More evidence Sarah Palin lives rent-free in the minds of the American media

As reported by Kristinn Taylor and Andrea Shea King at Big Journalism, January 21:

The Washington Post is engaging in online political activism by encouraging its readers to boycott news coverage of Sarah Palin.

The Post has picked up the call initiated this morning by Post columnist Dana Milbank, adding a Twitter link on the column page. The link generates a message to be sent from a Twitter member’s page that reads, “I’m making February a Palin-free month. Will you join me?”

The Post added the Twitter link to Milbank’s column this afternoon, several hours after running and pulling a Washington Post online poll about boycotting Sarah Palin news coverage.  The poll initially accompanied The Post’s Milbank op-ed but was pulled within hours of publication at WashingtonPost.com.

The poll, which questioned Post readers whether they would support a Palin news boycott, received the support of eighty percent of approximately 450 votes cast.

(BTW, the title of this post was inspired by one of the comments in the Big Journalism article)

This is what fawning media coverage looks like

I still laugh when I hear Democrats complain that Fox News is the only biased news channel out there.  Thanks to NewsBusters, we have a sampling of how CBS and ABC waxed rhapsodic as they covered Obama’s signing of the health care “reform” law.

CBS Evening News’ Harry Smith, as a graphic of Obama’s signature was displayed:

This is what history looks like, as it came from the hand of President Obama today with 22 different pen strokes comprising his signature.

ABC World News’ Diane Sawyer lost no time insinuating that the Republicans are against Americans having health insurance:

Good evening. As of today, it is the law of the land that every man, woman and child in America will have health care coverage. And at the White House, the President signed the bill and marked this day in history, while Republican opponents marshaled forces, hoping to undo the law...

ABC also reported seriously on a bit of political theater at Ted Kennedy’s grave.  Said Sawyer:

You heard the President pay tribute to Senator Ted Kennedy, who devoted his career to health care reform. But there was another quiet tribute at the Senator's grave. A note left by his son, Congressman Patrick Kennedy. It said simply: 'Dad -- the unfinished business is done.'

Inexplicably, the graphic also showed that the gravestone was also covered with dead insects.  Not sure of the symbolism there.



So…. tell me again about Fox News?

How the MSM read Joe Stack’s manifesto

Via RedState, February 22:

For what it’s worth, read it yourself and decide.

And the prize for “Most Pathetic Headline of the Week by a Major US Paper” goes to….

…the Los Angeles Times.  Here’s how they titled their story about yesterday’s vote by Honduras’ Congress regarding Manuel Zelaya:

Honduran Congress upholds coup

The LAT seems determined to set in stone the fiction that Zelaya was removed in a coup d'état, rather than in a legal, constitutional action.  If you didn’t catch the “coup” in the title, don’t worry – they use the word four more times in the accompanying article.

The vote was overwhelmingly against Zelaya’s reinstatement (111-14), but the LAT dismisses it by suggesting that this was a vote by the Honduran elite to rid itself of a meddlesome man of the people.

The MSM’s reporting on Honduras’ political situation should be a badge of shame, but you’ll never read that in their newspapers.

Bill Clinton… world savior?

This is what passes as objective journalism for intrepid AFP reporter Sebastian Smith.  If this had been a true straight-news story, the words world savior would have been in quotes.

Then again, that was Smith’s choice of words, so if this had been a true straight-news story, the words would have been quite different.

(Click to view full-sized screenshot)

Reuters contradicts its own shoddy reporting on Honduran crisis

It’s almost like a reflex.  Reuters leads off a July 20 dispatch on the Honduran constitutional crisis in this way (emphasis added):

Honduras' political foes are on a collision course after negotiations collapsed and deposed President Manuel Zelaya vowed to return home despite warnings from a defiant de facto government.
Zelaya says resistance is being organized in Honduras to pave the way for his return this weekend and that nobody can stop him. The interim government installed after the June 28 military coup has threatened to arrest Zelaya if he returns and crack down on any protesters who stir trouble.

