The media continues to demonstrate its back-pocket shilling for Obama, proving that it has zero objectivity when it comes to his candidacy for President.

Today, USA Today and countless other media outlets ran this story (or something very much similar):

John McCain has been using “smear” tactics, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama says today in a pre-recorded interview that will go on the air during CNN’s The Situation Room (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. ET).

Specifically, says Obama, it is “offensive, and I think it’s disappointing” for McCain to say that Hamas would prefer that Obama be elected in November.

“John McCain always says ‘I am not going to run that kind of politics,’ and to engage in that kind of smear is unfortunate, particularly because my policy toward Hamas has been no different than his,” Obama tells Wolf Blitzer.

Obama says of Hamas that “I’ve said it’s a terrorist organization and we should not negotiate with them unless they recognize Israel, renounce violence, and unless they are willing to abide by previous accords between the Palestinians and the Israelis. So for him to toss out comments like that I think is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination. We don’t need name calling in this debate.”

CNN’s Political Ticker blog has a report here, and CNN has put some video clips here.

On last night’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, McCain said “a spokesperson from Hamas said they wanted Sen. Obama. … It’s indicative of how some of our enemies view America. I guarantee you they’re not going to endorse me.”

Obama thinks it’s a smear; specifically that Hamas wants Senator Obama to win the election. The implication is that it’s something untrue that would hurt the integrity of Senator Obama’s campaign.

There’s only one problem. None of the media outlets reporting that Obama is calling it a smear have bothered to mention that it’s true.

ABC News (WABC in NYC) did an interview with one of Hamas’ political advisers. In the interview, they asked him if he’d be willing to meet with either of the Democrat candidates to which he responded…

“We don’t mind–actually we like Mr. Obama. We hope he will (win) the election and I do believe he is like John Kennedy, great man with great principle, and he has a vision to change America to make it in a position to lead the world community but not with domination and arrogance,”

None of the outlets reporting the story even bothered to mention that what McCain said was actually true. Not a single one of them.

I’m sorry, but that’s either obvious blatant bias or the worst case of lazy reporting ever; especially considering the information took me all of eight seconds to find.

One of the best examples of media bias can be found quite regularly these days, and it’s the issue of “climate change.” I put it in quotes because that’s what they call it this week. Last year, it was global warming. Before that, acid rain. And before that, global cooling. The issue is never ever ever questioned by the media. Any press release from any two-bit organization that has a recylcing symbol as part of its logo is reported, as news, unflinchingly and with no equivocation.

While I do believe that something is going on, we should take better care of the environment, and there’s nothing wrong with being overly cautious, I really hate when some huckster tries to put one over on people.

The story on MSNBC is about the North Pole. There are no penguins there.

Don’t tell MSNBC that, though…

I mean, really. Is that the idea? You have to drive home the point by using footage of the South Pole because there weren’t enough “victims” of “climate change” in the North Pole?

If you want to say people aren’t paying enough attention, or something is going on, cool, but if you want to see why people don’t believe the hysterics and stupidity coming forth from the mouth of climate change advocates, start here. Your case is weakened when you lie.

It’s that simple.

via STACLU

Boy, if this doesn’t reinforce what I’ve been saying for weeks, nothing does. Brian Williams, who I do actually trust somewhat compared to his colleagues on CBS and ABC, had this to say:

WILLIAMS: I interviewed Lee Cowan, our reporter who covers Obama, while we were out yesterday and posted the interview on the web. Lee says it’s hard to stay objective covering this guy. Courageous for Lee to say, to be honest. The e-mail flood started out we caught you guys, we never did trust you. That kind of thing. I think it is a very interesting dynamic. I saw middle-aged women just throw their arms around Barack Obama, kiss him hard on the cheek and say, you know, I’m with you, good luck. And i think he feels it, too.

It’s so hard, you don’t even bother trying, right Lee?

I should note that today, Williams tried to backpedal a bit…

Lee was talking about the swirl of excitement that has hit the Obama campaign after Iowa — the crowds, the hoopla — all of it. Today we learned that rival political efforts were spinning this as some kind of “bias” on the part of either Lee, or me, or this News Division, and that’s just ridiculous. My response is as it always is in these situations: look at it again, listen to what’s being said, and judge us by the quality and fairness of our journalism.

