CATEGORIES
Look Who's Linking to PoliBlog:
3cx.org
Absinthe and Cookies
Accidental Verbosity
Admiral Quixote's Roundtable
All Day Permanent Red
All Things Jennifer
Ann Althouse
The American Mind
Arguing with signposts
Arms and influence
The Astute Blogger
Asymmeterical Information
Attaboy
augustus
B-Town Blog Boys
BabyTrollBlog
Backcountry Conservative
Balloon Juice
Bananas and Such Begging to Differ
The Bemusement Park
Benedict
Bewtween the Coasts
Betsy's Page
The Big Picture
BipolarBBSBlog
BIZBLOGGER
bLogicus
Blogs for Bush
The Blog of Daniel Sale
BoiFromTroy
Boots and Sabers
brykMantra
BushBlog
The Bully Pulpit
Cadillac Tight
Caffeinated Musing
California Yankee
Captain's Quarters
Chicago Report
Chicagoland of Confusion
Citizen Smash
Coldheartedtruth
Collected Thoughts
The Command Post
Common Sense and Wonder
Confessions Of A Political Junkie
The Conservative Philosopher
Conservative Revolution
Conservative and Right
Cranial Cavity
The Daily Lemon
Daly Thoughts
DANEgerus Weblog
Dart Frog on a Cactus
Dean's World Dear Free World
Brad DeLong
Democracy Project
DiVERSiONZ
The Disagreeable Conservative Curmudgeon
Down to the Piraeus
Drink this...
Earl's log
Earthly Passions
The Education Wonks
the evangelical outpost
exvigilare
Eye of the Storm
Feste
Filtrat
Firepower Forward
The Flying Space Monkey Chronicles
The Friendly Ghost
FringeBlog
Fruits and Votes
Functional, if not decorative
G-Blog.net
The Galvin Opinion
The Glittering Eye
Haight Speech
Half-Bakered
The Hedgehog Report
Heh. Indeed.
Hellblazer
Hennessy's View
High Desert Skeptic
The Hillary Project
History and Perceptions
Robert Holcomb
I love Jet Noise
Idlewild South
Incommunicado
Independent Thinker
Insults Unpunished
Interested-Participant
Internet Ronin
Ipse Dixit
It Can't Rain All The Time...
The Jay Blog
Jen Speaks
Joefish's Freshwater Blog
John Lemon
johnrpierce.info blog
Judicious Asininity
Jump In, The Water's Fine!
Just On The Other Side
KeepinItReal
A Knight's Blog
The Kudzu Files
LeatherPenguin
Let's Try Freedom
LibertarianJackass.com
Liberty Father
Life and Law
David Limbaugh
LittleBugler
Locke, or Demosthenes?
LostINto
Mad Minerva
Gary Manca
Mark the Pundit
Mediocre but Unexciting
memeorandum
Mental Hiccups
Miller's Time
Mind of Mog
Minorities For Bush
Mr. Hawaii
The Moderate Voice
The Modulator
Much Ado
Mungowitz End
My opinion counts
my thoughts, without the penny charge
My Word
mypetjawa
Naw
Neophyte Pundit
Neutiquam erro
New England Republican
NewsHawk Daily
neWs Round-Up
NixGuy.com
No Pundit Intended
Nobody asked me, but...
Obsidian Wings
Occam's Toothbrush
On the Fritz
On the Third Hand
One Fine Jay
Out of Context
Outside the Beltway
Suman Palit
Parablemania
Passionate America
Brian Patton
Peaktalk
Pelicanpost
Peppermint Patty
Phlegma
John Pierce
PiratesCove
Politicalman
The Politicker
The Politburo Diktat
Political Annotation
Political Blog For The Politically Incorrect
Possumblog
Power Politics
Powerpundit.com
Practical Penumbra
Priorities & Frivolities ProfessorBainbridge.com
Prof. Blogger's Pontifications
Pros and Cons
protein wisdom
PunditFilter
Pundit Heads
QandO
The Queen of All Evil
Quotes, Thoughts, and other Ramblings
Ramblings' Journal
Random Acts of Kindness
Random Nuclear Strikes
Ranting Rationalist
Read My Lips
Reagan Country
Red State Diaries
Jay Reding.com
A Republican's Blog
Resource.full
The Review
Rhett Write
Right Side of the Rainbow
Right Wingin-It
Right Wing News
Right Voices
Rightward Reasonings
riting on the wall
robwestcott
Rooftop Report
RoguePundit
The Sake of Argument
Sailor in the Desert
Scrappleface
Secular Sermons
Sha Ka Ree
Shaking Spears
She Who Will Be Obeyed!
The Skeptician
The Skewed
Slant/Point.
Slobokan's Site O' Schtuff
small dead animals
Sneakeasy's Joint
SoCal Law Blog
A Solo Dialogue
Solomonia
Some Great Reward
Southern Musings
Speed of Thought...
Spin Killer
Matthew J. Stinson
A Stitch in Haste
Stop the ACLU
The Strange Political Road Trip of Jane Q. Public
The Strata-Sphere
Stuff about
Suman Palit
SwimFinsSF
Target Centermass
Templar Pundit
The Temporal Globe
Tex the Pontificator
Texas Native
think about it...
Tiger
Tobacco Road Fogey
Toner Mishap
Tony Talks Tech
The Trimblog
Truth. Quante-fied.
Twenty First Century Republican
Unlocked Wordhoard
Use The Forks!!
Ut Humiliter Opinor
Varifrank
VietPundit
Vista On Current Events
VodkaPundit
Vox Baby
Jeff Vreeland's Blog
Wall of Sleep
Weapons of Mass Discussion
Who Knew?
The Window Manager
Winning Again!
WizBang!
WizBang Tech
The World Around You
The Yin Blog
You Big Mouth, You!
Zygote-Design
Non-Blogs Linking to PoliBlog:
Sunday, March 5, 2024
A Lack of Positive News?
By Dr. Steven Taylor @ 2:29 pm

