CBS covers-up humiliating McCain error, misleads national audience

July 23, 2008

Following up on the last post, John McCain, in response to a question from CBS anchor Katie Couric, demonstrated bizarre confusion about the basics of the U.S. surge policy in Iraq. McCain got the basic timeline and history of the surge backwards, insisting that the surge prompted the Anbar Awakening, which is the opposite of reality.

Given that McCain is betting his entire campaign on the surge and his expertise, I argued that this mistake is arguably the most serious by a presidential candidate in years.

Which is why it’s more than a little odd that CBS News not only edited McCain’s humiliating error out of its broadcast, but even shuffled the interview around to make McCain’s response less ridiculous.

For those of you who can’t watch clips online, the video shows a report — partially from MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and partially from The Jed Report — that shows, side-by-side, the original CBS News interview, and what CBS News actually aired.

The network showed viewers Couric’s question in full, but instead of airing McCain’s actual response — the one that showed McCain getting the basics of the surge backwards — CBS took a different answer to a different question and pasted it into the broadcast, leaving viewers with the impression that it was McCain’s actual response to Couric’s inquiry.

Someone needs to lose their job over this.

It’s curious, to put it mildly, on multiple levels.

Why would CBS News cover-up arguably the biggest candidate error of the entire presidential campaign?

Why would CBS News mix-and-match McCain’s responses to make him appear less incompetent?

Why would CBS News broadcast a question but not the answer to the question?

Why would CBS News post the entire actual interview online, making it easy for us to see their mischief?

Why would CBS News deliberately take the most newsworthy element of the interview, and leave it on the editing room floor?

Why didn’t Katie Couric hear McCain’s ridiculous answer, and ask a follow-up question seeking clarification?

On balance, McCain’s striking ignorance is clearly more important than CBS News’ journalistic malpractice. But it’s nevertheless hard to know what the network was thinking.

I’d just add that around the same time that McCain was demonstrating scandalous ignorance about U.S. policy in Iraq, and CBS News was covering that ignorance up, McCain’s campaign was whining about the media going easy on Barack Obama. The irony is rich.

Holy Smokes! Good work Steve…

Everybody email a link to this post to somebody in the media, or in congress.

  • The media’s handling of McSame is like a family with a very elderly grandparent. “Grandpa get mixed up sometimes. Don’t pay it any mind.”

  • Someone needs to lose their job over this.

    Yes. Including Couric — she knew that the interview was falsified, when it was broadcast if not before, and allowed it to air unchallenged. I didn’t catch the interview when it broadcast, but it’s worse then I thought — CBS didn’t merely edit out a newsworthy gaffe, they falsified the interview. That’s an unforgivable journalistic sin.

  • I believe it’s now safe to conclude, without any risk of hyperbole, that John McCain is the worst major party presidential nominee in modern history. The Republican Party implosion has moved from a side show to the main stage, and I’ve got my popcorn.

  • Wasn’t it just a day or two ago that Couric went public with her claim that sexism is to blame for her low ratings (and her comparison of herself to HRC)?

    No, it isn’t. We would watch you, Ms. Couric, if you had the wherewithal to ask a follow-up question after McCain tanked on the answer.

    We would watch you, Ms. Couric, if you had over the last year and a half demonstrated integrity and work ethic that would be incompatible with allowing McCain’s original answer to get cut and a “better” answer to be merged in.

    We would watch you, Ms. Couric, if you had not used your considerable influence, while at the helm of “Today,” to dumb down America by substituting summer makeup tips and celebrity interviews for actual news.

    We might take you seriously, Ms. Couric, if you didn’t cry “sexism” while at the same time earning a reported $15 million per year for your crappy contribution to the evening news. You earn more than nearly anyone in your profession (if not more than everyone in your profession), and you have the cojones to complain that you are a victim of sexism?

    I am a liberal woman who does not watch you, but the reason I turn the channel when I hear your voice is not because of sexism. It is because of disgust. It is because of the disconnect between what you could do and what you actually do. I say to you, Katie Couric, get off of my TV and iron my shirt.

  • The Obama campaign can take this one and run with it. All’s fair and this McLame guy is full of shit so why not?! Either that or MoveOn. CBS needs to get burned as well on this one. Clearly, the media must be exposed for this treachery but by whom, the media?

  • On balance, McCain’s striking ignorance is clearly more important than CBS News’ journalistic malpractice.

    That’s kind of like saying that the gangrene in my wound is more important than the rusty nail that caused it. Sure it may be technically true, but McCain wouldn’t even be a candidate right now if the press hadn’t been covering his ass since the 2000 campaign.

    CBS’s journalistic malpractice pretty much strikes at the heart of the reason for a free press. If they can get away with this blatant a move then there’s no need for television journalism anymore. Their competitors should be eating their lunch right now, showing how CBS manipulated the interview on behalf of the candidate and trying to drive their name into the mud. That’s how competition works – they need to be pointing out how untrustworthy CBS is and using this to propel the good names of their own news programs. If they don’t do this, competition in the area of TV journalism is a failed experiment and we need to be looking for some other model.

