Bloomberg Political Reporting Going Down the Drain?
So I generally check out Bloomberg in the morning for financial news and whatnot, but lately I have been reading a bunch of what I see as slanted political pieces. Currently, the Libyan attack and Romney's statement have been making the rounds. Check this article out:
Romney Criticized for Handling of Libya Protests, Death
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-12/romney-cr...
"The attacks that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya became a flashpoint in the American presidential race, as Republican nominee Mitt Romney drew criticism from Democrats and Republicans for chastising President Barack Obama and his administration on their response."
Now I read through the entire article and the "chastising" from Republicans was quoted twice.
1) Richard Armitage, the former deputy Secretary of State
"Romney “will find out that first reports from the battlefield are always incorrect,” said Richard Armitage, the former deputy Secretary of State under Republican President George W. Bush. “This should be his mantra, so he can speak in a deliberate manner, and not have to repent at his leisure later.”"
and
2) Peter King (R) New York
"Representative Peter King, a New York Republican who heads the Homeland Security Committee, questioned the timing of Romney’s statement, not its substance."
Now maybe Republicans criticized Romney, but this article picks piss poor examples of this. Armitage is irrelevant and King barely even criticized Romney. The article comes off as if both sides disapprove of what Romney said when in fact it is largely Obama and other Democrats saying things.
And furthermore, I really don't see how Romney did anything wrong.
1) He waiting until after 9/11
2) He comments on weak foreign policy, which is pretty true. Obama ran on this premise that he was going to rebuild bonds with the world.
Russia is confrontational to us
China has no respect
the ME is no more friendly to us
Israel has been hung out to dry
and now this
So Romney said something. And this is Obama's war. The USA worked to overthrow a legitimate government and now rebels and chaos cost American lives. So much for the "bloodless" coup.
Is it just me or is the media trying to spin this obvious calamity for the Obama administration as something Romney did?
I used to have a lot of respect for the Bloomberg website, but between the magazine, website and TV channel I have seen a blatant tilt. Pretty sad. I am currently restraining my condemnation to only political items, as the financial reporting seems to be fine, but there should be no place for bias on this type of new site. This isn't Fox News or CNN here, this is real news.
Thoughts?






I think Bloomberg still puts
I think Bloomberg still puts out the most solid financial product of all the outlets (CNBC runs a close second). Can't honestly say I read much politics on Bloomberg.
Michael Bloomberg is a huge
Michael Bloomberg is a huge lefty so it shouldn't surprise you that in an election year the articles are very left-leaning.
I agree. I emailed the
I agree. I emailed the editor, not that it will do anything.
Here is hit piece number #2 by Bloomberg.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-13/romney-cr...
"Some prominent Republicans shared that view. Romney “will find out that first reports from the battlefield are always incorrect,” Richard Armitage, the former deputy Secretary of State under Republican President George W. Bush, said in an interview yesterday. “This should be his mantra, so he can speak in a deliberate manner, and not have to repent at his leisure later.”
Yeah, Armitage is a "prominent Republican. What a joke.
Whatever ill timing Romney might have displayed is far overshadowed by Obama's little mess.
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Ovechkin08: Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg is a huge lefty so it shouldn't surprise you that in an election year the articles are very left-leaning.
I'd hope for better from Bloomberg. Sad that I was wrong.
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TNA: 1) He waiting until
1) He waiting until after 9/11
2) He comments on weak foreign policy, which is pretty true. Obama ran on this premise that he was going to rebuild bonds with the world.
Russia is confrontational to us
China has no respect
the ME is no more friendly to us
Israel has been hung out to dry
So Romney said something. And this is Obama's war. The USA worked to overthrow a legitimate government and now rebels and chaos cost American lives. So much for the "bloodless" coup.
1) He should have made a statement on 911. Why wait?
