Bias

At 5:19 pm I received an e-mail entitled "Breaking News Alert" from the Washington Post: 

Poll: Most Americans Back Obama on Stimulus, Mortgage Plans Large majorities support president's $787 billion economic stimulus package and $75 billion plan for stemming mortgage foreclosures, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. Obama's bipartisan support, however, has eroded substantially in the past month, with just 37 percent of Republicans approving of how he has done his job. 

At 7:02 pm, a fellow contributor here at The Next Right received a similarly titled email from The New York Times: 

Poll Shows Broad Support for Obama's LeadershipPresident Obama is benefiting from high levels of confidence among Americans about his leadership, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.A majority of people surveyed in both parties said Mr. Obama was striving to work in a bipartisan way, but most Americans faulted Republicans for their response to the president.Mr. Obama will deliver his first address to Congress on Tuesday evening against a backdrop of deep economic anxiety among the public, with worries spanning party, class and regional divides.

This is "breaking news?" That the media released a poll? Are bottom lines that pressed that both the Gray Lady and the Post feel it necessary to spam their readers on a daily basis with mundane tidbits that are most definitely not breaking news? These e-mails get sent almost daily, and this is only the worst infraction, but certainly not the only one.

As an online professional, I'd say that these e-mails break all the rules and break trust with readers, enticing people to click on the presumption that something extraordinary has happened -- maybe a fighting has unexpectedly broken out somewhere, or a notable historic figure has died. Instead, it's just more puffery from news outlets who, having failed to sell real newspapers or enlightening content to their readers, resort to hawking t-shirts and commemorative plaques of the November 5 and January 21st editions. 

Ann Althouse wrote: "...but let's resist the impulse to slough off this [Troopergate]  report. It means something."

It means something all right. It means that a couple of former prosecutors, Hollis French and Steve Branchflower forgot their roots.

I haven't finished the public report yet, but so far 27+ years as an appointed and elected prosecutor tells me this:

1. Hollis French, high profile Obama supporter and supervisor of this investigation, should have declared a conflict of interest and recused himself. Similarly, Branchflower's history with Monegan has apparently not been disclosed to the public or to the Legislative Council

2. Steve Branchflower, French's hand picked investigator, appears to have overstepped his charge which was to incude "recommendations," not "findings" in his report. He has acted as investigator, prosecutor, judge and jury in the matter.

3. Despite relentlessly leading the witnesses and encouraging them to speculate about Governor and Mr. Palin's state of mind, Branchflower does not appear to have made his case -- and it is clear that he WAS trying to make a case.

4. The ethics statute under which Branchflower finds the Governor "abused her power" is, of course, not an "abuse of power" provision, but an ethics provision. Branchflower actually found that the Governor acted within her powers when she demoted Monegan.

5. Violation of the ethics provision requires that an executive officer knowingly make an "effort to benefit a personal or financial interest" of him or herself or a family member.

An oversimplified, but accurate, take on this is that both Todd and Sarah Palin spoke continuously about Wooten, the brother-in-law, bringing discredit to the department, about the inadequacy of the disciplinary action taken against him and about the negative impact he would have on DPS recruiting.

Arguably, all of these considerations fall within the Governor's OFFICIAL, NOT PERSONAL, areas of interest. Branchflower simply chose not to see it that way or to even put forward the case for that interpretation.

My experience tells me that Wooten's five-day suspension did not reflect the severity of his transgressions. Moreover, I saw no evidence that Monegan or anyone else at DPS made an effort to assure the Governor that the internal disciplinary procedures were being improved to prevent similar inadequacies.

The portion of the public report that I have read reflects a lack of both objectivity and professionalism.

French and Branchflower did their work for Obama, however marginal that work was, and left the rest to Obama's surrogate media.

The idea: A web based daily news review show openly challenging and refuting the "facts" presented to the American people by the Obamaphile MSM. Upload each show on YouTube, LiveLeak, GoogleVideo, etc. and have downloadable versions in all audiovisual formats (mpg, mp4, avi, wmv, etc.) hosted on johnmccain.com and mirror sites.

