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CBS Alters McCain's Words - AGAIN!
This time, they scrubbed McCain saying “The fact is we had four years of failed policy. We were losing. We
were losing the war in Iraq. The consequences of failure and defeat of
the United States of America in the first major conflict since 9/11
would have had devastating impacts throughout the region and the world.”
Apparently, the Senator forgot about Afghanistan.
In case you need a refresher, here is the timeline:
- September 11, 2001, attack on the twin towers
- October 7, 2001, US begins war with Afghanistan
- March 19, 2003, US begins war with Iraq
- May 1, 2003, Bush announces Mission Accomplished
If you want an extended timeline, from 2003 to present, click here.
Should you be as outraged as I am, feel free to express yourself to
the CBS ombudsman at publiceye@cbs.com.
And do Recommend this should you feel it's worthy.
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Comments (45)
McCain couldn't 'Commander-in-Chief' a rendezvous at an airport men's room..
July 24, 2008 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
He obviously needs lessons from Tappy McWidestance.
This is so infuriating. I swear I could scream!
I am doing what Raider99 and Ripper McCord suggested. See my post for all the links.
http://tpzoo.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/cbs-covers-mccains-gaffe-again/
Are we ever going to get our country back???
July 24, 2008 7:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I understand that they have decoded the signals that Larry Craig was tapping with his foot in the Airport Men's stall:
He was tapping out the message:
I Da Ho. I Da Ho. I Da Ho.
July 24, 2008 7:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
That thar's funny, and I don't care who you are.
Liam, btw, I love your posts!
July 24, 2008 7:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks Joanne.
I love your comments also.
The amazing thing about what CBS is doing is the fact that they are taking upon their selves to act as McCain's spin Doctors, when he is going on record with them.
Look at how they treated Senator Obama's use of the word "bitter" when he mentioned it in a private setting, and not a formal interview. They ran with it for weeks, but when McCain drools all over himself in front of their cameras, they air brush it.
It is very sad what they have done to the CBS news department. They should never again be allowed to utter the name Edward R Murrow.
July 24, 2008 8:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not to mention badgering Obama in an aired interview today over how he wouldn't admit the surge had worked. I mean badgering. And on another segment, the question to McCain was leading him to answer negatively about Obama's making a speech in a foreign nation. Not asking, "What's your impression," but asking, "Don't you think it's wrong for a presidential candidate to make essentially a campaign speech of this magnitude in a foreign country?" (Emphasis mine)
To his credit, or for his own protection given his recent speech in Canada and other foreign campaign trips recently, McCain didn't really take the bait, but only said it was a matter of choice and that he would prefer to make such a speech once he's president. Of course, even if he did become president, he wouldn't draw 200,000 people eager to hear him.
It's just ugly out there.
And now they're admitting that it was a good week for Obama "visually" but that despite that McCain is gaining ground in battleground states like Minnesota and Michigan. Polls are fickle, but if there's any truth to that, then we probably can thank the media for protecting McCain and letting people retain their false impressions of him.
July 24, 2008 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know if you read my original post (at TheZoo) but I gave you a shout out. :-)
Thanks for all your hard work!! You and Ripper, too!
July 24, 2008 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
McCain couldn't draw 200,000 people in Phoenix if they were handing out free ice cream! Nowhere on Earth would that many people gather to hear Grampy speak.
July 25, 2008 12:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
THAT is a fact! But he did talk to some German schnitzel last night in PA.
McCain: I may not be president, but I slept at a Holiday Inn last night (in PA).
Embarrassing...and I love it!
July 25, 2008 11:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, and who was saying who is 'in the tank' with who again? Seems I'm getting confuxored..
July 24, 2008 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
*sigh*
July 24, 2008 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, I read about this on The Huffington Post. I'm just glad I never gave a shit about CBS from the time Katie Couric took the anchor chair.
July 24, 2008 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Katie Couric is too stupid to catch McCain's mistakes so I don't have much faith in her ever being able to ask a real question. I am sure that everything is written down for her. She's Bush League bright, to be sure.
And her editors take great liberties.
I bet Couric doesn't even notice the difference.
Oh, how I long for Peter Jennings (he was my secret crush).
And how come Mike Wallace hasn't killed his rotten offspring?
July 24, 2008 9:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey There Ms. Joanne!
Good post, rec'd and yes, I will send yet another e-mail to CBS. I am also recruiting others to do same.
Thanks.
July 24, 2008 9:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hi there, Aunt Sam! Good to see ya again!
