SIXinternational.txt

Many other blogs (and Keith Olbermann last night) have covered this, but hey it’s a blog so I get to point it out too. John McCain fumbled a question on the surge, saying that it was the cause for the Sunni/Anbar Awakening, when in fact the Awakening was happening months before the surge occurred and the surge was only taking place in Baghdad, nowhere near the Anbar province where the Awakening was happening. So basically they are two separate entities, yet McCain was trying to link them - another display of his mastery of foreign policy.

But the big news here is that CBS purposefully edited out his answer to the question. Not the question entirely, mind you; they showed Katie Couric asking the question and basically cut and pasted another of McCain’s answers as if he was giving a different answer than the one he actually gave! Honestly I wouldn’t have quite blown up if it was just the question getting cut. But seriously… lying for the man to pretend that he didn’t give a completely wrong answer? As much as John McCain likes to pretend that it’s actually Obama whom the press loves, the press would never cover up an error like this on Obama’s part. In fact, if you’ve been watching the news lately, you’d see that they are positively salivating at the chance to catch Obama making a gaffe on his overseas trip.

The whole situation of McCain accusing Obama of being the media darling is summed up nicely by Mark Halperin:

This is like Britney Spears complaining that the hype around Miley Cyrus far exceeds her talent.

EDIT:

I’m updating this with text of the questions and responses, both the uncut version and the CBS-aired version with the cut parts bolded.

Original question and answer:

Couric: Senator McCain, Senator Obama says, while the increased number of US troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What’s your response to that?

McCain: I don’t know how you respond to something that is as– such a false depiction of what actually happened. Colonel MacFarland was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history. Thanks to General Petraeus, our leadership, and the sacrifice of brave young Americans. I mean, to deny that their sacrifice didn’t make possible the success of the surge in Iraq, I think, does a great disservice to young men and women who are serving and have sacrificed.

Edited version (with stock video of “the troops” to cover the splice, might I add):

Katie Couric: Senator McCain, Senator Obama says, while the increased number of US troops contributed to increased security in Iraq, he also credits the Sunni awakening and the Shiite government going after militias. And says that there might have been improved security even without the surge. What’s your response to that?

McCain: Sen. Obama has indicated that by his failure to acknowledge the success of the surge, that he would rather lose a war than lose a campaign. Thanks to General Petraeus, our leadership, and the sacrifice of brave young Americans. I mean, to deny that their sacrifice didn’t make possible the success of the surge in Iraq, I think, does a great disservice to young men and women who are serving and have sacrificed.

Great cartoon from today’s Tom the Dancing Bug:

This is the best post I’ve ever seen detailing why complementary and alternative medicine is more or less complete bunk when compared with actual, studied medical science. Dr Novella goes through the list and explains the main problems with each of the more prominent on-the-cusp-of-acceptance treatment modalities, including chiropractic, acupuncture, and homeopathy, and details how they “bait and switch” their victims.

A quick clip from the conclusion:

All of these modalities fall under an artificial category - so called “complementary and alternative” medicine (CAM) or “integrative” medicine that was created as the ultimate bait and switch.

The deception is largely two-fold. The first is to include modalities within this false category that are legitimate, like nutrition, exercise, physical therapy, relaxation, etc., - and then claim that these legitimize the entire category of CAM, even the far-out stuff like homeopathy. This is just a higher-order version of including physical therapy modalities within the umbrella of chiropractic, for example.

…

The second kind of deception created by the category of CAM is in the language used itself - “complementary” and “integrative.” What, exactly, are CAM modalities integrating? On close examination it is quite clear - the movement is an effort to mix unscientific, disproved, and dubious modalities into scientific medicine. The bait is that CAM offers legitimate alternatives, the switch is that it primarily promotes treatments that don’t work or are at best untested and highly implausible.

If there were truth in marketing then we would have the Office of Implausible Medicine, the Journal of Bad Medical Science, the Center for Rejected Therapies, and the Institute of Dubious Medical Claims - all under the umbrella of unscientific medicine. It used to be called, even more simply, “health fraud.”

If you’ve got the time to sit down and read it, particularly if you don’t know much about the subject or if you just want to bone up a bit, I can’t recommend this post (and the rest of the blog as well, in addition to Steve’s other blog NeuroLogica) enough.