Posted by
RME KRNL on Monday, November 03, 2008 5:42:03 PM
The mainstream media (MSM) have not served the American people well, particularly regarding their coverage of various "news" stories during this election season. And among the MSM, I include ABC, NBC, CBS, as well as the New York Times (NYT) and also lump in the liberally biased MSNBC and the sometimes left-leaning CNN.
It was the National Enquirer, not any of the liberal MSM, which broke the story about former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards' infidelity to his cancer-stricken wife. Starting at least in October 2007, while Edwards was still a presidential candidate, the Enquirer released information about a suspected affair and there being a resultant "love child." Response from the MSM? Ho-hum. However, the Enquirer pursued the story and, in July 2008, it was the Enquirer again which ambushed Edwards, catching him at the wrong place at the wrong time (a hotel, in the early morning hours) and then hiding in a bathroom to escape questioning. This led to the MSM finally showing some interest and Edwards finally admitting to the affair on ABC in August 2008, in which he still sleazily tried to make the story more about him and his redemption than his infidelity. So, where was the true vetting of a presidential candidate by the MSM? Basically, missing in action.
Meanwhile, the NYT did an unsourced and unproven hit piece on John McCain, insinuating an alleged affair with a female lobbyist - front page, no less.
Meanwhile, MSNBC's Chris Matthews got a tingle, or something, up his leg from hearing Barack Obama speak, and ABC's Charlie Gibson conducted his contemptuously condescending interview with Sarah Palin, asking her about the "Bush Doctrine," about which it was subsequently revealed Gibson, in his arrogance, understood less in asking the question than Palin did in asking him to clarify what he meant. No less than the syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, who coined the term the "Bush Doctrine," said that Gibson evidently thought the Bush Doctrine was only about preemptive strikes, whereas, in fact, that was the third of four parts, the last being nation building. (Please try to understand your own question, Charlie.)
Meanwhile, CBS' consummate cutie Katie Couric interviewed Sarah Palin, asking her such pertinent questions as what she reads and expecting Palin to be able to regurgitate what about John McCain's long legislative career and accomplishments Palin most admired or agreed with. Has anybody in the MSM asked Barack Obama about what he reads or about Joe Biden's even longer legislative career, to include how many times he has been dead wrong about foreign policy issues? Um, no, don't think so. (By the way, for an excellent article on Biden's many missteps on foreign policy, his alleged area of expertise, go to WashingtonTimes.com and read Robert Turner's "The Biden Doctrine," Sunday, October 26, 2008, page B4.)
In fact, has anybody in the MSM ever really vetted Barack Obama over his alliances with anti-America and racist Jeremiah Wright, unrepentant domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, convicted felon Tony Rezko, or nationwide and radical left-wing ACORN, now the subject of federal investigations for voter registration fraud in at least 12 states, many of them battleground states in this year's election? Not really.
Of course, after Fox News broke the story about the Ayers connection and stayed on it and the other questionable association stories, the NYT finally published a whitewash piece saying they had looked into the Ayers connection and found nothing substantive. MSNBC's Chris Matthews, on his Hardball show, continued throwing hardballs to conservative guests and softballs to liberal ones. And NBC was so busy avoiding anything controversial about Team Obama and hyping anything negative it could find about Team McCain that it all defies even listing here. It just makes my head spin.
Meanwhile, the NYT ran another hit piece, this time on Cindy McCain, and a story - both front page, again - about the RNC spending $150K on Sarah Palin's wardrobe, makeup, etc. They do know, don't they, that she is the only one of the four candidates who is not a millionaire? And that the clothes are for campaign purposes and will be contributed to charity after the campaign?
Of course, the MSM did jump on this factoid, which belonged in the Style Section if it was going to be reported at all, and made it into a week-long "item" of the news cycle. One wonders where was any MSM inquisitiveness, much less feigned outrage, about Michelle Obama's recent Waldorf-Astoria afternoon repast of champagne, lobster and Iranian caviar and whether that was paid for by the Obamas or charged to the Obama campaign. And, although it's understandable that Barack Obama needed to recently visit his ailing grandmother in Hawaii, where was any MSM questioning about why he needed to take his big campaign Boeing 757, at about $400K per round trip, instead of a smaller, more fuel-efficient jet (Al Gore would be so proud), or even, Heaven forbid, a commercial flight, for a purely personal visit to his grandmother? And what about the Obamas taking an earlier vacation to Hawaii, during the Olympics, in that same big campaign $400K-per-round-trip jet?
This was also when even Politico's Mike Allen got in on the hype by reporting, for two days in a row, that Obama had issued comments from the "Hawaiian White House," about which I reminded Mr. Allen via email that Obama was not yet president and that, unless President Bush had stopped by Hawaii on his way back from the Olympics, there could not be a "Hawaiian White House" from which anyone could issue statements.
Then, more recently, CNN's Drew Griffin interviewed Sarah Palin and tried to sandbag her by quoting totally out-of-context a statement by National Review's Byron York, who was criticizing how unfair the MSM coverage of Palin had been, by making it sound like York had said bad things about Palin. When Palin asked him who had said that, Griffin stumbled and didn't respond. Griffin later apologized to York and the National Review editor, but where is his apology to the candidate he tried to embarrass on air during an interview she had granted him? Hmmm, still waiting.
Then, most recently, in a quintessential example of what the liberal MSM have assiduously avoided doing during this whole campaign cycle, it took a local Orlando area newscaster, who, by the way, had been Peter Jennings' assistant and is a 16-year veteran of TV news, to ask some blunt questions of Joe Biden.
Merriam-Webster defines socialism as: "a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done." Accurately citing Marx's axiom "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need," as well as other Obama socialistic utterances, to include his gaffe answer to Joe the Plumber, the interviewer asked Biden to defend Team Obama's position on the charge of socialism.
Oh, horrors, you dared to confront a candidate, a Democratic candidate, much less the running mate of The One, AND you actually used the "M" word?! Biden's disparaging response was to laugh and ask if the question was a joke and wonder who wrote the interviewer's questions for her. A good retort for her might have been to ask who writes his answers for him, that is, when gaffe-prone Joe is not wandering off the Team Obama "approved narrative." Team Obama's response was to release a condescending edict about that Orlando station receiving no further interview opportunities from its campaign, and, of course, the liberal MSM and various (other) Obama surrogates were quickly all over the news with disclaimers, explanations and condemnation of the newscaster.
So, it seems to me, as I read articles and watch TV and research things political online everyday, that if it weren't for the National Enquirer, Fox News, Joe the Plumber, a few conservative newspapers and a local Orlando newscaster, we, the American people, may not have had any real vetting done of Team Obama at all. That should be embarrassing - and shameful - to the liberal MSM.
But, something tells me they're not embarrassed or ashamed and will continue attending their social elite soirees in New York, LA and San Fran, smug in their elitism and the knowledge that they helped all they could to elect the least qualified and most radically left candidate in our history to the presidency.
Good job fulfilling your journalistic responsibilities in looking out for the American people, MSM.