People who read only the opening paragraphs of news articles will come away with a reinforcement of the oft-repeated – but false – claim that Zelaya was deposed by a military coup.
Read a little further, and one will see that Reuters itself can’t decide whether or not the events of June 28 constituted a military coup.
In a section entitled “Unusual Coup”, we see laid out many of the facts demonstrating that the military, far from instigating Zelaya’s removal from power, was actually carrying out the constitutionally lawful order for his arrest:

Zelaya was expelled from the textile and coffee exporting country in his pajamas in the middle of the night. He had upset his political rivals by seeking to lift presidential term limits, and the army moved against him after the Supreme [Court] ordered his arrest.
[…] The Honduran coup is an unusual case. Unlike those that battered Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s, Zelaya's ouster was approved by the Supreme Court and Congress as well as Catholic Church leaders in the country. There is also no military strongman in the picture this time.

So, get this straight: The Honduran Supreme Court lawfully ordered Zelaya’s arrest, and the military lawfully carried out the arrest order.  Honduras’ Congress (including Zelaya’s own political party) endorsed this lawful order. 
The only way that the military exceeded its authority was by exiling the president rather than merely taking him into custody.  Even so, once the operation was completed, the military stood down.  They have no influence over the interim president – from Zelaya’s political party, by the way – that Congress lawfully selected to take Zelaya’s place.
Despite the cognitive dissonance abundantly evident in this article, Reuters seems incapable of admitting that no coup – military or otherwise – took place in Honduras on June 28.
The article ends on an encouraging note:

The interim government, which has been denied around $200 million in multilateral aid and $16.5 million in U.S. military aid and is at risk of regional trade sanctions, insists it can and will stand up to the international pressure.

Honduras knows that it has few if any friends in this crisis.  For some reason, it seems like the whole world – governments and media alike – is determined to snuff out the liberty of this tiny republic.  Good on the people and government of Honduras for refusing to refusing to buckle under  the unbelievable pressure.

NYT: Carlos Slim is a thief, a robber baron, and ... a wonderful human being

TimesWatch notes today that the New York Times has decided that Mexican mogul Carlos Slim ain't so bad after all:

Carlos Slim, described in 2007 as a "thief" and "robber baron" by a Times editorial writer, is now "a very shrewd businessman with an appreciation for great brands," according to the paper's publisher. What changed? A $250 million loan from Slim to the NYT Co., for one.

I guess Rupert Murdoch now knows what he needs to do to get some good press from the Times.

Yes, there have been four more hijackings, but...

The Associated Press overlooked one important fact in this morning's report about four new hijackings by Somali pirates:

Undeterred by U.S. and French hostage rescues that killed five bandits, Somali pirates brazenly hijacked four more ships in the Gulf of Aden, the waterway at the center of the world's fight against piracy.

Pirates have vowed to retaliate for deaths of their colleagues-- and the top U.S. military officer said Tuesday he takes those comments seriously. But Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told ABC's "Good Morning America" that "we're very well prepared to deal with anything like that."

Still, despite Mullen's confident statement and President Barack Obama's warning Monday, pirates captured two more nautical trophies Tuesday to match the two ships they seized a day or two earlier.

NATO spokeswoman Shona Lowe said the MV Sea Horse, a Lebanese-owned cargo ship, was attacked and captured Tuesday by pirates in three or four speedboats. She had no further information.

That hijacking came only hours after the Greek-managed MV Irene E.M. was seized in a rare overnight attack by pirates.

AP says the pirates were "undeterred" by the French and American actions, but consider this: the number of French and American ships seized since this past weekend's rescues is.... ZERO.

As I predicted Sunday, the Somali "businessmen" are focusing their efforts on activities that show the greatest promise of earning them money rather than on activities that will earn them an early death.

For the moment at least, the pirates have indeed been deterred from attacking French and American interests.

France and the US have shown the rest of the world how to deal with the pirate menace. If they choose to continue to capitulate, that's their problem.

Poll shows success of left's propaganda efforts

Rasmussen released the results of a recent poll asking Americans whether they preferred capitalism or socialism, without defining either term.

Only 53% of all respondents surveyed agreed that capitalism is better, while 20% insisted that socialism is better.

Have Americans lost faith in the engine that made our country the leading economy in the world? Possibly not, because when the poll question was changed, replacing the term "capitalism" with "free-market economy", free markets were favored by 70%.

