The question is: if Swamp reporters like Frank James twist facts, if Swamp reporters portray themselves as mere messengers when they are in fact partisan advocates for the political left, why should the public trust anything they say?

Frank, please explain why anyone should trust what YOU say about "trust", what you say about your buddy Barack H., or what you say about anything else.

No the question is Bruce, the Tribune is no more biased than a variety of other media sources out there. Fox, NY Post, Air America, and many others.

It takes an intelligent reader to understand the biases that a source brings along with them and temper the story accordingly.

I read George Will, William F. Buckley, Pat Buchanan and others at Townhall.com all the time. Do I consider it unbiased. No.

Perhaps your expectations are incorrect.

Frank, those are some selective cases you bring up. How about Barack Obama running on a platform of "change" when he has refused to even try to change the corrupt political culture in the state of Illinois? Like he said he'd do when he ran for US Senate in 2000?

Obama has endorsed party hacks like Toddler Stroger. He's rather become a part of the problem.

How about that "twisted fact?"

p.s. Nice sentence fragment, Mr. Journalist.

"Again, this open-source material."

"Instead, he was stating a historical fact...

"Again, this open-source material. Everyone can see it and assess it for himself or herself. Obama renders history neutrally, he didn't make a value judgment saying that Reagan or the Republican-controlled Congress's ideas were 'good'."

Putting aside for the moment that saying that one party is the party of ideas in a multiparty system strongly implies a value judgement that the other parties are not and their lack thereof was not "good", I think a more powerful example would be Senator Obama's and his campaign's obscene perversion of Hillary Clinton's statement of "historical fact" that LBJ was indispensable to the passage of civil rights legislation -- turning it into a racially insensitive slight. The quote above is even more applicable to that instance, and this article would have been much more timely and meaningful in that context. But we are of course kidding ourselves to think that would ever happen on this site. Defend Clinton? No way!

Were some People actually EXPECTING to find honesty in the Clintons? Did they learn nothing from the '90's? Have we figured out the meaning of "is", yet? I am Canadian. They look pathetic. Good luck dumping them, you might have a hard time.

"The question is: if Swamp reporters like Frank James twist facts, if Swamp reporters portray themselves as mere messengers when they are in fact partisan advocates for the political left, why should the public trust anything they say?

Frank, please explain why anyone should trust what YOU say about "trust", what you say about your buddy Barack H., or what you say about anything else.

Posted by: Bruce | January 24, 2008 9:29 AM"

Interesting question. Bruce, please explain why it's any different when you only advocate for the RIGHT. Should anyone trust you? If so, why?

Presidents of the US have a long and proud history of twisting intelligence:

The Mexican War
The Spanish-American War (Sort of)
Tonkin Gulf/ Vietnam
WMD/ Iraq

Now I can't tell the future, but given the conduct of the first "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" administration, I can guess who's more likely to be straight with the American people.

Bruce:

I'm afraid this time you might be cutting your nose of to spite your face.

I would hardly call this article a message from the partisan left, inasmuch as it appears that Frank James is being critical of Hillary and her husband. Nor is he twisting facts. It is a fair observation of what is going on.

If your cause is not on the leftward end of the spectrum (if, indeed, there really is a “left” and “right” any more), then a valid criticism of Hillary serves your purposes regardless of who the messenger happens to be. It behooves you to discern that which is helpful from unhelpful. This time, I reckon, you got it wrong.

