Post sets Record for Most Errors in a Single Paragraph

www.lgf.com links to Scylla & Charybdis and laughs...the Post is only worse when it reports about Israel.

WaPo: 10 Errors about Memogate in One Paragraph
Update: Now it's 13 and counting....

Tom Shales of the Washington Post makes 10 errors in writing about CBS's Memogate...

...All in a single paragraph:




"...Tireless press critics during war or peacetime, the conservatives were handed a valuable new weapon when CBS News fumbled(1) a report (13) detailing(2) the president's(3) shoddy record(4) as a member of the National Guard back in Texas. The report was attacked (5) virtually the moment it aired(6) (11) on "60 Minutes" (12) ; documents used to bolster(7) the allegations were condemned by conservative(8) critics as phony and forged(9), though no forging has yet been proved(10)."

Errors:

1. Fallacy of the 3rd person. "Fumbled" as a verb implies the report was created by a 3rd party, and CBS was negligent in handling the precious gem. Wrong - CBS itself created the report.
2. Begs the question. It is the "detailing" itself that was a forgery. Again this implies that there is a valid story and Platonic truth involved, apart from the forged memos.
3. Use a capital "P." Basic word processing function. Others have had similar problems, it's not the 1st time.
4. Begs the question. Prior to the falsified CBS report, what - exactly - qualified Bush's military record as "shoddy?" (Compared to, say, Kerry's refusal to release his military records due to a "not honorable discharge" problem?)
5. Fallacy of the charged word (verb? adjective?); a form of begging the question. A third grade math teacher does not "attack" someone's homework; she corrects it.
6. CBS's experts declared the memos false 48 hours prior to the airing.
7. The documents didn't "bolster" the allegations. The documents were the allegations.
8. "Conservative critics" such as CBS's own experts, and ABC,a nd the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times. Those right wing nuts.
9. Why the distinction between phony and forged? As in, "Fake, but Accurate?" Compare with 1, 2 and 7, above. And 13, below.
10. The biggest error of all - the fallacy of the false burden. In a court of law, the memos would be inadmissible because they lack "foundation" - that is, a witness to vouch for their creation. Under the laws and culture of the United States, this shortcoming is a close proxy to something being "forged." The law's assumption is that the unvouched document is false. The burden to prove otherwise - to prove that it is valid, via its provenance or "foundation" - lies with the person (CBS) who wants the item admitted to evidence. With no foundation for the memos, other than foundation strongly establishing they were forged, the burden lies with CBS to come forward with evidence to prove the memos are not the forgeries.

Updates:
11. Factually incorrect. Blogs began questionning the provenance several hours after the program. The false claim that it was "virtually the moment it aired" is often repeated to support the "Karl Rove tricked us" BS, to wit: Rove OK’ed the documents with CBS, then waited to attack.
12. The program was 60 Minutes II, a Wednesday program, not "60 Minutes", a Sunday program.
13. Fallacy of objectification. The error is in referring to "a report" instead of "CBS's report."
The use of "a report" implies that the report was something that had independent existence, like the "9/11 Commission Report" as being "a report that people were talking about." There was no objective "report" here without CBS; CBS created the report.

Post missed Blair Statement....Widens Gulf with Europe and Reality

www.andrewsullivan.com disentangles comPosts "put more pressure on Israel" analysis

EURO-ATLANTICISM AND THE MIDEAST: The Washington Post argues that the president's desire to mend relations with Europe conflicts with his approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. While the Bush administration has insisted on reform within the Palestinian Authority, the Europeans want to put more pressure on Israel. The Post paints this as a wide gulf, but the piece fails to mention Tony Blair's trip to Israel last week, where he too argued that reforms were necessary for "the Palestinian side to become a proper partner for peace with Israel":

Viability cannot just be about territory. The viability has to be that of a state that is democratic, that is not giving any succor or help to terrorism and that uses the help that it is given from the outside in a proper and transparent way.
Saul Singer, in the Jerusalem Post, writes that this "means that taking democracy seriously is no longer just the quaint province of George W. Bush and Natan Sharansky, but has spread...to Europe. It also means that the conference that Blair is proposing for next month in London might, for a change, advance peace." The London conference aims to help Palestinians build democratic institutions. At the same time, some 600 Palestinian politicians and intellectuals, in a public statement called "What We Want from the Elected President," are calling for a "firm commitment to democratic deals" and "the implementation of good governance, mainly the rule of law, transparency and accountability."