It's a shame that our country has sold out to the highest bidder and we need to do this shit.
But thank you, you ALL, for doing so.
WE are what makes America.
July 24, 2008 9:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
The CBS Eye Logo has suffered a detached retina, so they are no longer able to bear clear witness. Henceforth, CBS shall stand for: Conservative Bullshit Network.
July 24, 2008 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like that. I may have to steal shamelessly from you on that one.
Conservative Bull Shit (CBS) network it is (which is a result of Corporate Blindness Syndrome.
July 24, 2008 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I sent this to the public eye at CBS: "Please stop fixing McCain’s gaffe riddled blathering or Katie will be forever mired in last place relegated to hawking Depends as the weekend anchor at a local affiliate in Toledo."
July 25, 2008 12:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perfect. Promise you'll post their response!?!
Puleeze.
July 25, 2008 1:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Iraq was the first MAJOR conflict since 9/11. Three full armored divisions were deployed to Iraq, over 120,000 men. Afghanistan was always a much smaller operation. Pathetic that you insist on twisting every word and trying to find even the slightest inconsistency when McCain speaks, and then blame the media for not playing your game.
For all you 'end the war now' supporters of Obama, you seem strangely silent on his recent talk of deploying more troops to Afghanistan, and of not pulling all the troops out of Iraq but simply having a goal of not leading combat operations, except against Al Quaida, and leaving behind indefinitely a force of around 50,000 troops. Seems like quite a change from his primary campaign.
July 25, 2008 8:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
(1) "slightest inconsistency", you say. Kind of like conflating Auschwitz and Buchenwald, no? This is presidential politics, enhanced by 24/7 Internet coverage. You make ANY mistake, it's magnified.
(And when you don't know Sunni from Shia, the difference between a counterinsurgency and a surge, whether Czechoslovakia still exists, or whether Iraq and Pakistan share a border, that's a problem - especially for a self-styled foreign policy expert.)
Afghanistan was a much smaller operation because Bushco and McCaintBeBotheredWithFacts had a hard-on for Saddam (a bad guy, to be certain, but one who had nothing to do with the people who attacked the US).
(2) People are talking about "end the IRAQ war now" - because it was based on a lie to begin with. (WMD? Osama? In Iraq? Where?) It's well known that our true threat comes from people hiding in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, and that's a necessary fight. Much better way to spend $275 million per day, no?
(3) About your charge of Obama changing his position on Iraq...this puts the lie to that. Your codger candidate told that whopper already, and PolitiFact smacked him up.
{sprays Troll-B-Gone}
July 25, 2008 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's not gaffe; it's a question of semantics. Many people talk about Iraq and Afghanistan are the same conflict.
July 25, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
They are NOT the same conflict. Many I know signed up to go to Afghanistan to fight terrorists, but wound up in Iraq and were none too pleased. Look at Pat Tilman. Was he not on record as being one of those? I know my friends have said that.
And I think that the people serving in Afghanistan would be less than enthusiastic about their potential CIC thinking their efforts were minor.
July 25, 2008 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tilman was in Afghanistan, not Iraq.
July 25, 2008 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
And not knowing that a large segment of the population calls them the same conflict reflects some serious lack of knowledge about other people in this country.
July 25, 2008 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not going to be held responsible for accounting for the dimwitted blathering of an ignorant segment of the population which cannot distinguish between two conflicts separated by +/- 18mos and the nation of Iran (of course somebody needs to pass the latter on to McCain). Also, small point (but VERY LARGE in terms of relevancy) in Afghanistan we very responding to those who attacked us on 9/11, in Iraq - well not so much - well not at all.
They are not the same conflict, not the same time, not the same place, and definitely not the same enemy. To assert otherwise is just plain ignorant.
July 25, 2008 5:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Which is why it failed. Afghanistan was kept smaller to demonstrate Runsfeld's war theories and then to support the useless war in Iraq. Recall how close US forces were to capturing bib Laden, but failed for want of troops.
No one in the Bush administration, at that time, publicly called the Afghanistan effort "minor" as opposed to "major."
You're trolling. Almost all Americans supported the war in Afghanistan. The House vote in favor of war was 420-1-10 and the Senate vote 98-0-2. Obama supporters can tell the difference between a useless war and a war to combat those who want to harm us.
Another sign of trollery, inventing facts. Show us some evidence of this 50,000 figure please. Normally it's not worth feeding trolls, and I apologize, but I'm not a believer in letting sleeping dogs lie. I meant to post only my letter to CBS.
