RIGHT…LIBERAL MEDIA
RIGHT…LIBERAL MEDIA
Or as put much more eloquently by Iocaste, when I called the President a right-wing nut job, I was just kidding.
Where is the mainstream media coverage of this?
Not that there’s anything wrong with using prescription drugs to control a psychiatric disorder, but the White House should be upfront about it with the American people.
Update: a Clareified commenter sent the message “You can save face with a quick retraction… ” and the following link.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004402.php
However, rather than open myself up to charges that I am a flip-flopper on the issue of whether President Bush is a right-wing nut job, I will take a page from the Bush administration playbook and say simply: I received this intelligence from a respected source. I acted decisively and the world is better for having the discussion about whether a President suffering from paranoid delusions can govern effectively. May God continue to bless the United States of America.
July 28th, 2004 at 4:08 pm
Iocaste and you are both dumb as bricks. Do you believe everything you read in the Onion too?
July 28th, 2004 at 4:27 pm
Well, I believed this Onion story, anyway.
July 28th, 2004 at 5:49 pm
Yeah, cause ‘Dipshit Governor Who Panders To Unions While Bankrupting The State’ was doing such a great job of managing CA.
July 28th, 2004 at 6:00 pm
Yes, you’re right. The Muscleman is such a massive improvement. Congrats!
July 28th, 2004 at 7:15 pm
“Where is the mainstream media coverage of this?”
maybe it is not ture?
i need multiple sources for me to belive things, or just one really good source.
but if this pops up again in the media, he proably should not be president.
July 28th, 2004 at 7:16 pm
(A) The capitolhillblue articles were based solely on anonymous sources. The mainstream media generally has an ethical duty not to print “whispers” from the hill.
(B) We should probably be careful about attacking people for taking antidepressants. I’d rather have Bush on ‘em than not.
(C) Fact is, Gray Davis and the Dems blew the California recall. Davis was a liar and a thief (or aider and abettor of thieves) and Arnold (as a pro-choicer married to a Kennedy) just wasn’t scary enough to make liberals rally to the cause. The Dems should have given us someone we didn’t have to hold our nose to vote for.
Lordy, have I agreed with Karol three times now? Frightening.
July 28th, 2004 at 8:03 pm
My beef is less with the merits of Gray Davis’s performance as governor than with the procedure of the recall. I admit I know very little about Davis’s performance, so I’m not in a position to defend him. All I can say is that, shortly after he was legitimately reelected, a recall campaign began even though nothing of particular significance had occurred since the election that would justify such a measure. In a recall election that was notable in that the turnout was substantially lower than in the general election, the democratically-elected governor was thrown out of office to be replaced by someone who was nothing if not entirely unqualified for the post. And apparently that’s not all; next up, we’re having an assault on the power of democratically elected state legislators in another “special” election.
July 28th, 2004 at 8:04 pm
But, as for the whispered sources at CHB, you’re right, that’s something the mainstream media never do. Except if the source is an Iraqi expatriate with significant ties to Iran :-).
July 28th, 2004 at 9:25 pm
“We should probably be careful about attacking people for taking antidepressants. I’d rather have Bush on ‘em than not.”
it is not attacking, just saying he is not fit to lead a country with very powerful army, and nuclear arsenal.
this is not reagan, he is not fogetting things, he just is emotionally unstable. If he was taking anti depressants he should step down this time around.
July 29th, 2004 at 1:53 pm
>>a recall campaign began even though nothing of particular significance had occurred since the election that would justify such a measure.
Yeah, except for the pesky little multibillion dollar defecit that Governor Davis misled his constituency about.
July 29th, 2004 at 2:54 pm
Well, the SF Examiner, anyway, begs to differ.
July 29th, 2004 at 3:31 pm
>>Well, the SF Examiner, anyway, begs to differ.
You sure you couldn’t find a more left-wing, Davis-friendly source?
July 29th, 2004 at 3:50 pm
Karol, your arguments are, as always, thoughtful and well-presented. You do your party credit.
July 29th, 2004 at 6:10 pm
Karol and Rick, sitting in a tree, Bl-o-g-g-i-n-g. First comes post, then comes comment, then comes Dawn with a cute little sonnet.
July 29th, 2004 at 6:15 pm
“this is not reagan, he is not fogetting things, he just is emotionally unstable.”
I think both are bad in a president. I also think that by demonizing anti-depressants, we’re just going to have people in power who should be on them avoid taking them due to the political consequenses.
Is the problem that Bush is emotionally unstable, or that he’s taking antidepressants? Rude outbursts at staffers and political paranoia are more the norm in Washington than the exception. So the “emotionally unstable” do not get kicked out just for their instability. But if they take medication to do something about that instability, a cry goes up for removal. Obvious consequence: the unstable do nothing to treat their instability and we continue to be represented by the unstable.
July 29th, 2004 at 6:27 pm
“as for the whispered sources at CHB, you’re right”
Thank you, I believe I am also.
Of course the mainstream media does use anonymous sources, and sometimes more than it ought. But it is rare (I think) to find an article based entirely on unnamed sources, especially if the subject is something as explosive as Bush’s mental instability. The CHB article didn’t have a single named source. I also didn’t like the fact that it attempted to make it look like Bush’s doctor was a source by naming him as the prescriber of the drugs, and only much later in the article does the reader find that the doctor gave no comment.
I’m not saying it isn’t true, just that I wouldn’t want an article published about me in the Washington Post based on rumours people didn’t feel strongly enough about to go on the record. And I find it VERY hard to believe that “mainstream” reporters wouldn’t sell their firstborn for a story like this if they could get someone to go on the record
July 29th, 2004 at 6:35 pm
I agree the anonymous sources is a problem; the article is sketchy at best. But I couldn’t resist a dig at the NYT over Chalabi. By the way, CHB is really stuck on this story; there’s a new article today.
July 29th, 2004 at 7:06 pm
I’m not American but I keep coming back to this blog. Why?
1) What happens in America affects the whole world.
2) I’m a little left of center and it’s good to see that not all Americans are way over there on the right.
3) Occasionaly in the middle of all the politics there are comments like Dawn’s sonnet. Hooray for a sense of humour!
Thanks D.