Let me provide yet another example of media bias, inadvertent or not.
Off the top of your head, who currently gets better press in the U.S. media: Howard Dean or Karl Rove?
Factually, as head of the DNC, Dean has been a financial benefactor in the invigoration of many of the state and local Democratic parties. His plan: to make the national Democratic Party a 50-state player. He has raised more money as DNC head than Terry McAuliffe did in the off-year after an election. Does the media credit him for such an accomplshment? No, he’s branded as ineffective because the Republicans raised more.
Is the media guilty of bias, laziness, vindictiveness, ignorance or lack of perspective?
As governor, Dean balanced the Vermont budget. He received endorsements from the National Rifle Association. He lowered taxes. But he’s treated like vermin attempting to infiltrate the national picnic.
Here are some Dean quotes, cherrypicked from various sites:
“We need to go everywhere. There is not one county in this state, I don’t care how far west you go, that doesn’t have Democrats. We have to be proud of who we are.”
This did not go over well with the insular Washington Democratic establishment.
Nor did these statements because many in the national press are ALSO members of the Washington elite and feel impugned at any less than a stellar characterization of anything involving D.C.
“The Democratic Party, all the candidates from Washington, they all know each other, they all move in the same circles, and what I’m doing is breaking into the country club.”
“At every turn when there has been an imbalance of power, the truth questioned, or our beliefs and values distorted, the change required to restore our nation has always come from the bottom up from our people.”
Truthfulness also does not go over well–read these Dean quotes:
“Every day it becomes clearer that this was the wrong war at the wrong time.”
“As Commander in Chief of the United States Military, I will never send our sons and daughters and our brothers and sisters to die in a foreign land without telling the truth about why they’re going there.”
Recently, he said:
“the idea that we’re going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong.”
Did Dean receive kudos or even acknowledgement for his honesty? Has he received any benefit for his prescience? No, as expected, he was blasted by the rightwingers who ‘had’ to be quoted by the press for ‘evenhandedness’ and his predictions has been scuttled to the dustbin of history. Think of the “A Few Good Men” line spat at Tom Cruise by Jack Nicholson: “You can’t handle the truth.” Lately, far too often, many in the media can’t handle such veracity. They prefer to continue parading the Bush charade.
Dean is ‘highlighted’ for his infamous ‘scream’ on Iowa caucus night. Period. He will NEVER be allowed to escape that one sole spotlight. Howard Dean = scream. Howard Dean = intemperate, uncouth outsider. The reaction is Pavlovian.
Okay, time for Rove. What has he been in the news for lately? Addressing the Republican national committee talking about how sleaze could hurt the party, he said:
“when political power becomes an end in itself.”
Karl Rove advising against sleaze? The person who would defile his own mother if there was political benefit to be gained. The individual whose resume would make him a pariah in any industry other than politics?
Did anyone in the press note the hypocrisy?
Hmmmm.
Am I being overly harsh?
Well, let’s go back to the 2000 Republican presidential primary right after John McCain won in New Hampshire and George Bush, led by Karl Rove, had to win South Carolina or his campaign was finished. Rumors were ‘unleashed’ that John McCain was mentally unbalanced as a result of his imprisonment as a POW in North Vietnam, that his wife was a drug addict and that his adopted Bangladeshi child was illegitimate, the result of McCain consorting with a black (note that inserting race was important) prostitute.
In 1994, an Alabama judge, lauded for his work in developing funding and services for abused children, was hit by another ‘whisper campaign’ hinting that he was a pedophile. The judge won that election but declined to run again. Rove led the campaign for the judge’s opponent. In a November, 2004, article by Joshua Green in The Atlantic Monthly, an Alabama political operative is quoted: “What Rove does…is try to make something so bad for a family that the candidate will not subject the family to the hardship.”
Sound familiar? Might there be a pattern here?
In 1992, Rove was fired from the Bush ’41 presidential re-election campaign for bad-mouthing a fellow Republican official.
In 1986, prior to a Texas gubernatorial debate and with his candidate in a freefall, Rove announced he had ‘found’ a bugging device in his office. One that presumably must have been planted by operatives of his opponent.
Lest anyone think these are but blips of dreck on an otherwise honorable individual’s resume, well, in 1970, at age nineteen, Rove stole letterhead from the campaign office of the individual opposing his candidate. He then printed and distributed fake fliers promising “free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing,” focusing on distributing the information to the area’s homeless population. He actually admitted doing so later in life saying,
“I was nineteen and I got involved in a political prank.”
And I haven’t even mentioned Valerie Plame or Joe Wilson.
I’m sooooooo glad that Karl Rove’s well-earned reputation has besmirched him and that the national media has shredded him for his lifelong commitment to vileness, debasement and dividing this country.
If you want to compare apples to apples, let’s look at some doozies that have escaped from the mouth of Ken Mehlman, head of the RNC.
Mehlman, a longtime GOP operative and Rove disciple who managed President Bush’s re-election bid, has emitted:
“For the past 11 years, Tom DeLay’s leadership has helped reduce taxes and expand our economy, strengthen our national defense, provide hope to millions through welfare reform, and improve our nation’s schools. Today’s decision (stepping aside as Speaker of the House), although difficult, continues Tom DeLay’s commitment to put his nation, his constituents, his colleagues and his party first.”
AND
“What’s been extraordinary about this president, Tim (Russert), and what’s unique about this president is not that the administration is sputtering but rather everything he’s taken on he’s been able to accomplish.”
I’m sure Russert immediately followed up by asking about Iraq. Right.
“Why shouldn’t future generations and young Americans have the choice to earn a higher rate of return? Why shouldn’t they be able to own their own Social Security so that Congress can’t spend it on other things?”
Uh, Ken, please see your above statement,
AND
“…what’s so amazing and what’s so outrageous, in my judgment, is, despite the fact that this investigation is ongoing, despite the fact that Mr. Rove and other people at the White House are cooperating fully with Pat Fitzgerald, Democrat partisans on the Hill have engaged in a smear campaign where they have attacked Karl Rove on the basis of information which actually vindicates and exonerates him, not implicates him.”
AND
Tim Russert: “He (Scott McClellan) said to the American people that Libby, Rove, Abrams were not involved. And we now know that, according to published reports and Mr. Rove’s attorney, that Mr. Rove confirmed the Novak account and was the source for Matt Cooper, as Matt Cooper testified before the grand jury and explained this morning on MEET THE PRESS. Is that not being involved?”
Ken Mehlman: “Tim, as you know, investigations have different phases. In the very early part of an investigation, when there’s less–when there are fewer witnesses testifying, and less activity is one point. Clearly now, I think, that Scott’s right. And I give tremendous credit to this president, and to this White House, who is saying, “We don’t care about the short-term political heat we may feel. We care about justice being done,” which is why they’re not commenting. I assure you, Scott would love to be up at the podium, responding to these questions, as opposed to allowing people to smear him without the White House answering. But that will be the wrong thing to do because this White House is committed to cooperating and complying, not attacking.”
I am sooooooo glad to see that the ‘liberal’ national press goes to such great lengths at every opportunity to vilify Ken Mehlman in the same manner as Howard Dean.
