Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The Year of Media Bias

Is there a liberal bias in the media?

If you have to ask that question in 2008, you are really not paying attention. Really. Because if you are paying attention, the degree that the media is either completely in the tank for one candidate (Yes, "the one"), or incompetent, or both is nauseatingly blatant.

If you only read the mainstream sources of media, then you probably have a hard time picking up on liberal bias when it's staring right at you. It's like the fish that doesn't know he's wet.

So, let me give you a little one-day-survey of just a few of the clear examples of media bias that I encountered in just one hour today:

1.Slanting the story:

Most often, it starts with the headline of a story - which sets your expectation of the article to come. An editor has a choice of words to describe a story and can set the tone. Let's look at this headline in my local newspaper tonight, picked up off of the AP wire by AP writer Glen Johnson:

"McCain returns to NH trying to stave off loss"

Really? That's what he's doing? Maybe, just maybe, he's trying to win!

It set a different tone if you are trying to "stave off loss" as opposed to trying to win. And if you just glance at the headline in passing, you get a negative vibe on McCain's chances. If you plunge into the article you will find out that McCain won New Hampshire in the primaries. Maybe he can win it in the general election. Maybe not. But I can assure you that he's there to win again.

To put it simply, the inherent liberal bias of the headline writer affects the reader's intake of that story.

2. Slanting the coverage:

The most common form of liberal bias is choosing what to cover, and - as Bernie Goldberg always says - more importantly in what they choose to not cover. In this election season, the massive liberal bias means that they are heavily covering any perceived mistakes by McCain/Palin, and ignoring the many mistakes of Obama/Biden.

Let's take this headline on Yahoo News on the internet today:

"Is Palin dragging down the ticket?"

Yeah, no bias in that headline.

The writer breathlessly covers the two reasons the Palin is a giant mistake:

1. Her supposed gaffes - like the Couric interview.

Are you kidding me? Are you following the major gaffes of Obama and Biden this week. (Of course you are not, because the MSM is not covering them!) Obama telling Joe the Plumber that he thinks we should "share the wealth around". Biden telling donors behind closed doors that he gaurantees that if we elect Obama that the world will test him in a major international crisis, a generated crisis, and that it might not be evident that Obama's response will be the right one. Yikes! Those two trump anything that Sarah Palin has ever said.

2. The major "scoop" that broke this week that the RNC spent $150,000 so far in hair and clothing expenses for Palin. This story was all over the MSM today. The radio reporter solemly intoned that "careful scrutiny of the Obama campaign's records reveal no similar expenditures.

Are you kidding me? This is a story?

No Obama isn't spending $150K on clothing. But he has spent $800,000 on voter fraud with the group Acorn - a group now under investigation for fraudulent registrations in 13 states. A group Obama used to work for and with.

$150k on clothing from Palin. $800k on voter fraud with Obama.

Which is the more important story? Which story got covered today?

3. The bias of partisan ignorance:

This, from nationally syndicated liberal columnist Cynthia Tucker - again in my local newspaper tonight:

Headline: "Acorn hubbub latest in GOP fearmongering"

"If Mikey Mouse shows up at the polls in a couple of weeks, John McCain might have cause for the alarm he showed over alleged boter fraud during Wednesday's debate"...

"But it's quite unlikely that Mickey or Minne or Goofy will be among the voters lined up on Nov. 4, so McCain's hysterical outburst over a group of activists....needs to be understood for what it is: a distraction. The Republican nominee is once again using fear as a tactic to try to win votes."

Passionately partisan. But dead wrong.

Here's what Ms. Tucker is missing in her liberally biased rant against the hysterical John McCain - the voters that ACORN helped to fraudently register do not have to show up at the polls on Nov 4 with ID for "Mickey Mouse". They have already voted!

What she neglects to mention is that the whole controversy in Ohio, for instance, is that Ohio allows same day registration and voting. What that means is that ACORN bused people around to different counties and registered them and had them vote numerous times, not matter what name they used. Those votes are separated from the registered voter when they are dumped in the box. They have voted, fraudently, and the votes are not retrievable! And they've done it on a massive scale on the order of 200,000 suspect votes in that state alone.

But, for pointing that out John McCain is hysterically fearmongering. No chance that the opposite is true in partisan Tucker's world, that Obama's team is rigging the election. Not a hint of that in her column.

My question: if I know about the same day voting problem, how is it that a nationally syndicated columnist doesn't know it's a problem? Biased incompetence would be the right answer.

Liberal bias in the media. It exists every year, every day.

But much, much, much more in this crazy election year of 2008.

The Year of Media Bias.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Low Expectations for Debate III

Honestly, I couldn't have lower expectations for tonight's 3rd Presidential debate.