  • Dan Rather lost his CBS job over a lot less than this. But Rather’s piece was one that made a Republican look bad. It’s doubtful that making a Republican look good less bad is as much a hanging offense.

    If there is an upside to all this, the inevitable controversy will draw more attention to McCain’s confusion than it might have received if CBS had played it straight. (I’m the eternal optimist.)

    Dam librul media.

  • My interpretation of what happened is that Couric didn’t know that McCain’s statement was false. Then when it was discovered in the editing room, she didn’t want to be seen uninformed by letting McCain get away with the error. And because the interview was over, she couldn’t ask a clarifying question and didn’t want to air a “gotcha” moment in what could have been a misstatement rather than actual confusion. So the piece was edited to “protect” both her and McCain. And the full interview was posted online so that CBS could be “upfront” about it.

    Now I’m not defending this, I’m just saying that’s my guess as to what happened. It’s sloppy, and it will be interesting to see how or if CBS follows up on this.

  • In a high information, politically involved country, McCain’s ignorance of the basic timeline would be a damaging blow to his campaign and this issue would be a strong one for the Obama camp to push.

    In today’s USA, I can’t imagine that this is going to be a big deal. It’s too hard to explain, the perceived result of the Surge is a good one, and no one trusts the media anyway. I’ll be surprised if this one has legs–the true outrages rarely do.

  • “Why would CBS News deliberately take the most newsworthy element of the interview, and leave it on the editing room floor?”

    Perhaps they don’t want him to tank too soon. I still think he will not be the candidate, that he is just filling in for now, and that the big story will be when he “drops out” and the MSM is playing along until the big moment when the real candiate steps up to the plate, which of course will mean the real candiate will be the primary focus of the MSM just before the election…

    I hope I am wrong….

  • so my question is, is this story getting any traction anywhere except in these blogs?

  • McCain’s striking ignorance is clearly more important than CBS News’ journalistic malpractice.

    I don’t agree. CBS News’ journalistic malpractrice…no, malfeasance…is more important—along with the AP’s, WaPo’s, ABC’s, LATimes’, Bob Herbert’s, Paul Krugman’s, NBC’s, MSNBC’s, …

    For me, the behavior of traditional media during this campaign hasn’t just been disappointing, it’s been shocking. From the Hillary cleavage/hair stories to Jeremiah Wright and Obama’s so-called flip-flops to carrying water for McCain on this and other matters, it’s clear that it’s not enough to take what we hear and read in the traditional media with a grain of salt. Rather, with a few exceptions, it’s almost best to avoid them altogether.

  • My interpretation of what happened is that Couric didn’t know that McCain’s statement was false. Then when it was discovered in the editing room, she didn’t want to be seen uninformed by letting McCain get away with the error

    The thing is, seeming uninformed is the less bad of the options, when “corrupt” is the other option.

  • Besides CBS editing out McCain’s misstatement on the Anbar Awakening to make things even worse, CBS allowed McCain to make one of the most reprehensible statements ever made by a Presidential candidate, accusing him of losing the war to win the election without any challenge to that cowardly charge. That was disgusting.

    Katie Couric telegraphed that she would be attacking Obama in advance when, bowing to the McCain pressure that he was getting too much press, she said she would be tough on him in the questioning.

    When I heard her say that, I thought CBS might have enough journalistic integrity to ask serious questions, not be a surrogate for McCain’s attacks. I guess I was wrong. Ed Murrow must be rolling in his grave.

    This adds yet another reason why CBS News has become the worst operation in the business.

  • Aside from the cover-up, Morning Joe was just trying to peddle the same GOP spin– that the Surge caused the Sunni Awakening. General Wesley Clark was like, no, that’s not how it worked, that the surge had nothiing to do with that. They’re trying to distract everyone from talking about the pullout timetable by boosting the power of the Surge. It’s pathetic.

    The GOP got us into a fucked up war under false pretenses then they fucked up the war itself. Now that there is talk of a pullout they have to somehow spin it into a “win” so they can take all the credit for their glorious war. They don’t seem to realize that they can’t spin their way out of this.

    (hitting head on keyboard)

  • CBS News not only edited McCain’s humiliating error out of its broadcast, but even shuffled the interview around to make McCain’s response less ridiculous.

    Time for a little George Orwell with your morning tea:

    The terrifying thing about the modern dictatorship is that they are something entirely unprecedented. Their end cannot be foreseen. In the past every tyranny was sooner or later overthrown, or at least resisted, because of ‘human nature’ which as a matter of course desired liberty. But we cannot be at all certain that ‘human nature’ is constant. It may be just as possible to produce a breed of men who don not wish for liberty as to produce a breed of hornless cows. The Inquisition failed, but then the Inquisition had not the resources of the modern state. The radio, press-censorship, standardized education and the secret police have altered everything. Mass-suggestion is a science of the last twenty years, and we do not yet know how successful it will be.

    From a review on a book about the “modern Russian government.”

  • The GOP got us into a fucked up war under false pretenses then they fucked up the war itself. Now that there is talk of a pullout they have to somehow spin it into a “win” so they can take all the credit for their glorious war. They don’t seem to realize that they can’t spin their way out of this.