Oh really? Is it ridiculous?

The media is clearly on the side of Barack Obama and anyone claiming the contrary deserves a smack in the face. Barack Obama gets favorable coverage at a much higher clip than any other candidate in the race (Don’t believe me? Read here) and NBC is no different than ABC or CBS.

CNN didn’t even call the primary in favor of Hillary Clinton last night until almost 20 minutes after the AP did. Had Barack Obama not conceded, we’d probably still be waiting for CNN to declare a winner.

Any reporter who says it’s “hard to stay objective” when reporting for one of many news organizations whose objectivity is questionable is probably speaking more truth than they’re willing to admit. I don’t trust the media to give me the straight dope on Obama in the least.

Maybe they’re all just finding it really hard to be objective.

If this isn’t a prototypical example of liberal bias, I don’t know what is. Here’s the headline and the first part.

WASHINGTON, July 10 — Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional panel Tuesday that top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.

Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.

And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to a “prominent family” that he refused to name.

“I was specifically told by a senior person, ‘Why would you want to help those people?’ ” Dr. Carmona said.

The Special Olympics is one of the nation’s premier charitable organizations to benefit disabled people, and the Kennedys have long been deeply involved in it.

When asked after the hearing if that “prominent family” was the Kennedys, Dr. Carmona responded, “You said it. I didn’t.”

It would appear that Bush is playing politics with the public’s health! ZOMG !!!!1111!!1!one!

Yet, when you read the rest of the article, you realize that despite the fact that the Times breathlessly reported that part as if it were a major affront to the nation, he wouldn’t by any means be the first. Despite the fact that well over half of the story contained complaints about Bush, we have this gem.

Dr. Carmona testified under oath at a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee headed by Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California. The topic was strengthening the office of the surgeon general. Dr. C. Everett Koop, surgeon general in the Reagan administration, and Dr. David Satcher, surgeon general during the Clinton administration and the first year of the administration of George W. Bush, also testified.

Each complained about political interference and the declining status of the office. Dr. Satcher said that the Clinton administration discouraged him from issuing a report showing that needle-exchange programs were effective in reducing disease. He released the report anyway.

Dr. Koop, said he had been discouraged by top officials in the Reagan administration from discussing the AIDS crisis. He did so anyway.

All three men urged major changes in the way the surgeon general is chosen and the way the office is financed.

Interesting to note, of course is the absence of Joycelyn Elders. One would have to wonder if she was meant to not give a speech on spanking the monkey and gave it anyway. But I digress.

The story gives a lot of ink to Bush and Carmona but not a whole lot to Koop or Satcher. Why is that?

Oh right… Because that doesn’t make George W. Bush look bad and if we talk about the history in any detail, we’d realize that it isn’t new or unique to W.

And we certainly can’t have that. Not in the New York Times, dammit!

On January 6th, 2007, two young people on a date in Knoxville were carjacked and kidnapped. Over the next four days, this is what happened to them at the hands of their five assailants: The woman was raped and tortured. Her breasts were cut off while she was still alive and bleach was forced down her throat to destroy any DNA evidence. After her death, her body was thrown in a dumpster. The man was bound and forced to watch his girlfriend get gang raped. They chopped off his penis, shot him, and burned him alive. His body was found by some railroad tracks. The assailants, four men and one woman, have since been arrested and face over forty five charges including carjacking, kidnapping, rape, premeditated murder, theft and robbery.

Sure, this is a big story in Tennessee, but why haven’t YOU heard about this?

Find out here. Then tell me how this isn’t bias.

Have you heard of Cindy Sheehan?

Of course you have.

Have you heard of Tina Richards?

Of course you haven’t.

The difference between Sheehan and Richards? One went after a Republican which pleases the liberal media bias, the other after a Democrat which must be covered up, lest the Democrats look bad. How much more obvious can it be that the American media is now hardly more than the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party?

Read more here.

Technorati Tags: cindy sheehan, tina richards, hyporites, media bias

The BBC has bias issues. No, this isn’t some MRC report loaded with political platitudes about how people hate the great GW Bush. It’s the inside skinny on a BBC “impartiality summit.” Bear in mind as you read this dreck that the BBC is publicly funded and, judging from the internals of this meeting, quite happy being partisan and agenda-driven.