The concept is simple; for the next 40 to 50 days, selected members of the McCain/Palin campaign would present the "2008 Campaign News Review" where they would turn a brutally critical eye on the MSM campaign reportage and commentary that went on in the past twenty four hours (and beyond), naming names, issuing forceful corrections/refutations and putting the bias in the limelight; from misleading headlines and ledes to the citing of partisan "experts" posing as disinterested observers, omissions, "careless errors", etc.

At the end, of course, "brought to you by McCain/Palin 2008."

Without spending much more than what it would cost for a set of cameras and teleprompter, a fast internet connection and video/graphics editing software, and, at most, a few additional campaign (if even required) staff, the "Campaign News Review" would be a practical avenue to neutralize Obama and the Democrats' main advantage against McCain and the GOP.

I guarantee that there would be millions of views within hours of the first broadcast being uploaded to YouTube. And no, the Press Corps would not be able to ignore it.

The Washington Post's front pager about Sarah Palin's per diem expenditure for her upkeep as Governor of Alaska demonstrates one of the Left-Wing news media's (especially print media) most disingenuous and corrupt practices - the use of newspaper headlines (and often, ledes) as a sort of push-poll mechanism against political foes.

If any set of people should know the power of words to convey deeper meanings than the mere literal, it is headline writers and the editors that sign off on them. More than anyone else, these people know that the bulk of the public does not do more than glance at the headlines on the front page and if time permits, read the lede paragraph of what they find interesting and shuffle on to the counter, leaving the newspaper still on the rack.

I believe it is with this knowledge that everyone involved with the production of this rather unremarkable article (except for the fact that Palin's expenditures are 20% that of her predecessor's) about a public official's entirely reasonable, legal, above-board and quite frankly frugal public expenditures somehow managed to get it on the Washington Post's front page under this particular headline:
"Palin Billed State for Nights Spent at Home"

One of Jonah Goldberg's readers asks; why wasn't the headline the far less eyebrow raising "Sarah Palin Followed Alaska's Per Diem Policy"?

Simple. Because the former allows the WaPo to strongly imply a breach of ethics on the part of Sarah Palin - the only reason such an article detailing absolutely no such breach or questionable act would earn a spot on the front page. The headline and its placement has no other purpose than to capitalize on the ignorance of the average American voter seeing the headline at the supermarket in favor of the Obama/Biden ticket.

Of course, every single editor and newsroom writer at the WaPo would argue that the headline is entirely accurate and point to the content of the article itself (fair enough in itself) as proof that they had no intention of suggesting that Sarah Palin was collecting money she should not have. They would, of course, claim that they can see no way in which any casual headline browser would see the headline and not automatically assume Sarah Palin was bilking Alaskan taxpayers of the nightly cost of a suite at the Ritz while she was sleeping at her own home.

They would also be lying. It's an old, dirty and malicious trick, they know it and when it comes to politicians they like (or worship - as they certainly do Obama) they're very careful to craft headlines and ledes that don't lead the casual headline skimmer to take away something negative about their subject.

Imagine a newspaper printing a story about a politician with a headline saying "Congressman Slept With Seventeen Year Old High School Student" and right there above the fold, on the front page, is a picture of the 41 year old Congressman side by side with the year book picture of a pretty high school sophomore smiling innocently at the camera.

Imagine, upon reading the article, you discover that the year book photo was from 23 years ago ... meaning that the congressman slept with the 17 year old school girl when he was 18. Would you believe any editor or writer at that newspaper who tries to convince you that there was no malice involved in choosing that particular headline and placing it on the front page - on account of the fact that the headline is literally true?

The scenario may be a bit too stark, but it is the exact same deal here. The only difference is in degree.

Okay ... so the new talking point making the rounds on the Left is that Sarah Palin is afraid of her lack of experience, knowledge, intelligence, accomplishment and basic humanity being exposed by those paragons and arbiters of honesty, courage, strength, fairness and objectivity. As evidence, they are pointing to Palin's absence from the Sunday morning talk shows. What is she (and John McCain) afraid of, they sneer? The Chicago Tribune's Mark Silva (H/T: Don Surber) offers this hopeful possibility for the Obama faithful;

So, maybe putting Sarah Palin out there in public where she has to answer questions from a reporter, as opposed to running circles around a fast-reeling TelePrompTer, isn’t in McCain’s “best interests?'’ Palin, conspicuous by her mere absence: This booking strategy may speak volumes about the McCain campaign’s confidence in the governor from Alaska.