    Tragically, CBS News’ egregious journalistic malpractice, and the incompetence and corruption of the so-called “liberal media,” sends a clear signal to the GOP that they just might be able to.

  • 11:39 pm AP covers this story as a he said/he said between the campaigns. Words could be used to describe such duplicity and foolishness surrounding the CBS/McCain debacle, but alas, our MSM is mute. Let the circus begin, and pass me some of that bread! -Kevo

  • What makes anyone think Couric has a clue to the actual timeline? Hell, I bet 98% of Americans have no clue. I also doubt she’s that involved in the editing process, it at all — she gets paid to read what they give her, not think about it.

    That doesn’t excuse her, mind you. Just sayin’.

    I’ll be sending an email to CBS — both their generic addy (evening [at] cbsnews.com) and to the producer in charge of politics (Jacqueline.Barnathan [at] cbs.com).

    Couric, I’m guessing, is similar (katie.couric [at] cbs.com, or maybe just her initials) but I can’t confirm that.

    I’ll be nice … ish …

    **insert evil laugh here**

  • Dear America,

    If my friends at FOX have the right to lie,
    Then I have the right to falsify.

    Hugs and Kisses,
    Katie Couric

    It’s time for some journalistic ethics requirements—and if Bush’s SCOTUS wants to declare them “unconstitutional,” then maybe someone could just forget to renew some broadcasting licenses. Or there’s always i.b.i. ….

  • The surprising part is that CBS left the unedited interview be viewed. I suppose the McCain people could point to that and scream “media bias” but that would call more attention to gramps’ fuckup.

    WTF is CBS up to? They pull the punch, but let it land. I don’t get it.

  • I hope CBS gets an avalanche of emails demanding an explanation and an apology to Obama. But I believe they have lost what small shred of credibility they ever had. They do not present the news, just a Republican slant. Couric – RESIGN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Obviously CBS crewed up big time. But….

    (1) Kudos to MSNBC for treating McCain’s lying the way it should be treated – not as “he gaffed” but as “Breaking News: McCain makes false statement”. Excellent journalism, K.O. and all of MSNBC news room, hats off.

    (2) Also hat tip to Anderson Cooper & CNN for running this as his lead “Breaking News” story. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

    So while what CBS pisses me off and forces us all to take further action, last night’s coverage from MSNBC and CNN was heartening, no doubt about that. Maybe they just wanted to turn the screws on CBS, but whatever the motivation, the truth prevailed on MSNBC and CNN last night.

  • The “surge” escalation was for Baghdad. The alAnbar Sunnis were not included, but were paid under a different plan to throw out the foreign alQueda guys, who were getting on their nerves by their usual tactics of assassinations and extortion. The administration has disingenuously included this windfall into the “surge” results. And we’ve fallen for it. Who says Goebbels died in ’45?

  • Here is a link to the full video:

    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/22/eveningnews/main4283813.shtml

    At 2:56 Couric asks her question, followed by the McCain response.

    The Obama video is also edited. He is asked to name one area where he needs some work, not being as confident as he is on foreign policy. They edit out his full response, making it look like Bush’s answer to a similar question in a 2004 debate with Kerry.

    So this is a double hit for the editors.

  • there are exactly 47 of us in the entire US who know the actual facts well enough to catch this. therein lies the problem. no one else would even know McCain was lying unless they are told by a source they trust. the media wont tell them, and if they did, it isn’t clear the people would trust the media. now, perhaps most shamefully, Mornin’ Joe makes this a “he said/she said” as if there was no objective reality at all.

    welcome to Wonderland – line up to vote right over there behind Alice, the Mad Hatter, and the Red Queen.

  • steve,

    im going to have to disagree with you here. I think its most likely that the interview was edited for aesthetic reasons by an ill-informed editor. interviews are often cropped to give the viewer of an evening news program the clearest and most concise parts, but also often for dramatic effect, which is probably what happened here. CBS thought they had a nice quip from mccain and decided to use it.

    The fact that CBS posted the entire interview online is a point in their favor, its exactly the kind of thing we want news organizations to be doing, and it also strongly implies that this was a mistake made out of ignorance.

  • This is all inside baseball. Anyone who knows what the Anbar Awakening is, or when it began, isn’t watching Katie Couric to increase their knowledge of facts. Anyone who knows what the Anbar Awakening is, and when it began, has already decided whom they’re voting for. Anyone who can understand how and why CBS’s actions are wrong in this instance isn’t going to have their views changed by having it “exposed.” It needs to be exposed, not to change voters’ minds, but to discredit MSM sources generally, so that uninformed voters feel the need to seek out other sources of news which require more of the news consumer, like the ability to read and think. TV evening news doesn’t do that.

  • Henceforth all news “reports” generated by CBS are suspect. Ed Murrow, spinning in his grave. Dan Rather, spinning in his recliner.

  • Dear American Citizens and the Press

    As a concerned citizen, I consider it is my duty to bring following message to you all.

    “We the citizens of the United States of America have the ultimate responsibility to elect the ” Right Candidate” to lead our nation, out of our huge present and future internal and external challenges as well as opportunities. This is to prevent depression and isolation in-spite of being the only superpower in the world morally, democratically, economically, and militarily.