A leaked account of an ‘impartiality summit’ called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror.

It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC’s ‘diversity tsar’, wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.

At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians.

One veteran BBC executive said: ‘There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness.

‘Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC’s culture, that it is very hard to change it.’

Wow. Biases in the BBC that all match the ones conservatives have said they had for years. I think it’s worthy of note that people who have claimed this over the years have been chastised repeatedly for saying so, called partisan shills, and rebuked strongly by supporters of the BBC (usually liberal ones) and been told that their arguments are old, tired, untrue, and unprovable.

Very satisfying, indeed.

And let’s get something out of the way, also. I don’t know of one single news organization that can honestly say they wouldn’t talk to Osama if he came a-knockin’. I mean, really. Is that supposed to prove something? That’s probably not even worthy of a mention if the point of your argument is bias. That’s not bias, it’s newsgathering and news reporting, and any news organization worth its salt not only would do that interview, but should.

In one of a series of discussions, executives were asked to rule on how they would react if the controversial comedian Sacha Baron Cohen ) known for his offensive characters Ali G and Borat - was a guest on the programme Room 101.

On the show, celebrities are invited to throw their pet hates into a dustbin and it was imagined that Baron Cohen chose some kosher food, the Archbishop of Canterbury, a Bible and the Koran.

Nearly everyone at the summit, including the show’s actual producer and the BBC’s head of drama, Alan Yentob, agreed they could all be thrown into the bin, except the Koran for fear of offending Muslims.

Do I really need to even discuss that segment?

via JYB

Technorati Tags: bbc, bias, pc, political correctness, liberal bias

Here are some choice quotes from a news story by the AP.

Republicans are three steps from a November shellacking _ each a grim possibility if habitually divided Democrats get their acts together.

First step: Voters must focus on the national landscape on Nov. 7 rather than local issues and personalities that usually dominate midterm elections.

That would sting Republicans, who trail badly in national polls.

Second step: Voters must be so angry at Washington and politics in general that an anti-incumbent, throw-the-bums-out mentality sweeps the nation.

That would wound Republicans, the majority party.

Third step: Americans must view the elections as a referendum on President Bush and the GOP-led Congress, siding with Democrats in a symbolic vote against the Iraq war, rising gas prices, economic insecurity and the nagging sense that the nation is on the wrong track.

That would destroy Republicans, sweeping them from power in one or both chambers and making Bush a lame duck.

Okay… Thanks for the political consult! Remember, this is not an opinion piece. Fournier apparently is a wannabe Democrat strategist. In fact, I’m gonna reprint the whole thing after the jump just in case it mysteriously vanishes. Remember, remember, remember, this is not an opinion piece.

Try to imagine a piece of a similar nature on the AP wire about Republican strategies for winning elections.

Read More »

Yeah yeah yeah. We’ve all seen the picture. Dennis Hastert gets into an SUV to go back to work after a get together about the environment. Of course we’ve all seen it because the media played it over and over again as proof that Republicans are really out of touch with the environment.

Blah blah blah.

What you have not heard one peep about is the Democrats who weren’t any better. About Chuck Schumer who got in a Chrysler LHS (21 mpg in the city?) and Barbara Boxer who got into her Hyundai Elantra (27 mpg in the city) to drive to their office across the street

Anyone care to explain the difference in reporting? I’m all ears.

Technorati Tags: environment, liberal bias, media bias

Hmmmmm… ABC News Producer John Green apparently doesn’t like George Bush…

Way to be completely objective there, Johnny Boy…

Oh, and don’t bother questioning the authenticity of the memo. According to Drudge:

A friend of Green’s at ABC says Green is mortified by the email. “John feels so badly about this email. He is a straight shooter and great producer who is always fair. That said, he deeply regrets the sentiment expressed in the email and the embarrassment it causes ABC News.”

Yeah. Really fair.

