good news/bad news... and why the news is badly written
The bad news is that the Senate passed an extension of sunlighting Patriot Act provisions. The good news is that their exension is only for six months, not the permanent extension the administration was pushing for.
And, the good news is that a filibuster stopped an attempt to attach opening the Artic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling to a defense spending bill. The bad news is that this is one bad idea that isn't going away.
The first of these two articles, (both written by Associated Press writers and posted on Yahoo News), is deeply flawed - or rather, highly slanted. In the article about the Patriot Act extension, right in the first paragraph, it calls it "the terror-fighting USA Patriot Act". Implicit in this phrase is that this is what it was designed for, rather than it being a wish list of all the stuff the FBI already wanted but couldn't get pre-9-11. Implicit also is that the Act actually does this job of fighting terrorism, and that those who oppose aspects of the it don't want to do that. One could, I suppose, argue that this was just a way to identify the legislation, "They fight crime!" tone aside, except that, in the same sentence, they again define it as "the anti-terrorism law". You know, in case we forgot. Since the beginning of the sentence. Message: Patriot Act good. Keep in mind that they know many people only read the beginnings of articles, to get the gist of the news.
The article does state in the second paragraph that it was only some provisions of the Patriot Act that were set to expire, but it's not until the fourteenth paragraph that they admit that most of the Act was already permanent, and only in the fifteenth do they mention what one - and only one - of the provisions expiring actually was. Nowhere do they note that these provisions were made to expire partly to deflect the very same criticisms to the bill that were made in 2001. They do make sure, however, that we know the Bush administration really likes these provisions. In the third paragraph, Senators against making these provisions permanent are called "critics" - not "Senators". Only because only Senators can filibuster do you realize that they must be talking about elected members of Congress.
And much of the slant is structural. Eleven paragraphs (although these are mostly the one or two sentence paragraphs only seen in news) are explicitly dedicated to presenting the pro-renewal position. Only five are explicitly dedicated to the presenting the anti-renewal side. And the article opens and closes with the view that the provisions should be made permanent. It's implicit in the opening paragraph, as I said, and it's explicit in the last two, as Gonzales and Chertoff get the last words. I'm familiar with that structure. It's what you do in many kinds of academic paper: you take other positions into account in the middle, but follow them with stronger rebuttals. So vague concerns about "civil liberties" are contrasted with fears of terrorist attacks. And, of course, you open with your thesis, and close (depending on the professor, field, etc.) either by reiterating it, or on a note reinforcing or expanding it.
I'm not saying the author of this article had a conscious bias in favor of the Bush administration. I can't know that, and frankly, I don't care. I'm saying that if they wanted to write an article the Bush administration would approve of, they succeeded admirably.
And incidentally, in the sentence, "Sixteen provisions in the current law expire Dec. 31 unless the Congress and White House acts," the verb should be "act", not "acts".
Then there's the ANWR drilling article. It follows the usual "Group A says this, group B says this," format that passes for "balance" and "objectivity" these days. But aside from the taking no position on the "how much would it harm wildlife" question, which I suppose could be contentious, it avoids even basic fact checking.
Those who advocate drilling contend the oil - an estimated 1 million barrels a day during peak production - is needed for national security to reduce the country's dependence on imports. Drilling opponents say ANWR's oil would do little to curtail imports.
Well, couldn't you check that? According to one website, Americans use about 20 million barrels a day. A million barrels a day would only supply 5% of that. And according to that website, that demand went up 1.5 million barrels from 18.5 million in just two years, between January 2002 and the year 2004. Whoops! That increase just ate up the increase in production we might hope to get, years from now, at the peak of ANWR drilling. Which would happen some time after 2015. I wonder how much we could save by raising gas mileage? I bet it's more than that. (In fact, I know it is.) Too bad this article doesn't tell us.
The article also makes a big deal of Stevens's stature in the Senate, calling him "one of the Senate's most powerful members" and saying, "After the vote, Democrats celebrated as did environmentalists, knowing they had tangled with one of the Senate's toughest members and won." As if he were a wild bear and not a cantankerous old coot. I don't want to downplay this victory. It was important, and I'm sure it was hard-fought. Kudos all around. But as a recent (and recently repeated) episode of the Daily Show asked, after reminding us that he was the guy who wouldn't swear in oil execs, and wouldn't back down on his Bridge to Nowhere boondoggle... "Who the f**k is Ted Stevens?" He may have power in the Senate, purely by virtue of seniority, but they have to know he's a crank.
Overall, this article isn't so bad as such things go, but I am a bit confused by one part. "Congress approved ANWR drilling in 1995 as part of a budget package that was immune from Senate filibuster, but President Clinton, a drilling opponent, vetoed it." Uh... "Congress" means both houses. Don't you mean the House passed it? I suppose if the Senate voted for the budget package, one could say Congress approved it, but then why was it "immune" to Senate filibuster? This is background, and I am glad it's there for that reason alone, but it's not very clearly written.
One more egregious article: "Senate OKs bill to cut deficit with Cheney’s help". Yes, those are shudder quotes. Whatever you think of the particular spending cuts, how can one possibly discuss a budget deficit only in terms of spending, and not in terms of revenue intake? With the number of tax cuts for the wealthy that Republicans have passed in the last few weeks, how can it not come up in such an article? This article regurgitates, whole, Republican spin: they're trying to cut the budget deficit. Bullshit. If Republicans gave a damn about the budget deficit, they wouldn't keep passing more tax cuts like the ones that caused the damn deficit. (Clinton left Bush with a huge surplus... remember?) The deficit is simply an excuse to cut everything they don't like. Which basically amounts to everything that's not a corporate giveaway. Regular people get screwed.