    We need to consider the “critical qualities and characteristics” of our presumptive presidential nominees at the time we vote.

    In my personal and professional opinion the critical considerations are as under:

    1. Calm, cool, and collected ” temper ” [ Presidential Temperament ].
    2. Sound and sustained “Judgment and Caliber”.
    3. “Thought-fullness and togetherness” of purpose and positions.
    4. Minimum “ex-poser and exploitation” around “Washington and Washington insiders”.
    5. Renewed ” Vigor and Vision ” for our Greatgrand Nation.
    6. Foreign policy based on ” American Values, Virtuous, Vastness”.

    Stay informed, stay involved, and stay engaged. Do not allow some partisan media, pundits, pollsters, and perpetual political opinion makers effect your vote in the wrong direction.

    Don’t be effected and duped by “Psychological Terrorism” that is afflicted upon you all the time.

    Long live U.S.A and its diverse but democratic people.

    Col. A.M. Khajawall [Ret] MD., ABFM., ABDA.
    Chief Consultant: World Wide Porfessional Consultants[WWPC]
    Colonel, USAR/MC Combat Stress Control[Ret], Disabled American Veteran and Freedom team.
    Consultant Psychiatrist: CA State, Medical Board of California, and Los Angeles Mental Health Department
    Address: 7642 Eaglehelm Court Las Vegas NV 89123

  • Dave H is right … if you haven’t figured out what irrelevant dinosaurs the msm are by now, you’ll never figure it out.

    Most bone-head voters haven’t got anywhere near the depth of sophistication to understand the importance of this. It SHOULD be instructive for everyone — it’s become clearer by the day that a vote for McCain is a vote for a senile Bush — a criminal moron with Alzheimer’s. Nice combo for a president to have …

    And, Murrow style, CBS should be letting McCain sink under the weight of his own words. But CBS News is extinct, the virtues that motivated Murrow fall on deaf ears, and I’m sure Katie was waay to busy primping for her profile interview BY middle east television as opposed to understanding the issues of the middle east — never mind having the wherewithal to challenge a presidential candidate with a follow up when he actually confirms himself as an unqualified imbecile on a silver platter to a network news cast.

    Most voters, of course, will form their opinions on who to vote for after watching a frenzied, big-buy spend on ads by the McCain / Klan / Swiftboat people, who will have painted Obama as a
    terrorist-rapist by November.

    So what’s the difference ?

  • CBS News’ “most viewed story”, according to their website, is one with the headline: “Obama: Surge Doesn’t Meet Long-Term Goals.”

    I’m convinced. There’s little difference between Fox News and all the rest anymore. They’re the corporate media, and they’re in the tank for the Republican nominee, no matter who he may be.

  • TomB@9 got my read on it.

    Never attribute to malice, that which can be reasonably explained by stupidity.
    –Spider Robinson

    Liek he said, this isn’t an excuse….

  • I’d be willing to bet money that Couric was unaware of the timeline problem. (She’s not a journalist despite playing one on TV.) However I doubt the large majority of “real” journalists among the Villagers would have known either, or have called McCain on it even if they did know. Following up with appropriate questions is a lost art among the MSM, a fact that the GOP has been exploiting for years in order to serve up their ridiculous BS.

    However, pasting the wrong answer in after the question is absolutely bizarre, especially when the correct answer is posted online. My guess is that that one was the hamfisted intervention of a higher-up GOP-friendly exec who wasn’t aware that the whole interview would be available elsewhere. It has the feel of the kind of mistake clueless suits make when imposing their will.

    CBS continues to circle the drain, along with AP and much of the rest of the legacy media.

  • That’s a laugh. McCain’s been to Iraq what, 4 times? Compared to how many for the Obamessia?

    Trying to pin McCain’s supposed “lack of knowledge” about the situation would make the critic look like a fool.

  • The most important fact here is that Couric didn’t catch this at the time of the interview. She is the boss, imagine if Dan Rather had missed this one. A gift from heaven if you are a real journalist, catch one presidential candidate attacking the other about getting the facts wrong, while getting the facts wrong. Couric was asking a question about the history of the last few years in Iraq, a time when she was head newsman at CBS, and she didn’t catch this, it wasn’t like McCain just randomly started talking about an unimportant subject.

  • From CBS’s web site:

    There’s new controversy arising from McCain’s interview with Katie Couric for last night’s CBS Evening News after McCain refuted Obama’s insistence that violence in Iraq may have waned even without the surge, as was evidenced by growing cooperation of Sunni leaders in fighting al Qaeda even before the surge was announced. McCain disputed that, saying that the so-called “Anbar Awakening” was made possible by the surge, a contention that is being disputed by some.

    I love that, “a contention that is being disputed by some.” It’s a contention that is completely disproved by the facts. The awakening started in September, when proposing extending tours would’ve been political suicide. The surge was announced in January. That’s not a matter of opinion. It’s a fact.