Technorati Tags: abc news, john green, memo, e-mail, bias, liberal bias, media bias

Anyone with half a brain had to know that if, at some point, the New York Times wrote any type of article about parental notification laws, they would try to paint them as a failure, seeing as they tend to believe strongly in the right to murder your baby. Check out some highlights from the hit piece they had on their site this morning:

Scant Drop Seen in Abortion Rate if Parents Are Told
By ANDREW LEHREN and JOHN LELAND
Published: March 6, 2006

For all the passions they generate, laws that require minors to notify their parents or get permission to have an abortion do not appear to have produced the sharp drop in teenage abortion rates that some advocates hoped for, an analysis by The New York Times shows.

The analysis, which looked at six states that introduced parental involvement laws in the last decade and is believed to be the first study to include data from years after 1999, found instead a scattering of divergent trends.

For instance, in Tennessee, the abortion rate went down when a federal court suspended a parental consent requirement, then rose when the law went back into effect. In Texas, the rate fell after a notification law went into effect, but not as fast as it did in the years before the law. In Virginia, the rate barely moved when the state introduced a notification law in 1998, but fell after the requirement was changed to parental consent in 2003.

Then there’s this:

Yet the Times analysis of the states that enacted laws from 1995 to 2004 — most of which had low abortion rates to begin with — found no evidence that the laws had a significant impact on the number of minors who got pregnant, or, once pregnant, the number who had abortions.

A separate analysis considered whether the existence or absence of a law could be used to predict whether abortions went up or down. It could not. The six states studied are in the South and West: Arizona, Idaho, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. (A seventh state, Oklahoma, also passed a parental notification law in this period, but did not gather abortion data before 2000.)

Supporters of the laws say they promote better decision-making and reduce teenage abortions; opponents say they chip away at abortion rights and endanger young lives by exposing them to potentially violent reaction from some parents.

But some workers and doctors at abortion clinics said that the laws had little connection with the real lives of most teenagers, and that they more often saw parents pressing their daughters to have abortions than trying to stop them. And many teenagers say they never considered hiding their pregnancies or abortion plans from their mothers.

The New York Times goes to great lengths to paint parental notification laws as a failure, devoting a two “page” web article to it. They haul out statistic after statistic after statistic that proves, in their mind, that the laws aren’t succeeding in the way “adovcates” had hoped.

Parental notification laws are not intended, only, to reduce the number of abortions, although that wouldn’t be a bad thing either. They’re intended to give parents a say in what their minor child does, much like similar laws in effect that ban tattooin and ear piercing altogether without parental consent. It should strike anyone with a brain as odd that a child can get an abortion at age 13, but can’t legally sign any contract in the first place or get an earring.

The New York Times spends most of its article dismissing the impact of parental notification laws, while at the same time not addressing their actual purpose. Sure those wacky right-wing christian fundamentalists (you know, the only people against murdering your chilld) would like it if it reduced the number of abortions, but the other purpose which was never even mentioned in the article was to keep their children from having dangerous and life-changing surgery without their consent.

How brutal.

I guess when you’re pro-abortion like the Times is, you don’t really have to tell the truth and you can be disingenuous as long as you get your message across: that anything that stands in the way of free and unrestrained abortion is either wrong, inneffective, or some right-wing scam.

Well done on all three fronts, New York Times.

Technorati Tags: abortion, notification laws, consent laws, liberal bias, new york times

Nina Totenberg, Legal Reporter for NPR doesn’t root for Americans in the Olympics. She wants everyone to win.

“I sort of like other countries to win a fair number of medals, it’s supposed to be an international competition, and it’s nice when other countries win. I don’t root for us particularly.”

Typical left-wing kook. She can’t even cheer for her country in the frigging Olympics? I’m almost waiting with baited breath for the press statement that says she supports the athletes but not the games.

Those guys go out there an bust their asses to represent us. They take pride in representing their country and are usually the best of the best in what they do. Totenberg’s “I don’t root for us” quote is symptomatic of the citizen of the world mentality that is ruining the american media.

I don’t want other countries to win any medals. If there are 30 medals available, I want them all in American hands when the games are over. You won’t find me cheering on Finland in the biathlon just so they can have a medal too.

As Tim Graham notes, this is just more proof that the left wing elements in the media are seriously out of touch with average everyday Americans with the added irony that this detachment comes from someone on National Public Radio, an organization that exists at the behest of the people of this country. Most americans are proud and cheer the hell out the athletes working their asses off wearing Team USA uniforms. The disconnect demonstrated by Totenberg’s comments make it quite obvious she, and many like her, have no clue what it’s like to be an average everyday american.

