Bill Moyers Claims White House Misleading Americans About Surge

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Has Bill Moyers become PBS's Jack Cafferty, Bill Maher, Rosie O'Donnell, and Keith Olbermann all rolled into one crusading, Bush-hating, anti-war propagandist funded by American tax dollars?

After all, on Friday, he followed up last week's disgraceful rant about Karl Rove with an eight-minute segment on how "The Bush White House has launched a massive new P.R. campaign with the message: the surge in Iraq is working. Let's stay the course!"

In it, Moyers offered not one shred of balance to this completely anti-war report by totally ignoring recent statements from liberal think tank members, leading Democrats, and military officials indicating that conditions in Iraq are indeed improving.

Instead, Moyers: disgracefully suggested that the White House is misleading Americans about the surge in much the same way it did weapons of mass destruction; mocked military recruiting ads and techniques, and; cited a British newspaper claiming our army is crippled by fatigue. A full transcript of this abomination follows with video available here for those that can stomach it:

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BILL MOYERS: We're launching a new feature on THE JOURNAL this week. We call it our clip file - stories we collect that may have fallen through the cracks or disappeared under the avalanche of information that falls on all of us every day. We begin with the war in Iraq.

The Bush White House has launched a massive new P.R. campaign with the message: the surge in Iraq is working. Let's stay the course! The president called on the ghosts of Vietnam to help him win support for a prolonged occupation:

PRESIDENT BUSH AT THE VETERANS FOR FOREIGN WARS: One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like 'boat people, re-education camps and killing fields'.

BILL MOYERS: History is already repeating itself in Washington. Remember Ari Fleischer?

ARI FLEISCHER: There is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction biological and chemical particularly. This was the reason the president felt so strongly we need military action to disarm Saddam Hussein...

BILL MOYERS: That was Ari Fleischer making the case for invading Iraq in March of 2003.

Now he's in private life and running a $15 million dollar ad campaign to "shore up support" for the president's war policies.

The ads use wounded war veterans and next-of-kin of soldiers killed in Iraq to make the case - it's a campaign funded by former Bush officials and big donors.

TV AD: Jesse died a week before the Iraqi election and he sacrificed for our freedom and for their freedom. For Congress to switch votes for political reasons while we're making progress in Iraq, to me, is unthinkable.

BILL MOYERS: So the President seems as determined as ever to stay in Iraq.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Unlike in Vietnam, if we withdraw before the job is done, this enemy will follow us home.

BILL MOYERS: The military now has to come up with the troops to carry on. The President's new war czar, Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, in a candid moment on National Public Radio, entertained the thought of a draft.

GEN. DOUGLAS LUTE, COORDINATOR FOR IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN: I think it makes sense to certainly consider it. And I can tell you it has always been an option on the table. But ultimately, this is a policy matter between meeting the demands for the nation's security by one means or another.

BILL MOYERS: The White House quickly knocked that option down. And the military continues to make its appeal on radio and television:

ARMY RECRUITING AD: It's more than physical strength, it's emotional strength. There is nothing on this green Earth stronger than the U.S. Army. Because there is nothing stronger on this green earth than a U.S. Army soldier. There's strong and there's Army strong.

BILL MOYERS: On the ground in Iraq, their strength is being tested. THE OBSERVER of London finds the American Army there "crippled" by fatigue. The OBSERVER's reporter says frustration and weariness are common among the troops he met, brought on by battle stress, sleep disorders, multiple tasks and extended tours of duty.

A chaplain's assistant who came to bless a patrol snapped at the journalist: "Why don't you tell the truth? Why don't you journalists write that this army is exhausted?"

And -- from a major at a military hospital in Mosul -- THE OBSERVER heard of morale affected by a "deep-seated problem of retention and recruitment."

ARMY RECRUITER: Staff Sgt. Nunez, United States Army. How you guys doing?

BILL MOYERS: This spring, the Army had a hard time wooing new recruits. Recruiting goals were down by 7% in May - the first shortfall in two years. In June, the shortfall was even greater - 15%.

NBC: Tonight a disappearing military mainstay. For a number of years about one-quarter of all recruits have been African American.

BILL MOYERS: NBC, The Associated Press and other news outlets are reporting that the number of black recruits joining for military duty has plunged dramatically - dropping by more than a third.

The Pentagon's been stepping up efforts to recruit Latinos.