    Notice, also, that there is no mention of their pathetic efforts to prop up McCain’s legitimacy as a foreign policy expert. This is the only place, other than the interview and transcript themselves, that I could find on their web site about this outright lie, aided and abetted by the clowns at CBS. This is the only acknowledgment that, perhaps, some people, like reality, disagree with McCain. They don’t even acknowledge that the controversy isn’t about what McCain said, really, it’s about how CBS lied about it.

  • Tom C said: “That’s a laugh. McCain’s been to Iraq what, 4 times? Compared to how many for the Obamessia?

    Trying to pin McCain’s supposed “lack of knowledge” about the situation would make the critic look like a fool.”

    Not really. You can visit Iraq a million times but if your ears are closed and your eyes don’t see, you will learn nothing. And that pretty much describes McCain.

  • If Dan Rather, who had actual experience and credentials as a journalist, got fired over kerning, Katie Couric should be fired for this.It would have been one thing to leave the whole question and answer on the floor, but to actually substitute another answer? That’s transcendentally awful.

    From now on, we can amuse ourselves by imagining what the “real” answer was every time we see Katie interview someone. She has proven that her work product is fiction, not journalism.

  • clar-z said:
    “Why would CBS News deliberately take the most newsworthy element of the interview, and leave it on the editing room floor?”
    Perhaps they don’t want him to tank too soon. I still think he will not be the candidate, that he is just filling in for now, and that the big story will be when he “drops out” and the MSM is playing along until the big moment when the real candiate steps up to the plate…

    I think your right clar-z.

    The obsession McCain and Company has about the surge in Iraq is way over played so much it has turned into a military phenomena surrounded by lies. Here is a good example of some history about McCain in his early days in the Navy. What am I trying to say? McCain is a Managerial Jinx, obviously displayed deliberately as a straight talking Maverick, when in actuality is an elitist clown.

    From my view Americans are bank rolling these special McCain-Bush people that range from Wall Street pals to deep inside the Military Industrial Complex. All, propping up the stock market for very good reason giving Bush more rope for executive privilege later. Bush will just to slam every document they can into a classified twilight zone of National Security Secrets. To bury corruption.

    Yet all this is highlighted by Bush himself caught telling a group on video that Wall Street should sober up. What the hell does that mean? It means George Bush is doing Grandpa Prescott proud. Highly, and likely funneling trillions of tax dollars into profiteered blind trust funds through the Canary Islands.

    Wouldn’t it be funny if Scott McMullen really said what he knows that Bush and Cheney are a couple of Crooks.

  • “Why would CBS News deliberately take the most newsworthy element of the interview, and leave it on the editing room floor?”

    Now that I think about it, internal politics is my guess. Someone made the decision to air the “edited” version on the tee-vee and someone else decided that was a disgusting travesty of journalism and stuck the un-edited version out on the web complete with transcript to make sure it got caught.

    I can’t come up with any other explanation – other than base incompetence on behalf of the folks running the news operation at CBS. My guess is that if someone does get fired, though, it’ll be the guy who stuck the un-edited version out on the web for everyone and his brother to see.

  • Trying to pin McCain’s supposed “lack of knowledge” about the situation would make the critic look like a fool.

    Then why does he keep making all the mistakes?

  • This was MY favorite part from the aired CBS interview of mccain yesterday:

    Couric: Sen. Obama describes Afghanistan as the central front on the war on terror. That is where, after all, Senator, 9/11 was plotted. And now the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan seems to be a hot bed of al Qaeda activity. Why do you believe Iraq is the central front in the war on terror?

    McCain: Well, one reason is because that’s what Osama Bin Laden said that it was. He said, “Go to the country of the two rivers.”

    personally, i think CBS made the right choice for the cutting room floor. most people wouldn’t recognize mccain’s timeline problem (on which he hinges his entire argument, hilariously enough) but somehow i find it hard to imagine that people didn’t fall out of their chairs when they heard mccain make the declaration that bin laden is directing US troop movements.

    i am sure CBS thought they were doing mccain a favor but it’s pretty clear from the aired portion alone that mccain is an addled old man.

  • McCain disputed that, saying that the so-called “Anbar Awakening” was made possible by the surge, a contention that is being disputed by some.

    Shape of the Earth: Views Differ

    Notice, also, that there is no mention of their pathetic efforts to prop up McCain’s legitimacy as a foreign policy expert.

    Is there any mention of their lying to their viewers by editing in a different answer to the question they broadcast?

  • I was doing my part by giving Katie and CBS a chance to succeed buy switching to their evening news despite the “liteness” of some of their stories.
    However, now that I see that the “liteness” comes with BS and what appears to be an extreme slant the CBS evening news won’t be my default choice any longer.

  • Why didn’t Katie Couric hear McCain’s ridiculous answer, and ask a follow-up question seeking clarification?

    Because she’s not a journalist. She’s a fluffer.

  • To Steve Benen, bet you didn’t know this.

    This is from Fred Kagen’s piece in september 2007

    http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MGM2YWI4ODI0MDA1ZjczOTFjNDNkMGQzMzM0MGQ4Mjg=

    At the start of 2007 there were only a handful of Anbaris in the local security forces. By the summer there were over 14,000. Before the surge, Ramadi was one of the most dangerous cities in Iraq; now it is possible for Americans to walk through its market with limited security details and without body armor.

