The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s days are numbered, but there’s still time for their editorial board to set the record straight on the new domestic partnership legislation being debated in Olympia, and the blatantly misleading, anti-gay TV ads that are using the P-I to validate their lies.
Of course, the legislation does not “redefine marriage” as the ad claims, nor does it require schools to teach that homosexuality is normal; it merely extends to domestic partnerships the same rights and responsibilities under state law that are currently available to married couples. The bill does not legalize gay marriage, so all you gay-bashers out there can rest assured that same-sex couples will still be denied the 1,138 rights and protections enjoyed by married couples under federal law.
Yeah, sure, these are the types of lies and exaggeration we’ve come to expect from social conservatives on issues concerning gay rights, but this ad goes one step further, deliberately misquoting a state legislator in a smear campaign that borders on libel.
The sponsor of this law says, those who disagree with homosexual marriage should “face being fined, fired, and even jailed until they relent.”
The sponsor of this bill is Sen. Ed Murray (D-Seattle), and he said no such thing.
The alleged quote comes from a May 20th, 2008 guest column in the Seattle P-I from David Benkof, a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage. Benkof wrote:
Openly gay Washington state Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, and a representative of the largest Michigan gay-rights group, the Triangle Foundation, have both told me that people who continue to act as if marriage is a union between a man and a woman should face being fined, fired and even jailed until they relent.
This is, of course, not a direct quote, and as Sen. Murray complained five days later in a letter to the editor, it was a “deliberate misrepresentation” of his views on the issue:
In an e-mail exchange, Benkof posed to me numerous hypothetical scenarios in a world where same-sex marriage was legal. One such scenario was of a business owner who “was just stubborn and wouldn’t treat wife-wife couples equally” to heterosexual couples for religious reasons. What should be made of their “principled stand,” Benkof asked me.
[…] I wrote to Benkof: “The law should be enforced, just as it was when either King or Gandhi engaged in civil disobedience. Both ended up in jail despite the righteousness of their cause.”
A state legislator urging that state laws be enforced… who’d a thunk?
So how does Sen. Murray’s reasonable statement get transformed into a fascistic call for jailing people who oppose homosexuality? It is tempting to blame the lying, amoral scaremongers who put together that ad… but that’s kinda like blaming a pig for wallowing in mud. It’s what they do.
No, it’s the P-I who really deserves the blame here.
Benkof was entitled to his opinions—that’s the whole purpose of publishing guest columns—but the editors at the P-I had an obligation to at least make an effort to verify his statements of fact, and anybody who is at all familiar with Sen. Murray would have been immediately suspicious of such an uncharacteristically impolitic assertion on such a sensitive subject. A simple phone call would have sufficed… you know, the kinda basic fact-checking the legacy media so often accuses us of bloggers of neglecting.
Now, as is often the case in political campaigns, the lie, which first appeared in print, is being compounded and exaggerated on TV, and given even more weight by the bogus claim that the alleged statement appeared in a “Seattle P-I Editorial,” as opposed to a mere guest column.
The P-I failed in their obligation to fact-check Benkof’s column, but they still have time to make amends. I’m sure there are plenty other topics on which they’d probably prefer editorializing during their final days, but it would serve them well to acknowledge their error, correct the public record, and demand that this misleading ad be pulled. As this incident proves, newspapers do matter. It would be nice to see the P-I prove that they matter in a good way.
Real newspapers died long ago, and all that’s left is big and small Little Nickels. You’re not a journalist if all you do is print what both sides say about a public issue, making sure the quotes are the same length plus or minus 10 words, and making no effort whatsoever to find the truth of the matter. God gave journalists brains with the expectation they’d use them to separate truth from lies, and to exercise sound judgment about what should see print and what shouldn’t. When journalists become nothing more than stenographers, newspapers become nothing more than toilet paper. Real journalism died when “he-said, she-said” became the dominant editorial mantra. Real journalism died when so-called journalists and their editors decided to worship to false god of formulaic objectivity and left the quest for truth in the dust.
I won’t miss the PI one bit.
I tend to agree with R^2,
I also think there are conflicted issues in the mourning community. Many of us have friends who write or report and those jobs are threatened as much as assembly line worker’s jobs at
GM.What we need is a new format that would generate the funds to pay real investigative reporters and editors. The PIT (PI Times) may have done this in the past but I learn more here or at DL then I do from the PIT.
One answer may be segment specific blogs /c a subscription model. EG I could give a horse turd about the sports and fashion pages but would subscribe to politics, business and tech. I wonder how large a staff a specialized Seattle site would cost for each of these areas and how big the market would be?
sj spews:
You make a ton of dough sj…why not put your money where your mouth is?
