Bush Can't Swim!

It’s All Over the News!
By Joseph Walther


Seated at a table next to me in a local Barnes and Noble Café were two men. One of them had a copy of the New York Times and they were discussing George Bush, our current president. These two were well groomed, articulate, and educated; the very antithesis of the McGoofy Group mentality I wrote about a couple of weeks ago. My guess is that both are comfortably retired.

I didn’t try to talk to either of these people. When folks have made up their minds and do not want to be confused with facts, attempts at reasonable debate are pointless. All of you parents out there with teenagers know exactly what I mean.

More so with this president than with any other in my lifetime, there seems to be no middle ground. People come down on one of two sides: he’s scum or he’s a saint. Trust me on this; we can safely put both of these men in the scum column. They leveled one accusation after another at Mr. Bush, backing each one of the accusations with news accounts in the New York Times.

I didn’t hear them say it but I’ll bet anything that they eventually blamed him for last week’s Indianapolis Colts’ loss.

This is not a column in support of George Bush. Neither is it one aimed at condemning him. I don’t think George Bush has been a good president. I voted for him the first time because I was terrified of being bored to death, with the likes of Al and Tipper Gore, not to mention a fear of losing my right to listen to dirty music lyrics. I voted for him the second time because we were in the middle of a nasty conflict and I thought he’d be more reliable in getting the country through it then his opponent, who seemed to have based his political positions on the poll du jour.

Mr. Bush, at least for me, has proven to be a disappointment relative to fiscal conservatism. He’s expanded the size of the Federal Government instead of reducing it. He based his decision to go into Iraq on bad advice; and worse, I believe that his stubborn refusal to admit some serious underestimations has caused the loss of more lives than should have been necessary.

People who know him directly have never accused him of paralysis by analysis because he isn’t real big on analysis. He’s admitted as much. He relies on his “gut” instinct. Reaction based on gut feeling is ok as far as it goes, but too much of it leads to Barney Fife Syndrome, or put another way, a “ready, fire, aim” mentality that makes a person look quite silly. Adding insult to injury, his propensity for emitting his world renowned Bushisms, has made him an endless joke supply for comedians all over the globe. In my opinion, all of this makes him a lousy president, not an immoral, power hungry despot in search of his own kingdom.

I also know for a fact that he had nothing to do with the Colts’ NFL divisional playoff loss. Dick Cheney caused that loss, as reported in both the New York Times and Washington Post. It was also reported on CNN and, as anyone with more than two brain cells knows, if CNN says it, it’s true!

Back in the day, the New York Times was the de facto guardian of news reporting. If you read it in the Times, it was fact. If the Times had not reported a story, it did not make it to the mainstream TV news programs because all of their news came from the Times Wire Service The Times had a well-deserved reputation for unbiased, “just the facts, ma’am” reporting. Even though much of it was liberal, opinion and commentary were restricted to the Op-ed pages where they belonged. Newsroom editors and Op-ed editors did not intermingle. In fact, the paper’s publisher forbade such fraternization.

Somewhere along the line, this ceased to be the case. The Times still adheres to the inverted pyramid style of reporting and it still answers the questions of who, what, when, where, why, and how. However, nowadays, the New York Times manipulates these questions to support positions taken by its Op-ed editors, which are mostly liberal and in many cases full of deliberate distortions.

There is a joke that appears from time-to-time over the internet. It goes like this.

Pope John Paul was visiting George Bush in Washington, D. C. and the President took him out for a cruise along the Potomac on the presidential yacht. A strong gust of wind suddenly blew he Pope’s white hat off and across the water a good 200 feet from the yacht. The yacht’s crew began to launch a boat to retrieve the hat, but Mr. Bush waved them off. He then climbed over the rail of the yacht and onto the surface of the water. He walked across the surface, retrieved the hat, walked back to the yacht, climbed back aboard and handed the Pope his hat. This feat stunned everyone, including the Pope. No one, not even a Times reporter accompanying the entourage, could believe what they had just witnessed.

The next morning, the New York Times reported the story on its front page, complete with photos. The big, two inch high headline read, “BUSH CAN’T SWIM.”

What ever happened to the elements of who, what, when, where, why, and how of news reporting? I think the journalism schools are still teaching this stuff. However, the New York Times has modified the lessons. By thoughtfully ordering the questions and shrewdly identifying the particulars, a good reporter can still “tell the truth” AND fully support the OP-ed page position of the Times.

The New York Times has become a master at this. The Times reporters have become experts at arranging the order of the six-question elements to a news story. They do it in a way that always supports the paper’s editorial/commentary stance. At the New York Times, the news is gathered and reported as a means to support a political position instead of reporting unbiased facts, no matter which side of an issue they reflect.

When people complain of a liberal bias to the news, they have more than a cursory point. The New York Times has annual revenue of over three BILLION dollars. Over 650 newspapers across the country subscribe to the Times News Service and it owns 15 regional newspapers. As the news appears in the Times, as well as the context in which it appears, it appears across the nation on thousands of local news stations and in as many local newspapers. How sad for a once great newspaper.

Psst, Bush can’t swim. It’s all over the news! Pass it on! Meet me at Barnes and Nobel for coffee. We’ll talk about it.

Have a great week.

Joseph Walther is a freelance writer and publisher of The True Facts. Send email to: publisher@thetruefacts.com