  • The nutroots are using misleading tactics again.

    To Steve Benen:

    Fred Kagan piece at NRO in september 2007.

    http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MGM2YWI4ODI0MDA1ZjczOTFjNDNkMGQzMzM0MGQ4Mjg=

    In the piece he talks about how almost no sunnis were taking part in the sunni awakening before the surge.

    By the summer of 2007 after the surge had started and there was better security in anbar province and especially ramadi 14,000 sunni’s were taking place.

    The sunni awakening was in name only until the surge. No sunnis were taking part without the security. During the surge the numbers jumped to 14,000 troops.

    McCain stated this by saying that they went to protect the sunnis there. Meaning it happened after. But the substance of the awakening didn’t begin until the surge started. General petreaus stated this in a hearing.

  • Pingback: CBS: Ignorance is Strength | David Ortez

  • OMG!! Fred Kagan!!! We got pwned!!

    Oh, wait … it’s the same Kagan who’s been wrong time and time again.

    Thanks, but I’ll take the word of the guy who was actually there and described what the tipping point was:

    “On 9 September 2006 Sittar organized a tribal council, attended by over 50 sheiks and the brigade commander, at which he declared the “Anbar Awakening” officially underway. The Awakening Council that emerged from the meeting agreed to first drive AQIZ from Ramadi, and then reestablish rule of law and a local government to support the people. The creation of the Awakening Council, combined with the ongoing recruitment of local security forces, began a snowball effect that resulted in a growing number of tribes either openly supporting the Awakening or withdrawing their support from AQIZ.”

    Nowhere in the document does the word “surge” appear, except as part of “insurgent.”

    You = FAIL

  • “Why would CBS News post the entire actual interview online, making it easy for us to see their mischief?”

    I’m not trying to give anything to CBS, but maybe they edited the piece for time but pushed the rest of it online?

    I actually think a better answer is that CBS is scared of the Republicans – the Right has been calling MSM biased for so long that MSM is now paranoid about being perceived as being biased – thus, they might take actions that they normal would not have done.

    What continues to blow me away is just the lack of follow-up on these major mistakes in the interview itself – it’s like “fire the question”, “response”, “next question” as opposed to “fire the question”, “response”, “question the basis of the response.”

    Katie was probably scared of being kicked off the “straight” talk express and not having access any longer (but like other readers I doubt she had command of the facts to even ask a follow-up). That’s what McCain (and most politicians) use as a counter to reporters who ask tough questions. You’re going to ask me tough questions? Fine, no soup for you!

  • Steve Benen won’t report this because he is biased.

    Hmmm. . . jeff, now that you mention it, it does seem a little, well, liberal around here. You’re not suggesting this is one of those progressive blogs I keep hearing about or anything are you?

    *looks around*

    Hey, it says under “about” that this Benen guy used to be in the Clinton White House and writes/wrote for a bunch o lefty media. Guess this isn’t one of those neutral MSM sites that have been propping McCain up.

    Damn, I gotta get out of this place. I must have taken a wrong turn at Fox News. I’m shocked – shocked! – that there would be Democrats posting in a place like this. You know what Jeff, this is no place for people like us, I think we should go over to RedState! Quick! If I don’t make it, go on without me. Save yourself!

  • OMG!!!! Obama said he was one the Banking Committee when he meant to say he had a bill before them!!

    WHAT A HUGE GAFFE!!111!! THIS ELIMINATES HIM FROM THE PRESIDENCY!!11eleven11!!

    Because that is so, so very much worse than flat-out lying about the timeline in Iraq, not knowing geography, confusing Shia with Sunni, and the numerous other gaffes made by McCain in an area that is supposedly his strength.

    /snark

    We need better trolls around here — preferably ones that don’t eat bowls of lead paint chips for breakfast.

  • Ok – I take back the editing for time comment – I just saw that they simply replaced his answer to the question with another answer – I thought they just edited it out. Man, that is f*cking awful – CBS should be ashamed.

  • Accuse TCBR of being biased, then post an editorial from National Review written by a neocon chickenhawk who works for the American Enterprise Institute.

    Hey, why not?

  • On July 23rd, 2008 at 1:52 pm, Mark D said:
    We need better trolls around here — preferably ones that don’t eat bowls of lead paint chips for breakfast.

    I’m with you there, Mark, this one is so lame that he refers Steve to Fred “Chickenhawk” Kagan’s piece in the NRO, of all places, then gets punked by you citing actual soldiers who were actually in Anbar province at the time the “awakening” was beginning. Having seen a lot of trolls on the intertubes, however, I wouldn’t hope for much in the improvement department, Jeff is probably as good as it gets.

  • In a way, I almost understand why they edited the footage. I used to work for a local newspaper for a couple of years, and sometimes when I interviewed people, they would say things which were astoundingly stupid. They might misuse a word trying to sound smart for the paper, and when they did, I would usually replace it with the right word. And if they said something offensive or dumb, I would give them a chance to correct themselves. Not because I thought it was part of my job, but because I liked the people I was interviewing, and they were part of my community, and it’s my inclination to be nice to people.