SPANISH-LANGUAGE RECRUITNG AD

BILL MOYERS: There's even a proposal in Congress to grant citizenship to illegal immigrants in exchange for military service. Its sponsors call it The Dream Act. That's dream for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act.

If Congress approves, young immigrants can buy their citizenship with two years of military service.

Already a citizen? The army offers a different incentive altogether. It's called a "Quick Shipper" bonus - sort of a "summer special." Sign up before the end of September and the new recruit can qualify for a bonus of $20,000 if he's willing to ship out within 30 days. ... and there's always that chance to win an Ipod.

There is some small print. It says soldiers can't collect a cent of that bonus until they've completed advanced training and reached their first permanent duty station - at which point they will get half the check - $10,000. The rest of the bonus will be paid out in annual installments over the lifetime of the soldier's contract.

It looks like this bonus boosted recruits in July - the Army reports that it met its recruiting goal for the month - but the recruiting gets harder the longer the occupation continues.

In Iraq, the reality is very different from the official rhetoric.

THE NEW YORK TIMES this week published a remarkable essay written by seven soldiers fighting the war. They're with the 82nd Airborne, braving enemy fire there and risking censure at home by describing what's really going on. They write:

"...we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political, and social unrest we see every day."

They are caught, they write, between "determined enemies" and "questionable allies." Example: "...a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. "

They write: "To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched."

The men conclude: "as committed soldiers we will see this mission through."

  • "The War as We Saw It," Buddhika Jayamaha, Wesley D. Smith, Jeremy Roebuck, Omar Mora, Edward Sandmeier, Yance T. Gray And Jeremy A. Murphy, THE NEW YORK TIMES Op-Ed, August 19, 2007

In the course of writing their essay, one of the soldiers - Staff Sergeant Jeremy Murphy - was shot in the head and med-evacked to the United States.

And remember that Spanish-language ad? It featured Army Specialist Astor Sunsin-Pineda and his family. Sunsin-Pineda immigrated to the U.S. At the age of 8 from Honduras. Last May, he was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad. He was 20 years old.

The Army pulled the ad.

Once again we are learning that an endless war has a bottomless appetite.

Actually, Bill, what we once again learned is that you are not a journalist, for you disgracefully didn't include the opinions of one politician or military official counter to your own.

Is this the kind of biased reporting our tax dollars should be paying for?

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters. Follow him at Facebook and Twitter.


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Weapons Given to Iraq are Missing

The headline said "Weapons given to Iraq are Missing".

Perhaps it should read "Brains given Moyers are now Missing". Retirement beckons.

Noel,

 First sentence, answer : YES

Last sentence, NO.

 T.V.'s   robert mapplethorpe award winner!

Entitlement over infrastructure every SINGLE time.

 

Moyers

In it, Moyers offered not one shred of balance to this completely anti-war report . . .

Well of course there is no balance. Moyers himself says "The journalist’s job is not to achieve some mythical state of
equilibrium between two opposing opinions out of some misshapen respect
-- sometimes, alas, reverence -- for the prevailing consensus among the
powers-that-be. The journalist’s job is to seek out and offer the
public the best thinking
on an issue, event, or story.
"

He doesn't see the role of a journalist as a reporter, but as an idea-man, an opinion maker.

Must be real far to the ground from his lofty tower.

D

Keep the ILLEGALS out, join NumbersUSA to send free faxes to your reps.

DFTT

Suppose we agree with Bill that the journalist should, seek out and offer the public the best thinking on an issue, event, or story.  Wouldn't that mean he should resign and let a better thinker take the seat?

Supreme Court,  National Security,  Borders,  Fiscal Restraint, my litmus test for President.  

BIll Moyers, LBJ's hatchet

BIll Moyers, LBJ's hatchet man who got J. Edgar Hoover to get dirt on a staffer for Barry Goldwater who was gay!

 

Now he's taking the moral high ground? BULL!

 

Go away Bill!

 

-cs™

"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the
lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth --
persistent, persuasive and unrealistic."

Moyers states: "THE NEW YORK

Moyers states:

"THE NEW YORK TIMES this week published a remarkable essay written by seven soldiers fighting the war. They're with the 82nd Airborne, braving enemy fire there and risking censure at home by describing what's really going on. "

Power Line noted the other day that another group of 7 soldiers wrote a response to the piece Moyers cites. At the end, this nugget appears:

"This Op-Ed was originally submitted to the New York Times, which declined to publish it."

