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Times Watch for
October 21, 2004
Stanley Gives "Stolen Honor" a Hearing
TV critic Alessandra Stanley has never been especially friendly to conservative causes, so it's somewhat surprising that her review of the anti-Kerry documentary "Stolen Honor" isn't, in fact, totally negative.
Not that it's exactly favorable. In the review, headlined, "An Outpouring of Pain, Channeled Via Politics," she argues: "This histrionic, often specious and deeply sad film does not do much more damage to Senator John Kerry's reputation than have the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's negative ads, which have flooded television markets in almost every swing state. But it does help viewers better understand the rage fueling the unhappy band of brothers who oppose Mr. Kerry's candidacy and his claim to heroism."
Stanley at least engages the points raised by the film: "What is most enlightening about this film is not the depiction of Mr. Kerry as a traitor; it is the testimony of the former P.O.W.'s describing the torture they endured in captivity and the shock they felt when celebrities like Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden visited their prisons in North Vietnam and sided with the enemy….This film is payback time, a chance to punish one of the most famous antiwar activists, Mr. Kerry, the one who got credit for serving with distinction in combat, then, through the eyes of the veterans in this film, went home to discredit the men left behind."
She concludes: "The film shows lesser-known young, long-haired antiwar activists preparing witnesses to testify to war crimes. In the film these men seem to be prompting a fellow veteran to describe a massacre he did not witness. But one of the veterans, Kenneth J. Campbell, a decorated marine who is now a professor at the University of Delaware, recently sued the filmmakers, claiming the film was edited to take out clips in which Mr. Campbell made clear that only soldiers who witnessed the atrocities firsthand would be allowed to testify. Those kinds of distortions are intended to hurt Mr. Kerry at the polls. Instead, they mainly distract viewers from the real subject of the film: the veterans' unheeded feelings of betrayal and neglect."
In a related story on Thursday, media reporter Bill Carter notes that, under intense pressure from the Kerry campaign and others, Sinclair Broadcast Group has apparently reduced how much of "Stolen Honor" it will actually show Friday night. The story's cut-out line: "A TV company fails to sway critics who see a political agenda."
Carter argues: "The company, whose top executives have been among the biggest contributors to the Republican Party, had been criticized by shareholders for putting the company's partisan views ahead of business interests."
The story could have used some context, such as how executives at far more influential media outlets typically favor Kerry and Democrats.
For the rest of Carter on Sinclair, click here.
For Stanley's review in full, click here.
• Bill Carter | Sen. John Kerry | Sinclair Broadcast Group | Alessandra Stanley | "Stolen Honor" | Television | Vietnam
"Why Taxes Have to Go Up"
Give the Times credit for laying it on the line. The headline to Thursday's lead editorial couldn't put the paper's political agenda any plainer: "Why Taxes Have to Go Up."
The paper argues: "President Bush is fixated on making his ill-conceived tax cuts permanent and creating new tax shelters for affluent investors. Senator John Kerry's tax agenda raises money for the government by repealing Mr. Bush's tax cuts for high-income earners, an idea we applaud."
The enthusiastic tax-hikers at the Times turns out to have many wonderful ideas: "A substantial amount of revenue can -- and should -- be raised by reversing Mr. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy, generally defined as the top 2 percent of taxpayers, as well as by retaining and reforming the estate tax. But that won't be enough to make real progress, especially if, as Mr. Kerry proposes, the money is used to provide health insurance and other benefits. Thus, a serious attempt to tame the deficit must put on the table the option of reversing the Bush tax-rate cuts further down the income ladder. If the pre-Bush tax rates were restored for the top 25 percent of taxpayers, a vast majority of filers -- in the 15 percent tax bracket and below -- would still be shielded from an increased burden. The next president and Congress should also raise money from alternative sources so income taxes and spending cuts are not the only way to reduce the deficit. A good place to start would be an increased federal gasoline tax and a new tax on industrial carbon emissions, greenhouse gases that lead to global warming. Each tax change would pull triple duty by raising revenue, reducing dependence on foreign oil and helping the environment."
For the full editorial on taxes, click here.
• George W. Bush | Campaign 2004 | Editorial | Environment | Taxes
New Respect for Pat Robertson
How can an evangelical conservative get a respectful hearing in the New York Times? Just criticize Bush.
David Kirkpatrick's story Thursday, "Robertson Says Bush Predicted No Iraq Toll," is based on comments the religious broadcaster made on CNN: "The evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson has set off a partisan fight by telling a television interviewer that President Bush serenely assured him just before the invasion of Iraq, 'Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties.' Mr. Robertson, offering that account in an interview televised Tuesday night on CNN, said Mr. Bush made the comment when they met in Nashville in early 2003. At that meeting, he said, he warned the president to prepare the public for casualties. Mr. Robertson, a former marine who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 1988, said that he had had 'deep misgivings' about the war. But, he said, closely paraphrasing Mark Twain, the president looked 'like a contented Christian with four aces.'" Kirkpatrick adds that the Bush camp categorically denies the remarks.
