/08krugman.html?hp=&pagewanted=print


Op-Ed Columnist
Lies, Sighs and Politics
By PAUL KRUGMAN


You may not remember the presidential debate of Oct. 3, 2000, or how it was covered, but you should. It was one of the worst moments in an election marked by news media failure as serious, in its way, as the later failure to question Bush administration claims about Iraq.

Throughout that debate, George W. Bush made blatantly misleading statements, including some outright lies — for example, when he declared of his tax cut that “the vast majority of the help goes to the people at the bottom end of the economic ladder.” That should have told us, right then and there, that he was not a man to be trusted.

But few news reports pointed out the lie. Instead, many news analysts chose to critique the candidates’ acting skills. Al Gore was declared the loser because he sighed and rolled his eyes — failing to conceal his justified disgust at Mr. Bush’s dishonesty. And that’s how Mr. Bush got within chad-and-butterfly range of the presidency.

Now fast forward to last Tuesday. Asked whether we should have invaded Iraq, Mr. Romney said that war could only have been avoided if Saddam “had opened up his country to I.A.E.A. inspectors, and they’d come in and they’d found that there were no weapons of mass destruction.” He dismissed this as an “unreasonable hypothetical.”

Except that Saddam did, in fact, allow inspectors in. Remember Hans Blix? When those inspectors failed to find nonexistent W.M.D., Mr. Bush ordered them out so that he could invade. Mr. Romney’s remark should have been the central story in news reports about Tuesday’s debate. But it wasn’t.

[BurtWorm]

1. Misleading on health care (Krugman cont'd)

There wasn’t anything comparable to Mr. Romney’s rewritten history in the Democratic debate two days earlier, which was altogether on a higher plane. Still, someone should have called Hillary Clinton on her declaration that on health care, “we’re all talking pretty much about the same things.” While the other two leading candidates have come out with plans for universal (John Edwards) or near-universal (Barack Obama) health coverage, Mrs. Clinton has so far evaded the issue. But again, this went unmentioned in most reports.

By the way, one reason I want health care specifics from Mrs. Clinton is that she’s received large contributions from the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. Will that deter her from taking those industries on?

Back to the debate coverage: as far as I can tell, no major news organization did any fact-checking of either debate. And post-debate analyses tended to be horse-race stuff mingled with theater criticism: assessments not of what the candidates said, but of how they “came across.”

Thus most analysts declared Mrs. Clinton the winner in her debate, because she did the best job of delivering sound bites — including her Bush-talking-point declaration that we’re safer now than we were on 9/11, a claim her advisers later tried to explain away as not meaning what it seemed to mean.

[papau]

5. Krugman missed on the Clinton line - and is too generous re media since they're owed by GOP

so the lack of analysis and the pushing of Bush was intentional - not a case of bad performance.

As to Clinton "we’re safer now than we were on 9/11" the fact Saddam is gone and that we actually think about terror and have some things in place to fight terror - a re-org of intel, flight boarding checks, HSA and target ID'ing and plan against terror production - all make us safer than we were.

Krugman should have noted that terror attacks are up 40% in 2006 per the UN - and how that is the result of turning a victory in Iraq into an occupation for an oil law that lets oil companies own Iraq oil rather than Iraq.

As to Health - the savings plan by Hillary is the best presented and most detailed - near 30 pages and given in a 14 page speech. She was being generous when she said “we’re all talking pretty much about the same things.” They are all talking about universal health and while she has the detail on savings, Edwards and to a lesser extent Obama have more detail on the universal mechanism. And it applies as Clinton said to "all" as Richardson and DK ("Medicare for all" is my favorite - thanks DK)also have similar health plans (and the others no doubt do too but I just do not know what they are).

As to large contributions from "pharmaceutical and insurance industries" - that is true of all of them - so I guess he means he wants the detail on her universal approach - and if that is what he meant he should have said so.

This is the first Krugman I've read that was not perfect - no kidding. My NYT hero is occasionally a mere mortal! :-)

[tonkatoy57]

6. Eureka!

...horse-race stuff mingled with theater criticism...

That's the description I've been searching for all these years; "theater criticism".

That is the most absolute, bestest, bitchinest phrase in the whole world. The campaign or the workings of the presidency is no longer thought of as policy analysis but as theater critisism.

How did the president "come across"? Did he act "presidential"?

[Bjorn Against]

2. Krugman nails it again.

I am sick of the horse race coverage of politics. I don't care that Obama is a "rock star" I want to know where he stands on the issues. I don't care about Kucinich's height, I don't care about John Edwards' hair, I don't care about Al Gore's electric bill, I want to know what there positions are and I want to know how honest they are being with me. Any time a candidate lies it should be a story, if we want good leaders we need to hold candidates accountable for what they say and how it relates to the facts.

[Tesha]

3. The media helps install who the Corporations want installed. (NT)

[DeeDeeNY]

4. The press was not much better with the 2004 debates

Nobody would touch the story of Bush being wired up to get the answers fed to him

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2611

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Free version via Editorials

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=286852