jerseyhoya wrote:

Disco Stu wrote:I think it is inbred. Seriosuly. All those reporter parents must brainwash their children into being raving leftwing loonies.

What I find funny is the conservative talking point that left of right is considered left. Most of these guys aren't left. Left is socialism. They are pretty much right down the middle.

Left of center is and should be considered left. I know it's a tough concept to wrap your head around. It wouldn't count as left in France, but seeing as we don't live in France, I don't care.

And journalism is a self selecting field, and for whatever reason it tends to draw more liberals than conservatives.

The media bias question will never be answered satisfactorily for anyone, because our political beliefs specifically inform our worldview, and the facts that form the basis of that worldview. Anything factual that contradicts pre-conceived notions is deemed to have come from a biased viewpoint.

Disco Stu wrote:That's like Stalin calling Ralph Nader a right wing conservative. It is't a moving scale based on locality.

Consider the shining irony of our callow conservative's unqualifiedly relativist position on this matter, Stu.

Should bring a smile to your face

we need a drsmooth/flightrisk monkey knife fight

pacino wrote:we need a drsmooth/flightrisk monkey knife fight

sure, my gizzard on a plate inside 15 seconds

that's just what you'd ALL like

drsmooth wrote:

Disco Stu wrote:That's like Stalin calling Ralph Nader a right wing conservative. It is't a moving scale based on locality.

Consider the shining irony of our callow conservative's unqualifiedly relativist position on this matter, Stu.

Should bring a smile to your face

I am sure it would if I understood what you wrote.

drsmooth wrote:

Disco Stu wrote:That's like Stalin calling Ralph Nader a right wing conservative. It is't a moving scale based on locality.

Consider the shining irony of our callow conservative's unqualifiedly relativist position on this matter, Stu.

Should bring a smile to your face

It's crazy how relativist I am to think the American political spectrum is the most pertinent thing to consider when discussing bias by the American media in covering American politics.

jerseyhoya wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

Disco Stu wrote:That's like Stalin calling Ralph Nader a right wing conservative. It is't a moving scale based on locality.

Consider the shining irony of our callow conservative's unqualifiedly relativist position on this matter, Stu.

Should bring a smile to your face

It's crazy how relativist I am to think the American political spectrum is the most pertinent thing to consider when discussing bias by the American media in covering American politics.

Doesn't mean it is right. Like I said before, if you had Stalin and Nadar in a room, Nadar would be far right. Everyone wants to redefire what left is in order to make right appear to be closer to center. It isn't despite what the "American political spectrum" is.

Well, to clarify, there are two ways you can be left and/or right: socially and economically. That's why on most of those fun political surveys, they use a graph with an X and a Y axis to plot where you fall on the political spectrum.

jerseyhoya wrote:

drsmooth wrote:

Disco Stu wrote:That's like Stalin calling Ralph Nader a right wing conservative. It is't a moving scale based on locality.

Consider the shining irony of our callow conservative's unqualifiedly relativist position on this matter, Stu.

Should bring a smile to your face

It's crazy how relativist I am to think the American political spectrum is the most pertinent thing to consider when discussing bias by the American media in covering American politics.

problem: judging from a scan of your previous posts, your grasp of the american political spectrum is assembled from 1) stuff you glean from media sources 2) some poli sci guts in your college days 3) the wisdom of state and/or local-level political hacks, and 4) some working experience in the realm of 3).

That "spectrum" runs the gamut from a to b.

But even accepting such a truncated spectrum, the difficulty is with a 'moving target' definition of conservative (or liberal, for that matter).

The irony, y'see, is that only someone who regards 'conservative' as a relatively cartoonish label - "That Which I Regard as Not-Liberal", for example - would be fine with a "relativist" definition of the attitude/belief/philosophy, whether for the purpose of considering media bias against 'conservatives' or any other thing.

And if you insist on that sort of relativism, you're admitting any analysis you produce is merely an exercise in solipsism, a process of rationalizing rather than reasoning.

In other words, what Stu said.

Aren't the terms "left" and "right" inherently relative?