Rasmussen suggests an interesting explanation for this divergence in results:

The fact that a “free-market economy” attracts substantially more support than “capitalism” may suggest some skepticism about whether capitalism in the United States today relies on free markets.

There is a germ of truth in this. American capitalism does not rely heavily on free markets, but that is largely the fault of the government, not of businesses.

When government shows its willingness to act as a regulatory sledgehammer, why wouldn't corporate America attempt to use the system to their advantage and to the detriment of their rivals? If the government concerned itself chiefly with ensuring the free flow of goods without partiality (which was the original intent of the Constitution's "commerce clause"), then we could say that American capitalism was built on a foundation of free markets. We are ridiculously far from that reality.

But I think Rasmussen attributes to the public more sophistication on this issue than it deserves. Ask the average American if capitalism relies on free markets, he or she will pause thoughtfully and then reply, "Huh?"

A more likely explanation is that the public has succumbed to a generation of anticapitalist propaganda in the media and in our public education system. This seems to be borne out in the demographic breakdown of Rasmussen's data.

Adults under 30 are essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided. Thirty-somethings are a bit more supportive of the free-enterprise approach with 49% for capitalism and 26% for socialism. Adults over 40 strongly favor capitalism, and just 13% of those older Americans believe socialism is better.

Those of us who are old enough to have personal memory of the effects of fully-realized socialism (as seen in the late, unlamented Soviet bloc) are much more likely to distrust the economic prescriptions of the European Union and the Obama administration.

These results do not bode well for America, because it won't be long before the younger generation -- a third of whom currently prefer socialism -- takes the reigns of power. Some will probably come to their senses before then, but how many of these will go on to become activists for freedom?

Repeat after me: Everything bad is the Republicans' fault

In the midst of a fairly innocuous Financial Times article about the changing spending habits of western consumers, the author drops this little beauty:

Ed Kerschner, chief investment strategist at Citi Global Wealth Management, says the US has passed an “inflection” point, marking the end of an acceptance of conspicuous consumption that he traces back to the Reagan presidency of the early 1980s.

Right. Our embrace of conspicuous consumption is Reagan's fault.

I'm sure that they would have preferred to blame George W. Bush--that way, Obama could complain about inheriting the problem--but that would have been a bit of a stretch.

Did the "era of big government" REALLY end during the Clinton administration?

Reuters gets my vote for the most clueless news article introduction of the day:

Obama brings back era of big government
Thu Feb 26, 2009 8:48pm GMT

By Steve Holland - Analysis

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bill Clinton declared more than a decade ago "the era of big government is over." With his new budget, President Barack Obama has brought it back.

Attention, Steve Holland: Bill Clinton's declaration was nothing more than hot air. Big government hardly slowed its expansion under Bill Clinton.

The era of big government certainly did not end under George W. Bush, either. Among many egregious examples, Bush's addition of prescription drugs to the Medicare entitlement was an abomination of big government expansion.

Of course, as Mr. Holland's article goes on to describe, Barack Obama has already beggared his predecessor's worst big-government accomplishments.

But, good grief -- there must be a better way to intro this fact than by resurrecting a meaningless throwaway line from a Clinton speech.

Another creepy example of Obama's personality cult

Detroit Free Press, January 21:

See Obama in yourself -- and take a photo for our gallery


You can help build our gallery of faces from people who see a part of President Barack Obama in themselves.

We've got a photo of Obama you can cut out for yourself -- click here to download it. Then follow the instructions, take a picture and send it to us here. Tell us what part of Obama is in you and we'll add your comments to your photo.

See more photos at freep.com/obamaportraits.

Of course we can trust the media to provide us fair and objective reporting on the Obama administration.

Our sexist recession

Liberals typically agree with the notion that "disparate impact" is de facto evidence of discrimination. Even if an institution or a policy wasn't intended to discriminate, if one of the politically favored victim classes is disproportionally negatively affected by said institution or policy, BAM! It's discrimination.

The key, of course, is the term "politically favored victim class" -- if the victims are not politically favored, there is no discrimination.

Which is why the following February 6 AHN story is a non-story:

With mass lay offs in the U.S. taking place in the manufacturing and construction sectors, employed female workers may surpass males since 82 percent of the recorded job losses involved men.