The Post repeats the idea that Bush "keeps giving Israel a pass" and "has devoted little attention to the issue." But Ha'aretz's Aluf Benn argues, "Under Bush, Sharon has adopted a policy that is the reverse of what he believes in, and has accepted severe limitations on his own freedom of action.":

Bush and his people have gone beyond declarations and have tried to have an impact on the reality of the Middle East. They have forced the Likud government to support a Palestinian state. They have forced Sharon both to promise to freeze settlements and evacuate outposts, and to agree to close American inspection of construction in the territories. They have forced him to return to the Palestinian Authority tax money that Israel owed the Palestinians, and they have made it clear to the Palestinians that, if they want a state, the price tag is internal reform and a change of regime.
All of which might be described as a synthesis of American and European approaches to the peace process.
-- Steven
- 2:31:47 AM

Powerline Shows comPost needs new Educational Opportunity

Powerline exposes comPost domestic blunders also....can they get anything right?

Post Blunders, Dems Join In
Betsy Newmark wrote us to point out that her daughter's blog had reported on an error committed on Friday by the Washington Post: an error that resulted in this anti-administration headline: "Change Means Fewer Students Will Be Eligible For Pell Grants." The article claimed that 80,000 to 90,000 low-income students would be knocked out of the Pell program on account of new regulations issued by the Department of Education.

Yesterday, the Post issued a correction. Actually, the new regulations, which are based on updated government data, will expand the number eligible for grants, even though some will become ineligible at the upper end of the qualified income range.

What was most interesting about the story, as Betsy's daughter pointed out, was the immediate reaction of the Democrats. When the original, incorrect story ran, Senator Jon Corzine jumped in:

Sen. Jon S. Corzine (D-N.J.) said he was "outraged that the Bush administration is going forward with these punitive cuts," adding that the change in the eligibility rules was "nothing more than a backdoor effort to cut student aid funding."
"For those working to get ahead, this is a scene from 'The Grinch who stole my education,' " he said.


Got that? The Bush administration enlarges the Pell Grant program, and Corzine--obviously without knowing anything about the subject, doing any independent research, or even calling anyone at the Department of Education for verification--is "outraged" at the "punitive cuts."

To be fair, the outrage wasn't limited to Democrats. The frequently clueless Arlen Specter, who was happy to give the Post an anti-administration quote even though he had no idea what the facts were, "said he was 'very unhappy' and promised to renew the battle for broader Pell Grant funding next year." And Specter wonders why he isn't more respected within his own party.

It's just a guess, but I suspect we'll be hearing about the Bush administration's "punitive cuts" in the Pell Grant program for years to come.

Another View of the comPost's Impoverished Diplomacy

Award winning Powerline fisks, "The impoverished diplomacy of Bush's critics." Who are the critics...none other than the comPosts own Robin Wright, who is wrong again and again.

Robin Wright of the Washington Post calls upon the Bush administration to get its act together and take "bold diplomatic action" in the Middle East. "Bold diplomatic action" isn't exactly an oxymoron -- it's possbile to take such action. Unfortunately, though, in the absence of a prior military victory, bold diplomatic action usually consists of making major and dangerous concessions. Any other course normally will be insufficiently audacious to be "bold" or insufficiently realistic to constitute "action."

Wright's survey of the Middle Eastern scene demonstrates the point. In Iraq she calls for either a U.S. exit in 2006 (concession in the strong sense) or bringing in the U.N. (concession and unrealistic). In Iran, Wright's solution is a deal in which Iran terminates its nuclear program in exchange for security guarantees (sure, Iran will go for that). In Israel, Wright looks to Zbigniew Brzeninski and Brent Scowcroft for her answer. And how do these worthies from the past propose to bring about a final settlement in which the Palestinians get a state in exchange for ending their terror campaign against Israel and permanently abandoning their claim of a right of return? We tell the parties what the solution is and then help/push them to bring it about. But of course. How did Bush miss that?