Military Times vs VFW
As I promised last night, the first thing I did this morning was call the VFW about the article in the Military Times that was posted on their website last night in regards to the DHS memo. I talked to Joe Davis, their public affairs guy who was the subject of the interview by Military Times reporter Rick Maze. The first thing I brought up was the line in the article that angered me most, that being;
VFW officials said the fuss over the new report seems contrived as a political attack on the Obama administration….
Mr Davis told me he didn’t say that. We talked for another half hour during which I expressed my displeasure – the rock head that I am. When I was finished, I emailed Mr. Maze, the reporter, and asked him where he got the quote since Mr. Davis didn’t admit to the line. Mr. Maze responded;
I did not interview Mr. Gardner. I quoted from a statement that the VFW sent me. His direct quotes are in quotation marks. The full statement probably is available from the VFW.
Yep, it sure is, I had a window open to the VFW’s statement when he emailed me back. No where in the statement did it say anything even remotely similar to an allegation of a political attack on the Obama Administration. So I asked Mr. Maze again where he got the quote. His response;
That is my summary of his statement, that if he doesn’t see the intelligence report as being terribly wrong — just poorly worded — then this is a lot of fuss about very little. And, from the people making a big deal about it — conservative commentators and prominent Republicans — it is being used for a political knife fight.
So, the VFW didn’t call the American Legion’s response a partisan attack on President Obama, Rick Maze, a reporter, called it a partisan attack. No where in the VFW statement is the word “fuss” used, but it appears twice in Maze’s attempt at reporting, once after the phrase “VFW officials said” – although no VFW official made the statement.
Maze also made reference to a “similar” FBI report from last year – the same one that TSO referenced in his first post. So, rather disingenuously I asked him where I could find the FBI report, His response;
I only found a declassified summary, which provided me the number of people recruited by extremists groups (203, I think, but I would have to look again). I did not locate full report but really didn’t look for it.
Yeah, he referenced a report, only read a summary and called it “similar” to the DHS report. That’s what passes as reporting these days at Military Times, I guess. To his credit, he did send me a .pdf of the original report after he Googled for a few minutes – but he couldn’t be bothered to research the report before he wrote the Military Times article. Not surprisingly, Maze sent me a link to the report on Liberal blog “Crooks and Liars”.
What is “similar” about the report is here;
The FBI report makes a point of saying “the number is miniscule” of veterans are involved in potential terrorist activities. So it may be similar, but the language isn’t so antagonistic as the DHS report.
Am I giving VFW and DHS a pass? Nope. VFW should have known better than to give ammunition to the media and to liberals to demean military members. DHS intentionally worded the report to have a political impact on veterans and service members – that’s obvious because of Maze’s deliberate mischaracterization of the VFW’s statement.
By the way, Maze is a highly partisan reporter that TSO has dealt with in the past in regards to IAVA and their scorecard on this article. Maze didn’t find it odd that Phil Carter, a founding member of IAVA, was Obama’s veteran adviser and the score card heavily favored Obama. ANd now we know that Maze readily admits that he doesn’t research things that don’t fit the article he’s written in his head before he does a lick of background.
Category: Media
What I still don’t understand is how the second VFW missive read like it did when the first comments were these:
Jerry Newberry, director of communications for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said the vast majority of veterans are patriotic citizens who would not join anti-government militias.
“As far as our military members go, I think that the military is a melting pot of society. So you might get a few, a fractional few, who are going to be attracted by militia groups and other right-wing extremists,” he said.
“We have to remember that the people serving in our military are volunteers, they do it because they love their country, and they believe in what our country stands for,” he said. “They spent their time in the military defending our Constitution, so the vast majority of them would be repulsed by the hate groups discussed in this report.”
TSO, now I am not saying that what VFW did was right, but this queef stain is just attempting to ferment discord amongst the Veterans community. Its what the Military Times tries to do, its why I cancelled my subscription years ago.
Jonn wrote: But the VFW left themselves open to this type of manipulation. If they disagree with the wording, they should have left it at that instead of stretching their comments out to take up column inches. Mr Gardner told me that DHS should have included disgruntled law enforcement officers, too, but he didn’t say that in the VFW article. So I still intend to leave the VFW because they knowingly or unknowingly supplied the left with ammunition. And they let the DHS set up a real life scenario of the Rambo vs. law enforcement.
Military Times and the others are Gannatt, i.e., McPaper (USAToday). Don’t think for a second that they aren’t a bunch of liberal hacks that have a stereotypical left wing attitude towards the troops.
I wish you had posted my entire responses to you. But, it is your blog and you have your own flag to wave. Jonn wrote: I have no problem with that. It doesn’t make you look any better, though. You come off as a snot-nosed kid who has been caught lying; I only found a declassified summary, which provided me the number of people recruited by extremists groups (203, I think, but I would have to look again). I did not locate full report but really didn’t look for it. If you do good google, it should be available. My memory is that MSNBC or one of the cable news networks did a lot of reporting on it at the time because of concerns about KKK recruiting on military bases, like Fort Bragg. I thought at the time that this was old news, as the Army had cracked down on racial groups during the Clinton administration after some big scandal at Bragg. And, 203 people out of 2.2 million in the military seemed pretty small. And, that was 203 people over a four- or five-year period. There was another controversy last year, or maybe the year before, where some law enforcement agency was warning that Iraq veterans who had skills in making and defusing IEDs were returning to the streets and were going to make gang wars even more dangerous, another reason to fear returning veterans. What made this news was there was one arrest, I recall, of an Iraq war veteran in Oklahoma or Texas who was making bombs and selling them to gangs, which was enough to get everyone’s skivvies in a bunch. Probably because there was a real arrest, there was not much pushback about intelligence reports singling out veterans as security risks. Sorry I am not more help. I am working on something else today. In a message dated 4/17/2009 9:47:41 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, Jonn writes: Thanks, again, for your quick response. I read the line in your article about this 2008 FBI report, but I haven’t been able to find it or a reference… Read more »
Well Mr. Maze thats his summary of your statements
Jonn,
Once again thanks for going to the source(s)and getting the story. We owe you a lot for taking the time to run these sort of things to ground and presenting the facts from both sides and leaving it up to the reader to form an opinion.