2) This is fiction that even the people selling it know is false. Being smart about where to send kill teams is not 'soft' it's smart. I'd like to see more done in certain areas, but I really don't see what use with sending an invasion force in. Realistically: what is their goal there? Another endless money/blood pit like Iraq? Selectively supporting individuals/movements that could benefit the country in the long run is not an exact science, but it's definitely better than the old way of (1) supporting dictators that do our bidding and then (2) having to go in and depose them when they become unhinged. In terms of raw force, yes, this administration is using a lot less...but they're putting it where it counts. Other thing is this: how much is the military expected to go along with? I know guys that have been there since the start of the war and they're tired, really really tired. One guy coming back from Pakistan told me he honestly had no idea what he was doing there. Yeah. Pakistan. We have troops there. Shocker. At what point do people just realize that there's a huge financial and non-financial cost to wars, that they really do have to end at some point, and that the cost to the fabric of our nation back home is very severe?
Specifically: exactly what is the goal? What is the mission? No one's clearly defined that yet. When do we 'win'? When do we 'lose'? I'm annoyed with both Bush and Obama in that neither of them has come out and said "Our reason at this point for being in MENA is "......"". So why pour more into it? It's a black hole, just cut the losses down to maintainance level and find other things to do.
* Russia has always been confrontational. Name a decade where we got along swimmingly??
* China never HAD any respect. They consider us inferior. Period, end of story.
* MENA is less hostile, not sure what the realistic expectations for 'friendly' are LOL
* The US stopped taking Israel's side on everything. Get over it.
Obama's war? He sent a handful of people to deal with specific issues. This is very much the residual of the last president's war. It's not realistic to just pull everything out, but this president is certainly not fostering the same buildup. 3 Americans died, and those uprisings were done by factions within the countries with very minimal support from the US. I didn't see all this 'righteous indignation' from the right in 2005 when things were far worse, so I find it highly disingenuous now. And I voted against this president in '08, so I'm not even defending him: I'm just calling it like I see it.
I'm personally not a fan of overseas engagements in the first place, but I'm not sure your appraisal of the situation reflects the reality.
As for the news: WSJ took the same turn for the worse, just to the right, so I look at these as outlets for financial information. I can read CFR or some other sources for political information. I'm not sure I fully understand Bloomberg's stance either: what he's saying is unrecognizeable and approaches incoherent. I think more than anything else that he's just becomming a senile old man :/
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Romney respected 9/11 and
Romney respected 9/11 and waited until after.
Libya is Obama's war/conflict. You would have thought we learned from Bush (god knows Obama blames him for everything) to not get involved in ME conflicts. Ghaddafi was the leader of Libya and we had no business getting involved with a civil war.
It amazes me how the media is trying to shift blame to Romney for this. He has every right to criticize the President on this issue.
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TNA: Romney respected 9/11
Romney respected 9/11 and waited until after.
Libya is Obama's war/conflict. You would have thought we learned from Bush (god knows Obama blames him for everything) to not get involved in ME conflicts. Ghaddafi was the leader of Libya and we had no business getting involved with a civil war.
It amazes me how the media is trying to shift blame to Romney for this. He has every right to criticize the President on this issue.
I am confused by your post.
* Why does the prospective president wait until after the day of a memorial to say anything? I've never seen that ever with an important issue, and I'm not sure what's driving that. Happy belated birthday, I didn't want to ruin it for you yesterday??
* Contrast that with a politicized statement by Romney before he even fully understood what was happening. The 'smile' that he's being criticized for is the same thing that Hillary is being cricized for: their immediate reaction to a tragedy was insight into their own political calculus and not any type of human reaction....to tragedy. Maybe the president had the same reaction in his head, but at the same time, there aren't pictures of it. My take: Romney is an amatuer who let his facade show a pretty major crack. This is Machiavelli 101: Always appear virtuous. FAIL.
