The Next Time Liberals Tell You Conservatives Control the Media...

Just point them to the past week of coverage, when a lunatic kills six people and shoots a Congresswoman in the head, and Sarah Palin and talk radio are blamed immediately.

Words fail me to describe the unmittigated gaul of the leftwing fringe--hell, everyone to the left of Sean Hannity--to lecture the public on the ills of conservative opinion. WTF is wrong with these people?

Eric Boehlert Needs Some Cheese With His Whine

Media Matters' resident jerk Eric Boehlert is complaining because journalists don't call Senate Republicans "obstructionists" at every reference. I have to say, given journalists' usual penchant for demeaning R's, it is a little surprising that one doesn't see this term in every news story, but I chalk that up to nuance.

Boehlert's complaint goes to the heart of the liberal view of the MSM. It isn't there to report what happens. Reporters are there to shape what you think of the news. So, if Democrats, say, run across the border to stop redistricting in Texas, that's not labelled "obstructionist," but Senate Republicans exercising their right to shape the legislative agenda is.

What makes Boehlert's complaint so silly is that the problem isn't Senate Republicans; it's Harry Reid, who didn't have to bring up other legislation to challenge Republicans. And if anyone thinks Democrats in a similar situation wouldn't use the filibuster to block particularly noxious legislation, they're delusional. The difference is that the country is closer to Republican ideas than the poisonous, disasterous legislation Democrats have tried to cram through Congress. Besides, Democrats poisoned this well with the Obamacare votes--particularly on Christmas Eve--and it's a little late to complain about civility now.

Media Matters: It's Only Slanting the News When We Don't Like It

Media Matters is a joke.

Ok, now that I've stated the obvious, here is the latest example.

At the height of the health care reform debate last fall, Bill Sammon, Fox News' controversial Washington managing editor, sent a memo directing his network's journalists not to use the phrase "public option."

Instead, Sammon wrote, Fox's reporters should use "government option" and similar phrases -- wording that a top Republican pollster had recommended in order to turn public opinion against the Democrats' reform efforts.

Of course, the government-controlled health care option Democrats loved was, in fact, a "government option." The fact that "government option" didn't poll well didn't change the truth. And it isn't like "public option" was the only way Democrats referred to government-run health care. Even Nancy Pelosi called government health care something other than a "public option", and I doubt Media Matters would argue that she was "slanting" anything.

Media Matters doesn't mind journalists slanting the news, provided they slant it in a liberal direction. You never see pro-lifers called "pro-life supporters" on the news. They're always called "anti-abortion activists." Even Slate's Jack Shafer notes, "If using the phrase government option is spinning the news, so is using public option."

Since the earliest days of marketing, people have tried to spin their product (whether it's dish soap or legislation) in the most positive light possible. That's what calling government-run health care the "public option" is. Calling that bullshit isn't slanting the news. It's telling the truth.

The Tone-Deaf Liberal Media

Dear liberals, journalists (same thing) and nutjobs,
Despite your attempts to distract from the real story of the Journolist scandal (see Amanda Marcotte's piece, Writing Future Scandals So the Right Doesn't Have To, most people actually get what the problem is with having a listserv where you strategize how to cover news. Keep telling yourselves that speaking at a convention where, assumably, anyone can pay to attend, is exactly like being in a group that (a) no one gets to know about and (b) only people on the left are allowed to join. Yeah, those are exactly the same!

Fortunately, some liberals get the problem with Journolist:

Chuck Todd, political director and chief White House correspondent for NBC News, who was not part of Journolist, told me this:


“I am sure Ezra had good intentions when he created it, but I am offended the right is using this as a sledgehammer against those of us who don’t practice activist journalism.


“Journolist was pretty offensive. Those of us who are mainstream journalists got mixed in with journalists with an agenda. Those folks who thought they were improving journalism are destroying the credibility of journalism.


“This has kept me up nights. I try to be fair. It’s very depressing.”

Emphasis mine.

