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Last week I said repeatedly that there would be "no bounce" for Kerry/Edwards coming out of their convention. I predicted a jump of 3-5 points to which many of you mocked me and said that Dukakis had a 17 point bounce from his convention BLAH BLAH BLAH. Algore had a big bounce BLAH BLAH BLAH. I was a strict partisan repeating RNC talking points BLAH BLAH BLAH. Well here we go the numbers are in.

4 Shaq'fuing points.

My other predictions? 38 states and a 6 point margin of victory in the nationwide popular vote. Better hope my prognostication isn't as good as my reading the polls coming into and out of the convention. I mean... I'd really hate to hear you Dems whine and cry all through the winter up until January 20th 2005 when Bush is inagurated for a second time. No.... actually I'd laugh my ass off.

Have a great weekend.

I hate partisan politics.

Originally Posted by PittsburghAfterDark Last week I said repeatedly that there would be "no bounce" for Kerry/Edwards coming out of their convention. I predicted a jump of 3-5 points to which many of you mocked me and said that Dukakis had a 17 point bounce from his convention BLAH BLAH BLAH. Algore had a big bounce BLAH BLAH BLAH. I was a strict partisan repeating RNC talking points BLAH BLAH BLAH. Well here we go the numbers are in. 4 Shaq'fuing points. My other predictions? 38 states and a 6 point margin of victory in the nationwide popular vote. Better hope my prognostication isn't as good as my reading the polls coming into and out of the convention. I mean... I'd really hate to hear you Dems whine and cry all through the winter up until January 20th 2005 when Bush is inagurated for a second time. No.... actually I'd laugh my ass off. Have a great weekend.

And once again, PAD shows his amazing ability to provide the half of the story he'd like you to see, while quietly sweeping the other half under the rug.

The real story is:

NEWSWEEK POLL: DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION 2004 -- Kerry/Edwards Leads Bush/Cheney 52 to 44 Percent; Dems Receive Two-Point Margin Bounce in Two-Way Race, Four-Point Bounce in Three-Way Race
Saturday July 31, 4:02 pm ET
58 Percent Dissatisfied With Direction of Country; 57 Percent Say War With Iraq Has Not Made U.S. Safer
46 Percent Say Bush Closer to Their View on Gay Marriage

Does PAD care at all about his credibility? If he did, I think these numbers would have been part of his first post. He'd rather clown.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040731/nysa010a_3.html

Well, there is the fact that most media coverage that he uses for his "facts" comes from a 'news source' that has been a tabloid since 1933. No offense Pitt, but if you are offended by Michael Moore's techniques of persuasion you should seriously take a look at your own.

Newsweek is a tabloid? Wow, never knew. Thanks for the heads up.

Bush leading 50 to 47 among likely voters in new GALLUPUSATODAYCNN poll
CNN -- Late Edition Primetime
Sun Aug 01 2004

WOLF: we're also getting new information, the first new poll numbers since the democratic convention. they're coming in right now and they're showing an apparent difference between registered voters and likely voters. here to explain exactly what's going on our senior political analyst bill schneider. bill, this is the latest cnn/""usa today""/gallup poll. these are numbers that were completely taken, this poll since john kerry's acceptance speech. i want to show our viewers what the numbers show so far. among registered voters, this is important, registered voters, john kerry is now at 50% compared to george w. bush at 47%. you see what it was before the convention, 49/45 in favor of kerry. among likely voters, though, take a look at this. a difference, likely voters, 50% for bush, 47% for kerry. a reversal, the margin of error, though, 3% in this poll you see. well, first of all, explain the difference between registered and likely voters.

SCHNEIDER: wolf, about three-quarters of americans are registered to vote but in the presidential election typically only about half or a little bit over half will turn out to vote. so what the gallup poll does is screen people according to their interests, their intention to vote, their enthusiasm and screen out the 50% who in the typical presidential election are likely to vote. so, if this election is a typical presidential election, the likely voters show a slight lead for bush but if turnout is higher than that, and we get more registered voters actually voting that should help kerry.

WOLF: what do these numbers say about the so-called bounce out of this democratic convention?

SCHNEIDER: no bounce and that's striking. they show there might have been a very brief bounce, not a bounce but a blip i'd call it among people interviewed on friday after the convention kerry was ahead by five points. we continued to interview on saturday and those people -- bush moved into a slight lead of two points. we will continue to interview people but this looks like the shortest bounce on record.

WOLF: is that because the country basically had already made up their mind? there wasn't a whole lot of room for undecides? that's what the democrats keep saying.

