Media Matters reported:
On the August 24 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer again left unchallenged Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Ken Mehlman's false assertion that the American public does not support a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq. Moments after asking Mehlman about a CNN poll [PDF] conducted August 18-20 that showed that 52 percent of respondents believe the Iraq war is a "distraction," Blitzer allowed Mehlman to assert that the American people "understand the last thing we want to do is cut and run on a political timetable, which would give a huge victory for the enemy." However, the only two polls to ask a question about withdrawing troops from Iraq in August found that a majority of Americans support a timetable for withdrawal. [click for poll links].That was on Thursday, Aug. 24. Then on Sunday:
An August 27 article by Washington Post staff writers Jim VandeHei and Zachary A. Goldfarb misrepresented recent polling to depict the American public as "evenly split" on the issue of withdrawal from Iraq. Similarly, National Review Washington editor Kate O'Beirne falsely claimed on the August 27 edition of NBC's Meet the Press that the public does "not support leaving prematurely, and a timetable to do so." In fact, several recent polls have found that a majority of Americans support setting a timetable for withdrawal.So the American public supports Democratic proposals--a timetable for troop withdrawal. Well, can't have that! Out fly parrots squawking the same line to propagandize the GOP position and to obscure the facts. Someone's faxed GOP talking points to the con-apparatchiki again. Just follow the cracker-crumb trail. Ha!
Have the so-called liberal media always been a figment of "manufactured reality" like those mythical creatures--unicorns and fairy godmothers? *Sigh.* When will media quit acting as the coordinated mouthpieces for conservatives? Perhaps hoping for a free press might be wishful thinking in these days of media consolidation. Two + two = three. Or five. Depends on the RNC talking point memo du jour.
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