I've always told friends and family that sure, journalists are liberals, but most of them actually try to keep their biases in check and function as reporters and editors. It's possible to do this if you remain mindful of your own opinions and remain faithful to the idea that objectively presenting information is more persuasive than distorting the facts. But Journolist has turned that argument on its head; it has given the Rush Limbaugh's of the world the best evidence that there is indeed a liberal cabal planning news coverage and spinning events to favor certain (Democrat, liberal) candidates and disfavor (Republican, conservative) others. And worse for journalists is that no one remains untarred by this broad brush.

I'm sure Ezra Klein thought it would be really cool to allow liberal journalists to vent in private about the people and events they write about publicly, but doing so in this way is simply unethical. Journalists sitting around a bar talking about the events of the day is one thing, but I never met a reporter who talked with his buddies about how to prevent damage to one candidate from inconvenient information. That's not journalism. That's public relations.

JournoList: The Vast Leftwing Conspiracy

The JournoList story is an inside baseball tale, but what's fascinating about it is that it proves what conservatives have argued for 30 years: there really is a vast leftwing conspiracy.

I think JournoList is—or was—fundamentally different, and not simply because one of its members proposed to make palpably false accusations. As best I can tell, those involved in JournoList considered themselves part of a team. And their goal was to make sure the team won. In 2008, this was Mr. Obama's team. More recently, the goal seems to have been to defeat the conservative team.

Ezra Klein and others have argued that it was mainly opinion people and columnists saying the outrageous things about Rush Limbaugh, Fred Barnes and Karl Rove. But while people who aren't beat reporters might have been commenting on JournoList, there were 400 subscribers and more than a few of them were mostly reporters and editors, the regular kind who talk about professional ethics and objectivity. How many of them read the JournoList posts without making their own comments but who absorbed the ideas written there? Until the list of subscribers is revealed, we won't know.

UPDATE: More at Townhall.com, where the 3 theories of media bias are discussed well.

Some Nice Blogosphere Navel Gazing

It's been a while since we've had some good spitting matches between journalists, blogers, conservatives and liberals, but for some reason, there's a couple of them today.

First, there's the David Frum's whining cuz he can't play with the big kids dust-up at Right Wing News. Apparently, Frum has his knickers in a twist because John Hawkins doesn't consider him a conservative and won't add him to the Blogads conservative hive. I can understand why Frum is upset; unless he's recognized as a conservative by conservatives, his credibility as such is shot. Of course, he did that to himself some time ago when he bashed Republicans for actually supporting Americans' right to not choke on Obamacare. Now, Frum has taken to complaining that it's only "the fringe" who dislike him. This is patent nonsense. I like to read Frum but only to find out what left-leaning Republicans think. As Hawkins points out, liberals love Frum, which is enough reason for any conservative to be skeptical.

The second dustup is between sock puppet Glenn Greenwald and conservative Jeffrey Goldberg. I'm less engaged on this one, mostly because I consider Mr. Sockpuppet to be too boring to read. His sycophants have invaded poor Joe Klein's space, so if you want to hear what the sockpuppet has to say, read the comments (have I used the word "sockpuppet" enough in one post?).

Today's "Duh" Moment: Liberal vs. Conservaitve Judicial Picks

Media Routinely Used 'Conservative' Label on Bush Nominees to Supreme Court; Obama Picks Always 'Centrist'

Is there really any doubt left about the MSM's real masters?

Don't Say My Sourcing Is "Insulting"...

When you source Media Matters, for cryin' out loud.

The Liberal Spin Machine in Overdrive

Liberals are in ecstasy that Democrats held onto a seat that's been a Democrat seat for a generation. Woo hoo! Democrats held a seat! Not that they won anything they hadn't already held. It's just the principle of the matter, see.

Forget that Democrats pretty much own Pennsylvania, even though John McCain narrowly won it in 2008. This is a place that re-elected John Murtha even after his scuzzy connection to Abscam and his pork barrel politicking. Why wouldn't they vote for another Democrat?

How exactly is it a level playing field when the Democrats have a statewide U.S. Senate primary happening at the same time? There was no comparative factor getting Republicans motivated to interrupt their busy lives to vote. That's not soreloserdom blogging, it's just attention to reality. The Democrats were more motivated in this race. This ain't the end of a trend. It's just another special election, in a Democratic district, and on a big Democratic primary day. And a Democrat won. Disappointing. But not paradigm-smashing shocking. And not devastating.