SCHNEIDER: looks like they had a point. what we're see showing is before the convention the democrats were hugely enthusiastic about voting. over three-quarters said they were more enthusiastic than usual. after the convention the number of democrats who said they were enthusiastic went up only slightly. they already had their bounce but what really changed is that the republicans, the bush voters went way up in enthusiasm gaining eight points so it looks like, yes, the convention rallied voters but it rallied republicans more than democrats. the only good news for democrat, democrats are still more enthusiastic about voting than republicans are.

WOLF: we'll get more on these numbers throughout ""late edition."" thanks for that.

The boat is taking on water. Buh bye.

In the survey, taken Friday and Saturday, the Democratic ticket of Kerry and John Edwards trailed the Republican ticket of Bush and Dick Cheney 50% to 46% among likely voters, with independent candidate Ralph Nader at 2%.

Before the convention, the two were essentially tied, with Kerry at 47%, Bush at 46%.

The change in support was within the poll's margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points in the sample of 763 likely voters. But it was nonetheless a stunning result, the first time in the Gallup Poll since the 1972 Democratic convention that a candidate seemed to lose ground at his convention.

LINKY LINKY! to the "tabloid" source of the USA Today.

Sigh... there you go again Pitt. You know, you and Moore really do have a lot in common. Allow me to refresh your memory:

Originally Posted by Pitt, from another post July 31, 2004 -- SCRANTON, Pa. — John Kerry's heavily hyped cross-country bus tour stumbled out of the blocks yesterday, as a group of Marines publicly dissed the Vietnam War hero in the middle of a crowded restaurant.

Originally Posted by Vthornheart, in regards to the reference he was making to a tabloid, and which Pitt chose to selectively forget in order to sidetrack the greater issue Shaq'fu posting propaganda-laden opinion articles and treating them like they are news sources. You won't see me, for example, posting up Indymedia stories here or anywhere. They're interesting for those who already believe in the ideology to see, but they're useless to anyone else. EDIT: Here, a little tidbit about the New York Post from the Wikipedia. Wikipedia wrote: The New York Post is one of the oldest (and according to some definitions, the oldest) of the newspapers still published in the United States. It was founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1801, and in 1933 became a tabloid. It was owned by Dorothy Schiff for much of the 20th Century, but after it was bought by Rupert Murdoch in 1977 it redefined "tabloid journalism" and may have reached nadir with its famous 1983 headline: HEADLESS BODY IN TOPLESS BAR It became a tabloid in... 1933? I guess that makes it the country's oldest tabloid, or at least one of them. If we are going to consider this to be a valid source, then so is the Inquirer or the Daily Star.

EDIT (for the sake of understanding and preventing a flame war 8) ): In your defense, my reference was to a different post you had made, I can see where you might have been confused on the issue. However, what I'm saying is that it's hard to believe sources from you when your cited sources can, at times, be far less than credible. I didn't notice that the "Shaq-fu" line was actually a link, and thus I thought you were coming up with this from an uncited source... and we have no way of knowing wether your source is coming from CNN or the Daily Star when that is the case. As I mentioned in my post on that topic, I wouldn't go quoting Indymedia as if it was CNN. But that is for another issue.

I'll take the credibility of the New York Post in this story. Why would any newspaper fake a story this minor?

Say what you want about "tabloid" journalism in this country but the National Enquirer has more rigorous fact checkers and a better libel/slander record than just about any paper in the country. I'll put it this way, the credibility the New York Times gave Ahmed Chalabi would never have passed NI fact checking muster. Oh.... and they've never had a lying reporter on staff being mentored by the (Was he Howell Raines' protege'?) editor like Jayson Blair.

The USA Today also had a lying reporter on staff this year. You may not like the tactics papers off the "mainstream" use, you may not like their owners, you may think their standards are not up to snuff. However I have yet to see the New York Post dedicate pages and pages of retractions and clarifications apologizing for a lying reporter or major inaccuracies like another New York paper... which happens to have national distribution BTW.... so I wouldn't discount them entirely.

I have never knowingly posted one story or one piece of information that hasn't passed editorial controls with professionals at a major publication or outlet. You don't see me posting commentary as news. You don't see me posting from Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage or any radio opinion shows either.

I was a news intern with CBS and worked for FOX and Hearst Television. I know the difference between credible new source and opinion. I guarantee you I spent more time in television news rooms than anyone on this board has even though it was only about 5 years.

During OJ you know who televisions "investigative" and "hot lead" source was? The National Enquirer and The Star. The "mainstream" and "credible" media is not at all what you think it is. Oh... and Drudge is more closely followed than any of the news wires.

