Democrats SPAM It Up, German Media Could Care Less

(By Ray D.)

The German media have nothing but disdain for actions by bloggers encouraging their readers to vote on online polls. Davids Medienkritik has already caught the attention of both SPIEGEL ONLINE and ZDF with such actions. In neither case did Medienkritik tell its viewers how to vote. Now, the Democrats are sending out mass SPAM emails encouraging their followers to vote on post debate polls as a part of their massive spin campaign. They have even sent out emails declaring their candidate the winner before the debate has even begun. Even FoxNews.com currently has a poll giving Kerry 70%, hardly reflective of his performance. The German media could care less...it's ok as long as the "conservative click guerilla" isn't behind it apparently.

So we at Davids Medienkritik would like to encourage all of you to vote on polls as to who won the debate. We won't tell you how to vote, but we feel you should exercise your good right.

Be sure to vote on debate polls at:

www.cnn.com
www.msnbc.com
www.foxnews.com
www.abcnews.com
www.cbsnews.com
www.netscape.com
www.yahoo.com

For those of you who missed it, here is a transcript of the debate. Decide for yourselves.

Money Quote: Kerry told the debate audience that Saddam Hussein would "not necessarily be in power" had he been President. I am sure that is a great comfort to the families of the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children Saddam murdered, tortured, imprisoned and suppressed to know that Saddam wouldn't "necessarily (still) be in power" under a President Kerry. What if Roosevelt had told the American people Hitler would "not necessarily be in power" with him as President in the midst of World War II? Could you imagine it? This certainly doesn't help Kerry shake the indecisive image...

Oh, and the German media, which is so outraged at unproven allegations of Republican efforts to hinder the election process couldn't care less that the Democrats have launched a massive multi-million dollar campaign nationwide to keep Ralph Nader off the ballot. That isn't even to mention several incidents of outright violence directed against Republican campaign headquarters around the USA including a shooting! I guess they figure what the German people don't know can't hurt them...or Kerry.

Comments

[tyranno]

I know I tend to restate the obvious so bear with me.
Bush's opponent is not only Kerry, it is the entire mainstream media in the U.S.A. Watching it is infuriating as they selectively focus on certain topics, slant interview with bias questions, color everything the Bush campaign does as "mean" or an "attack!"
But then in their vociferously defended objectivity; refuse to interview people who disagree with Kerry, don't question Kerry about the all too numerous contradictions in ALL of his bumpersticker proposals, don't ask Kerry to explain any of his voluminous "plans" to solve all the woes of the world, don't ask Kerry why he never talks about 19 years in the Senate,
etc . . .
The biggest "lie" in this election is the notion of Kerry's leadership in the world when there is a 25+ year track record that contradict the very notion
The same "objective" mainstream media ilk out there who ignore the fact that nearly all the world's leaders and their intelligence services are on record in their belief that saddam had weapons of mass destruction and now demand you believe "Bush lied!"
. . . are the same ones who ignore and waltz around legitimate question's of Kerry's three and one half months of military service, his billionaire status, and his 19 years of totally unremarkable Senate time tonow demand that you believe credible 'performances' during debates conveys all the qualities need to "lead the free world!"
Kerry is unfit in character and capabilities to be President of the United States of America, though he may well be the best the DNC has to offer.

Tyranno

[Transatlantiker]

Hmmmm I remember that the owner of this blog kicked off the first "freeping" of a Spiegel poll...

[tyranno]

So Trans , is this really something that makes you go "hhhmmmm" or didn't you read all of the article? 1) He was hardly the first, and 2) he may be the first to fight back using the tactics of "progressive liberals" against themselves.

some examples in a supporting article from the WSJ Europe titled: ~ Write Early and Often ~
In the debate Thursday, John Kerry staked out a strong plan to bring peace to Iraq and to refocus our efforts to fight terrorists around the world. We know because we read it in the Bergen (N.J.) Record. Twice. Here's a letter to the editor from Kate Swan of Teaneck, which appeared in yesterday's Record:

"In the first presidential debate, I was hoping to hear a good debate. I wanted to hear John Kerry lay out his plans for Iraq and for winning the war on terror. I wasn't disappointed. Kerry staked out a strong plan to bring peace to Iraq and to refocus our efforts to fight terrorists around the world.
President Bush avoided the questions and issues presented him. He is a terrible speaker and a worse debater. His snide grin doesn't work on me. He's led us into danger, not toward safety.
This debate made it clear: Kerry is a leader we can trust to tell us the truth when it comes to our nation's security. Bush has had his chance."

And here's a letter from Norman Kailo of Wayne:
"John Kerry staked out a strong plan to bring peace to Iraq and to refocus our efforts to fight terrorists around the world. While his own intelligence services, military advisers, Republican colleagues, and even his secretary of state have said that Iraq is in chaos, President Bush still presents a version of Iraq seen through rose-colored glasses."

