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Pimping Bush

2004-07-27 22:40:31.942094+00 by Dan Lyke 9 comments

As if the recent "yeah, we single-sourced from the Whitehouse" non-apologies from the New York Times weren't enough to slam the final nail in that tired "liberal media" coffin, over at Medley, Lyn points to the AP giving up any pretense and running Bush campaign ads as articles. It's yet another of the "Bush goes mountain biking" (big buff manly sport) stories, but this one goes over the top:

Bush keeps a cramp-inducing pace on the uphills, panting hard by the time he reaches each peak, backing off a little to recover, attacking the next hill just as hard.

His heart rate reached 168 beats per minute, about four times his resting rate and in the same range as Lance Armstrong's when the six-time Tour de France winner is pedaling hard.

Oooh. Bush as Lance. And if 168 is "four times his resting rate", that gives a resting heart rate of 42 beats per minute. Uh huh. Yeah. Riiiiiight.

[ related topics: Politics moron Current Events Journalism and Media Bicycling ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2004-07-27 22:57:28.122006+00 by: John Anderson

Actually, Bush has some odd medical condition where his resting heart rate is abnormally low, IIRC. Hey, Google is my friend, and NowThis covered this in the past: http://nowthis.com/log/2001A/00000240.html. Sinus bradycardia, it's called.

Of course, in other articles, his low heart rate has been touted as evidence of how fit he is, so... phef.

#Comment Re: made: 2004-07-29 02:35:43.339057+00 by: crasch

No liberal bias at the NYT? Hmmmm...

#Comment Re: made: 2004-07-29 04:40:06.533229+00 by: Dan Lyke

"The requested document does not exist on this server." Got another link?

#Comment Re: made: 2004-07-30 00:16:39.27469+00 by: crasch [edit history]

Sorry. Try this one

[EDIT: Screw it. I'm not getting your linking system. It doesn't seem to recognize long urls that extend over more than one line. Here's the long URL:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07...ott.html?pagewanted=all&position

#Comment Re: made: 2004-07-30 00:20:01.891198+00 by: crasch [edit history]

See also:

(http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/ 0,1299,DRMN_86_3009245,00.html)

Which references: A Measure of Media Bias by Tim Groseclose (Stanford) and Jim Milyo (University of Chicago).

Available here:

http://www.yale.edu/isps/seminars/american_pol/groseclose.pdf

#Comment Re: made: 2004-07-30 00:52:53.965917+00 by: Dan Lyke

[meta: Crash, what browser are you using? Possibility that it's inserting some sort of phantom line feed?]

#Comment Re: made: 2004-07-30 01:13:09.236363+00 by: crasch

Safari v 1.2.2 on Mac OS X 10.3

#Comment Re: made: 2004-07-30 01:34:04.737813+00 by: Dan Lyke

Hmmm... Just skimming the PDF, perhaps the explanation is that the New York Times just whores itself out to whichever administration wants to feed it? (Thereby skipping most of the "which thinktank are they quoting" issue, 'cause when they're, for instance, single sourcing on WMDs, then the thinktank is irrelevant).

Browser-wise, I may have to scrounge a Mac just so I can keep up with their freakin' bugs. Not that I'm bitter.

#Comment Re: made: 2004-07-30 04:28:36.52153+00 by: crasch

I think reporters tend not to "rock the boat" of whatever administration is in place, so they don't get the cold shoulder when they want interviews, etc. with top officials. I also think there's a certain amount of laziness -- it's easier to publish whatever you're spoon fed rather than digging up dirt on your own.

That said, when it comes to general attitude and tone, I also think that the NYT's outlook is tilted to the left.