Think about it before you roundly criticize.

Hey PAD did you actually read the link you cited? The article you cited is really misleading and spinning the facts. They are calling it a baby bounce, yet half the poll was taken BEFORE Kerry's acceptance speech. Only counting the half that was taken after his speech, the bounce is 10 points.

Originally Posted by PittsburghAfterDark Newsweek is a tabloid? Wow, never knew. Thanks for the heads up. Bush leading 50 to 47 among likely voters in new GALLUPUSATODAYCNN poll CNN -- Late Edition Primetime Sun Aug 01 2004 WOLF: we're also getting new information, the first new poll numbers since the democratic convention. they're coming in right now and they're showing an apparent difference between registered voters and likely voters. here to explain exactly what's going on our senior political analyst bill schneider. bill, this is the latest cnn/""usa today""/gallup poll. these are numbers that were completely taken, this poll since john kerry's acceptance speech. i want to show our viewers what the numbers show so far. among registered voters, this is important, registered voters, john kerry is now at 50% compared to george w. bush at 47%. you see what it was before the convention, 49/45 in favor of kerry. among likely voters, though, take a look at this. a difference, likely voters, 50% for bush, 47% for kerry. a reversal, the margin of error, though, 3% in this poll you see. well, first of all, explain the difference between registered and likely voters. SCHNEIDER: wolf, about three-quarters of americans are registered to vote but in the presidential election typically only about half or a little bit over half will turn out to vote. so what the gallup poll does is screen people according to their interests, their intention to vote, their enthusiasm and screen out the 50% who in the typical presidential election are likely to vote. so, if this election is a typical presidential election, the likely voters show a slight lead for bush but if turnout is higher than that, and we get more registered voters actually voting that should help kerry. WOLF: what do these numbers say about the so-called bounce out of this democratic convention? SCHNEIDER: no bounce and that's striking. they show there might have been a very brief bounce, not a bounce but a blip i'd call it among people interviewed on friday after the convention kerry was ahead by five points. we continued to interview on saturday and those people -- bush moved into a slight lead of two points. we will continue to interview people but this looks like the shortest bounce on record. WOLF: is that because the country basically had already made up their mind? there wasn't a whole lot of room for undecides? that's what the democrats keep saying. SCHNEIDER: looks like they had a point. what we're see showing is before the convention the democrats were hugely enthusiastic about voting. over three-quarters said they were more enthusiastic than usual. after the convention the number of democrats who said they were enthusiastic went up only slightly. they already had their bounce but what really changed is that the republicans, the bush voters went way up in enthusiasm gaining eight points so it looks like, yes, the convention rallied voters but it rallied republicans more than democrats. the only good news for democrat, democrats are still more enthusiastic about voting than republicans are. WOLF: we'll get more on these numbers throughout ""late edition."" thanks for that. The boat is taking on water. Buh bye. In the survey, taken Friday and Saturday, the Democratic ticket of Kerry and John Edwards trailed the Republican ticket of Bush and Dick Cheney 50% to 46% among likely voters, with independent candidate Ralph Nader at 2%. Before the convention, the two were essentially tied, with Kerry at 47%, Bush at 46%. The change in support was within the poll's margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points in the sample of 763 likely voters. But it was nonetheless a stunning result, the first time in the Gallup Poll since the 1972 Democratic convention that a candidate seemed to lose ground at his convention. LINKY LINKY! to the "tabloid" source of the USA Today.

At one point in this CNN transcription it says that Kerry is up 50% to 47%. A couple of sentences later, it says Bush is up 50% to 47%. Obviously, someone had their facts wrong. Everything I have seen so far with poll numbers shows Kerry either dead even or with a slight lead. PAD, it must really bother you that you are from an area that votes heavily democratic (I am assuming you live in the city of Pittsburgh). My prediction is that Kerry will take Pennsylvania and quite possibly Ohio. If Kerry does take Ohio, he will be the next president.

Ohio? Nobody lives in Ohio.. it and Indiana are like big empty spaces between Detroit and Chicago.

Originally Posted by Pitt Say what you want about "tabloid" journalism in this country but the National Enquirer has more rigorous fact checkers and a better libel/slander record than just about any paper in the country.

You can't be serious, right Pitt? The National Inquirer is by no means a valid source of any kind of information! They are a tabloid: a newspaper devoted to posting sensational information that is given to them from any source that it comes from. The fact of the matter is that, though they may at times print stories about things that did in fact happen, such a thing is done entirely by accident. They have no desire to print anything that is true, or even false. Their motivating force for posting content is for it to be sensational enough for people to pick up and read. That, in itself, discredits it as a valid news source. How is it possible to know when the source is true, or when it has the same truth as a "300 pound lesbian in-bred baby" story? The fact is, it's impossible to determine.

