Monkeywrenching the political process

[unixronin]

With the popular vote in the just-past election so close, one could be forgiven for wondering how much the election may have been influenced by what amounts to an elaborate practical joke.

Of course, the article points out that the perpetrators observed that the news media could easily have exposed their hoax had they put the least effort into checking their facts.  But in this last election, by all appearances the media didn't WANT to check their facts, as long as the report involved something damaging to the McCain-Palin campaign.  Can you imagine the witch-hunt had Eitan Gorlin and Dan Mirvish chosen Barack Obama as their target?  Ah, but wait, we don't have to imagine — we have the persecution of Joe the Plumber as an example.

When I consider how one-sided the reporting of this past election campaign was, and yet how close the popular vote was, I find it hard to avoid speculating that in this Presidential election, the people of the United States did not elect Barack Obama; the news media did.

Comments

[smandal.livejournal.com]

Let me tidy up a bit of reasoning: if I all consume are MSM news sources, how do I know that the MSM isn't biased?

I cannot be absolutely certain, of course, but it's more believable that Obama-Biden have in fact been properly vetted rather than National Review and Fox being in on a vast conspiracy to elect the Democrats.

However, this still leaves room for indie media to say something useful by directing investigative resources towards issues that the MSM thinks are non-stories. It's a question of whether or not what they come up with passes any kind of muster.

[unix-jedi.livejournal.com]

I cannot be absolutely certain, of course, but it's more believable

When you're rejecting facts in favor of "probabilities" (thus throwing immense doubt on your ability to judge probabilities), I think I should merely quote my friend pdb (http://papadeltabravo.com/blog), with his take on your position, from early yesterday:

"I am uncomfortable with your facts disagreeing with my preconceptions!"

[smandal.livejournal.com]

As I describe in the other post, your "facts" are just your own mistaken analysis. Of course I reject them.