Thursday, February 17, 2005
You'd have to be a complete idiot to deny the media's bias when it shows through in such clumsy ways. Yes, if you still deny it, I just called you an idiot. Take two examples from today's news:
I signed on AIM.com, connected to CNN.com, and the headline blared: "It's on the table: Bush open to payroll tax hike for social security." Democrats have been trying to get us to believe for weeks that Bush will sacrifice everything for social security, even his tax-cutting, and I was momentarily frightened that maybe for the first time in seventy years they called it right. Then I read the story and discovered that Bush actually said the one thing he was not open to was a hike in the tax rate. The headline apparently referred to him mentioning in passing that it was an "option" to raise the wage level above $90,000, meaning that social security would be taken out of wages higher than $90,000. This is not the same thing as a tax hike--yes, it's making people pay more taxes, and yes, I don't think he should but it's not what the headline would have made you think. Besides which the White House Press Secretary quickly tried to disentangle himself by telling the press, "saying that it's an option doesn't mean he'll take it." Should have hammered that point home a little harder. The press wants to make hay with this so they can make Bush's base dissatisfied with their leader.
Another has to do with the report that Arlen Specter (Democrat-Republican, PA) has Hodgkins Disease. Specter is probably the second most liberal "Republican" in the Senate, right after John McCain, and so the press feels it necessary to lionize him and to summon up sympathy. I'll just excerpt the article. I am sorry for Arlen Specter, but this is just crazy: "Specter, a 75-year-old Pennsylvania moderate who just won re-election to his Senate seat, became Judiciary chairman in January. ...Specter is the first Pennsylvanian elected to five Senate terms, but his 2004 victory was the toughest of his career. Specter barely defeated a conservative former congressman in an April 2004 primary in a race where his age was contrasted with that of his youthful-looking opponent....Intellectual and prickly, Specter is one of a dwindling breed of moderate Republicans in an increasingly polarized Senate. He plays squash nearly every day and likes to unwind with a martini or two at night. " (www.cnn.com).
Poor, poor Arlen Specter. What a nice guy. Catch them saying this about President Bush or Dick Cheney if it happened to them. When Cheney had his heart trouble the only mention the press gave was to wonder if he could continue to serve as Vice President.
I signed on AIM.com, connected to CNN.com, and the headline blared: "It's on the table: Bush open to payroll tax hike for social security." Democrats have been trying to get us to believe for weeks that Bush will sacrifice everything for social security, even his tax-cutting, and I was momentarily frightened that maybe for the first time in seventy years they called it right. Then I read the story and discovered that Bush actually said the one thing he was not open to was a hike in the tax rate. The headline apparently referred to him mentioning in passing that it was an "option" to raise the wage level above $90,000, meaning that social security would be taken out of wages higher than $90,000. This is not the same thing as a tax hike--yes, it's making people pay more taxes, and yes, I don't think he should but it's not what the headline would have made you think. Besides which the White House Press Secretary quickly tried to disentangle himself by telling the press, "saying that it's an option doesn't mean he'll take it." Should have hammered that point home a little harder. The press wants to make hay with this so they can make Bush's base dissatisfied with their leader.
Another has to do with the report that Arlen Specter (Democrat-Republican, PA) has Hodgkins Disease. Specter is probably the second most liberal "Republican" in the Senate, right after John McCain, and so the press feels it necessary to lionize him and to summon up sympathy. I'll just excerpt the article. I am sorry for Arlen Specter, but this is just crazy: "Specter, a 75-year-old Pennsylvania moderate who just won re-election to his Senate seat, became Judiciary chairman in January. ...Specter is the first Pennsylvanian elected to five Senate terms, but his 2004 victory was the toughest of his career. Specter barely defeated a conservative former congressman in an April 2004 primary in a race where his age was contrasted with that of his youthful-looking opponent....Intellectual and prickly, Specter is one of a dwindling breed of moderate Republicans in an increasingly polarized Senate. He plays squash nearly every day and likes to unwind with a martini or two at night. " (www.cnn.com).
Poor, poor Arlen Specter. What a nice guy. Catch them saying this about President Bush or Dick Cheney if it happened to them. When Cheney had his heart trouble the only mention the press gave was to wonder if he could continue to serve as Vice President.
// posted by The Pendragon @ 9:45 AM 