Technorati Tags: totenberg, olympics, stupid

While we’re on the subject of the difference between Islam and the rest of the world, let’s also look at the difference between the New York Times’ reaction to Piss Christ, a crucifix submerged in urine and called “art,” and the inane and stupid cartoons that have caused embassies to be set ablaze:

From Sunday’s Times:

“But this did not take place in a political vacuum. Hostile feelings have been growing between Denmark’s immigrants and a government supported by the right-wing Danish People’s Party, which has pushed anti-immigrant policies. And stereotyping in cartoons has a notorious history in Europe, where anti-Semitic caricatures fed the Holocaust, just as they feed anti-Israeli propaganda in the Middle East today.

“In the current climate, some experts on mass communications suggest, the exercise was no more benign than commissioning caricatures of African-Americans would have been during the 1960’s civil rights struggle. ‘You have to ask what was the intent of these cartoons, bearing in mind the recent history of tension in Denmark with the Muslim community,’ said David Welch, head of the Center for the Study of Propaganda and War at the University of Kent in Britain. Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Columbia Journalism School, put it this way: ‘He knew what he was doing.’”

Sinister anti-muslim plot exposed. It’s obvious that the Times is more interested in presenting a piece sympathetic to the Muslim side in this story. Another classic quote from the same piece:

And there was agonizing over what it meant for both press freedom and tolerance. “The limit to freedom of expression is the point at which there is an intent to harm a person or a community,” said William Bourdon, a French lawyer who has handled high-profile freedom of speech cases. “It’s not because there was a reaction that there should be a presumption of intent.”

But Mustafa Hussain, a Pakistani-born Danish sociologist, said the cartoons showed how far to the right Europe’s debate has swung. “Switch on the television and you have the impression that Muslims are all fanatics, that Muslims don’t understand Western liberal values,” he said.

Mr. Rose offered a distinction between respecting other people’s faith, which he favors, and obeying someone else’s religious taboos, which he said society has no obligation to do.

But whether his exercise had achieved his stated goal — of forcing citizens to think about their submission to someone else’s taboos — it was clear that it had helped extremists on both sides who would keep Europe and the Muslim world from understanding each other.

The nefarious plot unveiled.

The position in the Times piece is quite clear. The Dutch paper started a shitstorm, and they presented a side equivalent to the sambo comics of the 1960’s. Got that? Okay good. Now contrast that with the Times’ take on Sensation at the Brooklyn Museum (via Newsbusters):

On October 2, 1999, the editors dealt with Christian offense in a single clause, before calling for art that “challenge[d] the public”:

“To be sure, many citizens of conscience find parts of the Brooklyn exhibition repugnant, and it is understandable that many Roman Catholics would find Chris Ofili’s image of the Virgin Mary offensive. Others would agree with our colleague William Safire that while the Brooklyn Museum has a right to show what it likes, the administrators have been clumsy or needlessly provocative. Yet a Daily News poll shows that the majority of New Yorkers support the museum over Mayor Giuliani by a ratio of two to one. Those numbers show a broad-based support for New York’s role as the nation’s cultural capital. The people understand intuitively what Mr. Giuliani ignores for political gain. A museum is obliged to challenge the public as well as to placate it, or else the museum becomes a chamber of attractive ghosts, an institution completely disconnected from art in our time.”

A musem is obliged to “challenge the public” by slinging piles of crap at an image of the Virgin Mary.

Why is crap on a holy and revered figure “challenging the public,” while drawing a cartoon is akin to a racist caricature? It does, of course, get better, because Newsbusters also found a reference to Piss Christ and was sure to point out a completely unrelated item about a play in Nazi Germany that the Nazi Party wasn’t too keen on…

Most galling in retrospect was a May 3, 1998 article by contributing arts writer Amei Wallach, a favorable feature on a show that compared “Piss Christ” protesters to the Nazis.