The same goes with the Post. It is a self-proclaimed Tabloid, and that's just a matter of common knowledge and fact. It's not a newspaper, and it hasn't even considered ITSELF to be a legitimate newspaper since 1933. Tabloids cannot be trusted as valid news sources. If that story were aired by CNN, or even Fox News (and I'm giving a lot of leeway there =) ), it would hold more validity. The New York Post has intentionally soiled its own credibility, and it did so decades ago without remorse. They learned, as the Inquirer and the Star did, that interesting content is far more important than truthful content.

Why are they not constantly sued for libel, you ask? Well, they are, and they devote large sums of their profit toward paying A) The lawyers that defend them in those cases and B) the settlements against them. Oftentimes, however, Tabloids can get away with libel because it is against famous individuals: and libel for the famous has to include Malicious intent. Since their sensational stories focus around those people, they can use this vague clause in the libel laws to evade prosecution in civil court. It's an age old story, and it's the reason why tabloids can continue to exist.

Tabloids can also easily evade libel claims by doing what they do best: they are simply "routers" of gossip. Your claim that they do fact checking is entirely untrue: as a policy, they don't check facts. If they don't check facts, it makes them less liable in cases of libel, as they are simply perpetuating a story that they were told was the truth. If you've noticed, they have to put on their papers that the stories are "gossip". It's all a protection against libel, and as a side effect they don't have to nor would they want to check the truth of their stories.

Originally Posted by Pitt I'll put it this way, the credibility the New York Times gave Ahmed Chalabi would never have passed NI fact checking muster.

Here, Linky Linky! This is an example of National Enquirer stories. One of thousands, possibly tens of thousands of stories over the years that stem from heresay and gossip and are not only devoid of meaningful content but are purposely created with the sole intent of selling copies of their newspaper based on sensationalism as opposed to the presentation of fact. I wouldn't call any of the stories that the Inquirer gives at all "credible".

Originally Posted by The Dictionary credibility n : the quality of being believable or trustworthy

The news media had every reason to believe that Chalabi was credible. He had the backing of the national government, favorable opinion by the masses, and he was a leader of the Iraqi-American community. The fact that he is a scumbag has only recently been revealed. If the Times gave him too much credit, then George Bush did too. In fact, most members of our government gave him too much credibility. What does credibility come from? From expert opinion, which is supposed to be provided in this case by our own intelligence. Not only would the Inquirer have gone with everything that Chalabi said, they would have done so without question. If he said that purple aliens would come down and create half breed children with our women, the Inquirer would print that. They've printed stories like that in the past, we've all seen them as we walk down the isle of the grocery store.

Originally Posted by Pitt Oh.... and they've never had a lying reporter on staff being mentored by the (Was he Howell Raines' protege'?) editor like Jayson Blair.

That's misleading, because the entire ORGANIZATION of the Inquirer was created with the purpose of lying (or at least, perpetuating lies told to them since they do not stop to question them). Jayson Blair was a person who went AGAINST the Time's system, which is to promote sound news coverage. He was disobeying the established rules of his system, whereas employees who perpetuate lies in the Inquirer do it as a matter of principle.

I see that you are pointing to individual reporters who lie: that isn't a valid reason to discount the newspaper as invalid. A part of an organization cannot be generalized to be the whole of it. I'll give you an example. If I was an employee at, say, Target, and I decided to purposely misinform customers about prices or overcharge them, I would be extorting them. If someone used that as an example to say that Target, as an organization, extorts people, they would be entirely incorrect. The New York Times and USA Today cannot be faulted for the inadequacies of individual employees: to believe so is fallacious.

Originally Posted by Pitt I have never knowingly posted one story or one piece of information that hasn't passed editorial controls with professionals at a major publication or outlet. You don't see me posting commentary as news. You don't see me posting from Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage or any radio opinion shows either.

No, but you are posting from the New York Post, a known tabloid. It is not a credible news source, by the very definition of Tabloid media and the explanations stated above. While I'm glad that you don't cite those sources, the New York Post or the National Inquirer is just as non-credible of a source.

Originally Posted by Pitt I was a news intern with CBS and worked for FOX and Hearst Television. I know the difference between credible new source and opinion. I guarantee you I spent more time in television news rooms than anyone on this board has even though it was only about 5 years.

