Fair and balanced? Um ... no

[Rupert Pupkin]

Originally Posted by Riot

That's simply not true, but hey, truth, falsehood, there's no "real" line, is there?



No, what the media should do is the usual: check the facts. Ask Giuliani if he is atheist. If he says no, then look to see if there is any evidence he is atheist (that he is lying).

If there is not, then you bet, "10% incorrectly-wrongly believe" is exactly how the story should be written. Giuliani isn't an atheist. He's a Catholic. People that think otherwise are incorrect, and wrong.



Why should the media give people that express a view contrary to proven reality equal creedance with the proven reality? That's silly. Opinion and fact are not the same. Opinion contrary to or ignoring presented fact is worth even less.


So what?

The reason that I said that you don't answer questions that hurt your argument is because that has been my experience with you on several occasions. The one that sticks out off the top of my head was when we were debating about the popularity of Bin-Laden throughout the Muslim world. You claimed that he wasn't popular with Muslims. You tried to make some type of analogy with Timothy McVeigh, which is absurd because Mc Veigh has no support amongst Christians. Anyway, I put up links to polls showing that Bin-Laden was extremely popular throughout the Muslim world. You said that the polls didn't show enough Muslim countries and that Pakistan, Indonesia, and all the other countries named in the poll didn't prove that much.

I finally asked you to estimate what Bin-Laden's popularity was throughout the Muslim world. I asked you to give your best guess estimate. The polls were showing anywhere from a 20-60% approval rating in most Muslim countries. You wanted to pretend that Bin-Laden was in no way representative of Muslims just like McVeigh is in no way representative of Christians. You seemed to act like the polls were not truly representative yet you refused to say what you thought the real numbers. The reason you wouldn't say what you thought the true numbers were was because it would have discredited your original argument. Even if you would have admitted to Bin Laden just having a 10% approval rating amongst Muslims, even that would have contradicted your argument. So you refused to answer the question.

Come to think of it, this reminds me of what you were just accusing others of which is stating an opinion that is contrary to facts. All the evidence and all the polls showed that Bin-Laden was extremely popular throughout the Muslim but you want to deny it just because you want to be "politically-correct".

With regards to the Giuliani hypothetical, I was giving an example of a guy who we know is not really religious based on his behavior. I'm not saying that he's not a Catholic but I would say it's pretty obvious that he's not really religious. We know that many politicians pretend to be religious even though they are not religious. You can't take them on their word on it.

I agree with you that if everything about a guy's behavior pointed to him being the religious person that he claims to be, then it would be silly for people to question it. And in that case, I doubt people would question it. I don't think anyone questioned whether John Ashcroft was religious.

I agree with you that the media should not give equal credence to people that express a contrary view to proven reality. But the true religious beliefs of Rudy Giuliani or Barrack Obama are not even close to "proven reality". There is absolutely zero proof of what their true beliefs are.