Here's the response by Group of 7 number 2, which the NY Times apparently found "too offensive" to print:

http://www.weeklysta...

Del, Here's a great read

Del,

Here's a great read about what the 82nd Airborne is really up to.   It's long, but worth the time.

David Gregory, do you know which damn network you lie for? ~ Uncle Jimbo, @Blackfive

 

He ought to know

When it comes to misleading, Bill Moyers is an expert.

Moyers: PBS answer to Reporter Welfare

Of course Bill Moyers should get grants, funding and time on PBS as he is the recipient of socialized reporter welfare. He once worked so very hard for JFK and then jumped on the sow tit money wagon sucking the MSM for all she was worth and then was discarded like the old fossil he is.

To this poor in mind, rich in money and lacking in soul went on a drunk spree getting arrested and threatening police.

Just like rapist Bill Clinton though, he got rehabilitated and snagged a job where he like Dan Rather can pretend he is doing something in being on PBS.

Moyers does a great service in fawning over Jon Stewart's ego, so he thinks he actually matters and Moyers actually has someone he can love while he hates the rest of America.

Moyers isn't interested in the truth. He is like the bug eyed communists who are lurking behind Putin yet coming up with all that old regime propaganda. He is what he is and the Rockefeller run PBS is simply paying him off like they did with Joe Wilson and Val Plame for services once rendered.

Spew on Bill Moyers, you are a dulling example that the dinosaur media is rapidly becoming the fossil media as no one even cares who is worth anything to be on his Soviet style show.

 

*HIC IACET ARTORIVS REX QVONDAM REXQVE FVTVRVS

THE REAL STORY

I was at a BBQ this weekend. A lot of Army guys were there along with some Marines and the families of some guys who are currently in Iraq. They directed me to a website
that the soldiers and their families go to to find out what is really
going on in Iraq and asked me to forward it to some people so the real
news could get out there.

Some of these guys just got back and some are shipping out the first week of September. You wouldn't believe how high their morale is. They said it is difficult work and it definitely isn't easy but to say their overall outlook was positive would be an understatement.

These are guys who have been there 2 -3 times already and families who currently have their sons/ daughters over there. The one thing that really pisses them off is the media because they feel the media is telling a story and not reporting the news. The positive stories these guys tell are amazing. Infrastructure is being built and territories are being turned over to the Iraqi's all the time. Those deploying in the next couple of weeks know they have some difficult times ahead of them. All they asked for was our support and a few prayers. That can't be too much to ask for.

 

 

thanks jim it's been saved

thanks jim it's been saved to favorites

Supreme Court,  National Security,  Borders,  Fiscal Restraint, my litmus test for President.  

Dittos Jim.

Dittos Jim.

Thanks Jim... Great

Thanks Jim...

Great site! 

Get Email updates from Fred http://socialnet.imwithfred.com/email_alert_july_26.html

Be sure to tell them about

Be sure to tell them about NewsBusters so we can help keep their morale up. Thanks

Is Mr. Moyers accountable

Is Mr. Moyers accountable to anyone or anything? Does he answer to any authority at all?

Can he just show up at the studio - financed by thee and me - and just pronounce anything he wants, regardless of accuracy or fact, and then broadcast it?

No opposing points of view, no balance, no fairness, just wing it?

And the worst he faces is, horrors!, an occasional critical piece by the PBS ombudsman?

He's put together quite a racket. Spout nonsense, smear folks, win awards and the adulation from liberal media critics (Tom Shales just loves him) and press organizations and then make millions selling DVDS and films of his "work".

Great gig, if you think about.

SMG

 

 

Nope

Unfortunately, now that he's sponsored by the taxpayer, rather than by advertisers, he is insulated from market forces.   His lack of journalistic professionalism is what put him on PBS...

If Liberalism wasn't entrenched in publicly funded institutions, like schools, NPR, PBS etc., it would lose at least half it's strength.

SMG,  Yes, for Moyers it

SMG, 

Yes, for Moyers it was a great gig.  He was to television what Chomsky is (unfortunately) to political "writing": a debased and fanatical authoritarian paranoiac with zero capacity for even the basic humanity necessary to admit that your political opponents may not, in fact, be posessed by Satan. 