If poli sci classes, the media and people who work in politics aren't good sources for coming up with the make up of the political spectrum, what are? You and Stu?

I don't really understand what you said in the second part. I was always a lot better at math than English. I'm not so much with the words.

Conservative probably has a million definitions. I'm not sure that any of them are "That Which I Regard as Not-Liberal." I'd probably say it's someone who believes in free markets more than government, peace through strength, and the family is the most important unit in society. I just made that up, so I might be leaving something important out, but I've wasted enough time on this argument today, and I kinda like that one.

I agree with what Bakestar said a few hours ago, I guess. Everyone likes to hear stuff that reconfirms their worldview, and if something contradicts what you think, it's easy to just say the people saying otherwise are biased. It's not just politics. We like having people on ESPN talk nice about the Phillies, and get all up in a huff when they ignore something dumb about the team. Yell about a New York bias or people hating on Philly or some other such thing.

Edit: It doesn't mean a liberal bias in the media doesn't exist, it's just I'm not gonna get anywhere arguing about it with you all since I'm not exactly coming from a neutral point of view, and neither are most of you.

Alter ego's Phillies/ESPN analogy is unintentionally revealing.

The problem right now with American "conservatism" is that it's been defined in the culture as "agrees with the Bush administration." Hence the quotes around the word--and why a pseudo-conservative buttmunch like Limbaugh has such a problem with John McCain.

Conservatism as I understand is an ideology of fixed principles, probably far more than liberalism which is more defined by its goals than its practices, at least in the modern-American sense of the word. Fiscal discipline, respect for precedents, healthy skepticism as to what government can accomplish*--that sort of thing. McCain at least occasionally has put those principles over party loyalty, as you might expect from a Barry Goldwater disciple.

Bush of course has crapped on those same principles, which is why people like Bruce Bartlett and Andrew Sullivan view him with such contempt. That endless deficits, an ideologically motivated judiciary, torture, and nation-building in Iraq are now the non-negotiable tenets of the faith suggests that something has gone horribly awry.

I think jerseyhoya is a smart guy and I enjoy his posts here (though the Rather/TANG thing pissed me off for the reason Monkeyboy notes: just because Rather's biased** didn't mean the story wasn't factually correct; it was). But--and I think he's implicitly conceded as much--he roots for the Republicans in way similar to how he roots for the Phillies. It's not exactly the same (e.g. he cites the Republicans' greater embrace of unregulated markets, which is principle of a sort), but it's fairly close.

*I grant that I might emphasize these tenets of conservatism because they're the ones I find most appealing. See, we are all really biased...

**Wasn't it Rather who, after 9/11, referred to Bush as "my president" and pledged to basically wipe the guy's rear if the Commander in Chief asked it of him? I'm not sure it's so much that Rather's a biased libburl as that he's simply not a well man.

jerseyhoya wrote:If poli sci classes, the media and people who work in politics aren't good sources for coming up with the make up of the political spectrum, what are? You and Stu?

they're fine sources. They're far from the definitive sources.

I think it's fair to say I root for the Republicans like I root for the Phillies. Maybe not with the same blind loyalty but close, and the foundations of how I came to be a Phillies fan are different than becoming a Republican. Geography had more to do with the former, my dad and uncle had more to do with the later.

I agree with the majority of the GOP platform. It's not like I just decided to be a Republican for fun and then melded my beliefs to fit a checklist. But I'm not exactly the most principled person in the world when it comes to the whole politics thing. I'm all for the McCain-Kennedy guest workers/path to citizenship/amnesty thing, but I help make ads blasting it seemingly on a weekly basis.

I have no idea where I'm going with this comment, so in closing I will note that I hope many women across America today get out and vote for Hillary Clinton because they're outraged that David Schuster said the Clintons were pimping out their daughter. A campaign about nothing deserves to turn on something as trivial as that.

Huckabee won the Kansas caucuses.

Party not yet ready to unite. Poop.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/paul-concedes-race-sort-of/

On the bright side, Paul is sort of realizing he won't be the nominee.

jerseyhoya wrote:A campaign about nothing deserves to turn on something as trivial as that.