It's not like they won in a Republican stronghold or something. Democrats dodged a bullet, but they're still stuck trying to justify the crappy economy and their profligate spending. It's almost worth it watching Democrats suddenly discover their conservative roots against the nutroot leadership they have. Almost, but not quite.

Many pundits are arguing that Republicans need to be re-thinking any attempt to nationalize the election. I see nothing wrong with noting Democrats' pathetic Obama bootlicking, but after all, all politics is local. Pick 'em off (ooh, a gun metaphor) where possible. You knew they weren't going to give Republicans any credit anyway, right?

Obama Signs Press Freedom Act Then Won't Take Questions

You can't make this stuff up.

There was some rich irony at the White House today -- President Obama signed the Press Freedom Act, and then promptly refused to take any questions.


The new law expands the State Department's annual human rights reports to include a description of press freedoms in each country. It seemed a good opportunity to showcase press freedom in this country.

Taking quesitons would require Teh One having to speak on the fly without blaming somebody else for everything that goes wrong with his administration. Can't have that.

I know it's getting stale, but can you imagine what would have happened had George W. Bush done this? Obama has ducked the press for months. He has mishandled the oil spill in the Gulf and the press has hardly whimpered. How much longer will they be willing to cover for him?

Taxes Lower in 2009?

USA Today has a story about how Tax bills in 2009 at lowest level since 1950

Amid complaints about high taxes and calls for a smaller government, Americans paid their lowest level of taxes last year since Harry Truman's presidency, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data found.
Some conservative political movements such as the "Tea Party" have criticized federal spending as being out of control. While spending is up, taxes have fallen to exceptionally low levels.

Federal, state and local taxes — including income, property, sales and other taxes — consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That rate is far below the historic average of 12% for the last half-century. The overall tax burden hit bottom in December at 8.8.% of income before rising slightly in the first three months of 2010.

Gosh, I wonder what else happened in 2009? You gotta go to Newsbusters to find out.

The newspaper downplayed the pain caused by the recession and the fact that the downturn lowered both incomes and consumption...

But USA Today also buried important reasons for the drop in tax payments. One reason was that the recession cut incomes, but they didn't mention that until the ninth paragraph. Lower income means taxpayers paid at a lower rate because of the progressive income tax structure. In addition, unemployment in 2009 reached levels not seen for roughly 25 years. The recession also caused "sharp" cuts in consumer spending, resulting in much lower sales tax payments.

USA Today gave credit to the massive stimulus bill for "tax cuts," specifically the "Making Work Pay" credit. But the paper waited until the last paragraph to admit that the lower tax burden may only last through the end of 2010 because "virtually all the stimulus tax cuts expire at the end of the year."

Meanwhile, 15.3 million people were out of work last month, and they probably didn't spend very much because of it. The idea that less taxes because fewer people are working is a good thing is disgusting and USA Today should be ashamed to spin the news this way.

Media Bias: How Newsweek Embraces the "Coffee Party Movement"

You gotta love when the media objectively covers a movement. In this case, the objective coverage is of the astroturf known as the Coffee Party movement, which brings in 250 protesters to its events. Yeah, that's much better than the tiny number of Tea Party protesters.

The Coffee Party Heats Up
Tired of all the Tea Party talk, Annabel Park decided to throw a Coffee Party — and 200,000 people showed up.

Emphasis mine.

So, where were these 200,000 Coffee Partiers? In Washington, D.C.? Nope. New York City? Nope. Los Angeles? Nope. Austin, Texas perhaps? Nope.

It's on Facebook.

Within days, thousands of people signed up on Facebook...the group now has more than 200,000 members.

Get it? It doesn't matter that a tiny number of actual people show up in person to "protest." Just get some people on Facebook to friend you and that counts just like hauling your spouse and kids halfway across the country!