 He corrupted his profession and his viewers, and in so doing flagrantly exploited the many hardworking Americans who were forced by their government to make him wealthy.

But in the waning days of his career, we may take comfort in the fact that as this monument to intellectual depravity fades away, he will do so spewing his bile and seething at the world which is quickly, and thankfully leaving him behind. 

 Liberal: a power worshipper without power. George Orwell

After over a decade of

After over a decade of Republican majority in Congress and six years of a Republican President we still have our tax dollars subsidizing one of the most onerous and irritating left wing propaganda sources on the planet. Even the BBC has been formally called to task for its overwhelming bias in socialist Britain and forced to curb at least some of its excesses. Yet NPR puts its toxic far left agenda out on the air waves every day at our expense.

It is enough to lead one to despair... that Republicans will ever grow a pair.

Oh, tie Moyers to a chair.

Nuff to make one's knees weak, Noel.

2 points -

1. Will someone please tie Bill Moyers to a chair, and on national TV, remind him that Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Edwards, Cohen, Albright, all are on record in stating that there was no question in their mind that we had evidence that Saddam had WMD's, the ability to make more, and was a threat to the US and our allies. Then I want to see him read it out loud to his fan club - and others, besides the MSM. 

ARI FLEISCHER: There is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction biological and chemical particularly. This was the reason the president felt so strongly we need military action to disarm Saddam Hussein...

BILL MOYERS: That was Ari Fleischer making the case for invading Iraq in March of 2003. Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso said. "When Clinton was here recently he told me he was absolutely convinced, given his years in the White House and the access to privileged information which he had, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction until the end of the Saddam regime," he said in an interview with Portuguese cable news channel SIC Noticias.

..of course, Clinton told Larry King the same darn thing in 2003....and even John Edwards, in 2002..

“I think Iraq and Saddam Hussein present the most serious and most imminent threat.”  

Again, in 2004..

RUSSERT: “Most serious and imminent threat. Were you just dead wrong?”  EDWARDS: “No, I think Saddam Hussein was a very serious threat. I stand by that, and that’s why we stand behind our vote on the resolution.” (NBC’s “Meet The Press,” 10/10/04) 

2. The image you posted showcasing the various headlines.. reflecting to what they should have said in the 1990's. 

Duh! In Belgrade, US Drops bombs on Chinese Embassy. 

Oops! US bombs civilian train over river.

Oh geesh! Clinton targets TV and radio stations in Belgrade.

Whoops! 21 cruise missiles miss Bin Laden - but 10 others hit pharmaceutical plant.

 

No "massive" expectations

Moyers assertion - The Bush White House has launched a massive new P.R. campaign with the message: the surge in Iraq is working.

So who are these massive P.R. campaigners?  Well, Moyers starts off listing President Bush giving a speech and then there is.....well....no one else.

So exactly who does Moyers reference to fill in the rest of his Bush hit piece about "massive P.R campaigners" (note none of these organizations/folks are connected to "The Bush White House")?:

Exhibit A -  "it's a campaign funded by former Bush officials and big donors."

Exhibit B - ".....the military continues to make its appeal on radio and television...."

Exhibit C - "THE OBSERVER of London...."

Exhibit D - "a major at a military hospital in Mosul...."

Exhibit E - "The Pentagon's been stepping up efforts to recruit Latinos."

Exhibit F - "There's even a proposal in Congress......"

Exhibit G - "The army offers a different incentive altogether...."

Exhibit H - "THE NEW YORK TIMES this week published a remarkable essay..."

Refresher - "The Bush White House has launched a massive new P.R. campaign...."  Maybe Moyers will actually back up this assertion in his sure-to-follow next propaganda piece with actual "campaigners" employed by "the Bush White House" other than simply the President giving a speech.  But I don't have "massive" expectations.

 

Moyers is the reason I never

Moyers is the reason I never watch or listen to Moyers.
 

Liberalism is a convenient lie.

Moyers - WHPS?

Is Moyers auditioning to be Clinton’s White House Press Secretary? I can see no other explanation for his convoluted ramblings other to impress her campaign that he would be a good soldier in the fight against everything Christian and Republican.

I can just hear him saying to himself:  PUT ME IN COACH, PUT ME IN!

Did any of you guys see the

Did any of you guys see the spearing that Moyers got on FoxNews Sunday yesterday?

Chris Wallace gets a "Shack" on that one.