* As for "not being involved in MENA at all". Ok. I don't like that we're there, and I really think the US should do certain things differently supposing that they are involved. But it's not a war, it was a surgical operation. I certainly think that a decapitation strike...you'll remember that this was the original premise for the Iraq war...to get rid of someone who's been a major pain in our ass for a long time is a good move. Sending in a full invasion force....why? What's that going to accomplish? They're just going to get bled like the Soviets in '79 and every other army in history that's rolled through there and come to the realization: wow, fuck this, this place is totally not worth it. I'm actually in agreeance with both Bush and Obama on one point: we absolutely should fight tyrants and make the world a better place where we can. Doing so is negligence of our responsibility. But whacking some prick in Egypt is quite a bit different than setting up a full scale, decade long, and obscenely costly occupation. Trying to conflate these two things as the same failure and then calling for Romney to be a better alternative is symbolic of that whole line of reasoning: there are pretty substantial and extremely quantifiable differences. To argue otherwise is fraud. Both options are less than savory, and it sucks that Americans were killed, but it's a war zone, this is what's going to happen. Foreign policy is a shark tank, we can't just do business with 'nice people'.
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While I could never vote for
While I could never vote for Romney, I think his criticism was spot on and I think he just gave voice to what most of us were already thinking anyway. The US shouldn't be apologizing to Islam; humanity should be apologizing for Islam.
Edmundo Braverman: The US
The US shouldn't be apologizing to Islam; humanity should be apologizing for Islam.
Agree with the statement, but not sure what's prompting it. Who is going over the MENA and apologizing to Al Quaeda? All I see is a bunch of hotheaded GOP folk who got their chance and blew it going ape because this president deals with things in a more rational manner: they see that as weakness not unlike the Muslims see kindness as weakness. This president, the response of sending some Marines over, and this country in general haven't demonstrated any 'apology' to Islam as a matter of policy...so does the GOP think that using the "you're a pussy" line is really going to get them votes? Personally, I'm not a fan of overblown rhetoric and I'm confused why anyone thinks it's necessary. The last thing I want is a president with a messianic god complex, so being rational and somewhat more collected reassures me that the dude is thinking clearly about how best to deal with things as opposed to just lashing out. That's just me.
Hey McFly, you're a chicken. That's all I see from the GOP camp at this point.
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UFO, did you not see the
UFO, did you not see the message on the Cairo Embassy's website after the incident there (before what happened in Libya)?
“The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions,” the embassy said in a statement in reaction to the attack.
Sure sounds like an apology to me.
I think respecting 9/11 and
I think respecting 9/11 and not criticizing Obama on that day for a ME issue was spot on. I'd expect everyone to do it. 9/11 is a day for remembering and respect.
Operation WAS surgical. Ain't no mo.
As for this smirk, I watched the video and he isn't smirking on the death, his smirk isn't even a smirk, just a flow of facial movements. When you freeze frame and post the pics online it looks a lot different than in action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfwEUbgG-dc
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The criticism stems from the
The criticism stems from the fact that Romney got the timeline of events wrong. He blamed Obama himself for apologizing for the video that offended Muslims after the death of the diplomats...when in reality, the Egyptian Embassy (not Obama) apologized for the movie that offended Muslims BEFORE anyone was killed in Libya.
In other words, Romney jumped the gun without getting the facts straight just to score political points. I think it's fair to criticize him on this since he could have just waited an hour or spent five minutes doing some fact checking to get things right. Pretty straightforward.
Also, several other GOP foreign policy heads criticized him off the record to publications like Politico (I hate it, too, don't worry.)
Look, end of the day, Romney is more hawkish than Obama and at no point has he explained what he'd do differently with regards to the Arab spring. He can go on and on about Obama "apologizing for America" and other such non-sense, but he doesn't offer any different ideas for these issues. All he does is make extremely hawkish statements on Iran, Russia(!), and defense spending. The guy wants us to have a bigger defense budget than was even requested by the DoD and wants to build a military that's suited for the Cold War, not the 21st Century as guided by the DoD in their Quadrennial Defense Reviews.
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Edmundo Braverman: UFO, did
UFO, did you not see the message on the Cairo Embassy's website after the incident there (before what happened in Libya)?
“The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions,” the embassy said in a statement in reaction to the attack.
Sure sounds like an apology to me.
Eddie, I agree with what you're saying. But, this was put out independent of the Obama administration and Obama came out and distanced itself from the statement shortly thereafter.
Meanwhile, Romney at his press conference simultaneously said that "Obama is responsible for what the embassy says" and that Obama was smart to distance himself from what they said.
All Romney had to do was a little fact checking and wait for the dust to settle just a bit before jumping the gun and attacking Obama.