Most of the Democratic Press have already convinced themselves that she is an airheaded lightweight who will collapse and fold like a cheap suit under tough questions designed to test her "knowledge" and "experience." They're so convinced that [H/T: Erick] Jonathan Alter of the strongly Democratic Newsweek [sic] is confident enough to offer us a window into his thoughts of what is likely to happen should Palin make the mistake of coming face to face with er ... "tough-minded" (read: in-the-tank-for-Obama) reporters;

Her lack of experience will only become an issue if it is manifested during the campaign. To decrease the odds of a gaffe, expect her to be carefully shielded from the questions of tough-minded reporters.

I'd imagine that Palin will dodge press conferences in favor of interviews with people like Sean Hannity, Larry King and Ellen DeGeneres. Then, when the media complain that she is being kept away, the McCain campaign will cite the half dozen or so interviews she has granted as proof that the campaign press is just bellyaching. Brief press "avails" on the plane will be useless, unless reporters ask open-ended queries designed to elicit proof of real knowledge.

Let us not be unmindful of the fact that the conventional wisdom in the Fourth Estate is that Sarah Palin has not been properly "vetted" - by them at least - for her ability to serve in the office to which she has been nominated. And as Roger Simon (not Roger L. Simon) of the Politico's more recent attempt at snark reveals, they honestly do believe that airing wild-eyed accusations that she is actually her son's grandmother, that she cheated on her husband, that her husband fathered her last born on their daughter, that she's - at best - a neglectful mother of her children, and that her husband is an alcoholic because of a DUI 22 years ago, is all part of evaluating whether or not she has the "knowledge" and "experience" to serve as Vice-President of the United States.

Note that, unlike Democratic politicians' children, who are free to appear on stage with them, actively campaign with them, and pose on magazine covers with no fear of having their lives gone over with a fine toothcomb and all the warts and bumps discovered put on national television, Republicans' children, according to this leading light at the AP are fair game should they be even mentioned by their parents - talk less of having the audacity of getting on stage with them.

This is not bias though, this is part of the essential vetting process for Sarah Palin's knowledge and experience for the Vice-Presidency.

Anyway, perhaps I digress ...

The real question I want to ask is if the Left (and their media cohort) really wants to go this route ... again? The attacks they launched against Palin before she unsheathed the sword on them and their "Community Organizer" (which makes him kinda like Jesus, you know) a few days ago led to a massive lowering of expectations that has dramatically altered the race's dynamics ... and it definitely wasn't in their favor.

I understand that the official line is that she employed the services of a speechwriter for that speech so the question of her intelligence, knowledge and other essential qualifications (such as whether or not she really is the mother of Trig Palin) remains as yet unanswered.

But ... lowering expectations after what happened on Wednesday just doesn't seem that smart to me. I mean, when you look at her here being interviewed by Maria Bartiromo on CNBC, I think they're in danger of setting, once again, a very low hurdle for her to clear when she's at last face to face with Charles Gibson of ABC.

Oh well ... I guess we'll see. Personally, I'm getting ear-muffs ... actually, scratch that - I think I'll get some popcorn instead. I think I'm actually looking forward to the caterwauling and whining ... 

PS: Found this CSPAN interview (Parts One, Two & Three here) of Sarah Palin from February ... where, I have on good authority, she also used a speechwriter and teleprompter. Yep ... she's obviously so dumb the McCain campaign is keeping her away from reporters so it won't come out. Yep yep yep ....