“Goebbels is long and thin; Hitler closely resembles a Charlie Chaplin impersonator. Dressed in clown ruffs, they nudge each other onto the stage in the Irondale Ensemble Project’s musical theater-cabaret caper ‘Degenerate Art,’….the troupe is seeking to link 1990’s debates about the N.E.A. with the 1937 ‘Entartete Kunst’ (‘Degenerate Art’) exhibition in Munich, which the Nazi Government organized to show the German people the kind of art they were meant to hate.”

Wallach doesn’t blink when an arts curator compares objections to tax funding of “Piss Christ” to Goebbels and Hitler:

“Such rhetoric sounded chillingly contemporary to Stephanie Barron, curator of 20th-century art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, when she was preparing ‘Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany,’ the 1991 exhibition from which the Irondale Ensemble drew its inspiration. At the time when Ms. Barron was completing her reconstruction of the ‘Entartete Kunst’ show, some American senators and congressmen were using comparable language to denounce the works of Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano in their opening salvos against the N.E.A. In her catalogue essay, Ms. Barron noted ‘an uncomfortable parallel between the enemies of artistic freedom today and those responsible for organizing the “Entartete Kunst” exhibition’ more than a half century before.”

So to recap, a blatantly offensive “art” exhibit that attacks Christianity is perfectly fine, and anyone who criticizes them are comparable to Nazis because they don’t understand that art is meant to “challenge the populace.” If you produce art that is offensive to muslims, however, you’re then feeding into a racist system and your actions are no better than that of sambo artists from the Jim Crow era.

There seriously isn’t enough offense in the world to cover how I feel about the New York Slimes and its blatant apologism for assaults on Christianity and rioting animalistic destruction caused by muslims who were looking for something to be outraged at.

(Thanks to Newsbusters for finding the quotes)

Technorati Tags: New York Times, piss christ, sensation, islam, christianity, bias

Remember all those news stories in 1993 about how the nomination of former ACLU lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg to replace conservative Justice Byron White on the United States Supreme Court would “tilt the balance of the court to the left?”

Of course you don’t. Because there weren’t any.

In the past three months, the major media have repeatedly hammered away at the theme that Judge Samuel Alito Jr. would “shift the Supreme Court to the right” if he replaced retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

According to Lexis/Nexis, major newspapers have used the phrase “shift the court” 36 times in their Alito coverage. They have referred to the “balance of the court” 32 times and “the court’s balance” another 15. “Shift to the right” accounted for another 18 mentions.

Major radio and television programs indexed by Lexis/Nexis have used those phrases 63 times. CNN told viewers that Alito would “tilt the balance of the court” twice on the day President Bush nominated him. NPR’s first-day story on “Morning Edition” was headlined “Alito could move court dramatically to the right.”

Now maybe all this is to be expected. Alito is a conservative, he’s been nominated to replace a centrist justice, and he probably will move the Supreme Court somewhat to the right—which is probably what at least some voters had in mind when they elected a Republican president and 55 Republican senators.

But note the contrast to 1993, when President Bill Clinton nominated the liberal Ginsburg to replace conservative White. White had dissented from the landmark decisions on abortion rights in Roe v. Wade and on criminal procedure in the Miranda case, and he had written the majority opinion upholding sodomy laws in Bowers v. Hardwick. Obviously his replacement by the former general counsel of the ACLU was going to “move the court dramatically to the left.”

So did the media report Ginsburg’s nomination that way? Not on your life.

The whole thing is worth a read, I promise. And if anyone would like to counter what Boaz is saying, I’m open to it because as far as I can tell, no one in the media called the card carrying ACLU member Ginsburg liberal, nor did they fret about the direction she would set the Court into, nor did they rally against her and smear her beliefs and paint her as a radical.

The fact is, Ginsburg was not considered a polarizing figure, while Alito is, and Ginsburg was (and is) just as far to the left as Alito is to the right.

Why the sudden dose of concern over ideology?

Technorati Tags: ginsburg, alito, supreme court

In what could clearly be called the most obvious example of mainstream media bias ever in history, Time Magazine has put forth the following:

As details poured out about the illegal and unseemly activities of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, White House officials sought to portray the scandal as a Capitol Hill affair with little relevance to them. Peppered for days with questions about Abramoff’s visits to the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the now disgraced lobbyist had attended two huge holiday receptions and a few “staff-level meetings” that were not worth describing further. “The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him,” McClellan said.

