BY DAN
KENNEDY
Serving the reality-based community since 2002.
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Saturday, June 12, 2004
HOW LAZY CAN YOU GET? Look
at what former Republican congressman Mickey Edwards writes
in today's Boston Globe:
One of my colleagues at
Princeton said recently that if one went to Google and typed in
the word "waffle," Kerry's name would come up. I haven't
checked it out, but a newly reported Los Angeles Times poll
found that nearly half of voters questioned called Kerry a
flip-flopper.
"I haven't checked it out."
Okay, it's a jibe, but in order for it to work there ought to be
something to it, right? Well, go over to Google,
enter "waffle," and click on "I'm Feeling Lucky," which is where
other politically oriented jokes reside (for instance, try this with
"weapons of mass destruction").
Done? What do you have?
"Welcome
to Waffle House!" The
waffle with two eggs, sausage, or bacon sounds particularly good,
although it could prove fatal.
Now, go back to Google, enter
"waffle" again, and hit the regular "Google Search" button. Results 1
through 10 are for recipes, movies, anything but politics. Result
#11, though, takes you to GeorgeWBush.com,
home of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. I clicked, but the
page
to which Google linked does not actually have the word "waffle" (or
"waffler") on it. Google probably found an outdated page in which
some Bushoid referred to Kerry as a "waffler." No, I don't know it
for a fact, but unlike Edwards I at least tried to check it
out.
At long last ... Result #44 brought
me to a
different "Waffle House,"
put together by some Kerry-hating cretin who has a banner on his site
reading "Make the French Happy! Vote for John Kerry." There's also
something called "Kerry = Al Qaeda Employee" and an animated graphic
starring the, uh, senatorial unit. Is this what Edwards is referring
to? Oh, wait, never mind - Edwards has already admitted that he
doesn't know what he's referring to.
As for Edwards's citation of the
LA Times poll, the flip-flopper finding is accurate, but
here's
what he leaves out:
... Kerry led Bush by 51%
to 44% nationally in a two-way matchup, and by 48% to 42% in a
three-way race, with independent Ralph Nader drawing 4%.
Lifting Kerry is a powerful
tailwind of dissatisfaction with the nation's course and Bush's
answers for challenges at home and abroad. Nearly three-fifths
believe the nation is on the wrong track, the highest level a
Times poll has recorded during Bush's presidency.
Edwards's column is called
"The
Iconoclast," and is
apparently intended to provide some pro-Bush counterweight to the
op-ed page's generally pro-Kerry tilt. That's fine. But dishonest,
selective, lazy spin isn't in anyone's interest - certainly not the
reader's.
OPERATIC. Media Log reader
Elisabeth
Riba corrects my
assertion
that you have to pay for the Web browser Opera.
It turns out that there's a free version available if you don't mind
looking at ads. I don't, so I downloaded the latest version and gave
it a quick spin. I was unimpressed - it seemed a bit slow, and type
spacing looked weird. But I know there are Mac users who swear by it,
so I'll keep playing with it to see whether it's me or the
software.
posted at 10:49 AM |
1 comments
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link
1 Comments:
It was a google bomb that people on the right came up with. Such things are very specific, though. Try "waffles" and you'll get Kerry's homepage.
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Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
