This seems to be the big "still for Bush" argument.

[leftyladyfrommo]

The low polls are all due to media bias. I guess they only report the bad stuff.

That seems to be the one main argument from my Republican friends.

I wish I was good at arguing but I'm not. All I can do is shake my head. And hope that this country doesn't completely go South in the mean time.

I'm serious. I think we may be seeing the end of the middle class. We are all just going to be poor and barely scraping by. And the wealthy people will just kind of live in their own world.

[Virginia Dare]

1. Yep, that's pretty much where we're headed...

I see three classes on the horizon, those who are served, those who serve, and the permanent underclass, pretty much like Victorian England was.

[leftyladyfrommo]

2. Don't you find that scary?

Pretty soon we won't need illegal Mexicans to do our menial work. Our old people will all need those jobs.

[Cyrano]

3. Yesterday, some idiot congressman suggested that we use

convicts to do all the menial jobs. (Heard it on the car radio and don't remember the moron's name.)

[leftyladyfrommo]

4. That would be safe for our children, don't you think?

I am getting old but I just cannot remember a time when things were so screwed up. All over.

I'm wondering if I will have to go live in another country so that I can survive my retirement. I probably will have to go to Mexico.

Wouldn't that be ironic> All of our senior citizens immigrating there and all their young workers immigrating here.

[neoblues]

6. They were already doing that in New Orleans...

Don't see any meaning there... but I remember thinking how somehow contradictory it was to be looking at and enjoying a massive display of Christmas lights after having watched crews of convicts working to put them up.

[Virginia Dare]

13. I think Rohrabacher from California said something to that...

effect recently. Seemed like a boldly "Stalin-like" statement to me, but what do I know, I'm just a leftist commie pinko.

edited for spelling

[Virginia Dare]

14. Yes, I find it very worrisome to say the least...n/t

[warrens]

15. like Victorian England was.

The Republican dream. A permanent underclass to fill their factories and raise their children and fight their wars.

[WinkyDink]

19. "[F]actories"? Would that we still had any.

We need workers for our permanent world-wide military bases.

[tenshi816]

21. I'm thinking that the Neocons

want soldiers for our permanent world-wide military bases. If they're successful in creating a huge underclass, there will be more and more young men and women willing to join the army because it will be the only way they can make a living, and they'll be desperate enough to overlook the fact that they're literally putting their lives on the line.

[neoblues]

5. You're Right... Unless we turn from our current path...

We are watching the last days of the middle class! The currency is on the verge of collapse; our debt will bankrupt the government if that happens... our economy will collapse (and the wealthy will buy EVERYTHING at fire-sale prices), and it will be "over". Worse yet, we will be literally scratching to survive through the economic 'Depression' (worse than the "Great Depression"; though it won't be as bad worldwide as it was).

Media bias is blatantly obvious. You cannot argue with those who will not see. If we were standing outside in the noon sun, and I claimed "the sun does not shine in the daytime"... and I was adamant... How would you argue with me? Would you tell me look, look, it's right there! So, since I'm much more engaging than a typical republican, I would look. Then I'd say "No, the sun does not shine, that's just a yellow spot in the sky put there by those sunshine liberals". See, you'd already have done better with me than with a republican--at least I'd admit to seeing something you pointed to. Still you haven't succeeded in arguing the obvious.

Somewhere along the line, our educational system failed. It didn't teach people about the Constitution and what it means, or about government and how it works, or about politics and how it matters. Worst of all, it suppressed rather than promoted and failed to teach the mechanics of how to think critically. Likewise, some people's parents failed to teach their kids real morals--substituting something that merely left them confused. I don't know what. Religion itself has promoted the ability to believe things just because you're told they are so, and to work hard to suppress and deny any questions. If such thinking extends beyond the rarified world of Religion, we're all in trouble--and that's just what has happened.

This all represents a gathering storm. It's happening in countries all over the world--though we are far ahead of them. All we can do is try as hard as we can to prevent further decline while seeking to regain enough power to begin reversing course.

Speaking of changing course... a cartoon: http://content.todayscartoons.uclick.com/?feature=be0aca658a991ae54eedc6b510e2d144
though, I'm not feeling much like laughing.

[Jack from Charlotte]

7. Ask the repugs what the GOOD news is...... the media isn't reporting?

Iraq-nam..... nope.