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Edmundo Braverman: UFO, did
UFO, did you not see the message on the Cairo Embassy's website after the incident there (before what happened in Libya)?
“The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions,” the embassy said in a statement in reaction to the attack.
Sure sounds like an apology to me.
Ok, this and ant's post have caused me to slow down and think a little longer before tring to go back and reconcile anything I said in the past few posts. I'm not a politician, I'm allowed to revisit stuff and change my mind if need be. For the sake of the public debate, these are moot points and people have already decided what they're going to believe, so I'll probably leave it at that.
As for apology. There are two lines of thinking driving it: a literal and a more broadly defined extension of ethics. The first is the simple "I'm sorry". If look at the statements holisically and even attach Obama to the embassy's statement [incorrect, but I'll go here], it sums up as "I'm sorry that this movie was designed to offend you. However, I condemn your reaction." Sort of like saying to a child "I'm sorry you dropped your ice cream cone, but throwing a tantrum means I have to spank your behind".
The other part of 'apology' has a longer history. Apologetics, and it does not mean "I'm sorry". I was raised Catholic and there are historical figures that were called Doctors of the Church, and they always fascinated me. The purpose was to reconcile the Church's views with some other group, and derived from "catholic" meaning "all encompassing" .....literally, our views must encompass everyone's, and we'll work yours into ours to achieve this. Then, several councils, run by grumpy old men, hardened and codified the Church's views...and it's been all downhill from there, theologically speaking. Such 'apologist' efforts were actually the order from Rome concerning Martin Luther: the bishop was sent to seek a reconcilliation between the two bodies of thought. Instead, they bishop took the hard line once the meetings began, and a permanent rift developed. Why did he do this? I really don't know, but presenting the olive branch first and reserving the option of throwing arrows if necessary has always been the more effective approach in the big picture. That thinking is why the shield of the USA has the eagle with the symbolism "peaceably if we can, forcibly if we must". If nothing else, taking the ethical high ground before coming to terms with having to pulverize the opposition does make the case "there really wasn't any other way".
If the situation gets completely out of hand, this president had BETTER do something. At this point the leader of the mob has already been identified and will probably be dead before the week is out. As for a larger policy shift, there isn't even a formal decision making body for the US to appeal to, so I'm not sure exactly what more can be done. Conquer them? We could. But for what? They killed a citizen...an important one too...but after the rabble is dealt with, what larger purpose would further action serve?
My personal suggestion is to acknowledge the loss and think about what lies ahead before barreling into the same type of war the last president encouraged. If there's no other option and more killing is warranted, so be it. But use this time to really step back and evaluate the situation and our own goals. There is no need for a war RIGHT NOW, HURRY HURRY GO GO ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIER, so don't fabricate crises to serve the war cause: think, then act. This is how I see it.
2003 saw the beginning of an open ended military comittment, so I'm asking beforehand: exactly what are the objectives beyond a punitive strike? Clearly defined, completely level headed decision making: why would we do more? Why are we going to do it? [this is a literal question, and not in any why rhetorically implying anything] Our system isn't based on honor killings, and encouraging that thinking on a systemic level like the last president did really just ends up undermining things here. War is incredibly corrosive to an overall civilization.
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Of course what Romney did was
Of course what Romney did was political. He is running against Obama and trying to come out as Presidential. Unfortunately in this game news gets old fast. I can understand criticism of Romney, saying he should have waited, but anyone truly giving Romney crap is being factitious. The game requires speed and that is what is being done.
I personally am a tad shocked how the media is spinning this though. While he should have waited, I think it is fair to criticize Obama. The spin on this is getting tiresome, as if Obama can never be criticized.
This is a classic example of why we need to stay out of the fray. And before anyone chimes in about us helping the Libyan people, we did this because it was strategically beneficial. If we gave a shit we would be bombing Syria right now and helping out another group of people who need our assistance.
Oh wait, Syria isn't in OPEC and Libya is.
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TNA: Oh wait, Syria isn't in
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TNA: Of course what Romney
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Relinquis: whether or not
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The media reaction to
Maybe I'm missing something?
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