The fact of the matter is left-wing “pretend news” has no value…that is why the P-I and other left-wing rags are tanking.
I don’t expect you to get it though.
All you want is access to idealogues who buy ink by the barrel and write things you agree with.
Face it.
But it is economically unfeasible.
Perhaps sj, you are referring to Government Funding of Newspapers…like say, TASS??
Because that is the only way LEFTIST PINHEADED propaganda masquerading as news can financially make it.
But go ahead, round up some of your educational elitists buddies and give it a go!
MORE evidence from ass-licker CynCyn on why the GOP is a cartoon as this article clearly points out. The GOP is a joke and so are the few nutjobs still supporting it!
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITI.....index.html
@5 From the Cafferty link:
“The latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows the Republican Party’s favorability rating at an all-time low. President Obama’s is at an all-time high. The same poll shows that Republicans are getting most of the blame for the partisanship that hinders governmental progress. And perhaps most telling, when asked which party is best equipped to lead the country out of recession, the Republicans trail the Democrats by a stunning 30 points.”
Try sucking on that one, Cynical. We’ll see you fools in 2010, when you’ll get yet another ass-kicking.
5 and 6
Yeah, well, we all know Jack Cafferty is a longstanding socialist. And, who could ever believe anything that comes out of the Wall Street Journal, that well-known Marxist rag.
Isn’t Cynical’s obsessive campaign to portray Obama as failing and unpopular fascinating? He must be absolutely beside himself.
@7 “Isn’t Cynical’s obsessive campaign to portray Obama as failing and unpopular fascinating? He must be absolutely beside himself.”
It tells us a lot more about Cynical than it does President Obama.
Cafferty is a dipshit.
NBC is known for it’s unreliable polling.
Nice try cherry-picking the polls KLOWNS.
Obama is tanking.
The market rebounded today because it was vastly oversold.
Wise money made short-term plays yesterday….like Wells Fargo.
You idiots sit around whining while people like me find gold nuggets.
You are the problem losers.
Republican Ray Lahood (another dipshit, no doubt):
“This is not an Obama recession,” he said. “He inherited all of this. He inherited a $1 trillion dollar debt. He inherited the recession. He inherited the lousy stock market. All of this was inherited. The guy has been in office a little over a month and what he has tried to do is listen to every economist he could listen to. And he put in place some opportunities to get people to work quickly through the transportation bill portion of it, to help the banks, and to help the real estate industry. And it is going to take time.”
“You idiots sit around whining while people like me find gold nuggets.”
LMFAO! Tell us again how wonderful you are, Cynical. Share some more scripture with us. Give us a stock tip.
11 Isn’t there quite a bit of iron pyrite in Montaaaaaaaaana?
Everybody knows that the Wyoming ‘cowboys’ in the cowboy love story, Brokeback Mountain, were not cowboys. They were sheepherders. From Montana.
Interesting comments on Air America’s Peter B. Collins about shooting horses in Montana. Gotta feed something to the sheep, I suppose, when sheep eat themselves out of forage and shit themselves out of good water.
Well, it’s time for me to give Mr. Cynical and the rest of the Reagan Republicans a big ol’ I told you so . . . Ya’ll got your butts Whhhhhooooopppped in the 2008 elections.
Why?
Two prominent self-identified Reagan Republicans made this quote repeatedly when the American people realized the economy was beginning to fall of the cliff “The fundamentals of the economy are strong.”
Bush and McCain said that. So, too, did many other self-identified Reagan Republicans.
Here are the facts gents as I’ve stated in the years past and they are coming to pass. (God, I’m good.)
The demographics of this nation have permanently changed and the trend will continue until white people of European descent are no longer the majority. Which is nearly the case in California and already true in Los Angeles.
President Obama has solidified for the LIBERAL Democrat party at least 98% of the African-American vote for generations to come, 60% of the Hispanic vote for at least one generation, and nearly 60% of the 18-30 year old vote who will be voting against the party of “George W. Bush” at least until the year 2050 and perhaps beyond.
This means the Reagan Republican era died on November 4th, 2008. (As I predicted many times last year.)
The more people like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, Michael Steele, and the whole gang of convicted Reagan Republicans continue to represent the face of the GOP, the more they will alienate themselves from mainstream America and become a regionalized party in the deep south.
What’s another word for a regionalized party? The Minority Party!!
Face it, Mr. Cynical, the Reagan experiment was tried in America. Truly tired. It FAILED.
Reaganism, like communism, Marxism, Fascism, Nazism, and terrorism has been tossed into the unmarked, and uncelebrated graveyard of history.
Want a sobering prediction for 2010, and the only one that matters?