I am not very active with veterans groups, but in light of events in the last couple of months I think the American Legion might be worthy of some support from me.
If they will have me. 🙂
Since Mr. Maze is adamant about me posting his emails, here’s his last few with my response;
I thought reporters were supposed to report? He’s like a momma bird feeding her young ones, just taking in and regurgitating.
I stopped reading Army Times LONG ago because of this crap.
By the way, I notice that Maze doesn’t even bother to address the statements of the DEMOCRAT House member who thought the report was horseshit too.
If it doesn’t fit what you want to say, use the most expedient method and just ignore it Rick, it’ll probably go away.
I wonder if Mr Maze, being a proffessional journalist, is familiar with the concept of irony. I understand its all the rage these days…
Its ARMY TIMES, very far from Professional Journalism.
Rick Maze and the rest of the media whores who admit amongst eachother that they are there to “shape the news”, rather than to “report the new”, are the reason that I won’t consider using the print media for anything more involved than to wrap the garbage. TV? I gave my last one to my Granddaughter with the caveat that she should get her entertainment from it, and that there are better places to get news. I would rather have a sister on the street than a brother in a newsroom.
nuf sed
PS: On a slightly related matter; my “Proud United States Veteran Extremist” designs are selling well today. Check my homepage for the example.
Gannett runs the “military” newspapers with less objectivity than the USA Today and regional papers.
The VFW may not have made as strong of a statement as you would like about the Neopolitan Soup Sandwich, but it didn’t make the statements that the JA said it did.
What are we to do? First, keep your VFW membership. Write a letter to them or call them back up. Express your displeasure, but realize those are elected positions and you have a vote, so long as you are a member.
American Legion does good work too. If you’re a member of the VFW, you’re eligible for AmLeg too. It’s perfectly fine to be active in both, including voting for the leadership.
IF, you leave the VFW over the purposeful misstatements “quoted” by a JA, then that JA has won. Not only by weakening a Veteran’s organization overall, but also be weakening the voter block within it that represents your point of views.
And with your abilities to persuade, you could take a large portion of the current generation of Veterans, the members that agree with your positions, with you. And those IVAW types votes in the VFW would increase in power.
Exactly, if you renounce your membership, they win. There is strength in numbers, and if IVAW/CNN/VFP, etc can get you to revoke your VFW membership or your Legion membership, they have the numbers on their side and become the majority. I do not EVER want to see that happen, as IVAW does not speak for me, VFW does. If I have an issue, I contact my State’s VFW leadership and they take it up with NHQ.
Jonn wrote: I’ve decided that which ever organization buys me a drink first is the one I’ll join.
Jonn, you have a free drink waiting at my VFW Post!
As at my VFW Post, and my Legion Post!
Plus, the Legion has Steak Nights every Friday night, Fillet Mignon for less than $20, plus beer and salad. Good stuff!
2 beers: VFW
1 beer: AmLeg (and a dinner you’ll have to pay for)
Looks like a VFW night!
We have had military haters writing for all the service papers for some time. I got on them a few years ago for and anti-military article, aka a lie. Wherever a liberal goes the lies fly. Not an honest democrat left in the country.
Hey, hey Scrap, I have DNC blood. That’s why I’m now an Independent! The DNC is not democrat anymore. Even the Blue Dogs have been whipped into submission by Pelosi.
IF ANYONE here has ‘access’ or can reach into DEOMI, please do so. NO ONE that I have contacted, or has contacted them, can get them to respond. DEOMI even has an ‘away team’ that investigates these groups in the military- its their charter to do so. But they won’t go on record as to how many- even though THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE FOR.
DEOMI WILL NOT ENGAGE.
If any PAO’s from DEOMI read this- FUKC YOU, cowards.
And yeah, I misspelled that on purpose.
Wolf
Jonn wrote: “I’ve decided that which ever organization buys me a drink first is the one I’ll join.”
Wait one stinking minute, Lilyea. You saying yer just a cheap old ho now?? A real cheap date?? That means I don’t hafta buy you a steak dinner, right?
And I don’t wanna hear about no lap dances dude….that’d be up to TSO…lmao!
Army Times is neither written by the Army, or timely.
I quit reading the AT long ago, because their crossword is lame. I online Stars & Stripes for my military news. I wish I could get S&S sent to my house 🙁
Jonn,
We all know that you are not a quitter.
We all know you would never let the other side win.
TSO & you can have all the beer you can drink here in the Wiesbaden VFW Post.
If you lost your life member cards I will get you new ones!
Don’t forget your DD214 (Ha Ha)(That was for the IVAW)
Wow this is all very interesting and sheds a lot of light on something I have found odd about the Military times
Wonderful thanks
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