The President’s memory may soon be unhappily refreshed. TIME has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush’s aides have downplayed. While TIME’s source refused to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them. And that has been a fear of the Bush team’s for the past several months: that a picture of the President with the admitted felon could become the iconic image of direct presidential involvement in a burgeoning corruption scandal like the shots of President Bill Clinton at White House coffees for campaign contributors in the mid-1990s.

In one shot that TIME saw, Bush appears with Abramoff, several unidentified people and Raul Garza Sr., a Texan Abramoff represented who was then chairman of the Kickapoo Indians, which owned a casino in southern Texas. Garza, who is wearing jeans and a bolo tie in the picture, told TIME that Bush greeted him as “Jefe,” or “chief” in Spanish. Another photo shows Bush shaking hands with Abramoff in front of a window and a blue drape. The shot bears Bush’s signature, perhaps made by a machine. Three other photos are of Bush, Abramoff and, in each view, one of the lobbyist’s sons (three of his five children are boys). A sixth picture shows several Abramoff children with Bush and House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who is now pushing to tighten lobbying laws after declining to do so last year when the scandal was in its early stages.

Firstly, the funniest part is the very first line. Millions of dollars were donated to various candidates and officials through Abramoff, which he used to buy influence in Washington, and he’s still called a “Republican” lobbyist.

Secondly, the implication Time makes is that merely shaking hands with someone implicates them in their crimes. No, you’re not reading that incorrectly. According to Time Magazine, the mere shaking of hands with Abramoff implicates him in the corruption scandal that’s engrossing Washington onlookers.

Just for shits and giggles, let’s take a look at some famous handshakes throughout history. Here we see Madeline Albright engaging in nuclear terrorism with Kim Jong Il…

And here, we see Hillary Clinton endorsing suicide bombings and the payment of terrorists for murdering innocent Israelis.

In summation, the Time article amounts to a “the President took a picture with Abramoff, therefore he must be involved in the scandal.” That’s a wonderful leap of faith to make, but in order to make it, you’d have to be a complete moron. For one thing, the President probably takes photos with millions of people. He’s also taken shots with Ted Kennedy (when Kennedy was writing the education bill… Remember that education bill?) and John Kerry. Does that mean he has anything to do with the liberal cesspool of corruption and overtaxation that is Taxachussets?

And what about Bill Clinton pardoning Marc Rich and Susan McDougal? According to Time, that wasn’t an issue, except in the partisan mind of lifelong Clinton foes. And don’t even get me started on Howard Dean’s assinine assertion that no democrat took money from either Abramoff or an Abramoff-connected lobbying outfit.

So if you take actual money, you’ve done nothing wrong. If you pardon people implicated in crimes you’re considered a participant in, you’re just the victim of overzealous partisans.

But if you take a mere picture, you’re a criminal.

Albright and Hillary had better watch out, if that’s the case. We have proof of their crimes.

Technorati Tags: abramoff, clinton, albright, dean, scandal, corruption

Yet again, the AP is acting as an operative for the DNC. Today’s headline was AP Poll: Congressional Democrats Favored. Now normally, you’d just skim this and move on, but the AP, much like the LA Times last year, has developed a habit of polling more Democrats than Republicans, and then calling the responses to their polls a trend or representative.

Here’s the breakdown for the poll, as reported by Newsbusters:

REGISTERED VOTERS

Strongly Republican …………………….. 13

Moderately Republican ………………… 27

Definitely Independent/neither………… 8

Moderately Democrat…………………… 32

Strongly Democrat ………………………. 20

Refused/not sure……………………………. 0

Total Republican ………………………. 40

Total Democrat …………………………. 52

Okay, no big deal here, right? I mean, 12% in the grand scheme of things is not really the end of the world. However, you have to wonder about the accuracy of the tone of the article, calling this a problem for Republicans, bad news for the GOP, and saying that it was proof positive that the Jack Abramoff scandal is affecting poll numbers.

Horsecrap, it is.

Here’s the results of the poll question that the article title is based on:

“And if the election for Congress were held today, would you want to see the Republicans or Democrats win control of Congress?”