When I first read this sentence I started feeling indignation: if the Democratic campaign is "about nothing," what's the Republican one about, and just because the Democrats largely agree on what is to be done, that doesn't mean that they aren't talking about those things.

But probably a better counter than getting annoyed is that the distinction among the Dems is more about what Mark Schmitt (one of our smarter pundit-philosopher types) calls the "theory of change primary" and what Ezra Klein refers to as "Manager or Visionary."

I'd add that another way to characterize the choice is whether Democrats prefer trench warfare (Clinton) or more adventurous, higher risk/higher reward electoral and policy-making tactics.

dajafi wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:A campaign about nothing deserves to turn on something as trivial as that.

When I first read this sentence I started feeling indignation: if the Democratic campaign is "about nothing," what's the Republican one about, and just because the Democrats largely agree on what is to be done, that doesn't mean that they aren't talking about those things.

But probably a better counter than getting annoyed is that the distinction among the Dems is more about what Mark Schmitt (one of our smarter pundit-philosopher types) calls the "theory of change primary" and what Ezra Klein refers to as "Manager or Visionary."

I'd add that another way to characterize the choice is whether Democrats prefer trench warfare (Clinton) or more adventurous, higher risk/higher reward electoral and policy-making tactics.

It's about tactics more than issues. Saying it's about nothing was snide, but it's not exactly a battle for the heart and soul of the party (issue wise) like the GOP nomination was for a while. Now, I'm not sure what the GOP nomination ended up being a fight over towards the end after Fred and Rudy were out...who is least distasteful? I'd rather fight about nothing.

Bah, at least I'm done working for the day. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

jerseyhoya wrote:If poli sci classes, the media and people who work in politics aren't good sources for coming up with the make up of the political spectrum, what are? You and Stu?

What did I make up? How would you draw a simple line with conservative on one side and liberal on the other. I understand these are terms without definition, but we have pretty good estimates.

Left----------------------------Center-------------------------------Right

Am I far left? Does that mean that nobody could be further lef than me? Like I said before, communism and socialism are probably as far left as you can go. Those are markets completely controlled by the government. Ron Paul is as far right as you can go (presuming there is a government after all) on the economic side. On the social side, control by religion is about as far right as you can go. On the left side I am presuming that social libertarian is as far left as you can go.

I am certainly left of center, but I am a lot closer to center than you are. The media is closer to center than either of us are and I am willing to say that they lean conservative. Just because they disagree with you doesn't make them far left.

jerseyhoya wrote:It's about tactics more than issues. Saying it's about nothing was snide, but it's not exactly a battle for the heart and soul of the party (issue wise) like the GOP nomination was for a while.

This is probably fair. It's ironic that the Democrats seem to be pretty unified on the issues, but divided by the candidates and a boatload of demographic identifiers (age, gender, race, education, income level).

I'm not sure what the "heart and soul" battle on the Republican side was, unless you see it as "everyone against Ron Paul." And I did like that Thompson stood up for federalism--figuratively speaking, of course. Fred didn't like to exert himself.

The rest of them are/were all for the major tenets of Bushism as I defined it above, with the exception of torture where McCain and I think Huckabee took the other position. I guess immigration was kind of a dividing line, but there too you had the nutzos (Hunter, Tancredo), the hypocritical opportunists (Romney and Rudy), and the relative moderates who blurred or switched their positions enough to more or less neutralize a bad issue (McCain and Huck, again). That's my take, anyway.

jerseyhoya wrote:Huckabee won the Kansas caucuses.

Party not yet ready to unite. Poop.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/paul-concedes-race-sort-of/

On the bright side, Paul is sort of realizing he won't be the nominee.

Surprising but not shocking development. Kansas is fairly conservative, although McCain won two neighboring states. McCain hasn't won a caucus yet, partially due to a less developed field organization than his rivals. He's won 12 of 19 primaries, however, and is way ahead in the polls for Tuesday's states. The Louisiana primary today could go either way and if there's a caucus McCain can win now that Romney is out it's Washington state.