Kirkpatrick does note later: "Sometime political and theological allies of Mr. Robertson quickly dismissed his account. 'I think he speaks for an ever diminishing group of evangelicals on most issues,' said Dr. Richard Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. Mr. Robertson, who has frequently recounted what he says God has told him on matters of public interest, is out of step with most evangelicals in his doubts about the war, Dr. Land said….Pollsters say Mr. Robertson's views of the war are a mirror of a growing skepticism among evangelical Protestants about the invasion of Iraq, though they still support both the invasion and the president much more strongly than do other groups."
The apparently unsarcastic caption under Robertson's photo reads: "Pat Robertson says God told him the Iraq war would be 'a disaster.'"
For the rest of Kirkpatrick's story on Robertson, click here.
• George W. Bush | Campaign 2004 | Iraq War | David Kirkpatrick | Pat Robertson
"Soldiers…Show Quiet Support for Kerry, Too."
Rick Lyman reports from Baghdad on how troops feel about the election for "From Troops More Attuned to Bullets Than Ballots, a Few Votes for a Quick Way Home."
Lyman notes Thursday: "Despite the risks, United States combatants in Iraq are largely supportive of Mr. Bush, if interviews with about 40 soldiers stationed in Baghdad and in several provincial towns to the north are anything near representative. But in the discussions, in heavily fortified bases in Baquba, Balad and Tikrit, and in the midst of a three-day battle for control of Samarra, there was also widespread pessimism about the war, and about how long American troops will be needed here, though it was mixed with a deep desire that the war be seen as noble and justified."
Lyman, embedded with troops, argues: "Yet some soldiers said they felt uncomfortable expressing criticism of their commander in chief or expressing a preference for Senator John Kerry, Mr. Bush's Democratic challenger, particularly because the military is, and has been for decades, predominantly Republican. Others said they believed that Mr. Kerry would fare better among the troops than a Democrat normally might, a reflection of the growing sense among soldiers that there is no end in sight to the conflict here. Nevertheless, when asked who was to blame for what many saw as a deteriorating situation, soldiers were much more likely to cite Iraqi civilians or restrictive rules of engagement than Mr. Bush's policies."
Deep in the story, the Times finally turns to recent polling data showing that among soldiers and their families it's not really much of a contest at all: "A poll of active-duty soldiers and their families by the National Annenberg Election Survey in early October found a clear preference for the president, with 69 percent placing greater trust in Mr. Bush as commander in chief and 24 percent favoring Mr. Kerry. Of those surveyed, 43 percent identified themselves as Republican, 27 percent as independent and 19 percent as Democratic. A recent survey of the 31,000 subscribers to the monthly publications Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Times and Air Force Times showed the president trouncing Mr. Kerry, 73 percent to 18 percent. The survey was unscientific. Subscribers, who tend to be older and higher-ranking than the average soldier, were sent an e-mail message and asked to respond, and 4,165 did so. It is, nevertheless, a large margin. And it was borne out by the interviews of soldiers in Iraq, creating a climate in which some Kerry supporters said they felt uncomfortable voicing their preference too loudly."
Those figures prove the story's split-the-difference cut-out line rather misleading: "In talking politics, soldiers salute Bush, but show quiet support for Kerry, too." Very quiet support, judging by the surveys showing Bush up by 3-1.
For the rest of Lyman on soldiers voting preferences, click here.
• George W. Bush | Campaign 2004 | Iraq War | Sen. John Kerry | Rick Lyman | Soldiers
Sanger Frames Bush's Foreign Policy Message
Thursday's front-page story by David Sanger boils down Bush's foreign policy message on the campaign trail and frames Bush's standard speech as an attempt to change the subject: "It is artfully crafted to get his audiences to look beyond the daily headlines of beheadings and suicide bombers, of an insurgency that has defied American military might, and to focus Americans' attention on the fact that Afghans have just gone to the polls and that Iraqis are trying to do the same….Mr. Kerry and many of the president's other critics argue that his embrace of American-led democratization -- replete with a warm reference to Harry S. Truman, the president who initiated the reconstruction of Europe and Japan -- amounts to little more than an ex post facto justification of the war."
Sanger summarizes the same arguments against Bush that he's been making for the past year: "Critics argue that Mr. Bush's speech glosses over all the mistakes of the last 18 months that have made it more difficult for reformers in the region to sow the seeds of change. And it is certainly jarring to anyone who heard Mr. Bush argue during the 2000 campaign that it was time to get the American military out of the nation-building business, only to run for re-election in 2004 as a passionate proselytizer for using American power to remake one of the most undemocratic corners of the world. Yet Mr. Bush's vision seems to strike a chord with his crowds."
For the rest of Sanger, click here.
• George W. Bush | Campaign 2004 | Iraq War | David Sanger
E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org