Republicans ………………………………. 36

Democrats ………………………………… 49

Neither ………………………………. 12

Not sure ……………………………………… 3

So… To recap…

More Democrats are polled, and more Democrats would vote for Democrats in the next election according to the poll.

And the story is?

Thank God for bloggers because this kind of thing used to be just shoved down people’s throats and they used to accept it as true. At least now, people look for the angle on a story before taking it in hook line and sinker.

Technorati Tags: ap, survey, bias, liberal bias, media bias, poll, congress

Political figures from both parties have long defended and profited from ties to the coal industry. Whether or not that was a factor in the Sago mine’s history, the Bush administration’s cramming of important posts in the Department of the Interior with biased operatives from the coal, oil and gas industry is not reassuring about general safety in the mines. Steven Griles, a mining lobbyist before being appointed deputy secretary of the interior, devoted four years to rolling back mine regulations and then went back to lobbying for the industry.

It’s really true. They try to blame Bush for everything…

NY Times via The Right Politics

Technorati Tags: ny times, bias, bush, anti-bush

In an amazing Wizard of Oz-style move, the media has labelled Jack Abramoff a Republican contributor.

One of my regular readers and one of my daily reads wrote the following today:

Don’t let anybody fool you into thinking that Abramoff was a sleazy lobbyist who helped out Democrats and Republicans alike. Over the past several years, he’s donated over $200,000 to Republican candidates and special interest groups, and $0 to Democrats.

Oh really?

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the one site I look to for this sort of thing, our good friend Abramoff has had his share of dealings with Democrats also….

That number under the Dems column looks a whole lot bigger than zero… At least to me…

(If you’d like more details, you can see a breakdown here).

Culture of Corruption indeed…

Technorati Tags: corruption, abramoff, fraud

Does anyone else find it convenient that the media has forgotten about the wackjob, Cindy Sheehan?

I mean, she was the dimpled darling of the american left for months and months, and people were falling all over themselves to hear what she had to say.

Suddenly nobody cares about her anymore…

Could it have something to do with who she’s criticizing these days?

Sheehan thrashing ‘war hawk’ Hillary
Cindy tears into Clinton for Iraq support, compares her to radio’s Rush Limbaugh
Posted: October 19, 2005
2:15 p.m. Eastern

By Joe Kovacs
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Cindy Sheehan, the so-called “peace mom” on a crusade to end U.S. involvement in the Iraq war, is publicly blasting Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., for her continued support of the ongoing conflict.

“I think she is a political animal who believes she has to be a war hawk to keep up with the big boys,” Sheehan writes in an open letter posted on anti-Bush filmmaker Michael Moore’s website. “I would love to support Hillary for president if she would come out against the travesty in Iraq. But I don’t think she can speak out against the occupation, because she supports it. I will not make the mistake of supporting another pro-war Democrat for president again: As I won’t support a pro-war Republican.”

“I believe that the intelligent thing for Democrats to do for 2006 and 2008 would be to come out strongly and correctly against the botched, bungled, illegal, and immoral occupation of Iraq,” Sheehan added.

Hmmmm… Got very little mention. No, check that. This got no mention at all today.

Isn’t it odd that every move this woman used to make was televised for the world to see, and now all of a sudden she isn’t worth writing about? There’s gotta be a reason… Guess her target selection offended someone.

Bias by placement? Probably… Considering those who dare think Intelligent Design is legitimate are usually castigated for it, I wouldn’t be surprised…

When the trial began in late September, the ACLU went first, bringing their witnesses to the stand. Powell’s articles on those testimonies were placed on page A3 on successive days (September 27-28). Now that the trial has progressed to the point where the respondents, the Dover, Pennsylvania school board, is calling its witnesses, and the story centered on the testimony of an ID defender is placed on page A13.

10 pages later. Now, I understand that the news cycle dictates the placement of the story, but let’s be honest… In the last two weeks, we haven’t exactly seen a rush of news in any area. And it is the Washington Post, which is not a tabloid sized newspaper.

In fact, just for the hell of it, I checked out today’s front page to see what really important stories are there. All of them are relatively timely news stories, except for one on ethnic beauty pageants. Way to hit that hard news, boys! Page appears after the jump if you care.

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