( Sorry this is a little late but I don’t read “columnist Lytle’s” columns very promptly any more. )
It turns out that in the column in which Matthew Lytle sourced the first thing I’ve ever seen him source, he still messed things all up. He directed readers to an AP story hosted on the Fox news website. The mistake was that Fox news has been doctoring AP stories and changing their wording to make them fit in better with RNC talking point terminology.
The even bigger irony is that even though Fox has been doing this for months (and are now being sued by the AP), the story he happened to quote is the one that Fox finally got tagged for. This is because a Fox “writer” accidentally didn’t just change news copy, but changed a quotation from New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.
That’s right. The same Clinton quotation our dear Matt decided to quote in his column.
He tried to source from the AP, but ended up reiterating Fox/GOP talking points, misquoting the Junior Senator from NY, and misrepresenting both her position on the war over the last few years and her position today.
The reason you don’t source from Foux News Matt, is because they have a long history of this type of stuff. The reason you don’t write stories about their talking points (ie, “finally Hillary is on our side) is because they are almost all lies. Thanks for trying though.
More snarking in the comments section.
A few things that didn’t make it into the post:
1) FYI Matt- Hillary was for the war to start with even while speaking against Bush’s mishandling of it. She voted for it and the 87 billion too. She didn’t start speaking out against it until it turned our the administration has repeatedly lied to the American Public about why we were in Iraq and how well or not well we were doing there.
2) The reason I am calling him “columnist Lytle” is because that’s his title. Just like “Chairman Dean” is both Dean’s new nickname from our dear Matt, and his actual TITLE.
3) The reason I put “writers” in quotes is that technically the people who did it may have been copy editors or interns or something (Fox hasn’t said who deserves the blame). But then again, what qualifies as writing at Fox is just inserting RNC talking points into real news stories anyway. I don’t see how these “writers” are that much different.
In fact, based on Fox New’s goals in news reporting, this type of mistake is the kind of thing that should get someone promoted.
The administration had four reasons for the war. Look through the Library of Congress for H.J. 114 (From the 2002 session). They were: WMD’s, sponsoring of terrorism, genocide of Kurdish Iraqis, and an attempt on Fmr. President Bush’s life. And even with that, he hasn’t lied. (We did find some sarin gas over there. http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/26/iraq.duelfer/index.html for the proof.)
I’m aware she voted for such things. I had looked at the roll call votes to see if Kerry did vote for it, then against it. But which do many people remember, that she voted for the war, or that she was outspoken against it?
You know what’s amazing about this country. We are able, as a people, to have a certain view. Then when the circumstances change we are then allowed to alter this view to fit the new situation. In fact, I believe that that is much better than sticking to the first conclusion that you drew regardless of the facts. So even if, in your mind, either Clinton or Kerry “flip-flopped” they have every right to do so considering things had changed dramtically. As someone much smarter than I once said “Changing your mind is the only sure way to ensure that you still have one.”
And also, if you are going to quote people, try to do it in context. That helps a lot. That is if your goal is to inform. But if not, keep on using Fox!
Ok, you want to talk about reasons?
#1- WMD-there were none
#2-sponsoring of terrorism: I’m going to say this one last time so you can get it through your head. It has been proven that there was NO CONNECTION AT ALL between Al Quiada and Iraq. NONE!
#3- Genocide- There are lots of people commiting genocide. For instance, the Sudan or the Congo. Why not go after them too? This wasn’t a valid reason for putting our troops in harm’s way. It just wasn’t.
#4- Attempt on Bush Sr.- Ugh. Personal revenge. Also not a valid reason to have 1500 soldiers on our side killed. Do you understand that Matthew!?
No, I don’t think you have any sense of decency at ALL if you think these reasons were good enough reasons to go to war. I will always be outspoken against this war, but I’m also realistic, I know we can’t back out now. But, that doesn’t mean that I or Sen. Clinton will let the Bush administration know what a complete failure their handling of the war hass been.
Shove it, Matthew.
Wow, I wish we could edit these.
Ok in the last paragraph it’s supposed to say, “But, that doesn’t mean that Sen. Clinton or I won’t let the Bush administration know…”
You get the idea.
abbey’s 4 points are great except I would change number three to point out that
3) the invasion of Iraq has killed, by latest reports, more that twice as many people as Saddam did in his entire regim’s 30 year history, including the wars in Iran and Kuwait
and to point out that anyone claiming WMD’s knows it’s untrue. He had no missles to shoot anything past his borders. He had no “uranium enrichment faciliites” (remember Condi’s mushroom cloud thing?) there are more wmds in New Jersey than Iraq. So yes, those are called lies Matt.
Democrats admitted that Clinton lied about Monica. Republicans still can’t admit that Bush lied when he spoke about Uranium from Niger, he lied when he said that 70 percent of the Iraqi’s voted (it was closer to 25 percent) he lied when he said the country would be stabilized and safer after the June 1st transfer of power, he lied when he said…oh I don’t need to go on and on.
It’s just an empirical fact that those were lies. Thus, it is an emprical fact that Bush is a liar. Come on out and admit it Matthew.
I’m a liberal and I love America!
Good conversation guys and dolls!
I can’t believe you just admitted to personal revenge.
I’m not sure if Lytle is supposed to be an editorial or humor. All I end up doing is reading it and laugh. What a Loser.