Here's the original, from the Democratic National Committee Web site:
www.democrats.org/media/letters/debate.html

"In the first presidential debate, I was hoping to hear two things.
First, I wanted to hear John Kerry lay out his plans for Iraq and for winning the war on terror. I wasn't disappointed. Kerry staked out a strong plan to bring peace to Iraq and to refocus our efforts to fight terrorists around the world.
Second, I wanted to hear President Bush tell the truth about Iraq, but he refused. While his own intelligence services, military advisers, Republican colleagues, and even his Secretary of State have said that Iraq is in chaos, Bush still presents a version of Iraq seen through rose-colored glasses.
This debate made it clear: John Kerry is a leader we can trust to tell us the truth when it comes to our nation's security. George Bush has had his chance; I'm ready for a new direction."

Note the other similarities between the Record's letters and the DNC template. In Swan's letter, the first sentence is similar and the second paragraph is identical; and the second paragraph of Kailo's letter is identical to a sentence in the DNC version.

We at The Wall Street Journal got letters like these too, but it wasn't hard to figure out they were part of an orchestrated campaign. That's because they started flowing in before the debate! We even got one that was sent at 6:59 p.m. Eastern Time--just over two hours before the debate started--that used the DNC template but swapped Bush's and Kerry's names.

The folks at the Chicago Tribune not only noticed this but published a news story . . . www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0410010180oct01,1,6120081.story
. . . and an opinion column about it.
www.chicagotribune.com/services/site/premium/access-registered.intercept
The Dallas Morning News reports it "received more than 500 letters, and about four-fifths were deemed to be from an organized pro-Kerry source."
www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/washington/stories/100204dnpolletters.d9c48.html
The Morning News quotes Paul Hurley, opinion editor of the Visalia (Calif.) Times-Delta: "If your mother sends you an e-mail letter that says she loves you, check it out."

On the other hand, we found at least three newspapers and one TV station's Web site that published versions of the DNC's prefab letter: the Boston Globe www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/letters/articles/2004/10/02/kerry_vs_bush?pg=full,

Honolulu Advertiser,
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Oct/03/op/op20aletters.html

Ventura County (Calif.) Star,
www.venturacountystar.com/vcs/opinion/article/0,1375,VCS_125_3228585,00.html

KTVO of Kirksville, Mo, http://www.ktvotv3.com/Global/story.asp?S=2374427&nav=1LFsRWk8.

Oh, and while we're at it, let's immortalize the "writers" of these letters. They are, respectively, the delightfully alliterative Mindy Mazur of Milton, Mass.; Dick R. Trahan of Kaimuki, Hawaii; Faith Morres of Oxnard, Calif.; and Richard Damm of Ottumwa, Iowa.

The Bergen Record, though, seems to be the only one that published two versions of the same missive on the same page. Who's in charge of letters over there, the Doublemint Twins?
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?

It's not easy trying to get a narcississtic and totally vacuous stuffed shirt like Kerry elected. It quite obviously takes all of the resources and trickery available to the DNC, legal or illegal to accomplish the feat. And if 25 million Iraqi have to be sacrificed in their quest to reacquire power half way around the world . . . so be it!

Tyranno

PS: Maybe the inevitable flood of Iraqi refugees could get jobs in the Vietnamese and Cambodian restaurants in Orange County???
PSS: You remember those "economic opportunists?" the unfortunate results of Kerry's last stab at foreign policy!

[tyranno]

transatlantiker, More on the same:

~ Write Early and Often--II ~

Yesterday it was noted that several U.S. newspapers had published "letters" supposedly written by readers that actually were copies, in whole or in part, of a template provided by the Democratic National Committee. At least two papers didn't fall for the scam and wrote about it instead.

The Washington Post in an editorial reported having received one of these pro-Kerry missives "four hours and 14 minutes before debate moderator Jim Lehrer posed his first question." www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1791-2004Oct1.html

And the letters editor of the Sacramento Bee, John Hughes, went through the trouble of checking the message headers. He reports that of the 82 letters he received on the debate, 47 came from the mail server of Democrats.org, the DNC domain, and another 22 came from MoveOn.org. (Ned Crabb, letters editor of The Wall Street Journal, tells us he got 3,500 prefab debate letters.)
www.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/10948901p-11866235c.html

But at least three more "writers" fooled newspaper editors into publishing this DNC boilerplate:

Farrell Goodman of Fairfield, Ohio, in the Cincinnati Enquirer (seventh letter).
www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/03/editorial_edlet.html

Barbara Choquet of Woonsocket, R.I., in the Providence Journal.
www.projo.com/opinion/letters/content/projo_20041003_03leco.c189d.html

Doris Wolf of Castro Valley, Calif., in the Daily Review of Hayward. www.dailyreviewonline.com/Stories/0,1413,88%257E11011%257E,00.html

Now, we suppose all of these people did believe what they "wrote"; the trouble is that they didn't write it. It's yet one more form of fake-but-accurate journalism.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Davidmedienkritik is indeed guilty of . . . turning the tables on masterful purveyors of deceit! And the good progressive liberals are pissed because they believe they are uniquely qualified to create and own what the proles will be allowed to consider "objective truth!"