July 25, 2008 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't apologize - your post is well put together.
Next time, though, kill the troll instead of feeding it. :-)
July 25, 2008 10:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's a tip for you. Before calling someone a liar or a troll, go to google and type "obama 50000 troops iraq" and you will get links like this one:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/254/story/45161.html
Now, do you want me to find anything else for you, or do you think you can handle it yourself?
July 25, 2008 1:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's my letter to CBS, with subject "Why hide McCain's obvious misunderstandings?"
Dear CBS,
I'm 65 years old. I remember Walter Cronkite as a person I could place absolute trust in. CBS's roster of reporters at the time -- like Dan Schorr -- were the best, bar none. So what is going on?
The Couric interview of McCain went beyond journalistic editing to fit into a set time. Your network edited out one of McCain's answers -- an answer that betrayed an ignorance about the surge -- and replaced it with an answer to any entirely different question. That's called deception, not editing. You also edited out what was a major misunderstanding on McCain's part of which war came first -- Iraq or Afghanistan.
These omissions were far more newsworthy than much of the stuff you left in for us. We have a candidate whose area of expertise is foreign relations and national security, so when that candidate makes basic mistakes or betrays basic misunderstandings in his area of strength, then THAT'S NEWS.
I recall Couric's highly negative interview of the Edwardses, when she practically accused them of abandoning their children for John Edwards' political career. So we know she can take tough stands. That makes it more incongruous that she and your network would omit something so damaging to a candidate from the opposite side. Again, what is going on with CBS? Please don't tarnish your network's news legacy.
name-and-address
July 25, 2008 10:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
That is an excellent letter.
I wonder why the other networks aren't all over CBS for this? Oh right, corporate media, one for all and all for one.
If we were in the days of Murrow or Cronkite, Couric's head would be on a pole somewhere. Nah, were we in the days of real journalists, Couric would still be doing the morning fluff.
July 25, 2008 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
How exactly where his words altered?
July 25, 2008 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
See first link in OP.
http://rawstory.com//news/2008/McCain_gets_confused_about_war_on_0724.html
July 25, 2008 12:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, you're not paying attention. Here is the link to a video (side-by-side) of the first cover-up and the text of the second (which is noted in the original post at top.
http://tpzoo.wordpress.com/2008/07/24/cbs-covers-mccains-gaffe-again/
July 25, 2008 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, I guess you don't own a dictionary. Even if this were a cover-up by deleting them, the words were not "altered."
And whether this was a cover-up or a simple editorial decision is up for debate, albeit a very boring one.
July 25, 2008 1:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Deleting a portion of what he said, and patching together the questions he was asked, with answers that he gave to different questions, is altering what McCain said. You are entitled to your own opinion but not to your own set of facts.
July 25, 2008 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's what happened the first time; there is no evidence that that happened a second time with the quote given in the original post.
July 25, 2008 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
So you agree that CBS did, on at least one occasion,
alter McCain's words, to hide what he really said.
That makes them just a cluster of lying bastards, instead of a news organization.
July 25, 2008 2:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sure, but what does any of that have to do with the subject of this post, which claims to find a second such instance?
July 25, 2008 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
An editorial decision to take the answer from a completely different question and plug it into a response removing a highly embarrassing blunder and in turn taking that response to a completely different questing and slamming Obama? That is an editorial decision? Did I mention it was AN ANSWER TO A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT QUESTION?
You have got to be joking! I mean honestly. WTF?
July 25, 2008 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
What you describe happened once. It did not happen for the quote you gave above. There is no "again."
July 25, 2008 3:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
They scrubbed it. A major gaffe and they removed it.
If you want to be an apologist for McCain or CBS, go for it. But, sorry, I am calling bullshit.
A lie of omission is still a lie.
July 25, 2008 3:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
And let me further add that if Obama had made a gaffe of this magnitude, it would be nothing short of 24/7 about his inexperience and lack of understanding of foreign policy and whether this was a campaign ending moment.
It used to be that any news agency would kill for a major fuck up like this, for this is indeed a MAJOR fuck up.
July 25, 2008 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. It's just frustrating that McCain is held out as the foreign policy expert extraordinaire and yet the news media tries so hard to down play all his gaffes which suggest 1) he's doesn't know what he's talking about or 2) he's not in complete control of his faculties. Take your choice.
IMO, it's a mixture of the two.
July 25, 2008 5:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
There are three plausible explanations, dishonesty, incompetence, delusion, or in any combination thereof.
July 25, 2008 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
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