Moderator Bob Schiefer is not going to ask any interesting questions.

Barack Obama is sitting on a lead and will play it extremely safe.

The wildcard is McCain. Will he merely disappoint me, or will he - as is his habit - wildly infuriate me? Oh, the tension.....

McCain could take Obama to task on a multitude of fronts, as he should have been for months now.

He won't. It's not in him. He's too fond of Senatorial niceness.

McCain, my friends, will more likely celebrate his coziness with Democrats to celebrate his main sacrament - bipartisanship. Phooey!

He ran to be the nominee of a party. The Republican Party. A party is by it's nature partisan. BE A PARTISAN! Act like you want to be a Republican, for gosh sakes.

This is going to be depressing.

I'm ready for the October surprise

As wild as this whole presidential election ride has been for the past 20 months, I think there are plenty of surprises possible in the last 3 weeks.

October surprises that could help Obama:

- stock market completely tanks, public blames Bush
- Nancy Pelosi leads impeachment of Bush
- Dick Cheney has a heart attack
- Colin Powell endorses Obama


October surprises that help McCain

- terrorist attack anywhere in the U.S.
- Sarah Palin is allowed to be Sarah Palin

October surprises that hurt Obama:

- Obama is indicted by Patrick Fitzgerald in the Rezko fraud case
- Rev. Wright's new book gets released (scheduled for October)
- Obama's birth certificate issue gets heard in court, and he is required to produce a valid U.S. birth certificate
- ACORN scandal blows wide with full scale investigation of nationwide massive voter fraud on behalf of Obama, with ties to obama
- papers get released wide on Obama's work with William Ayers on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge - spending $100 million of "education reform" grants to fund radical groups like ACORN
- the famously rumored Michelle Obama video - that Hillary has been sitting on - get's released.

I'll take any and all of those last ones.

I'm ready for the October surprise

As wild as this whole presidential election ride has been for the past 20 months, I think there are plenty of surprises possible in the last 3 weeks.

October surprises that could help Obama:

- stock market completely tanks, public blames Bush
- Nancy Pelosi leads impeachment of Bush
- Dick Cheney has a heart attack
- Colin Powell endorses Obama


October surprises that help McCain

- terrorist attack anywhere in the U.S.
- Sarah Palin is allowed to be Sarah Palin

October surprises that hurt Obama:

- Obama is indicted by Patrick Fitzgerald in the Rezko fraud case
- Rev. Wright's new book gets released (scheduled for October)
- Obama's birth certificate issue gets heard in court, and he is required to produce a valid U.S. birth certificate
- ACORN scandal blows wide with full scale investigation of nationwide massive voter fraud on behalf of Obama, with ties to obama
- papers get released wide on Obama's work with William Ayers on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge - spending $100 million of "education reform" grants to fund radical groups like ACORN
- the famously rumored Michelle Obama video - that Hillary has been sitting on - get's released.

I'll take any and all of those last ones.

Sometimes it's just the "socialism"...

I'm always amazed at the ability of people to twist and distort an obvious fact in the political arena.

Rep. John Lewis gave us an excellent example this week, by comparing the McCain campaign with George Wallace (in other words, calling them racists) of Alabama for calling Barack Obama a socialist.

Now, I happen to be old enough to remember George Wallace. He was truly a racist. What does that have to do with McCain or with calling Obama a socialist. Well, Lewis - and the leftist journalists who pounced on the story - claimed that it's an old habit in the South call blacks socialists when they really mean race.

Really.

The problem is this, that when we call Obama a socialist - and I have - what we really mean is that he is a socialist. Specifically, that his main goal for public service has long been redistribution of income - the classic main tenet of socialism. He associates himself with people and groups that have as their goal the overthrow of American capitalism. That's what we mean by socialist.

You don't have to take my word for it. Take Obama's. When confronted by a serious challenger at a campaign stop this week who was taking Obama to task for his tax plans, Obama said that he just feels that "when you spread the wealth around" everyone is better off.

Where again does it say in the U.S. Constitution that one of the President's jobs is to "spread the wealth around"?

Oh, sort of like "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Barack Hussein Marx.

Sometimes a "socialist" is just a socialist.

Thursday, October 09, 2008

Obama & Ayers: Why it Matters

So where does the truth lie in the re-emergence of the story of Barack Obama and his relationship with William Ayers?

Is it, as Obama and his enablers in the media say, that it's irrelevant guilt by association?

- That what Ayers did in bombing federal targets in the 60's in the Weatherman when Obama was 8 has nothing to do with Obama.
- That Obama barely knows Ayers, "just a guy that lives in his neighborhood"
- that serving on two charitable boards together means nothing as far as Obama's judgement

Or is it, as conservatives like me and Sarah Palin argue, entirely relevant to Obama's qualification to be President?

