Re: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] [POLITICS] War timeline

[Mike Miller <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Wed, 6 Sep 2006, Vern Green wrote:

> Its always interesting to go back to the beginning of a thread.
>
> Subject: War Timeline
>
> I see nothing here that says this was only a Bush war timeline, Mike's 
> subject reads that it is a timeline of the Iraq war. Misleading? 
> Certainly it is.

It's the friggin' "subject," Vern -- is it supposed to give a full account 
of the content?  I don't think so.  It isn't misleading, it is incomplete, 
as it should be.  Do you think I should add warnings on my emails such as: 
"WARNING:  This web site may contain information that will tend to cast 
the President in a bad light.  To those of you who like the President 
because he promotes your religion, this may seem to be an example of media 
bias.  If you are afraid to confront uncomfortable facts, do not go to 
this website."  Would that have helped?


> Text
> > http://www.motherjones.com/bush_war_timeline/
> >
> > It is interesting to go all the way back to 1990 and scroll forward 
> > from there.  I'm up to 2001 so far.
>
> Hmm nothing here about it being about just the lies of the Bush 
> administration, someone reading this might have gotten the idea this was 
> a timeline of the Iraq war. Which it most certainly is not.
>
> The only hint that this was simply an indictment of the Bush 
> administration was when you actually go to the site. The headline on the 
> page reads:
>
> Lie by Lie: Chronicle of a War Foretold: August 1990 to March 2003

Why would it matter what someone might have thought it was if they hadn't 
seen it?  All I said about it was that it was interesting -- not that it 
was an unbiased source or that it proved something.  When you go to the 
web page and see "Lie by Lie" written all over it, either you figure out 
what it is about or you are mentally retarded -- I think that's an 
exhaustive partition of the sample space.


> OK that says nothing about ONLY the lies of the Bush administration, in 
> fact, if you did not see the splash screen of the flash element, you 
> would not even know going in that this was only about Bush. Misleading, 
> yes, biased, certainly, but do I dare consider the possibility that by 
> not making it clear up from that it is an indictment of Bush, that there 
> is a deliberate attempt to cover up this bias?
>
> It seems that only when truly exposed that the defensive mechanisms fire 
> up and the attempt to limit it to Bush is applied.

I don't understand the last sentence but let me say that I don't think 
anyone could be confused about that web site.  You replied right away to 
say that you had some doubts about it and I responded as follows:

  Let me know what you figure out.  What I would be interested in is if
  they exclude important information that would change how things look.  I
  would also be very interested to know if they say anything that is not
  true.  I have never heard anyone say that Mother Jones published
  something that was not true, but of course their "bias" is well known.

After studying it, you found nothing that was not true.  You suggested 
that some things about Clinton and Saddam were left off and I suggested 
that those things were not relevant to the Bush Administrations pattern of 
deception, which is obviously what the web site is about.  I think that is 
perfectly clear.  If they wanted to provide a timeline of the war or a 
timeline of Iraq, or Saddam, or US-Iraq interactions, they would have to 
make it much much larger than it is.

Mike

_______________________________________________
discussion mailing list
EMAIL:PROTECTED
http://mlug.missouri.edu/mailman/listinfo/discussion