    But I was interviewing high school students for the Waterbury Republican, and Katie Couric is interviewing the man who could become the leader of a country with a population of 300 million people. What I was doing back then was perhaps mildly unethical at best, but what she is doing is an absolute travesty. Yes, I understand where she’s coming from, yes, I know that sometimes it feels really wrong to put something potentially damaging about a person in the paper – but this isn’t high school. This man could be ruling the goddamn country.

  • Gaffes Happen has become the official teeshirt of McCain’s campaign and he may come to regret ‘whining’ for more news coverage.

    Politicians put their foot in their mouth on a regular basis. Sometimes it may be the result of long hours on the campaign trail, sometimes because they simply can’t keep their facts straight and sometimes because they can’t keep their lies straight. Many times it’s simply because they do not understand or refuse to acknowledge the facts.

    From the controversial Couric/McCain Interview:

    Couric: “Senator McCain, Sen. Obama says, while the increased number of U.S. troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What’s your response to that?”

    McCain: “I don’t know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel McFarland was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening.”

    Per Col. MacFarland, the Anbar awakening was already well under way through organized efforts by the tribal leaders well before the surge began. These events took place months before the surge was even announced. Per McCain, the surge ‘began’ the Anbar awakening.

    “But now that the population and the tribal leaders are beginning to make common cause against al Qaeda, the tide is — the table is turned completely against al Qaeda, and now it’s the al Qaeda forces that need to be worried about living in those neighborhoods.” [Col. MacFarland, 09/29/06]

    “And I really do think that the dynamic in Ramadi has changed and changed in an important way. You know, any previous reports from my predecessors that you, you know, may have heard notwithstanding — the tribal dynamic is new here. It’s got legs, it’s moving forward and it’s because success begets success.” [Col. MacFarland, 09/29/06]

    McCain also neglects the fact that although the surge helped to support an awakening already in progress, the new troops headed for Baghdad, not Anbar. He also gives little credit to the pre-surge ongoing Sadr truce and makes no mention of the ethnic cleansing and mass migration.

    The Couric interview gets even more interesting as McCain tries to multi-task not answering a direct question and distancing himself from the numerous failed Iraq policies under the Bush administration – all in the same breath:

    Couric: “Sen. Obama also told me, Sen. McCain, that the money spent on those additional troops, on the surge, might have been more effective had it gone to Afghanistan or even to a better energy policy in the United States. What’s your response?”

    McCain: “The fact is we had four years of failed policy. We were losing. We were losing the war in Iraq. The consequences of failure and defeat of the United States of America in the first major conflict since 9/11 would have had devastating impacts throughout the region and the world.”

    Why did McCain evade an answer to her question?
    Why did McCain support a president responsible for “four years” of failure?

    “no one has supported President Bush on Iraq more than I have.” [John
    McCain, 03/28/08)

    “The fact is that I have agreed with President Bush far more than I have disagreed. And on the transcendent issues, the most important issues of our day, I’ve been totally in agreement and support of President Bush.” [John McCain, 06/19/05]

    “I am proud of this president’s strategy in Iraq.” [John McCain, upon receiving endorsement from President Bush, 02/13/08]

    Thanks to the Internet, gaffes and old quotes are a living history of our thought processes, how well we think, what we think and when we think it. Even Carly can’t change history…or the facts.

    “To say that John McCain was aligned with President Bush on the prosecution of the war in Iraq is to change history.” [Carly Fiorina, McCain Campaign Advisor, 07/13/08]

    Perhaps, considering the above along with mainstream media’s major political and ethical gaffe of not reporting the full McCain with regard to his voting record on veteran issues, his actions during the MIA/POW hearings to open up trade with Vietnam, and media’s total lack of reporting on the nine out of ten chance, per studies on Korean POW, that he most likely suffers from PTSD, McCain should quit whining about his fair share of news coverage and not look a gift horse in the mouth.

    “Among U.S. servicemen taken captive during the Korean War, as many as nine out of 10 survivors may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental disorders more than 35 years after their release, psychologist Patricia B. Sutker of the New Orleans Veterans Administration Medical Center and her colleagues report in the January AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY.”

    ‘Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, can result from wartime trauma such as suffering wounds or witnessing others being hurt. Symptoms include irritability or outbursts of anger, sleep difficulties, trouble concentrating, extreme vigilance and an exaggerated startle response.’

    http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSN17282413

    What are the odds of McCain not suffering from some degree of PTSD?

  • McCain: “The fact is we had four years of failed policy. We were losing. We were losing the war in Iraq. The consequences of failure and defeat of the United States of America in the first major conflict since 9/11 would have had devastating impacts throughout the region and the world.”

    That’s right, insult the memories of all those dead U.S. Soldiers and Marines. They were nothing but big losers? Is that your point Senator?

  • Thanks, lbc! And wonderful, wonderful post by MsSwin — I’m bookmarking that for future reference!

    So … where did Jeffy go? Did he drop his keyboard into the fry vat? Or is he busy cashing out his McCain Credits for the Golden Girls collector’s edition DVD?

