Originally Posted by
Corso
Fair enough Josh, but after reading 4 years of folks here doing EVERTHING (what-aboutism, straw man arguments, not credible links, etc) I'm accused of without recourse, it shows the clear bias of the folks in the OT stable. I've never once come out of the gate throwing personal insults, and if I done the same, it's been in response to one.
What does "accused of without recourse" mean? Did you meant to say "accused without evidence", or did you meant to say you have no one to whom plead your case.
There has been absolute garbage posted here about the President and his family. Some with solid critical points, others with 4th grade "humor". The latter have not been constructive or engaging, and yet, they go unchecked by the mods. How many anti-Trump links from the onion and late night comedians has there been here, yet those are sources to be taken seriously?
I'll list each one of these separately and address how I (would approach it if I were the owner of a forum); note, that this is not me leveling criticism at the mods here.
1). Solid critical points. Those stay.
2). 4th grade "humor". Those go. I recall someone making the implication that the first lady (however liable she is to valid criticism) is a pet/dog. That's uncalled for, when there are so many other valid criticisms of her.
3). Anti-Trump links from the Onion and late night comedians. If those links don't fall into category 2) above, they stay. The best politics-based comedy routines are those that expose hypocrisy, cake-ism, etc. They elicit a laughter in the way of, well this is truly messed up, but at least we can still have a laugh at it. I'll further note that when someone links to the Onion, people (at least people here) know it's satire and not to be taken seriously.
Now, re: your link to AMAC, for those who didn't bother clicking through, the title of the article reads: "Bozell to Levin: Survey Shows 4.6% of Democrats Would Not Have Voted for Joe Biden Had They Known Hunter Biden Story". Context here: the top of the AMAC website literally has the following banner (see below).
2020_1213_SMH.jpg
So an already biased publisher, where the publisher is literally furthering lies (that have been rejected at least 35 out of the 36 times they have been litigated in courts of various jurisdictions). Yet we are supposed to take this seriously?
And that's before we get to the actual content of the message.
The first few paragraphs reads:
(CNS News) — Media Research Center (MRC) Founder and President Brent Bozell laid out on the Mark Levin Show on Tuesday survey data indicating that the media’s bias by omission resulted in the defeat of President Donald Trump.
Bozell explained that it is well-known how the mainstream media dedicates over 90% of its Trump airtime to negative coverage of the president, but the MRC president argues that their omission of Trump’s successes and Joe Biden’s failures is much more dangerous.
“We took a survey after the elections, on the night of the elections, and asked Democrats if they knew about the Hunter Biden story. A full 36% of Democrats knew nothing about the Hunter Biden story,” Bozell said. “Further, 4.6% of Democrats said they would not have voted for Joe Biden had they known this story. We then took that 4.6% and we spread it across the electoral landscape.”
“Guess what? Had they known this story, Joe Biden would not have carried Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and the Trump lead would have been definitive in North Carolina. Meaning what? Meaning that Donald Trump would have won 289 electoral votes and would be the re-elect president of the United States. ”
Let's dissect the last two paragraphs, which really provide more questions than answers.
From the third paragraph:
1) Which story concerning Mr. Hunter Biden? Are we talking laptops, taxes, or something else?
2) How was the poll conducted, specifically, exact phrasing of question, how the voters were reached, etc?
3) What are the uncertainties for the 36% and 4.6% figures?
4) 4.6% of which survey cohort? This last one is important, because couched in the phrasing of the news release, it either means a much smaller number than what is intimated or represents an inability to convey ideas in an intelligible manner. Specifically, "would not have voted" is a past tense subjunctive, implying that it refers to people who didn't know and would have acted differently had they known. This would not apply to those who knew about whatever Hunter Biden story (64% according to this survey), because they voted for Biden despite of whatever story is swirling around his son. So, presumably not 4.6% of all Democrats surveyed, but rather 4.6% of the 36% who didn't know about whatever nebulously-defined Hunter Biden story. 4.6% of 36% is 1.66%.
5). Lastly, how representative is the survey, specifically, how representative is the survey with respect to Democrats in each of the states mentioned?
The fourth paragraph is a sleight of hand without further clarification, for it is made on the assumption that the 4.6% of the participants were geographically representative (which the article appears to imply but does not state). Furthermore, there appears to be some really shoddy math and assumption going on, namely, he is taking the number of votes for Mr. Biden in each of the states mentioned and discounting that vote by 4.6%. Except that, too, is a fallacy, for it's incorrect to assume that registered Democrats accounted for all of Mr. Biden's votes in each of the states. In fact, one would think that independents would be even more affected by nonstories such as this, but lo-and-behold, Mr. Bozell doesn't even bother with polling independents. Why is that salient and pertinent? Because if one were to discount 1.66% off of Mr. Biden's votes in each of the four states mentioned (as opposed to the 4.6% that he appears to be doing), the only states affected would be AZ, GA, and WI; and PA would still go to Mr. Biden. So Mr. Bozell really needs to have a full breakdown of all electorates, before he could claim that this would have had an effect in PA.
Though having said all that, I doubt the survey was a) representative and b) applicable to the electorate of each of the four states mentioned. Furthermore, given the severe bias of the sources (both the publisher and the person quoted), this published story lacks even more credence. Lastly, the Laptop story was well publicized in various news outlets (I've seen it on WaPo and The Guardian), and the fact is, despite all that, Mr. Biden still prevailed in each of the four states mentioned.
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