[ Outline ] · Standard · Linear+ Dirtbag Moore, Can you believe this?

Sometimes hollywood goes a little to the extreme in it's views of political issues. Mikie Moore has just got to be laughed at, this documentary is so one sided that it's laughable. I suppose that you could make a documentary from the other veiw, so whats the point. This is just what the director whants you to believe. This is just a slap in the face of the U.S. military. Just a thought!

Shit.

Okay... I can't let Zone bear the brunt of all these vitriolic, partisan posts all by himself.

(Thanks, Zone. I appreciate your honesty and your courage. You are not alone.)

To answer your question, Void, you would have to read some of the thousands of articles published over the past decade that examine statements made on air or in print by such conservative luminaries as Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Matt Drudge, Fox News, and many others.

How about a few brief examples, just from the last seven days:

From the Associated Press wire service:
"O'Reilly wrong about PBS, Bill Moyers"

"FOX News Channel host and radio host Bill O'Reilly recently claimed that the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is going bankrupt and that it had fired Bill Moyers -- host of PBS weekly news program 'NOW with Bill Moyers'. Both claims are false."

(I especially enjoyed the last sentence from the AP story: 'more Americans watch PBS than the FOX News Channel'.)

From CNN, and The Register (UK):
"On his June 30 radio show, FOX News Channel host Bill O'Reilly tried to "blow off" the argument that wealthy Americans ought to pay more taxes by citing phony statistics about the tax burden the rich currently bear.

O'REILLY: Just some stats. The top 5 percent of American wage-earners pay 57 percent of federal income taxes, so that blows off the thing that the rich are getting away with it, and they're not paying their fair share. All right? That this is from the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. Again, 5 percent, the richest five percent pay 57 percent of all federal income taxes.

According to the Tax Policy Center, the richest 5 percent of taxpayers will pay a modest 40 percent of total federal taxes (including the payroll tax, income tax, corporate income tax, and estate tax) in 2004. (It's worth noting that the same 5% will also receive 34 percent of the total income in the United States.)

From The Associated Press, Washington Post, Tribune Media Services, CNN, and The Wall Street Journal
"On the July 1 broadcast of his daily radio show, conservative radio host Neal Boortz raised the false rumor of Senator John Kerry's alleged affair with journalist Alexandra Polier, which was first publicized by Internet gossip Matt Drudge on his website, The Drudge Report."

"From the July 1 broadcast of The Neal Boortz Show:
BOORTZ: The Hillary vice presidential talk is heating up. Drudge is sticking by his guns on this and he's usually right. You know one thing that Drudge was onto that we never did get a follow up -- I wonder if this story is going to surface again before the election -- and that's Kerry's girlfriend. John Kerry's own intern problems. And then remember, very quickly, as soon as that story surfaced this girl hauled off and moved to Africa where she -- I mean, where is she in Africa? What is she doing in Africa? She basically was moved as far away from this country as she possibly could be. What, is she working on some missionary work out in the jungles of Africa where she can't be reached? So, no, that story, where did it go? It went absolutely nowhere.."

Media sources around the world made it crystal clear that Mr. Boortz was flat-out wrong. Even the highly conservative Wall Street Journal's National Political Editor, John Harwood, noted: "I think this is one of the most outrageous stories that I can remember in recent campaign reporting. Not only are there no facts to the story, there are no allegations, either."

From Reuters News Service
"On his June 30 nationally syndicated radio show, host Rush Limbaugh grossly overstated U.S. federal spending on education. In discussing the federal budget, Limbaugh stated, "[W]e spend over two times on education already, what we spend on defense." This followed Limbaugh's miscalculations from his September 18, 2003, program, when he insisted that "today, 2003, the federal budget is over 2.2 trillion [dollars], and ... we're spending $745 billion on education," while "we spend $300 billion a year on defense, the defense of the country, for crying out loud. We're spending close to three times that on education."

In fact, the U.S. federal government spends almost seven times more on defense than on education. According to the Executive Office of the President's Office of Management and Budget, the portion of the federal budget allocated to the Department of Education in 2003 was $53.1 billion --14 times less than the $745 billion that Limbaugh asserted on air -- while federal spending for the Department of Defense in 2003 was $365.3 billion. The estimated budget for the Department of Education is $55.7 billion for 2004 and $57.3 billion for 2005. Estimated Defense spending for 2004 is $375.3 billion; but in 2005, the planned spending for the Department of Defense jumps to $401.7 billion -- $36.4 billion more than was spent in 2003."

From The NY Times, The Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Universal Press Syndicate, and The (quite conservative) Weekly Standard
In her July 1 column, titled "Saddam In Custody -- Moore, Soros, Dean Still At Large," right-wing pundit Ann Coulter asserted, "[T]he Americanization of Iraq proceeds at an astonishing pace, the Iraqis are taking to freedom like fish to water. ... It's hard to say who's more upset about these developments: the last vestiges of pro-Hussein Baathist resistance in Iraq or John Kerry's campaign manager." Coulter's third paragraph? "The Democrats want Saddam back."

According to The World Press Review, newspapers in more than 70 countries find that Ms. Coulter's statements range from 'factually innacurate' to 'blatant lies'.

Coulter went on to note, regarding the fear of Iraqi parents that their daughters are threatened daily by the possibility of being raped:
"True, they don't have to run from Odai's rape rooms anymore. But apparently not a single Iraqi female has been admitted to Augusta National Golf Club since the liberation!"

Unfortunately for Ms. Coulter, there is little humor in the fact that, as the U.N reports:
"Parents are so rattled by reports of rapes and kidnappings that they keep their girls under closer watch than ever. ... Everything now depends on whether the violence subsides. ... Nearly everyone seems to have heard about girls who have been raped."

Thanks, Ms. Coulter. I'm sure Iraqi parents are quite upset by their failure to get their children a membership in an exclusive golf club.

And finally, let us not forget the following example of Ann Coulter's "honesty", not to mention her disregard for basic human decency:

"Coulter appeared on FOX News Channel's Hannity & Colmes and compared Saddam Hussein's trial to the impeachment trial of former President Bill Clinton. Coulter said, "I just like how all the same criminal defense attorneys go from defending O.J. [Simpson] to defending Clinton to defending Saddam Hussein." As Media Matters for America has noted, this is not the first time Coulter has compared Clinton to O.J. Simpson, who was tried for murder in 1995. On the June 23 edition of MSNBC's Scarborough Country, Coulter stated that unlike Clinton, whose memoir My Life documented the campaign led by Kenneth Starr to destroy his presidency, "At least O.J. had the dignity to shut up about it and isn't out writing books denouncing [chief prosecutor] Marcia Clark."

Ok. Cool. Bill Clinton is no better, or even worse, than O.J. Simpson? Jeezus, Ann... get a life.

By the way... in case you didn't notice, these reports are only from the past 7 days. Don't get me started, 'cause I can go back 10 years and more to demonstrate that conservative pundits are no less likely to let their personal opinions (and lies) affect what they say and write (and film) than so-called liberals like Michael Moore.

-ManX
(Who notices that nobody ever replied to my post about Fahrenheit 9/11. Is it just because I'm an older, middle-aged American who happens to be a Vietnam Veteran? Is it because, unlike many opinionated folks here at nForums, I actually served and defended my country? Is it because I'm crazy enough to study the issues and the candidates so I can make an informed choice? Even if it is nothing better than choosing the lesser of the evils, as long as I damned well vote? Or is it just because I'm an opinionated bastard who can't stand seeing anyone take the easy way out by parroting tv/radio/newspaper commentators... without ever creating and/or defending an informed opinion of their own?)

(Probably all of the above! :rolleyes: )