Working at CBS or FOX gives you some minor authority source on the validity of those networks: it does not, however, give you any knowledge or authority about the credibility of other networks, tabloids, etc... A podiatrist holds no authority over matters of Chiropractic practices, and the difference between individual sources of media are just as varied. Whereas a source like CBS will likely check sources and distribute facts based on a documented system of fact-checking and a desire to release only factual opinion, other sources of media may not (and often do not) apply to the same systems. Like I stated earlier, the Tabloid runs under an entirely different ethical and business structure, one that could not possibly be understood because of experience gained in an "ethical" media source. Your authority, while useful in some matters, does not apply here.

Originally Posted by Pitt During OJ you know who televisions "investigative" and "hot lead" source was? The National Enquirer and The Star. The "mainstream" and "credible" media is not at all what you think it is. Oh... and Drudge is more closely followed than any of the news wires.

Yes, and they had those sources because they did not bother to check them for validity. They ran it to print as soon as they got them: and you can bet that they posted many more fraudulent stories on those same topics than they did valid ones. "Getting lucky" and posting a true story when you aren't checking to see if its true doesn't make you credible. You just lucked out, and it happened to be true that time. It's absolutely meaningless in relation to the subject of credibility.

EDIT: Also, I'd like to point out that credibility and mass attention are two entirely seperate things. Drudge, as you pointed out, is watched more closely than the mainstream media. That's nice, but it means nothing for his credibility. This is due to the same quality in humans that the founding fathers recognized, and why they put the Electoral College into existence as a result: people are more easily led by emotional appeals as opposed to fact. Coincidentally, it is that same innate quality in humans that makes tabloids so appealing to the masses and why they post their content in the manner that they do.

Originally Posted by Pitt Think about it before you roundly criticize.

As you can probably tell, I have. I didn't mean to make this a terribly big thing. Though I was annoyed at the usage of that story, I hadn't seen a great deal of it coming from you so I was just going to point it out, hope that people don't use such sources in the future, and we'd all be better. But I don't mind expanding on the subject now that it has come to it.

Originally Posted by PittsburghAfterDark I'll take the credibility of the New York Post in this story. Why would any newspaper fake a story this minor? Say what you want about "tabloid" journalism in this country but the National Enquirer has more rigorous fact checkers and a better libel/slander record than just about any paper in the country. I'll put it this way, the credibility the New York Times gave Ahmed Chalabi would never have passed NI fact checking muster. Oh.... and they've never had a lying reporter on staff being mentored by the (Was he Howell Raines' protege'?) editor like Jayson Blair. The USA Today also had a lying reporter on staff this year. You may not like the tactics papers off the "mainstream" use, you may not like their owners, you may think their standards are not up to snuff. However I have yet to see the New York Post dedicate pages and pages of retractions and clarifications apologizing for a lying reporter or major inaccuracies like another New York paper... which happens to have national distribution BTW.... so I wouldn't discount them entirely. I have never knowingly posted one story or one piece of information that hasn't passed editorial controls with professionals at a major publication or outlet. You don't see me posting commentary as news. You don't see me posting from Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage or any radio opinion shows either. I was a news intern with CBS and worked for FOX and Hearst Television. I know the difference between credible new source and opinion. I guarantee you I spent more time in television news rooms than anyone on this board has even though it was only about 5 years. During OJ you know who televisions "investigative" and "hot lead" source was? The National Enquirer and The Star. The "mainstream" and "credible" media is not at all what you think it is. Oh... and Drudge is more closely followed than any of the news wires. Think about it before you roundly criticize.

You post from Drudge, who routinely runs incorrect articles and puts his own accuracy rate at somewhere around 80 percent. That means by his own admission, one in every five items he posts is flat-out wrong. If you're going to stick to these exacting standards for what you post, then I trust you'll no longer be passing along the Mattster's gossip and innuendo.

Originally Posted by ZarathosNY Hey PAD did you actually read the link you cited? The article you cited is really misleading and spinning the facts. They are calling it a baby bounce, yet half the poll was taken BEFORE Kerry's acceptance speech. Only counting the half that was taken after his speech, the bounce is 10 points.

This post is the most relevant of all the posts on this thread, and really the only one that PAD should need to read. The fact that Newsweek wrote an article that drew the conclusions that it did from such obviously irrelevant data is almost criminally negligent.

PAD's credibility, if he ever had any, at this point should be pretty much vaporized.

seppo

I read in my Sunday paper that Kerry's bounce was enough to make 5 or 6 toss-up states lean towards Kerry. I believe this will disappear when the Republican convention is held, but for the most part PAD's prediction has not really come true. If the election were held today, in all likelyhood Kerry would win.