{"id":132,"date":"2005-12-16T08:39:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-16T08:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/?p=132"},"modified":"2005-12-16T08:39:00","modified_gmt":"2005-12-16T08:39:00","slug":"elections-what-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/?p=132","title":{"rendered":"Elections? What Elections???"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Elections%3F%20What%20Elections%3F%3F%3F\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p><a href=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/1890\/741\/1600\/logo01.gif\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/photos1.blogger.com\/blogger\/1890\/741\/400\/logo01.gif\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nWell, that didn&#8217;t take long. On another blog (<a href=\"http:\/\/austinbay.net\/blog\/?p=738#comments\">Ausitn Bay&#8217;s<\/a>, I think) I made a comment suggesting that the MSM would do their best to downplay the enormous success that was the Dec. 16th Iraqi vote. So here it is one day later and I&#8217;m looking at my soon to be former home page, MSNBC News, and here are five of the top six featured stories:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/10488458\/\">Bush Spies.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/10466982\/\">Labor Strikes.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/10490469\/\">Russian Explosions.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/10463299\/\">Ice Storm Misery.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.msnbc.msn.com\/id\/10491463\/\">Al-Zarqawi detained, freed.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>So, here we have all negative slanting features, one of coarse aimed at Bush, and there is one story in the group that deals with Iraq, and it&#8217;s about another failure. But did they remember that there was a little thing called &#8220;Free Elections&#8221; that went on yesterday in Iraq. Well, kinda. But apparently it wasn&#8217;t good news either:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/\">&#8220;Experts cautious in assessing Iraq election.<br \/>\nAnalysts: High turnout, low violence a positive step but not a turning point&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>And the &#8220;good folks&#8221; at NBC couldn&#8217;t sit down and write the story themselves. They had to import it from another newspaper. Having not yet examined the piece, I can guess that Juan Cole is mentioned in here somewhere, but lets see who is featured in the piece.<\/p>\n<p>We have Bush, Rumsfeld, and Rice accentuating the positive. No surprise there. You have Sen. Lindsay &#8220;O&#8221; Graham with a couple of tiny, for all we know taken out of context, blurbs.<\/p>\n<p>Then we have Anthony H. Cordesman, a Persian Gulf military expert at the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sourcewatch.org\/index.php?title=Center_for_Strategic_and_International_Studies\">Center for Strategic and International Studies<\/a> supposedly saying (this is not in direct quotes in the article, so I can&#8217;t say if this is exactly what he said) &#8220;the vote is not the long-awaited turning point but rather a trigger for launching a new political process next year that will include amending a constitution. That, he said, will better determine whether Iraq has a chance of emerging out of turmoil&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>And then we have &#8211; Hey! There He Is, Univ of Mich Prof <a href=\"http:\/\/www-personal.umich.edu\/~jrcole\/\">Juan Cole<\/a>, being optimistic as usual. And he gets direct quotes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The steady grind of this guerrilla war is going to go on. The elections are not relevant to it, and that&#8217;s what is going to matter to the American people,&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The elections are not relevant to it? Then why bother. That&#8217;s going to be the message. It just isn&#8217;t possible that matybe the guerrilla&#8217;s are LOSING because THEY ARE THE ONES KILLING THE INNOCENT IRAQI&#8217;S AND NOT THE U.S. OR SUPPORTERS OF DEMOCRACY!!! And have we already forgotten that the Sunnis voted en mass, finally turning their backs on Juans beloved guerrillas. I&#8217;m not going to fisk Juan here as so many have already done a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.meforum.org\/article\/789\">much<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/timblair.net\/ee\/index.php\/weblog\/correction_2\/\">better<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nationalreview.com\/goldberg\/goldberg200502070943.asp\">job<\/a> doing that than I could (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.frontpagemag.com\/Articles\/ReadArticle.asp?ID=17422\">more here<\/a>). But, come on people. Can&#8217;t we acknowledge the monumental hurdle that has just been crossed??<\/p>\n<p>Nope. Guess not.<\/p>\n<p>PS. <a href=\"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/articles\/hanson121605.html\">VDH<\/a>, the antidote for negative spin on the war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Elections%3F%20What%20Elections%3F%3F%3F\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>Well, that didn&#8217;t take long. On another blog (Ausitn Bay&#8217;s, I think) I made a comment suggesting that the MSM would do their best to downplay the enormous success that was the Dec. 16th Iraqi vote. So here it is one day later and I&#8217;m looking at my soon to be former home page, MSNBC [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}