  • Steven Colbert had an interview of Katie Couric not too long ago.

    I wonder what questions could be put in front of her answers to change the context of her words?

    (Goes to mailbox, waits for check from Colbert Report writers…)

  • I think this may be McCain’s biggest show of cluelessness:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr6Va7PEBg8

    It’s noteworthy not only for the fact that he’s wrong on such a basic, key fact about Iran that’s so relevant to foreign policy and to what he’s been saying on the campaign trail, but also for how dismissive and contemptuous he is of the interviewer, who clearly knows more than he does; how unwilling he is to even consider that he might be mistaken.

  • Because they do not want a black president. Never mind that Barack Obama is at least more clear-minded than his opponent. It appears to me that Obama may be a little tired but he is still pretty sharp. But McCain, as a reporter said, can’t do anything without including Obama. Instead of “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” it should be “Obama, Obama Obama” as McCain chant. As for his having PTSD I don’t want a president who even MIGHT have it. That’s a very scary possibility. My children and grandchildren have to live here.

  • On July 23rd, 2008 at 3:33 pm, Mark D said:

    So … where did Jeffy go? Did he drop his keyboard into the fry vat? Or is he busy cashing out his McCain Credits for the Golden Girls collector’s edition DVD?

    Nah, his mommy called him upstairs to take out the garbage and walk the dog, plus he was out of Cheetos anyway…he’ll be back.

  • This is so juvenile. Everything that happens boils down to some sort of conspiracy. Something gets overstated? OMG, it’s a media conspiracy. Something gets understated? OMG, it’s a media conspiracy/coverup. Something gets edited out? OMG, it’s that evil corporate media conspiring against the “truth” or covering it up.

    Man, you folks are worse than the Republicans. And this is one reason we can’t have intelligent conversation/dialogue/debate around the issues. Because the minute something gets a whiff of anything less than the full one hundred and ten percent truth, it’s all a giant media conspiracy/coverup.

    You folks just need to grow up, take a deep breath, and stop acting like hysterical, mindless banshees about John McCain and Barack Obama. The netroots aren’t doing average people and concerns any favors by screeching at the top of your lungs that “the sky is falling, the sky is falling, the sky is falling” over every single news report. It’s the equivalent of “gotcha” journalism – in reverse. This does not solve the problems, doesn’t answer the questions, doesn’t find truth or justice, and sure as hell doesn’t help educate or inform one single voter who has serious questions about which candidate to support. If you all have that much time on your hands, something is seriously whacked in the way the world works…

  • How did he screw up the question so badly? I’m really glad people were able to figure out this error and see the MAJOR error in McCain’s response. GO Obama!

  • OMG, it’s a media conspiracy/coverup. Something gets edited out? OMG, it’s that evil corporate media conspiring against the “truth” or covering it up.

    So let me get this straight:

    CBS interviews a candidate.

    That candidate gets basic facts wrong about an issue he is allegedly an expert on.

    CBS then edits the interview, replacing that wrong answer (to question #3) with an answer to another question (question #6, IIRC), even though the answer to question 6 isn’t an actual answer — it’s a statement by McCain essentially accusing Obama of sedition.

    Splicing the answers to different questions is even, on top of everything else, against CBS’s Standards and Practices:

    If a question to an interview subject is used, the answer must be to that specific question. The question and the answer may be edited, but not in a way that would distort the meaning of either. Answers to different questions may not be combined to give the impression of one continuous response. In short, we cannot create an answer merely because we wish the subject had said it better.

    Journalistic malfeasance isn’t “one little thing.”

    A major news network editing an interview to not just protect a candidate from a serious gaffe, but doing it in a way that added an accusation of treason instead, isn’t “less than the full one hundred and ten percent truth” — it’s a flat-out, undeniable, by-any-definition-of-the-word falsehood.

    You trying to act like this is no big deal proves that you’re either: a.) a concern troll with nothing of value to add; b.) absolutely clueless about journalistic ethics and standards; c.) possess absolutely none of the common sense you claim to have.

    So take your soapbox to No Quarter — you’d fit in great over there.

  • This years election is a brutal battle and this the latest video created to support Obama who seems to be getting the majority of positive press from young supporters.

  • Why isn’t this huge news? I watch/listen/read left, right and middle and therefore HOPE I get some nugget of truth. Most people don’t. Obama gets more airtime but McCain is protected.

  • Is there a way to petition CBS like those people did to FOX News in New York last week? The young rap singer?, Hip Hop singer? Nas helped deliver over 600K signatures to the FOX News Headquarters in New York.

    We then, might get to see the “real” interview on CBS.

  • Boycott CBS, Fire Katie Couric and take away McCains candency for his remark, Obama would rather get votes than win the war, dispicable

  • This is scary, not only because the candidate is confused and misleading. But the PEOPLE around him. Yes, the president is the one in charge, but he does not make these decisions alone ( or is not supposed to) he needs a strong team. And 2 of those key members are the press secretary and communication director who convey the presidents message effectively. If there is a miss communication now, it worries me about what miss communications could happen later.

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