posted 01-23-2008 01:57 PM            

Regardless of one's impression of the Bush administration, at least by volume if not weight, more dishonesty has been printed to "establish" the dishonesty of the Bush administration.

Bryan discusses the format of the "study" and also points out that the "study" came from a George Soros funded organization, The Center for Public Integrity. It has long been my belief that a funding source is not an automatic disqualifier for anyone's work whether a scientific study, drug trials or academic work although it should be considered. However, concealment of funding sources is especially relevant. Amusingly, it recently was revealed that the Johns Hopkins / Lancet "study" on deaths in Iraq had concealed funding from a Soros' organization.

posted 01-24-2008 09:55 AM            

Owens quotes Dr. Jim A. Kuypers, an assistant professor of Political Communication and Rhetoric & Public Address at Virginia Tech University, is an expert in comparative framing analysis and is author of Bush’s War: Media Bias and Justifications for War in a Terrorist Age and A Comparative Framing Analysis of Embedded and Behind-the-Lines Reporting on the 2003 Iraq War, published in Qualitative Research Reports in Communication, Volume 6, Issue 1 October 2005.

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The study does not appear to take into account the context of the time the original statements were uttered. Instead, it seems to start with an assumption that the administration deliberately mislead America to war. If the study had started with the assumption that the Bush administration and the intelligence community had misinterpreted intelligence reports, then these statements CPI collected could be interpreted in a very different manner. The study also fails to mention that a large majority in Congress, including top ranking Democrats, believed the intelligence assessments, and were briefed in more detail than the president about the situation. They still supported action against Hussein. It would be interesting to see the study enlarged to include statements made by those Democrats who voted for military action.

Their “methodology” is short on detail, but I infer that they (who, how many?) actually performed a sort of “content analysis” using very broad categories: Direct false statements — “when [the administration] specifically linked Iraq to Al Qaeda or referenced Iraq’s contemporaneous possession, possible possession, or efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons). In addition, any use of the verb ‘disarm’ was categorized as a direct statement because of the literal meaning of the word.” The other category, Indirect false statements—“Statements were classified as “indirect” if they did not specifically link Iraq to Al Qaeda but alleged, for example, that Iraq supported or sponsored terrorism or terrorist organizations, or if they referred to Iraq’s former possession of weapons of mass destruction or used such general phrases, for example, as “dangerous weapons.” These indirect false statements are not included in the total count of 935.”

Essentially, then, someone (we don’t know who or how many) read through transcripts and speeches looking for quotes that would in anyway support the a priori belief that the Bush administration misled Americans.

On the one hand, this looks like a sloppy study; on the other, the results do fall within the categories above, it is just the “spin” or interpretation put on them that causes one to wonder about motivation.

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