The Daily Howler makes an outrageous suggestion

[Karmadillo]

Be wary of single-source stories and ancient memories? Even when they make the Indumbent look bad? What could he be thinking? Anyway, my dog says Bush propositioned him at Petsmart a week or two ago. Swears it's the truth. Dog's available for interviews if anyone is interested.

Seriously though, the kind of media Somerby wants is long gone (if, indeed, it ever existed). It's going to be crap, crap, and more crap from here on out when it comes to the corporate media.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh091504.shtml

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SIEMASZKO (9/10/04): President Bush’s former Harvard Business School prof says his ex-student supported the Vietnam War but wanted somebody else to fight it.

Yoshi Tsurumi said yesterday that Bush told him his father's connections got him into the Texas Air National Guard.

"But what really disturbed me is that he said he was for the Vietnam War," said Tsurumi, who has also taught at Baruch College and the City University of New York. "I said, 'George, that's hypocrisy. You won't fight a war that you support but you expect other people to fight it for you.' He just smirked."

He just smirked! We don’t know if Tsurumi knows business. But he surely does know every spin-point.

In a word, Kristof’s column is embarrassing. By now, a great deal is known about Bush’s Guard record. (Indeed, some unflattering new facts have just become known about the months before Bush fled to Bama.) But did Bush really make these statements to Tsurumi? We don’t have the slightest idea, and neither, we’d have to think, does Kristof. But so what? Increasingly, we’re developing a political culture in which we simply repeat those tales we find pleasing. There’s a reason scribes should avoid single sources—and there’s a reason scribes should avoid ancient memories. (Scribes should also be wary of perfect stories.) Tsurumi’s story could be true. But Kristof seems to have little way of knowing. He should try an old favorite—real knowledge.

[shaolinmonkey]

1. What about the SwiftBoat guys? Were any of them even on Kerry's boat?

Every shill in corporate media land ate that up. Unreal. This is unfuckingbelievable.

[Artemis Bunyon]

2. That's simply the soup we're in. If we don't swim, we drown.

What should be done by journalists of conscience (and, yes, partisans on our side) when confronted by a massive media aparatus that fails to play by the rules? Keep playing by the rules and hope to be respected for it?

[WiseMen]

3. Yoshi Tsurumi View on Bush go back to 2000. Not new. Could be personal

campaign. But why blame Kristof.

By the way. Tsurumi is, I believe, one of the old sources of the
"smirky" theme.

[cheshire]

4. Media whores for George say stick fingers in ears and say"LALALALALA"

When they don't want to hear the truth.

[gratuitous]

5. Part of what makes the Howler so indispensable -- at least for me

Kristof's column is indeed codswallop, and it's embarrassing that the self-styled Newspaper of Record would publish such stuff. The same goes for MoDo's column over the weekend (the one with Bush starring in a Western and Kerry in an Eastern). I care little if it's good or bad for someone I don't like; a supposedly "reputable" media outlet like the New York Times should do better.

And Somerby is not afraid to point out the more egregious examples, even when they "favor" our side. In reality, Kristof's lame column does us no service, as it's so easily dismissed on the very basis Somerby describes.

[BootinUp]

6. The question is

Do we, the left side of the political spectrum, just disarm ourselves? Believe me, I agree with the ideal of higher standards of journalism, but it takes both sides to fix the problem.