President Obama’s Stimulus bill will be widely viewed by a plurality of Americans to have saved the economy from the missteps of Reagan Republicans. Americans will be going back to work, the Dow will be in the 8,500+ range, and voters will be reminded, that in America’s darkest hour during this financial storm, every single Republican in congress, except 3 senators, stood in the way of salvaging America’s fiscal health and American workers.
With the Republicans facing the wrath of the voters, and defending 4 open seats in the Senate in 2010, the Dems will hold at least 62 seats in the Senate. They will maintain an overwhelming majority in the House, and President Obama will have as much political capital to spend as he did campaign funds in 2008.
By 2012, the Dow will be north of 11,000, America’s economic recovery will be well under way, we will be out of the mistake that was Iraq, bin Laden will be dead or captured and President Obama will savor a landslide reelection with more than 400 electoral votes, with a good shot at running the table.
PS: I got WFC the other day at $9.00 share. God I love Bear Rallies.
Cyn,
The P-I (and Times, and WSJ, &c’s) problem is not a left or right-wing bias. The business model is broken.
There is one section of the newspaper which is a big cost center. That is the business of reporting the news. It will NEVER turn a profit in a million years.
The other side of the newspaper, the advertising section, was a huge profit center which paid for the huge cost center. Until this guy Craig Newmark found out he could run advertisements without wrapping news around them, and people would come to his site just to look at ads. Boy did that ever save everyone a bundle of money over the “ads pay for news” business model.
And why not? I look at ads when I want to buy things. Right now, I have the hots for turn-of-the-last-century five-panel doors. If you’ve got ’em, send me your ad. I want to see it. Stuff other than old doors? I’m good.
Not only does advertising get in the way of news (not a very new insight), but reading news interferes with the serious work of buying shit.
TV news does better. If I want to see Fox News, I have to Tivo, or put up with car and drug ads. It seems like a fair trade, if I was into watching Fox. Pity all the advertising is wasted on me. I don’t need any more cars or drugs.
Cynical == a bore. Nuff said.
Cum-drunk CynCyn must be pulling out his one remaining tooth. Every day, every turn – there’s nothing but pain, agony and rejection for the child-molesting CynCyn. PRESIDENT OBAMA’s numbers are at an all-time high. The cowards, traitors, weaklings, America-haters and perverts on the right are rated at an all-time low. Each week we bitch-slap CynCyn and his ilk – and each week – all he can do is lie and cry. I love this shit.
Of course, I could add that Cynical is about as patriotic as some kid on acid. One thing is clear, this weakling never served in the military. Probably could not even pass the IQ test.
BTW, I have done some research on this troll real identity. Kind of embarrassing though and I see no reason to get him in trouble.
GBS
Nice to see you back. Excellent analysis. Fortunately, we have GOP stalwarts like Cynical sitting with their arms crossed, their heads shaking, and their minds closed to the world around them screaming that all the GOP needs to do is say no. Saying no, they say, will return them to power. Cynical and his crowd ought to read David Brooks’ column in today’s NYT. He, a diehard conservative, nails Republicans like Cynical; in fact, he crucifies them. Cynical, do you have any idea how silly you are starting to look?
@19 “BTW, I have done some research on this troll real identity. Kind of embarrassing though and I see no reason to get him in trouble.”
Oh, please, please, please share. What’s so wrong about causing a little trouble? Throw a crumb at least.
SJ @ 19
C’mon, do tell. There ain’t no reason to hold back.
That you, SJ, or is some heebraphenic-schiz troll vamping as our beloved and illiterate resident laff riot? Maybe you should go back to stalking Lee or stalking wild asparagus.
Ron Reagan (the great president, not the ballerina) gave us 25 good years of good growth, a legacy so solid that even Clinton couldn’t screw it up. We needed Chimpface Bush for that.
Reagan took the two good parts of Carter’s quagmire and made them work. The good parts were deregulation and Volcker. Reagan was man enough to take the Democrat hate and heat while Volcker took two tough years to purge two decades of sickness from the system.
Then Reagan vindicated the Democrat experiment in big government. He proved it could work and work well, aside from managing the S&L slide. And who started S&L deregulation? Carter, in 1980.
Steve@6: Cafferty is a revisionist.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/polls/
See the real clear values…
15 McCain should have known better, and probably did but was stuck with some Faustian bargain with Karl Rove.
Bush? He wouldn’t know how to pull his finger out of his left nostril without somebody helping him.
