Gyroscope

A newsletter for those unmoved by spin.
No. 49, October 11, 2004

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After the first presidential debate, CBS reported on a survey they had done of undecided voters. Given keypads these voters picked which answer they liked in real time and voted their preference at the end. The result was time and again a preference for Kerry. After the report by a junior corespondent, the more senior "commentators" dismissed their own organization's rather interesting experiment as not representative and of little significance. They then went on to discuss how equal they thought the debate was as both candidates had done well. Only days later did the overwhelming evidence of a Kerry victory require organizations to admit that he'd won and that Bush had just been unprepared..

During the vice-presidential debate, Cheney uncorked his line about how he'd never met Edwards before. This was widely cited by the media as a devastating put-down. The elder statesman Cheney brushing off the junior punk. But the line wasn't true and within hours photos of the two meeting three years ago surfaced. Those photos were fairly widely published, but in two cases I saw, without any text to make the connection to the false claim Cheney had made.

Daily Howler has documented just how one-sided the commentary on the vice-presidential debate has been. Here, a debate with more surface equality could be spun as a huge victory for Cheney whereas the one-sided victory of Kerry in the first debate could only be spun as a tie.

But however equal the surface appearance of the vice-presidential debate, the long journey into fantasy land by Cheney has gone unremarked. Afghanistan is not a success story but an emerging disaster, as I've described before. And that all 15 opposition candidates boycotting still hasn't dented Cheney's image, especially with the press spinning the election as a resounding success.

Nor was Cheney's utterly amazing presentation of the El Salvador government as a model of a democratic society challenged. This was the government, after all, whose semiofficial agents murdered four American nuns, whose American-trained and advised troops killed six priests and whose human rights abuses were so egregious that the current president's father was actually sent by that great defender of liberty, Ronald Reagan, to tell them to cool the death squads.

Cheney is a man with a long record of stupid decision making who has managed in life to attach himself to powerful people and 'fail upward.' Despite revealing gaffs like opposing a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela from jail Cheney's image in the media as a wise, knowledgeable and judicious source continues without serious contradiction.

Bush and Cheney continue to get a serious hearing in the media for their loony theory that things are progressing well in the war on terror. While contrary evidence leaks out all over (note this example from the Institute of Policy Studies -- described below -- that shows just how big the mess is) Bush and Cheney are not really on the defensive in the media over Iraq.

What are we to make of all this? The standard answer is that the media is owned by wealthy, conservatives and is constituted by large corporations. That ownership perspective is then reflected in all that is shown as news. Add to this the total breakdown of the journalism model of reporting in favor of the entertainment model (perhaps itself caused by the growing corporate concentration of media) and what you have left is the "bread and circuses" model. The media as opiate for the masses to keep them from asking too many questions.

Just imagine the media reaction if it was Clinton in office now. Do you, for one second, think that the media wouldn't be hounding Clinton for what he was going to do to fix the mess in Iraq, examining minutely every tick of uncertainty and speculating openly about private sexual issues that might be affecting government policy?

Let's take the blinders off: it isn't the case that we have a lovable, goofy mass media that just has a little problem with perspective. The media is actively campaigning for Bush.

The fix is in.

The Institute of Policy Studies has recently published "A Failed 'Transition': The Mounting Costs of the Iraq War." Since they invite you to copy and distribute their one page summary, let me copy here some of their evidence and conclusions. (The editing and presentation of their conclusions is my responsibility).

Some 750 American are wounded or killed each month since the transition on June 30th. The media focuses on the 1,050 deaths overall, but the full casualty picture is much worse.

The estimated size of the resistance is increasing. The Pentagon said in November 2003 that there were 5,000 insurgents, their estimate for September 2004 is 20,000. Others put the estimate at 40 to 50 thousand. This despite killing or arresting perhaps 24,000 insurgents over roughly the same period.

Between 12,000 and 14,00 Iraqi civilian non-combanttans have been killed and 40,000 injured by U.S. and coalition forces.

80% of Iraqi's believe that U.S. forces should withdraw immediately.

Unemployment in Iraq hit 60% last summer.

Eight countries have withdrawn from the U.S. Coalition.

The heavy use of National Guard troops, many of whom have "first responder" jobs in the U.S., has put a strain on many cities.

Some 20,000 civilian private contractors are in Iraq now, many doing traditional military jobs.

The U.S. has appropriated $150 billion for the war with one economist estimating the war will cost each American family over $3,000 by the time it is done.