Well, I hate to report this to the Coffee Party lovin' folks at Newsweek, but the just one Tea Party page on Facebook has more than 185,000 fans, and there are many different Tea Party pages. Somehow, I don't think having Facebook friends counts as a protest...if the group is critical of Teh One.

Marc Ambinder Is Today's Concern Troll Example

He's sooooo worried that conservatives have gone....mad!

Can anyone deny that the most trenchant and effective criticism of President Obama today comes not from the right but from the left? Rachel Maddow's grilling of administration economic officials. Keith Olbermann's hectoring of Democratic leaders on the public option. Glenn Greenwald's criticisms of Elena Kagan. Ezra Klein and Jonathan Cohn's keepin'-them-honest perspectives on health care. The civil libertarian left on detainees and Gitmo. The Huffington Post on derivatives.

Who is this "anyone" who thinks Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow are serious thinkers? Only a lunatic would that pair are anything but shrieking nincompoops on a third-rate television show with 3 viewers between them.

It is absolutely a condition of the age of the triumph of conservative personality politics, where entertainers shouting slogans are taken seriously as political actors, and where the incentive structures exist to stomp on dissent and nuance, causing experimental voices to retrench and allowing a lot of people to pretend that the world around them is not changing. The obsession with ACORN, Climategate, death panels, the militarization of rhetoric, Saul Alinsky, Chicago-style politics, that TAXPAYERS will fund the bailout of banks -- these aren't meaningful or interesting or even relevant things to focus on. (The banks will fund their own bailouts.)

No, idiot, consumers will fund the bailouts because banks will pass on any costs to them. Even if you flunked economics, there have been enough of those talking heads you despise informing you that this is the way life works. Or, as William Jacobson so eloquently puts it:

Ambinder lives is a fantasy world where left-wing commentators (including Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow) are serious policy wonks, while all conservative commentators are "entertainers shouting slogans;" where hyperbole is the exclusive refuge of the right-wing; where the vile language and defamation hurled at George Bush for eight years never existed; where the equally vile attempts by Democratic leaders to equate health care protesters to terrorists never happened.

Every day Democratic politicians and left-wing bloggers hurl epithets like "teabagger" and "racist" and "extremist" at political opponents, yet none of that exists in Ambinder's precious little world.

Ambinder cannot seem to understand that being mad is not the same thing as madness. The true madness is the direction in which the Obama administration is taking this country.

Maybe if Ambinder actually watched and listened to voices on the right, he might discover that there are plenty of "reasonable" people there with "reasonable" concerns about what the hell this government is doing. But I guess if you are dumb enough to think Keith Olbermann is some sort of senior statesman, then concern about the direction Democrats are forcing us seems "unreasonable."

The Only Bias Comes From Fox News...

A friend of mine got really excited when Jon Stewart told Fox News to go f*ck themselves, in a monologue that supposedly showed the most popular cable news network's hypocrisy when it comes to generalizing.

The video he sent me came about when I called out the hypocrisy of many of my lefty friends who are scared of the "racism and hatred" they think characterizes all TEA Partiers. I asked one person, who claimed to have witnessed this first hand at a 9/12 protest locally, to explain how he concluded that the smattering of bad behavior he'd seen was a reflection of the protests en toto. His response was that he was "driving by" one and saw two or three signs, such as the infamous Obama witchdoctor poster (which I denounced here,) and therefore concluded that there was so much vile racism around that we should mock and deride everyone protesting the expansion of government. Once I pointed out the obvious stupidity of this smear, the friend didn't want to talk about it anymore.

The Jon Stewart piece begins well enough, poking fun at lefties generalizing about TEA Partiers, but then goes off the rails cherry-picking individual sentences from various programs to point out the supposed hypocrisy of anyone who dislikes the generalizations made by the left about TEA Party supporters.

I love a good generalization, particularly when it stirs up the ire of the left, and so generalizing in general wasn't the point of the argument. Indeed, from my own archives, I can pull out some great and true generalizations about liberals, complete with factual support, but there's a big difference between arguing that conservatives think liberals are misinformed while liberals think conservatives are evil and liberals arguing that TEA Partiers are racists and dangerous.