- that Obama and Ayers have deep connections, going back to time together at Columbia
- that they share a socialist agenda for overthrowing capitalism, which they actively worked together to bring about.

Clearly, it's the second one.

Here are the only two things you need to know about William Ayers' relationship to Barack Obama:

1. William Ayers never stopped attacking America!

- not only as the cofounder of the radical anti-war bomber during the 60's, bombing the Pentagon and the Capitol and killing federal officials.

- since then. Not only as an unrepentant bomber, who regrets that they hadn't "done more". As a devotee of Saul Alinsky's "Rules for Radicals" which taught Democratic radicals to pursue their agenda of revolution and socialism from inside the system. To get elected or in power and use the mainstream infrastructures to bring down the American system of capitalism and usher in marxist socialism in America. (No, I am not making this up. If you don't know who Saul Alinsky is, you don't know enough to vote for Barack Obama. Simple as that.)

- William Ayers pursues his attack on America now as an "education reformer". Simply put, he's not interested in teaching your kids math or english. He's teaching them radical revolutionary socialism. Teaching a whole generation of kids to loath capitalism and to foment revolution.

2. William Ayers chose Barack Obama to help him undermine American education!

- Ayers created the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. He sought and won $50 million in funds from the Annenberg charitable trust, and matched it with $50 million in local funding.

- Ayers chose Obama as the first chairman of the board that distributed that money. In fact, Obama was so proud of this position that he claimed it as his best executive experience qualification when he ran for Illinois Senate.

- Obama, under Ayers's close guidance, distributed the $100 million not to schools, but to external left-wing radical organizations. Groups like ACORN that commit voter fraud. Groups that teach revolutionary socialism. Groups that I would certainly not grant money to if my goal was to improve education.

Two Questions that Settle this issue:

1. If you created an organization to hand out $100 million dollars on behalf of a cause that you cared deeply about, would you select someone you barely knew as the first chairman of the board? Or would you choose a fellow traveler, who you knew very well and were certain that he shared your radical views?

2. Is education in Chicago improved after Ayers and Obama collaborated to spend $100 million "reforming" education in Chicago? Would you enroll your child in the Chicago School District?


Bottom line:

- Ayers and Obama know each other very very well, despite Obama's persistence to deny that he knows Ayers. And despite the media covering for him.

- Ayers and Obama are fellow travelers with a radical revolutionary vision of bringing down capitalism in America and replacing it with a marxist socialist system.

It matters, very much.

Wednesday, October 08, 2008

Can I Vote Palin and not McCain?

I watched the snore-fest called a debate last night between John McCain and Barack Obama. Some thoughts:

1. Two words: President Obama.

2. I've seen this debate before: Bob Dole vs. Bill Clinton in 1996, and we all know how that turned out. I was waiting for McCain to say, as Dole did, "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy!"

3. Does John McCain want to win this thing? Or is he in the tank for Obama. If he wants to win, he needs to drop the courteous Senator thing and get angry and passionate. This "it's everybody's fault" and "I'm so bipartisan that I work work well with every liberal Senator in the book" stick is sickening.

I know officially consider it hopeless, barring some jarring national event. Like, for example, the press suddenly paying attention to Barack Obama's overwhelming negatives. Unfotunately, I think that Obama would actually have to get caught in a polling place in an ACORN t-shirt registering dead people to vote for that to happen.

Oh well. We had a brief shining moment with Sarah.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Sarah's Big Night

I have no doubt that Sarah Palin is going to do just fine tonight in the Vice Presidential debate.

Especially is she is just herself and does not toe the wimpy McCain line.

Let Sarah be Sarah!

Her main message tonight has to be: Washington caused this economic mess with meddling in the markets. I'm not part of Washington.

Nail that and she wins.

I'm popping a big bowl of popcorn early for this one.

I'm ready to heckle Gwen "in the tank for Obama" Ifill. Bring it on.

the Weasels vote Aye!

So, the U.S. Senate passed the Lurching-into-Socialism emergency bailout bill last night. Yipee.

Here's why many Americans hate Congress: instead of passing this toxic bill straight-up, because it's an emergency and we need to save the country, they had to first add 300 PAGES of tax giveaways. Why? Because they know this bill had to pass and so they sneaked in all of the goodies and earmarks. Nice.

Weasels.

So, where was President-wannabe John "I'll veto any earmarks and make the authors famous" McCain? Quitely voting Aye with the rest of the weasels.

Quick, someone remind me: What good is John McCain as the Republican standard-bearer again?

I despise U.S. Senators. How did we end up with 3 of them on the tickets?

We're screwed.