The article: New York City Flyover Photo Flop Triggers Recriminations
Did the administration make a mistake? Probably, there’s clearly something off about what happened. But now for the clear, rampant, annoying, pathetic bias:
“A photo-op over the Manhattan skyline that sent thousands of New Yorkers running for their lives has officials in Washington, D.C., running for cover.” – thousands? i was in New York when this happened, there weren’t thousands.
“Many New Yorkers on Tuesday were…” – what does many mean? well, nothing, but in a city of 10 million people, it would certainly imply millions…
“Witnesses reported that the planes were flying dangerously low” – unless these witnesses were air traffic controllers themselves, I’m not interested in their opinion of what is safe when it comes to air travel.
“The White House said Bloomberg’s office was informed but “apparently” word of the planned fly-over did not make it up the chain of command.” – throughout the article there are references to other quotes from the White House which admonish the situation. Only this one uses the visibly sarcastic “apparently”.
“Caldera “should resign, to be quite frank,” GOP consultant and former Bush administration official Bradley Blakeman told FOX News. ” – so the only person they quote is a rep from the former staff? that’s the best they could find?
Final quote, and it’s a doozy: “This is more than a lapse of judgment. This is complete stupidity in a time of economic crisis, wasting hundreds of thousands of dollars for publicity photos for Air Force One when you could have put that on your PC at home and done the same thing without that cost and disruption,” Blakeman said.
So let me see if I get this right. We have some massively overstated numbers, and while I completely agree that there were some very frightened people out there, the city most certainly didn’t go into a panic. Further, the “journalists” (Major Garret and Mike Emanuel) felt very comfortable quoting “White House officials” when they said negative things about the act, but the moment they defended their own actions, it became sarcasm. Lastly, the only person they’ve chosen to quote is someone with an extreme bias and agenda.
And this is mainstream news, people. Pathetic.
April 28th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
What is biased about my quote?
1. Was it not stupid?
2. Are we not in a economic crisis? The President says it is.
3. It did cost Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars to stage this Photo Op.
4. The same Photo Op could have been accomplished on a home computer.
5. Did the Photo Op not disrupt the lives of thousands? Did you not see the footage of folks running for their lives?
Truth is NOT Bias.
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:04 pm
Brad – actually, you are welcome to state whatever you wish, free country and all. But for a news article to solely quote an individual who worked for the previous administration is limited and naive at best, manipulative and biased at worst.
That said, since I did grab your attention, the economic crisis part of your quote is definitely in poor form. First, it was your team that got us in this mess in the first place. Second, isolating the cost of any given incident is just ridiculous, and should not be done in constructive debate – but you know this.
Lastly, I don’t think anyone from your regime should be so casual about use of the word “truth”, in fact you probably shouldn’t use the word at all.