simon666 
michael moore actually being right. this news guy is a turd. i'd encourage everyone who thinks otherwise to watch the 3 part Frontline documentary series "News War". Partictularly Chapter 1, Part 2
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/view/
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Xenocide
Could the media have done a better job? Defiantly. Would the war have happened anyway even if they had? Also defiantly. When has this president ever cared what the media, or the public, or anyone thinks of what he's doing? The media could have been more responsible in the runup to the war but it's not like they were instrumental in making it happen.
Page one of the New York Times could have read "BRAVE REPORTER FINDS INCONTESTABLE PROOF THAT THERE ARE NO WMD'S IN IRAQ," complete with photos of Bush personally falsifying intelligence reports with a magic marker, and not only would the war have happened as planned, that "brave reporter" would probably have been strung up by the post-9/11 public.
Maybe with any other administration Moore would have a bit of a point, but to sit there and go "HURF DURF IT'S HARD FOR ME TO EVEN SIT HERE WITH YOU PEOPLE WHO HELPED KILL 3500 AMERICANS," is just ludicrous grandstanding. He's taking it out on them because he knows he's never going to get an audiance with the people who are really responsible. The media were tools in the runup to the war, but so was the entire goddamn country. And they've actually done a fairly good job of not letting Bush get away with too much since this blew up in their faces.
I like Moore's movies, but he's being an idiot here.
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SolRo Well if the media did a better job on reporting Iraq, there is a good chance that bush would have lost in '04...and right now we'd be bitching about how boring Kerry is, instead of how bush's stupidity keeps getting people killed.
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Merzbau DEFINITELY, the word is DEFINITELY
AAGH
I otherwise agree, though.
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Hooker No, I'm pretty sure he's saying they could have defiantly done a better job, and that Bush would defiantly have gone to war anyway.
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Xenocide See? Hooker gets it. Firefox spellcheck creates its own meanings, which are always more valid than the intended ones. Always.
SolRo: While the Kerry argument holds a little more water, there's nothing the media could have done to make John Kerry win the "who would you rather have a beer with" contest which a terrifying number of our nation's voters consider to be of paramount importance. You simply do not win elections with candidates who have the charisma of an aging high school guidance counselor. Even when those candidates are more qualified in every possible way.
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SolRo no, the election was very, VERY close, and if it was known then how bad Iraq realy was, then it's almost certain that Kerry would have won.
The unelectable argument is crap...the election wasn't the one-sided landslide bush liked to tout it as.
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futurebot If Kerry won the election, most of the American "left" would be sighing about how YEAH THIS IS A BAD WAR BUSH GOT US INTO BUT KERRY'S DOING THE BEST HE CAN, and that would probably be the only substantial difference.
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Xenocide Food: The thing is that even if you strip away the "From Texas" thing, Bush still has a dopey way about him that some people find charming. Kerry was a stiff. There is nothing the media could have done to make him charismatic. Maybe they could have made him seem more qualified, but the "overqualified academic" thing was part of his image problem, as ridiculous as it is to consider that a liability. Bush's handlers simply ran a better campaign.
To say nothing of the various blunders Kerry made without the media's help, such as ignoring the swift boat scumbags for more than a month instead of immediately firing back. Several media outlets did take the swiftboaters to task for their lack of accuracy, by the way.
Anyway, we're getting kind of off-topic. By the time of the election the war was already in full swing and tens of thousands had already died. MAYBE the media could have done more to elect Kerry, but they could not have stopped the war. Moore is still being a tard.
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zerosnones Xenocite: I think you're "grandstanding" with your position and comments. So please for all our sake now...stfu...thank you.
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Xenocide Xenocite is a red mineral found only on alien planets. If I ever encounter it I will be sure to tell it to ess tee eff yew.
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Smellvin
Your mouth says, "The media is complicit in our Iraqi adventure" but all I hear is, "Where's my burrito?! Where's my burrito?!"
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Caminante Nocturno
Moore and people like him are largely responsible for lowering the standard of national discourse to the point where Bush sounded reasonable to many people.
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Cap'n Profan!ty Can't let that one pass. How did Moore do that? Others, sure. Moore didn't get to Limbaugh levels of shrill until F9/11.
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onemorepanic
Gonna let Rufus sing the song, cuz I can't prolong the key like he can..
http://www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=17503
Used to be Gun-ho along with this bean bag, now it's an ocean of shrugs. And i'm surrounded by tiny fat kids who are trying to punch my balls.
And I like my balls...
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voodoo_pork
The weird and ironic thing is, both of the men are right. The media did NOT ask the appropriate questions for Gulf War II: The Revenge. They rolled over for Bush, plain and simple.
But it is equally unfair to minimize the bravery that most news reporters when they travel to war zones. It's a slippery slope, but I think it's an important dialogue that is not happening, even after 4 years of war and bloodshed.
Moore's central point is that MSM is very willing to repeat a party line. Being commercial media, they are defacto slaves to sponsors and management. Due to this moral flexibility, they have lax standards when it comes to standing up to a well-oiled propaganda machine like Bush II. Any presidential administration can go live on TV anytime they want. They don't need any extra help getting their voice heard. MSM wants to tell enough truth to be appearing credible, but not enough to actually make a difference. That's sad.
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Frank Rizzo
When will this fat turd have an infarction and die already?
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Hooker
Anyway, I'm pretty liberal (I'm Canadian and I routinely vote either NDP or lobbyist, for example), but Moore isn't really doing anything more than puppeting what other people want him to say while simultaneously promoting a movie which I, for one, heard about for the first time three days ago. I don't for a second think he's the left-equivalent of Limbaugh or Coulter; that's just conservatives trying to make it seem like they're not the only self-righteous bigots out there. But Moore doesn't want for hollowness.
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Hooker That's a +1 for going after Good Morning America, by the way.
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kingarthur
If you look past the obvious attempts at slander and defamation directed at Moore, not to mention that he's no longer indie enough for this crowd and is overexposed, I think you can understand the point of what he's saying. So, just close your eyes and..i dunno...imagine some husky-voiced Brit telling you this instead of a fat guy from Michigan.
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Sudan no1 and you lisp too much for my taste, Frankie.
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Stopheles
"Those men and women PUT THEMSELVES IN DANGER because they wanted Americans back home to know what was going on in Iraq"
to which the obvious followup question (and I wish Moore had thought of it) would be: "then why didn't they show Americans back home what WAS going on in Iraq?"
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Chet
Moore is right. And it is less about who went to iraq and reported, but the questions not asked of the president here at home. The idiot interviewer is doing the same shit bush pulled, you can't question me because people are risking their lives. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.
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