There are no "revelations" in McClellans book.
He only got a 2 million dollar advance which means that the book isn't going to make that much money for the publishing company which means it was put out solely for political purposes and a lib agenda.
McClellan was never a good press secretary. In fact, he sucked. He let Helen Thomas and David Gregory walk all over him.
Why?
Because he didn't ever really know what was going on. He was asked and encouraged to sit in on meetings but rarely ever did.
So, how in fact is he able to write a tell all when he was never really privy to insider information at the meetings.
If he was privy to anything important, than he's a modern day Judas who was disgruntled with his boss and stabbed him and his colleagues in the back.
Also, McClellan was hated and mocked by the press and now he's praised. Go figya that one out. Again, lib agenda. It only burns when it's burnin for us.
Let us not forget he was fired. Tony Snow replaced him and Snow actually sat in the briefings and meetings and presented issues to the press in a very knowledgeable way.
As the press still brings up Valerie Plame, we must remind liberal idiots everywhere that SHE WAS NOT COVERT!
Plame outed herself when she gave $1,000 three years earlier to the Gore campaign. Wilson also contributed. She listed her CIA "cover" company as her employer in her FEC filing. She said she worked for Brewster Jennings & Associates, a fictitious Boston-based firm designed to provide cover for some CIA operatives and employees. These are public records. She was not a covert CIA operative but a desk jockey at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. Her name was certainly no secret, appearing in Wilson's "Who's Who In America" entry. She was there for a length of time that disqualified her from protection under the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act.. Plame's identity was first disclosed to Russia by a Moscow spy in the mid-1990s.

This book will fizzle out like a bad fart.

If liberals like Keith Olbermental aka "bath tub boy" aka "2 minute Sam" want to learn any "revelations" about Bush and Iraq perhaps they should read the John Loftus Report, listen to FBI agents like George Piro and take a minute to know history.  As they will find that at the lead up to the first showdown with Saddam in 1991, Saddam hid his warplanes in Iran fearing they'd be destroyed by our bombers.  The libs would like to believe that Iran and Iraq hated each other but they forget "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".  The WMD is either in Iran or Syria.

Perhaps the only revelation that McClellan missed was that Bush waited TOO long to invade Iraq???

I never thought in a million years that I would be defending the knuckle-headed woman. However, here I am, once again, defending someone, of whom my political beliefs are a bit similar. Michelle, being a staunch Republican and Conservative, and me a former “Left of Center” type and more of a Libertarian and very much a Constitutionalist.  

In the interest of full disclosure, there are times, when I read what Michelle Malkin writes and I just roll my eyes and think to myself, “My God in Heaven, why do they let that women near a Computer?” However, there are other times, when I would like to whack her upside the head with an aluminum baseball bat, to knock some sense into her head, for some of the things that she has written. But then again, there has been quite a few times, that I would loved to kiss her soundly on the lips and give a nice squeeze on the butt, for some of the good stuff that she has written as well.

Deadly violence and sexual fantasies aside, when I see stuff like this piece in the Boston Globe, I find myself in a position of saying, “Hey, wait a minute here!”

What strikes me about this article is the glaring bias, could it be any clearer that this was written by some idiotic liberal who has a axe to grind with the Conservatives?

I mean, yes, when I read the article on Malkin’s Blog I just laughed and thought, “Well, maybe it is a slow news day, and she is looking for content.” It happens, I as a Blogger have the problem, some days, there just is not much write about in Politics. This is especially painfully true with the Democrats. I mean, can we just chose the candidate and move on please?

Nevertheless, what bothered me about this piece was this little quote here:

Some observers, including ultra-conservative Fox News commentator Michelle Malkin, were so incensed by the ad that there was even talk of a Dunkin’ Donuts boycott.

‘‘The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad,’’ Malkin yowls in her syndicated column.

‘‘Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant and not-so-ignorant fashion designers, celebrities, and left-wing icons.’’

The company at first pooh-poohed the complaints, claiming the black-and-white wrap was not a keffiyeh. But the right-wing drumbeat on the blogosphere continued and by yesterday, Dunkin’ Donuts decided it’d be easier just to yank the ad.

Said the suits in a statement: ‘‘In a recent online ad, Rachael Ray is wearing a black-and-white silk scarf with a paisley design. It was selected by her stylist for the advertising shoot. Absolutely no symbolism was intended. However, given the possibility of misperception, we are no longer using the commercial.’

Yowls? I mean, can you get any more biased than to reduce a woman of great writing skills and awesome Conservative values to a word like “yowls?” This is, by the way, an underhanded way of basically calling Michelle Malkin a crybaby.

I mean, I can understand the idea that some people find Michelle Malkin’s writing a bit screechy at times, but to basically slam her for her Conservative values in a article and disguise it as objective journalism is just pathetic.  As far as I am concerned the editors at the Boston Globe owes Michelle Malkin and people like me, who share her values a big apology, and should terminate the employment of the writer who produced this story.

Cross-Posted @ Political Byline