$3 gallon gas..... no.

Caught bin Ladin. No.

Successful negotiation with Iran to de-nuke..... no.

Successful immigration policy negotiated with REPUG Party in congress.... no.

Smaller Gov under Repug senate, house a pres?.... No. Much larger. Biggest in history.

Increased the surplus that Clinton left him?.... No. Largest deficits in history.

Wait I've still got the center piece of The AWOL/morons mis-administration.... He didn't veto
the "no call legislation."

The media needs to keep talking about that every single day.

[TheFarseer]

11. They built a school in Iraq or something

also, some economic indicator was good. Nevermind the three that are bad for every 1 that is good. They like to quote numbers like, "there were more jobs created in May than in April and all the liberal media could say was, there weren't as many new jobs created as we thought there would be." Of course logic tells you there will always be more jobs created in May than April because people are hiring for the summer. They tend to ignore things like that and just go with misleading numbers. Another trick they like to pull is to say that with the tax cuts, revenue was up in 2005. Well, sure it was: there are more people in the US this year and taxes weren't cut in 2005 to my knowledge, just renewed. They can fabricate good numbers and it's too confusing for them when you try to explain why that doesn't mean what they think it means.

[Arkansas Granny]

12. I always wonder what "good news" they are talking about.

No one ever tells you any good news, they just blame the media for not reporting it. Believe me, if there is some good news out there, I wish someone would share it with us. I'm getting pretty sick of hearing what we've been getting for the last 5 years.

Same thing with the poll numbers. When his approval rating was high, you didn't hear any Repubs complaining about bias, but as soon as they dropped they start making charges that the poll takers survey more Democrats than Republicans in order to skew the numbers. They still think the media is "liberal", which is a joke in itself. It the media were truly liberal instead of corporate, Bush would have never gotten the nomination, much less the Presidency.

[Canuckistanian]

8. Shaking your head is a perfectly adequate response

Don't waste your breath trying to convince these "bitter-enders" of anything.

Just shake your head, smile and walk away.

[ProfessorGAC]

9. If You Hear That Argument. . .

. . .ask them "What good things aren't being reported?" One tends to get a lot o' nothin' when that questions is asked.
The Professor

[underpants]

18. ..and why isn't Fox News reporting it?

You just have to love when Fox News reports/sits around and talks about how the media only reports bad news from Iraq and about W in general.

Prof you are right again-that is the question to ask.

[RedStateShame]

10. Good news

When somebody tells me the media never shows the good stories in Iraq, I agree, and then I tell them I don't think the media shows enough stories about drunk drivers who make it home safe.

[zbdent]

16. During the Clinton economic boom, every report of the new Dow highs

was tempered with "can the market sustain this?" or "how long can this go on?"

I remember that, each time the Dow passed the next benchmark . . .

[Bandit]

17. If the Media is/was so biased how did Republicans win?

How did they get into this situation then? Did the "Liberal Media" suddenly change or did Republicans just get worse at explaining themselves? :shrug: Logic is not their strong suit I am afraid...

[Jack Rabbit]

20. The 'librul media' meme strikes again

One thing I'll tell the Bush Bubbahs over at The Nation is that a sure way they can wreck their credibility is to keep repeating that meme about the "librul media."

There was no "librul media" when Spiro Agnew said there was. There was at that time a fair and balanced media that reported Nixon's follies in Vietnam and crimes against the American people in living color; those were real facts, but ones that Mr. Agnew found a wee bit inconvenient. Even earlier, there was a fair and balanced media that "ruined" Joe McCarthy by simply putting him on the air.

Nowadays, after the MSM completely failed to do its job informing the American public prior to the invasion of Iraq, the "librul media" looks more like a neoconservative propaganda ministry that a legitimate source of news and information. This is the "librul media" that put Judy Miller's fiction on the front page of The New York Times while it ignored Scott Ritter and didn't report the manipulation of intelligence until after the war, although those of us who got our news from foreign sources on the web knew about it before the war. This is the "librul media" that wouldn't call the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth liars, although that would hardly have been an unfair editorialization.

Is there a media bias nowadays? You bet. It has been, at least until now, biased toward His Imperial Incompetency. Those who make editorial decisions at CNN and The New York Times and The Washington Post have a lot of explaining to do. Unfortunately, they don't owe Bush or the Bush Bubbahs any apologies.