More to the specific accusation from Jon Stewart, a big lefty in his own right, there are more than a few examples of generalizations made against conservatives with little or no rebuttal than anything said on Fox News. And I don't even have to grab a single sentence to make the point.

A Tale of Two Protests

Pajamas Media has the tale of two protests held just 250 miles and one week apart. The one in Los Angeles was left-leaning and the one in Searchlight, Nevada was right-leaning. But that's about where the similarities end.

We've been told by the MSM how racist, homophobic and violent the Tea Party movement is, yet I can guarantee you that it is leftwing nutjobs who have set off more bombs and tried harder to overthrown the government.

If You Thought the MSM Was in the Tank for Obama Before...

Can the G.O.P. Succeed by Running Against Health Care?

The President, however, may be indifferent to the acrid fussing of his Republican foes. He will be able to bask once again in the glow of positive press coverage (accented by a momentous signing ceremony), which will focus on four areas helpful to the Democrats' prospects in November: the masterful display of White House patience and competence that got the job done; the elements of the legislation that are in fact consistently popular with large numbers of Americans, such as its insurance-company crackdowns; the return of the meme that Republicans are the party of No; and the accompanying rising poll numbers for the Administration and the new law...

Democrats will be joined in the fray by much of the press. For Republicans, this will seem like familiar ground, since generations of conservatives have complained that the so-called mainstream media have been biased against them. Well, get ready, Republicans, for déjà vu all over again. The coverage through November likely will highlight the most extreme attacks on the President and his law and spotlight stories of real Americans whose lives have been improved by access to health care (pushed, no doubt, by Democrats from every competitive congressional district and state). The louder Republicans yell, the more they will be characterized and caricatured as sore losers infuriated by the first major delivery of candidate Obama's promise of "change." The focus on the weekend's alleged racial and gay-bashing verbal attacks by opponents of the Democrats' plan should be a caution to Republican strategists trying to figure out how to manage the media this year.

...just watch them now. Story after story about cherubic kiddies whose shining faces were scrubbed clean because of Obamacare will be SOP. It will be difficult to find stories about the mounting debt and higher taxes we will all face.

Finally, here's Reverend Wright saying Americans voted for socialism, so why be surprised?



Excellent stuff from Megan McArdle.

Howell Raines: Wah, Wah, Wah, Fox News Is Mean

With Democrats set to ram through health care legislation that Americans don't want, Howell Raines asks the important question: why does Fox News get to keep telling the truth?

Through clever use of the Fox News Channel and its cadre of raucous commentators, Ailes has overturned standards of fairness and objectivity that have guided American print and broadcast journalists since World War II. Yet, many members of my profession seem to stand by in silence as Ailes tears up the rulebook that served this country well as we covered the major stories of the past three generations, from the civil rights revolution to Watergate to the Wall Street scandals. This is not a liberal-versus-conservative issue. It is a matter of Fox turning reality on its head with, among other tactics, its endless repetition of its uber-lie: "The American people do not want health-care reform."

Translation: Wah, wah, wah! How dare somebody not tell the same lies, fibs and provarications that the rest of us have for 50 years!

Yeah, that supposed system of objectivity worked really well when we had journalists reporting objectively on American victories in war. Oh, and let's not forget the objectivity shown by news outlets over, say Abu Ghraib, where we had the New York Times running endless page 1 stories designed to gin up opposition to the war in Iraq. This isn't even talking about the liars associated with these objective news outlets where fake but accurate is good enough to go to press.


Let's be blunt here: as someone who worked in the news business for years, I saw firsthand what goes into "objective" journalism. Some journalists do try very hard to give just the facts of a story. But don't think for a moment that reporters and editors check their biases at the door and don't ever allow their own opinions to slip into their writing. Just ask the restaurant owner who happened to piss off a reviewer somehow. Or the politician who doesn't lean left.

And Howell Raines, the former editor of the New York Times, knows about the power of the press. Journalists crowed about "bringing down" the presidency of Richard Nixon. They constantly sneered and slimed Ronald Reagan and showed nothing but contempt for any Republican president who actually tried to abide by the Constitution, as opposed to expanding the liberal welfare state as Democrats have done for nearly a century. Raines' bitter tears about the popularity and power of Fox News would be touching if it weren't so self-serving. If Raines' brand of journalism were winning their war, there would be little whinging about how one cable news outlet runs circles around every establishment journalistic network.

