{"id":2371,"date":"2010-09-01T07:13:54","date_gmt":"2010-09-01T11:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicholsclan.com\/tinblog\/?p=2371"},"modified":"2010-11-24T09:43:16","modified_gmt":"2010-11-24T14:43:16","slug":"liberal-media-fails-to-report-manufactured-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/2010\/09\/liberal-media-fails-to-report-manufactured-news.html","title":{"rendered":"Liberal media fails to report manufactured news"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Fox<\/a>
As reported on Fox News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fox News reported recently, “CBO: Eight Years of Iraq War Cost Less Than Stimulus Act<\/a>.”\u00a0\u00a0 The news is linked and referenced widely by other conservative news outlets and in the comments left by Conservatives across the web.\u00a0 Yet, there is no mention of this story on CNN, by CBS, or in the New York Times.\u00a0 Clearly this is an example of the liberal media showing its bias by protecting the Obama administration.\u00a0 Or is it?<\/p>\n

The graph Fox News led with is pretty damning.\u00a0 It appears to put to rest the claims on the left that Bush’s unfunded spending was on par with Obama’s.\u00a0 The big tall red lines under the Obama years clearly dwarf the sliver of Iraq spending.<\/p>\n

But the graph is also pretty clever.\u00a0 The article headline refers to the difference in cost between the Iraq War and the ARRA Stimulus program, but the graph depicts deficits, not costs.\u00a0 Why does that matter?\u00a0 Because unlike the prevailing sound bite, the major driver of deficits is not out of control spending, but rather loss of revenue.\u00a0 Take a look at the graph at this link<\/a>.\u00a0 There are two major downturns in revenue: the Bush tax cuts and the 2008 economic collapse.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the spending rate is a relatively straight line.\u00a0 Yes, it has increased under Obama as a response to the economic disaster, but not as dramatically as some would have you believe.\u00a0 Certainly, nothing as dramatic as the inflection points in the revenue line.<\/p>\n

Are the numbers in the graph accurate?\u00a0 It would appear so, but the data has been chosen carefully and doesn’t say what the reader or viewer is led to believe.\u00a0 And the headline?\u00a0 If the data is chosen correctly, the claim that the Iraq War cost less that the stimulus is accurate.\u00a0 The CBO direct costs for Operation Iraqi Freedom are estimated at $709B while the ARRA Act comes in at $862B.\u00a0 Yet while 862 is larger than 709, again, the data is misleading.\u00a0 The ARRA cost is fixed at $862B.\u00a0 It can’t go up without additional Congressional approval.\u00a0 It is what it is.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the $709B reflects only the direct cost for the Iraq combat mission that is now concluded.\u00a0 It ignores the $100’s of billions spent in Afghanistan, the ongoing $100B\/year that we will continue to spend on Iraq and Afghanistan operations for years to come, and most notably ignores the estimated lifetime cost of $800B in veteran medical costs for returning soldiers.\u00a0 Most estimates of the total lifetime costs of the two Bush wars start at about $2 trillion and go up from there.<\/p>\n

The inescapable conclusion is that this so-called news story was manufactured.\u00a0 The data was selected and the graph was designed entirely to send a message.\u00a0 Other news outlets didn’t report this story\u2014not because they don’t agree with its ideology, but because it doesn’t actually exist.\u00a0 Unfortunately, many Fox viewers will never do the homework required to understand that… nor should they have to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fox News reported recently, “CBO: Eight Years of Iraq War Cost Less Than Stimulus Act.”\u00a0\u00a0 The news is linked and<\/p>\n

Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2371"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2374,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2371\/revisions\/2374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}