More mainstream media madness

Leave it to the mainstream media.

Whenever I despair that I may not be able to think of a topic for the next week's column, I can always count on some reporter in Washington, D.C., or New York to do something boneheaded.

This week, I got lucky. The mainstream media went into a near-fatal frenzy of arrogance. It was like the march of the liberal lemmings into the Sarcastic Sea. Everywhere I turned there was one more example of self-important big city know-it-alls exercising their god-given right to look down their noses at the rest of us. And this doesn't even count the nightly sniveling of the sophomoric Keith Olbermann on MSNBC.

So for at least the next two weeks, I'm going to take a look at some representatives of the mainstream media who apparently think the main stream is veering ever leftward, and that they are obliged to enlighten us about the dangers of the Neanderthal right.

First up is Jennifer Loven, who most of you have never heard of. I too had never heard of her until last week when someone sent me an article she wrote called "Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches."

At first I thought it was a "news analysis" or opinion piece, but it turns out that it was supposed to be a straight news story, the news apparently being that Jennifer Loven looked up from her navel long enough to notice that President Bush understands and uses a common tool of rhetoric called the "straw man" argument.

Here is how her story starts out:

"Some look at the challenges in Iraq and conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day," President Bush said recently.

Another time he said, "Some say that if you're Muslim you can't be free."

"There are some really decent people," the president said earlier this year, "who believe that the federal government ought to be the decider of health care … for all people."

Of course, hardly anyone in mainstream political debate has made such assertions.

Loven then goes on to imply that Bush is somehow being sneaky by using "straw-man arguments" in his ongoing dialogue with the public about his policies. A "straw man" argumentâ in case you don't remember Philosophy 101 - is when you create a weak argument, one that is easy to refute, and attribute that position to your opponent, just about the time you knock it down.

Loven decided it was big news that she had discovered this "straw man" device being used by President Bush in his speeches, so she wrote an entire "news" story about her "objective" interpretation of Bush's rhetoric.

Of course, it wouldn't be appropriate to say the president is a "lying sneak" - which is what she apparently believes to be "objective" truth - so she dressed up the story by using two professors to buttress her argument that the president is engaging in what one of the professors - Wayne Fields of Washington University in St. Louis - calls "a bizarre kind of double talk."

Fields then goes on to say, "It's such a phenomenal hole in the national debate that you can have arguments with nonexistent people. All politicians try to get away with this to a certain extent. What's striking here is how much this administration rests on a foundation of this kind of stuff."

Huh? What say? The entire Bush administration rests on a foundation of straw-man arguments because the president on occasion uses the rhetorical device of beginning a sentence with "some"?

There are two fundamental problems with this approach to reporting the news. First, it is analysis, not news. Second, it is wrong.

The reporter has no business writing this kind of story in the first place. If she is going to be an objective reporter, she is there to tell what happened and not to tell us what we are supposed to think about what happened. And if she is going to engage in analysis, she had better make sure it is so labeled.

But even more importantly, if she is going to "educate" us with her thoughtful analysis, she had better at least be right. The only thing worse than a pompous know-it-all is a pompous fool, and Loven is vying for the title. After all, the argument she makes in her "story" is based on the unproved premise that Bush has used this particular rhetorical device more than other politicians. She offers no statistical analysis to back this up, just anecdotal evidence.

But significantly, in the examples cited by Loven, the president is not refuting a weaker argument at all, but a stronger argument, so it is not a straw man in any case.

Take the line about Iraq, for instance. Yes, there are those who say we should withdraw from Iraq on a timetable, rather than immediately, but their position has been noted and countered, not ignored. The president has repeatedly explained why he doesn't think an announced timetable for withdrawal is appropriate.

But that certainly doesn't mean he should avoid the more radical arguments of the anti-Bush caucus in Congress such as Rep. John Murtha. Indeed, Murtha's arguments are much more forceful than those of the "timetable" advocates, and thus demand a response. Back on Nov. 17, 2005, Murtha threw down the gauntlet and told the president "the emerging government [in Iraq] must be put on notice that the United States will immediately redeploy."

That is another way of saying "not … another dime or another day." So the president was not mis-stating or overstating his opponent's argument. Rather than ignore Murtha and marginalize him by saying he is out of the mainstream, the president responded to his criticisms, as he should. John Murtha is no straw man, and he must be taken seriously. The president was wise to do so.

The same is true for those who have raised the other arguments that Bush responded to with the statements quoted in Loven's story. The problem for Loven isn't the argument; it's George Bush. She just doesn't like him.

You don't have to take my word for it. Do a Google search of her name, and you will discover that she has a history of writing stories that are slanted against the president. In another masterpiece of unacknowledged analysis, for instance, Loven wrote "President Bush Twists Kerry's Words on Iraq" in September 2004. That was about the same time when Dan Rather was not just "twisting" but actually inventing from whole cloth President Bush's military records.

It is of particular concern to me that Loven writes for the Associated Press, which of course is the main source of national news in the Inter Lake, but I'm not going to let it ruin my day. Despite her abysmal example, I remain confident that AP reporters in general understand their responsibility for fairness and strive to meet it.