Experts attribute the rising male unemployment to more women being employed in the education and health care sectors, which are not as affected with the economic downturn as traditionally male-dominated industries.

If eighty percent of the job losses had involved women instead of men, you wouldn't have to go to a second-tier news site (no offense, AHN) to read about it.

What media bias?

New York Magazine's Gabriel Sherman reports that attendees at the New York Times' inauguration party Tuesday night were instructed to wear a pin bearing the image shown here.

The Times attempted to rationalize the celebration. It surely seems to be splitting hairs to wave off all objections by saying, "Hey, this was organized by the marketing department, not the newsroom."

Sherman comes up with a few rationalizations of his own, including the suggestion that the Times is celebrating because Obama will be good for the economy, and a good economy will be better for the Times' circulation numbers. See? It's nothing political. Obama's just good for business.

No.

The public will look at this image and see in it a confirmation of what they've always known to be true about the Times. Their man is in office now, and it's time to celebrate.


Via: Power Line

C-Poll: Will George W. Bush continue to haunt the nightmares of the media?

A new poll has been posted in the sidebar:

Once Barack Obama takes office, how long until the media stop blaming George W. Bush for all that they think is wrong with the world?

If you wish to comment, feel free to do so here.


1/1/2009 UPDATE: The poll is now closed. Here are the results:


I don't know who the "Six months" answer was, but it's pretty obvious that "Immediately" was none other than our first Anonymous commenter, who is unaware of the existence of a liberal bias in the media (perhaps much in the same way that fish would be unaware of the existence of water).

Change the MSM elites DEFINITELY believe in

How nice that the media's big hitters don't have to mingle with the commoners so much any more. WaPo, December 26:

For the White House press corps, covering Obama's 13-day Hawaiian sojourn is a departure from past holidays hunkered down near President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex. They've upgraded their offices from highway hotels in Waco to the Westin Moana Surfrider Resort on Waikiki Beach. They've traded a backdrop of rusted farm equipment and bales of hay for sailboats, longboards and crashing waves.

And they've hung up their winter coats.

"What a difference a year makes," exults NBC White House correspondent Savannah Guthrie, leaning back in a padded armchair on a veranda overlooking the Pacific.

"No offense to the people of Crawford, Texas, but taking the presidential retreat from Crawford to Honolulu is change anyone can believe in," Henry says, borrowing a phrase from Obama's campaign.

The article goes on to relate how hard it can be to broadcast from the beach resorts of Hawaii. Our sympathies go out to those intrepid reporters.

(Photo credit: Philip Rucker, The Washington Post. Caption: NBC's Savannah Guthrie, with Oahu's Diamond Head in the background.)

How many of them say that CNN has the sloppiest reporting ever?

The Bush administration is in its final weeks, and it seems like the media can't resist seeing it off with a series of well-placed kicks. On Monday CNN came out with this gem:

Poll: 23 percent say Cheney worst vice president ever

From Paul Steinhauser
CNN Deputy Political Director

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A new national poll suggests that almost a quarter of Americans think that Dick Cheney is the worst vice president in American history.
Vice President Dick Cheney says he's comfortable with his accomplishments and isn't troubled by his ratings.

Vice President Dick Cheney says he's comfortable with his accomplishments and isn't troubled by his ratings.

Twenty-three percent of those questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday say that Cheney is the country's worst vice president, when compared with his predecessors.

An additional 41 percent feel that Cheney is a poor vice president, with 34 percent rating him a good number two.

Only one percent of those polled say that Cheney is the best vice president in U.S. history.

"On the Sunday talk shows, Cheney took on the job of making the affirmative case for the Bush legacy," said Keating Holland, CNN polling director. "But the messenger may be getting in the way of the message."

[...]

I have a couple of questions for those who were polled: (1) How many previous vice presidents can you even name? (2) How would you summarize the tenure of each?

Unless they can answer both of the above questions satisfactorily, they have no business answering the poll question.

What about the CNN reporters? Are they qualified to answer? I doubt that I am, even though I consider myself to be well-informed.

I can name just about all of the VPs back to the Eisenhower administration, but I'm not sure how much I could tell you about what they did while in office.

CNN should know better -- and they probably do. It was just another opportunity for a cheap parting shot.