Not suprisingly, this doesn't get much play in the corporate media.
And, the good news is that a filibuster stopped an attempt to attach opening the Artic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling to a defense spending bill. The bad news is that this is one bad idea that isn't going away.
The first of these two articles, (both written by Associated Press writers and posted on Yahoo News), is deeply flawed - or rather, highly slanted. In the article about the Patriot Act extension, right in the first paragraph, it calls it "the terror-fighting USA Patriot Act". Implicit in this phrase is that this is what it was designed for, rather than it being a wish list of all the stuff the FBI already wanted but couldn't get pre-9-11. Implicit also is that the Act actually does this job of fighting terrorism, and that those who oppose aspects of the it don't want to do that. One could, I suppose, argue that this was just a way to identify the legislation, "They fight crime!" tone aside, except that, in the same sentence, they again define it as "the anti-terrorism law". You know, in case we forgot. Since the beginning of the sentence. Message: Patriot Act good. Keep in mind that they know many people only read the beginnings of articles, to get the gist of the news.
The article does state in the second paragraph that it was only some provisions of the Patriot Act that were set to expire, but it's not until the fourteenth paragraph that they admit that most of the Act was already permanent, and only in the fifteenth do they mention what one - and only one - of the provisions expiring actually was. Nowhere do they note that these provisions were made to expire partly to deflect the very same criticisms to the bill that were made in 2001. They do make sure, however, that we know the Bush administration really likes these provisions. In the third paragraph, Senators against making these provisions permanent are called "critics" - not "Senators". Only because only Senators can filibuster do you realize that they must be talking about elected members of Congress.
And much of the slant is structural. Eleven paragraphs (although these are mostly the one or two sentence paragraphs only seen in news) are explicitly dedicated to presenting the pro-renewal position. Only five are explicitly dedicated to the presenting the anti-renewal side. And the article opens and closes with the view that the provisions should be made permanent. It's implicit in the opening paragraph, as I said, and it's explicit in the last two, as Gonzales and Chertoff get the last words. I'm familiar with that structure. It's what you do in many kinds of academic paper: you take other positions into account in the middle, but follow them with stronger rebuttals. So vague concerns about "civil liberties" are contrasted with fears of terrorist attacks. And, of course, you open with your thesis, and close (depending on the professor, field, etc.) either by reiterating it, or on a note reinforcing or expanding it.
I'm not saying the author of this article had a conscious bias in favor of the Bush administration. I can't know that, and frankly, I don't care. I'm saying that if they wanted to write an article the Bush administration would approve of, they succeeded admirably.
And incidentally, in the sentence, "Sixteen provisions in the current law expire Dec. 31 unless the Congress and White House acts," the verb should be "act", not "acts".
Then there's the ANWR drilling article. It follows the usual "Group A says this, group B says this," format that passes for "balance" and "objectivity" these days. But aside from the taking no position on the "how much would it harm wildlife" question, which I suppose could be contentious, it avoids even basic fact checking.
Those who advocate drilling contend the oil - an estimated 1 million barrels a day during peak production - is needed for national security to reduce the country's dependence on imports. Drilling opponents say ANWR's oil would do little to curtail imports.
Well, couldn't you check that? According to one website, Americans use about 20 million barrels a day. A million barrels a day would only supply 5% of that. And according to that website, that demand went up 1.5 million barrels from 18.5 million in just two years, between January 2002 and the year 2004. Whoops! That increase just ate up the increase in production we might hope to get, years from now, at the peak of ANWR drilling. Which would happen some time after 2015. I wonder how much we could save by raising gas mileage? I bet it's more than that. (In fact, I know it is.) Too bad this article doesn't tell us.
The article also makes a big deal of Stevens's stature in the Senate, calling him "one of the Senate's most powerful members" and saying, "After the vote, Democrats celebrated as did environmentalists, knowing they had tangled with one of the Senate's toughest members and won." As if he were a wild bear and not a cantankerous old coot. I don't want to downplay this victory. It was important, and I'm sure it was hard-fought. Kudos all around. But as a recent (and recently repeated) episode of the Daily Show asked, after reminding us that he was the guy who wouldn't swear in oil execs, and wouldn't back down on his Bridge to Nowhere boondoggle... "Who the f**k is Ted Stevens?" He may have power in the Senate, purely by virtue of seniority, but they have to know he's a crank.
Overall, this article isn't so bad as such things go, but I am a bit confused by one part. "Congress approved ANWR drilling in 1995 as part of a budget package that was immune from Senate filibuster, but President Clinton, a drilling opponent, vetoed it." Uh... "Congress" means both houses. Don't you mean the House passed it? I suppose if the Senate voted for the budget package, one could say Congress approved it, but then why was it "immune" to Senate filibuster? This is background, and I am glad it's there for that reason alone, but it's not very clearly written.
One more egregious article: "Senate OKs bill to cut deficit with Cheney’s help". Yes, those are shudder quotes. Whatever you think of the particular spending cuts, how can one possibly discuss a budget deficit only in terms of spending, and not in terms of revenue intake? With the number of tax cuts for the wealthy that Republicans have passed in the last few weeks, how can it not come up in such an article? This article regurgitates, whole, Republican spin: they're trying to cut the budget deficit. Bullshit. If Republicans gave a damn about the budget deficit, they wouldn't keep passing more tax cuts like the ones that caused the damn deficit. (Clinton left Bush with a huge surplus... remember?) The deficit is simply an excuse to cut everything they don't like. Which basically amounts to everything that's not a corporate giveaway. Regular people get screwed.
Not suprisingly, this doesn't get much play in the corporate media.