I heard him say in the last debate and eleswhere that if he was starting from scratch he'd support a single-payer plan. BUT but for the sake of expediency, he has opted to work with the current system in place (i.e., employer plans, government plans, medicare) and provide choice for both employers and individuals. I for one don't want mandates on health care until health care is reformed. It's gone up 78% since Bush took office. What incentive is there for insurance companies to lower costs if everyone has a mandate to buy it. Further, unlike Hillary's plan, college students can stay on their parents plan until they are 25. If have to understand when Hillary talks about 15 million uninsured, she's talking about those college kids who are covered but don't have to buy their own plan at 18. Factcheck.org states that Hillary's plan will leave out 1% and Obama's will leave out 2-3%. What Hillary says, and what she means are not necessary the same thing. Take for example her charge that Obama wants to impose a 1 trillion tax increase on "hard-working Americans" to fund Social Security. Obama was talking about raising the "cap" from $97K to $200K. The truth of the matter is that those who make $97K or less already fund SS 100%. Those who make more than that (about 6% of the American people) fund less than %100 on total income. You have to ask, "If Hillary is so concerned with the burdens on the American people, why would she force people to buy health care and leave the burden of funding SS on the middle class? You have to wave aside the smoke she blows that keeps the focus off of her and on her opponent.

If Hillary wins the democratic nomination, who would accept being a vice president, given Bill's expected role as "advisor"? Who's opinion is going to be heard, really? I think it's going to be really interesting to watch.

Actually, this fact check by the AP sides with Obama on single-payer...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080123/ap_on_el_pr/health_care_fact_check_2

~~~~~~

There is video of Obama telling the AFL-CIO in 2003: "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care program. ... A single-payer health care plan, a universal health plan. And that's what I'd like to see. And as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, we have to take back the House."

In 1996, Obama answered a questionnaire about whether he supported a single-payer system by stating, "Yes in principle," adding that it was probably best to have the federal government set up such a program instead of the state.

At Monday's debate, Obama said: "I never said that we should try to go ahead and get single payer. What I said was that if I were starting from scratch, if we didn't have a system in which employers had typically provided health care, I would probably go with a single-payer system."

Obama's words have shifted. But even in the 2003 video, he made it clear that he didn't think single-payer could be achieved under current circumstances.

Please watch the following. Hillary sent a direct mail piece in the eleventh hour in New Hampshire regarding a women's right to choose. The piece was out of the Atwater hand book. Karl Rove would've been giddy had he thought of it. Here is the effect it had on the beautiful Lorna Brett Howard. She was the president of NOW in Chicago during Obama's tenure.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVuMYKs8iJs&feature=user

While you are at it. Here's another question you'd only arrive at if you were really questioning more than one party. If a president will change his mind about what he envisioned several times, like running for POTUS or when he (coincidentally) decided to run for POTUS or when (concentrically) taking lobby money is no longer a good thing, or point fingers at others and their "sour" money as a bad thing only to also have to return "sour" money and now it's a good thing, or change his mind on single payer health care (even in the name of "evolving"), or say their against the Patriot ACT or the labeling of the Revolutionary Guard only to have similar views on the issues meanwhile pointing fingers, how can we be sure that the candidate won't change his mind about things he's running on, in example like Bush changed his mind about Nation Building?

Judging by the attacks coming at you from the Billary camp, I'd say you got it about right.

Here's the thing: the only way to tell if Bill and/or Hillary are distorting their record/the truth/the time of day, is if you see their lips move.

I would also like for the president and senators to actually read the intel reports themselves rather than have aides (or a VP) read the reports--then give the officials possibly skewed CliffsNotes. I think this happened in many cases re Iraq and FISA. Having aides (or a VP) read the stuff presents a lazy and stupid picture of officials, however, does offer another layer for denial if needed. If elected officials don't want to read the stuff firsthandedly, they should not be in office--with all the power, perks, comfort, and the best medical insurance in America. I don't think all senators read all the info on Iraq or W's. Patriot Act. How could they have and then voted yea?

Changing one's mind is expected no matter who's in office, especially on policies involving other nations. May be it's little bit less so for domestic issues. I guess one has to go with his/her feeling of who will change his/her mind less and honor campaign promises. Of course one has to advocate/like the promises made, that best be either black or white, no grey areas. Case in point, if one believes democracy and lobbying are oxymorons and cannot coexist, one should stick to their principle and vote for Edwards, because he made the issue a principle stand and the likelihood he would change his mind is there, but perhaps less so. (P.S., I am not advocating anyone.)