The Press Plays Dumb About the Bush Bounce

Gawd, I hope the last paragraph is right (no more bouces-no matter how small).


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-boehlert/the-press-plays-dumb-abou_b_23380.html
06.20.2006

The Press Plays Dumb About the Bush Bounce ....


The mainstream media's incessant, excited chatter about a looming Bush Bounce represented just the latest embarrassment in an endless parade of journalism missteps during the Bush years. The depressing puppet show--senior White House aides announce things are great, conservative 'news' outlets echo the spin and then MSM journalists gamely play along--has become annoying, tiresome and transparent. Yet the MSM won't stop embarrassing themselves.

Two problems with the contagious Bush Bounce story: a) the Bounce was all but non-existent, with three of the last four national polls (USA Today, WSJ-NBC, CNN) showing no statistical movement whatsoever for Bush following last week's wildly hyped "wave of good news" (AP).

And even more importantly, b) when it was eagerly misleading news consumers about how Bush was about to enjoy a big bump in the public opinion surveys, the press provided virtually no context regarding exactly where Bush stood in the polls. Yes, some journalists noted in passing that Bush's job approval ratings had vaguely fallen during his second term. But notice what is not reported and discussed in polite Beltway company--that Bush is an historically unpopular president. Period. (Fact: If Bush doesn't post an approval rating gain soon, he'll trail only Richard Nixon in establishing the longest sub-40 job approval rating streak in modern American history.) Journalists routinely refuse to put Bush's sorry standings in any sort of perspective. Instead, they go to extraordinary lengths, as they have throughout the last two years, to avoid spelling out the obvious--it would take an hydraulic lift to get Bush's approval numbers back into the realm of respectability, let alone popularity. i.e. Bush would need a 25-point spike to equal the lofy heights President Clinton reached during his second term.



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If, in the coming days, the next batch of presidential surveys match the findings of USA Today, WSJ-NBC and CNN--that Bush received no "turnaround" in the wake of widely trumpeted good news--then it will be obvious the American people have closed the book on Bush. That their minds are made up, they're not going to give him another serious look, and that barring a truly seismic event, Bush will be relegated to serving out his term as a political has-been. That'll be the verdict of the American people. The MSM of course, will come to a much more comforting conclusion.

Bush could control the media, someone else can as well. Will our no longer independent media end up being our achille's heel?

Will our no longer independent media end up being our achille's heel?

the only one I can think of that would change anything is if he made it rain money.

If we are attacked again, he WILL be held responsible for letting it happen on his watch. No "let's all stand behind the president" this time - he's spent all of this political capital and now he's running deficits.

or give the accurate unvarnished facts. They lie, manipulate and twist everything. I was just reading an article by the AP that in the headline and opening line indicated that a group of returning vets were unhappy with Murtha's comments. Well if you read further in the story the vets all shared Murtha's opinion and the only one who disagreed with Murtha was the writer. So be careful when you read and listen to this crap they call the news. It's all spin and you need to keep your logic and bs detector on and working full time.

That's the editors at work, spinning, spinning. If you're a reporter, grin and bear it, or hit the Internets.