Raines complains that Fox cherry-picks its polls, yet does exactly the same thing. In choosing this Gallup poll over my previously linked Rasmussen poll, Raines is engaging in exactly the bad behavior he accuses Fox News of doing. The laughable part of Raines' complaint is that he is only unhappy because a different brand, a different look at news is using the same techniques he and his cohorts have used for half a century...and beating him at it.

There's never been anything objective in "objective" news, and every Journalism 101 student knows it. They recognize that the choice of words, pictures, headlines and placement all affect readership and the opinions that readers form about a subject. This is why the New York Times ran stories on Abu Ghraib on page 1 34 out of 37 days. It wasn't simply to inform viewers; it was to shape what they thought about that prison and also about our conduct of the war in Iraq. When journalists talk about comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, they're not talking about merely covering events. They're talking about shaping policy.

Fox News understands this and so does Howell Raines and the grousers he represents. Americans also understand that journalists have biases, and they don't really mind. What they mind is when journalists like Raines lie about it.

UPDATE: More at Newsbusters.

Pot-Smoking, 9/11 Truth Lovin' Registered Democrat Pentagon Shooter...Must've Been a "Rightwing Extremist"

If there was ever any doubt about the current meme regarding violence, the story of John Patrick Bedell should lay them to rest.

John Patrick Bedell: Did right-wing extremism lead to shooting? screams the Christian Science Monitor. Pentagon Shooter Was Right-Wing, Anti-Government Terrorist soberly reports Think Progress. And both links talk about Bedell as an anti-government guy who was a 9/11 Truther.

Of course, as Newsbusters notes, 9/11 Truthers are leftwingers, not rightwingers. And given that Bedell was a registered Democrat, the liberal bullshit about rightwing extremism looks even more self-serving.

But that doesn't stop nuts like Jesse Taylor from blaming Tea Partiers and trying to equate Debra Medina with John Patrick Bedell. Taylor must be a yoga master to twist around to draw that comparison.

Reporter Fired for Being Too Objective

From where else? A "progressive" newspaper.

Atlanta Progressive News fires reporter for trying to be objective

Atlanta Progressive News has parted ways with long-serving senior staff writer Jonathan Springston. Apparently, Springston’s affinity for fact-based reporting clashed with Cardinale’s vision.

And, no, that’s not sarcasm.

In an e-mail statement, editor Matthew Cardinale says Springston was asked to leave APN last week “because he held on to the notion that there was an objective reality that could be reported objectively, despite the fact that that was not our editorial policy at Atlanta Progressive News.”

At least the editor was honest.

BBC: What's the Matter With Americans?

The BBC has a snobby and biased piece up basically whinging that, in rejecting Obamacare, Americans are voting "against their interests."

The piece spends a great deal of time telling the reader that American health care is soooo expensive (without explaining why) and that Americans must be crazy not to want rationing. Well, that's my take on it, anyway.

But it is striking that the people who most dislike the whole idea of healthcare reform - the ones who think it is socialist, godless, a step on the road to a police state - are often the ones it seems designed to help.

In Texas, where barely two-thirds of the population have full health insurance and over a fifth of all children have no cover at all, opposition to the legislation is currently running at 87%...

Instead, to many of those who lose out under the existing system, reform still seems like the ultimate betrayal.

Why are so many American voters enraged by attempts to change a horribly inefficient system that leaves them with premiums they often cannot afford?

Why are they manning the barricades to defend insurance companies that routinely deny claims and cancel policies?

It would have been nice if the BBC had actually talked to those who oppose Obamacare, rather than just generalizing about them, insinuating that they're stupid or "just angry" if they don't think a government run system is in their best interests.

Protein Wisdom notes that " in other countries, people demonstrate for the government to do more things for them. Only Americans would turn out in the streets for huge demos, demanding that the government leave them the hell alone." Those silly Americans!

More analysis here.