Puddy
Cafferty has always been one of yours. Oh, except for the fact that he can think. That would be why he is no longer one of yours. None of you can think anymore. Those that can think left the stable. Do you enjoy barbecuing puppies, Puddy?
proud leftist, how is Cafferty one of our with comments such as these
“I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him.” www. cnn. com /2008/POLITICS /08/18/cafferty.mccain/
“I will go to my grave as Jack Cafferty, private citizen, believing that these people committed war crimes.” www. time. com/ time/nation/ article/0,8599,1662283,00.html?xid=feed-cnn-topics
“I would guess it didn’t exactly represent a profile in courage for the vice-president to wander over there to the F-word network for a sitdown with Brit Hume. I mean, that’s a little like Bonnie interviewing Clyde, ain’t it?” mediamatters. org/ items/ 200602150013
“Balogna, Madam Speaker. Appropriations bills for the war must pass the House of Representatives by a simple majority. It is completely within your power to stop the funding of the war in Iraq. You have simply chosen not to do so. In fact, I did a little homework. The Speaker of the House of Representatives decides which pieces of legislation even come to the floor of the House debate and/or a vote.” transcripts. cnn. com/TRANSCRIPTS /0709/12/sitroom.02.html
You can find these at the above web sites too.
proud leftist, how is Cafferty one of our with comments such as these
“I fear to the depth of my being that John McCain is just like him.”
“I will go to my grave as Jack Cafferty, private citizen, believing that these people committed war crimes.”
“I would guess it didn’t exactly represent a profile in courage for the vice-president to wander over there to the F-word network for a sitdown with Brit Hume. I mean, that’s a little like Bonnie interviewing Clyde, ain’t it?”
“Balogna, Madam Speaker. Appropriations bills for the war must pass the House of Representatives by a simple majority. It is completely within your power to stop the funding of the war in Iraq. You have simply chosen not to do so. In fact, I did a little homework. The Speaker of the House of Representatives decides which pieces of legislation even come to the floor of the House debate and/or a vote.”
You can find these at the CNN or transcripts from CNN sites too.
Goldy’s filters won’t allow these links following…
www. cnn. com /2008/POLITICS /08/18/cafferty.mccain/
www. time. com/ time/nation/ article/0,8599,1662283,00.html?xid=feed-cnn-topics
mediamatters. org/ items/ 200602150013
transcripts. cnn. com/TRANSCRIPTS /0709/12/sitroom.02.html
And proud leftist and evergreenrailfan.
Visit journalism dot org nodes 13307 and 13436. You’ll see why libtard MSM newspapers and libtard MSM news casts are losing viewership. BTW Puddy asked Jon DeVore did he have a newspaper subscription. He has no brass marbuls to answer Puddy.
GBS-
Good for you. I got in for $9.10 and out today for $12.10. $9,000 in a couple days ain’t bad.
Look for lots of short term play opportunities in the days to come.
I’ve been on the sidelines for a couple months.
We put our money in some LT Government Bond Funds for 3 months. My broker is awesome!
The rest of the KLOWNS should pay attention to you & I GBS…instead of whining and being envious Doubting Thomas’!!
Money to be made KLOWNS.
Keep griping while those willing to take risks scoop up the gold nuggets.
Hey Kountry-Klubber Steve–
Don’t you KLOWNS at the Kountry Klub talk about investing during Martini Hour at the Kountry Klub??
Why are you sooooooo envious steve?
No guts??
That’s it…afraid to pull the trigger and take risk.
Coward.
I’d pay money to find out the child-rapist CYNCYN’s true identity. I’ll put the money in escrow with Goldie. PLEASE tell us who this cunt really is. I am sure it’s golden.
31 Suit yourself. I wouldn’t shell out a plugged nickel. He’s not important enough to be worth it.
23 You forget one other ingredient…the orgy of military pork that took off midway through Reagan’s watch not only hastened the end of the Cold War, but managed to “trickle” enough cash into the economy to pull us out of the economic slump that had whole American families out on the street begging for the first time in my lifetime. Bush the Elder had to take the subsequent heat for grudgingly raising taxes to pay off what Lloyd Bentson referred to as all those “hot checks”.
The end of our decades-long ideological/economic/proxy military war with the Commie Menace also turned out to be sort of a mixed blessing. Like it or not, we’ve been searching for a comparable source of a sense of national purpose ever since. One of the consequences has been the radical right’s willingness to supply a great volume of nonsense to fill the void.
@30 “Why are you sooooooo envious steve?
I find your infatuation with me to be rather entertaining as well as revealing. As are your after the fact market plays. How’s about you quoting some more scripture and calling everybody here Godless heathens? That’s always good for a laugh too.
Here’s a tip you can surely use, Cynical. Delusions have a lousy future. In other words, if you were a stock, I’d short you. It’d be a sure thing.
Why would this former lock-stepper call Republicans traitors?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....72822.html
My, it sounds so much better when it comes from one of their own, doesn’t it?