Overt Liberal Media Bias: Journalistic Fraud

[SOS2008]

Where can I read that SS is bankrupt?

The story has changed as to when SS will be bankrupt, as well as use of words such as "crisis," which constitute deception, but the point is he lies. As was posted in another thread:

From counterpunch.com - March 10, 2005
"Looted from the Inside Out - Whatever Happened to the Social Security Trust Fund?"
By JACKIE CORR

Your president, in his first State of the Union address (February 27, 2001), promised to make sure that no Social Security money was used for any other program. He specifically said: "To make sure the retirement savings of America's seniors are not diverted in any other program, my budget protects all $2.6 trillion of the Social Security surplus for Social Security, and for Social Security alone."

What Bush did in his first fours years was he looted the sacred Social Security trust fund...the shameless Bush now admits it. This is what he has been saying lately in his Social Security scare speeches. "The money-payroll taxes going into Social Security are spent. They're spent on benefits and they're spent on government programs. There is no trust."

Now that's what he says. "There is no trust."

Whether not allowing his college grades to be released, or not wanting kids to know he smoked marijuana, or whether he fulfilled his term in the Guard, or as you yourself have noted, his use of unethical campaign tactics--this written by Peter Clothier:

...a documentary entitled, aptly, "Bush's Brain." It was the story of your Rove, and his Machiavellian machinations to elevate you, first to the governorship of Texas, then to the Presidency of the United States. It was a story of outright cheating, lies, deceit--anything it took to destroy opponents and clear the field for your incompetence. It was the destruction of Ann Richards, on your way to the Texas Governor's mansion, and of John McCain on your way to the White House. (...how McCain could have come back to support you, after your deplorable attack on his war service to this country, and your scurrilous, heartless rumor-mongering about his black, adopted "love child"--as you people had the boundless, reckless temerity to suggest.) It was the story, too, of the crushing of Max Cleland in your ruthless pursuit of even greater Republican power when you were already in the White House.

He's been anything but honest from the day one. And as for the war in Iraq, and many threads devoted to this, with regard to the "credibility gap" with other countries, Clothier continues:

...as you spoke before the assembled European community, pontificating about things like transatlantic unity, and democracy, and peace, and freedom, when everything you have done as President of the United States amounts to an assault on those very same values.

This all aside from the media manipulation, etc., that is discussed above...

 

[russ_watters]

The story has changed as to when SS will be bankrupt, as well as use of words such as "crisis," which constitute deception, but the point is he lies...[emphasis added, irony noted]

Previous post:

current claims such as Social Security is bankrupt... [emphasis added]

Should I read that as a correction/retraction of your previous claim...?

Don't think you can slip such things past me.

 

[SOS2008]

Previous post: Should I read that as a correction/retraction of your previous claim...?

Don't think you can slip such things past me.

Back to semantics games, okay...and this addresses media bias as well, per
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2055

USA Today Covers for Bush's Social Security Distortion

In its February 3 edition, USA Today not only failed to challenge a George W. Bush distortion about Social Security-- it actually changed Bush's remarks to make them more accurate.

Summarizing Bush's case for privatizing the program, reporter Judy Keen explained: "Two days after winning re-election, Bush said his top priority would be Social Security, which he says will go into the red in 2018 and won't have enough money to pay promised benefits in 2042." And in a Q & A piece, the paper made the same claim: Answering the question, "Is Social Security bankrupt?" the paper responded that "Bush says that in 2042, it won't be able to pay 100 percent of guaranteed benefits; CBO says 2052."

But Bush's claims about Social Security's solvency have not usually been so nuanced. In a January 11 appearance, Bush spoke of a system that would be "flat bust, bankrupt" by the time workers in their 20s were set to retire. And during the State of the Union address that prompted USA Today's coverage, Bush gave his most familiar description of Social Security's finances: "By the year 2042, the entire system would be exhausted and bankrupt."

That claim is misleading, if not completely false; the Social Security trustees, using very conservative assumptions about economic growth, predict that the program will be able to pay about 75 percent of benefits after 2042, while the Congressional Budget Office believes that point will come ten years later. Even then, the system will be able to pay more to future retirees than current recipients get; and some economists argue that if the economy grows about as quickly in the future as it has in the past, Social Security may in fact never run short of cash.

By changing Bush's false claim to a more accurate one, USA Today committed a serious journalistic error. The primary news value in Bush's comments was their deceptive nature; by "improving" them, USA Today did Bush a favor-- and its readers a disservice.