Said General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on Meet the Press

I don’t think we’re getting the goodness out to the American people the way we should. Somehow we need to find a way to have balance in the amount of reporting that we’re able to get out. If you remember back when the war began, we had 24/7 coverage. Folks could watch television, they could read newspapers, they could read magazines, and they could put together their own opinion of what’s going on. Now the amount of coverage from the war zone is much less than it used to be, and understandably, the coverage, then, that comes out is the bombings and the things like that. People don’t get a chance to see or hear about all the good things that are happening.

There was a time that I was more receptive to the argument that there was an over-focus in the reporting on the negative, and an under-reporting of the positive. However, at this point such pronouncement out of the mouths of administration officials sounds empty and disingenuous.

For one thing, such a statement radically underplays the obvious fact of serious problems on the ground in Iraq. Secondly, if there truly is a surfeit of positive stories that are being ignored, it seems to me that the administration should be working harder to get them out. Yet, we have not seen such a move (indeed, this is a move that the administration has never undertaken), which leads me to believe that there really aren’t all of these obvious positive stories.

Indeed, I still think that we don’t get a full, in-depth picture of what is going on in Iraq. However, the notion that we simply aren’t getting the good news and hence are getting an artificially negative assessments regarding Iraq strikes me as a hollow one. It is clear that the situation is not where the administration thought it would be at this stage, and no amount of good news will change that fact.

Having lived in a place (Colombia) where press coverage paints a grimmer picture than what one lives on a daily basis, I am amenable to the notion that the news coverage paints a picture of greater chaos than is actually the case. However, there is also no doubt that life in Iraq is being disrupted by serious political violence–far more than is healthy for the institution building that need to take place in Iraq at this moment.

2 Comments »

  • el
  • pt
    1. “Getting the Goodness Out” is definitely my new favorite phrase, but it’s really not something a General should be saying (it sounds very Hippie).

      I think the Bush administration has come dangerously infatuated with the idea that the public’s disenchantment with the war is all because of unbalanced media reporting. Bush and Cheney seem to think — and have acted as though they think — that they don’t actually have to do anything differently, they just need to speak directly to the people and tell them that we’re winning in Iraq. They’ve been trying this for months now (remember the “strategy for victory” speech?) and it doesn’t work.

      At a time when every poll shows that the vast majority of Americans think Iraq is headed for civil war, it’s not enough to go on TV and say that, no, there’s not going to be a civil war; the administration needs to explain how they’re going to avoid a civil war. And they need to explain how they’re going to achieve their original strategy — arming the Iraqis to fight themselves — without creating further danger of civil war. If Bush keeps on sticking to the idea that things are great and he just needs to cut through the MSM filter and let us know that things are great, he will never be able to revive support for the war.

      Oddly enough, what we’re seeing in this administration is the danger of a government being run by people who really believe that the MSM is out to get them. When that happens, you can dismiss your falling popularity as a product of the MSM distortions and vow to keep doing the same things over and over. Nixon was like that. Johnson eventually became like that. Whereas Reagan and Clinton, shrewder operators, understood that when their popularity fell it was time to do something different or hire new people.

      Comment by M.A. — Sunday, March 5, 2024 @ 5:58 pm

    2. Secondly, if there truly is a surfeit of positive stories that are being ignored, it seems to me that the administration should be working harder to get them out. Yet, we have not seen such a move (indeed, this is a move that the administration has never undertaken), which leads me to believe that there really aren’t all of these obvious positive stories.

      agreed. Perhaps they forget that there is a legion of reporter’s writing down everything that comes out of the president’s mouth, following him around the world and micro-analyzing every statement.

      That seems like as good a media outlet for specific, positive stories as I could imagine.

      Comment by eric — Sunday, March 5, 2024 @ 7:18 pm

    RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

    The trackback url for this post is: http://poliblogger.com/wp-trackback.html?p=9505

    NOTE: I will delete any TrackBacks that do not actually link and refer to this post.

    Leave a comment



    Blogroll


    Visitors Since 2/15/03
    ---

    PoliBlog is the Host site for:

    A TTLB Community


    Advertisement

    Business Associates

    Finance Answers

    Health Benefits

    Beach Homes

    Car Shopping

    Advertisement


    Powered by WordPress