Miraculously, according to the mainstream medias, "Kerry is gaining!" Talk about trying to steal an election! The problem for these folks is always the same, that being one has to be willing to overlook so darn much to buy into and believe what they say is "objective truth!"

Tyranno

[Don]

Bush pulled out to a 50-46 lead in the Rasmussen tracking poll today. Probably not primarily a result of his win in the debate, given that Rassmussen says that 95% of the interviews were completed before the debate ran.

[Joe N.]

Tyranno:

dang - that's brilliant! How on earth did you figure that out?

[cyllo]

"In neither case did Medienkritik tell its viewers how to vote."

Well, this is what you wrote at the time:

"As of 5 March, 2004, 10pm (Berlin time), Bush's results are EXCELLENT. 41.23 per cent for "1" (= Bush did a great job as President). Many thanks!! YOU GUYS ARE DOING JUST GREAT!! The Bush haters at SPIEGEL ONLINE will have a heart attack tomorrow morning... Keep up the good work!!"

[chinaski]

it is absolutely ridicoulus to state, that medienkritik doesn't want to tell people how to vote in online-polls, but only citing kerry about hussein. Well done lads, this shows how "indipendent" you are!

[Transatlantiker]

Tyranno

Both sides have been doing that phony "Letter to the Editor" thing, and I don't blame them for trying. I blame the media for not running every letter through Google before they publish them.
As for the "online polls": Freeping is an equal opportunity thing. Don't know who started it but given its name I have a guess. It's actually a pretty silly thing, but then again, Cookie and IP control could stem the worst excesses.
And sorry, Medienkritik is about as pro Bush as they come in Germany (which is perfectly legitimate), so don't pretend neutrality.

[Tyranno]

Ok, then how about this:

Remember when Al Gore called online critics of the Democratic Party "digital brownshirts" merely for exercising their First Amendment rights? Nazi analogies are overwrought even for what we're about to describe, but there have been a variety of reports in recent weeks of violence and intimidation directed against Republicans: http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110005272#brownshirts

Near Milwaukee, "more than 50 demonstrators supporting Democrat presidential candidate John Kerry stormed a Republican campaign office in West Allis at mid-day [Tuesday], trespassing, creating a disturbance through the use of a bullhorn in the office and then refusing to leave when asked," according to a Wisconsin GOP press release. State party chairman Rick Graber also pointed "to an incident in Madison last week in which Bush-Cheney yard signs were stolen from the yards of three homes. The vandals then used chemicals to burn swastikas into the lawns of the homes. http://www.wisgop.org/view.phtml?func=ch&lg=&id=83

In Huntington, W.Va., "someone fired a shot at the Republican Headquarters office" on Sept. 2, as local party members were watching President Bush's nomination speech, reports WSAZ-TV. "The bullet left a hole in the front window," but no one was hurt. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5901781/

In Knoxville, Tenn., "an unknown suspect fired multiple shots into the Bearden office of the Bush/Cheney re-election campaign Tuesday morning." No one was in the office. "One shot shattered the glass in the front door and the other cracked the glass in another of the front doors." http://www.wbir.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=20241

In Orlando, Fla., "a group of protestors stormed and then ransacked a Bush-Cheney headquarters building" on Tuesday. WKMG reports that most of the intruders "were from the AFL-CIO and were taking part in one of 20 other coordinated protests around the country."
http://www.local6.com/politics/3785861/detail.html

In Tampa, Fla., "labor activists stormed President Bush's campaign headquarters" Tuesday. No one was injured or arrested. http://tampatrib.com/MGBF1XMUYZD.html

To be sure, in the most serious of these incidents, the gunshots in Huntington and Knoxville, the perpetrators were unknown. It's entirely possible they were random acts of violence. But then, just like the "progressives" blamed the Oklahoma City bombing on "rightwing talk radio" when the DNC and their cronys create the environment justifying violence,
"Bush is killing kids for oil profits!" moveon.org; "This war was dreamed up in Texas by Bush and his oil buddies," ted kennedy; "Blacks and poor folks are dying out of proportion to their numbers in society" charles rangle; etc, etc, . .
. . . can you imagine the outcry about the "extreme rightwing," if this sort of thing were going on at Democratic campaign offices?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Good to see the old "everyone does it!" mantra trotted out again, but without source references ~ it is of course, one opinion!

The point isn't medienkritik being pro~Bush, it is the vast, vast majority of the German mainstream media being emotionally, viscerally, kneejerkedly, anti-Bush.

Being Pro-Bush, in this enviroment, IS the true radical, creatively progressive, non-Herd, properly skeptical, contrarian position here in Germany. That puts him in an approximate 20% slice of German society.
And trans is telling you to stop pretending to be neutral/objective!

Tyranno