The media vs. Howard Dean (Salon Gigglefest About That Evil Conservatively-Biased News Media!)

Salon ^ | January 13, 2004 | Eric Boehlert

[Timesink]

Enjoy the comedy.

[Naspino]

Sheesh. The press is so conservative I find it near impossible to find anything I can stomache to read or watch.

[WinOne4TheGipper]

+So Dean is supposed to be calm, reasonable? Tell that to the guy that stood up in the audience in Iowa the other day.

[Steve_Seattle]

I've been predicting that the media will indeed turn on Dean and eventually rally around Edwards as the most electable Democrat. Look for Edwards to suddenly become big news if he does better than expected in Iowa. And if not in Iowa, then South Carolina. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

[TheGeezer]

Has his anger been so uncontrollable, his campaign miscues so frequent, are his political chances so unlikely as to merit the unrelenting focus on anger, "gaffes" and so-called unelectability that has come to dominate reporting on Dean? [emphasis added]

Ah, Rush was right, yesterday. This is the kind of Deanie sentiment we want to see, a reverse psychology paradigm of plaintive paranoia. I hope that this senior Salon writer, whose verbosity is exceeded only by his Deaniophility, expresses the strength of the Deanie core. We may yet have a Dean nomination, eh?

And this, even against Hilbabeast's description of Dean as "doctor-assisted suicide for the Democratic (sic) Party"...

[Nonstatist]

Dean replied, "The most interesting theory that I've heard so far -- which is nothing more than a theory, it can't be proved -- is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis." For days Dean's 9/11 comments drew little or no press attention

Now, why is that? He's implying Bush might be guilty of treason!...Left to its own devices, the media would give him a pass quite often, is how it sounds to me. This whining about a conservative bias seem ridiculous to me.

[JeeperFreeper]

Thanks for the post. The Dems and liberals have been so used to not being called to task for decades by the mainstream media that being treated to the same scutiny afforded conservatives is making them screech, whine and complain. It's music to my ears. And, to be sure, this scrutiny is causing many of their emotion driven ideas and causes to collapse in front of them. Facts and logic can be such implacable ememies... :)

[js1138]

I've been predicting that the media will indeed turn on Dean and eventually rally around Edwards as the most electable Democrat.

I have to assume this is because no one has heard of him or knows anything about him.

The current crop of Democrats is electable only to the extent that they are unknown.

[Timm]

Dean has the gall to toy with the "theory" that Bush had been warned by Saudi Arabia about 9-11. He says as much in public. It's widely reported. Commentators take Dean to task for this nasty suggestion.

Yes, yes, all true, this article says. But that's just another example of how the Republican media distorts Dean beyond all recognition! Too funny.

[Sergio]

The press hates GWB so much that they will turn on any Democratic frontrunner that they feel cannot beat President Bush.

This of course means that the press is going to turn on any and all Democratic front runners. Meanwhile, I get to watch the long, slow, train wreck that is the Democratic Presidential campaign. Better get some extra popcorn and soda, this is gonna be good.

Best Regards

Sergio

[ken5050]

FYI..last night on Hardball, Matthews just about publicy abandoned any pretense of objectivity he has left..he delivered an impassioned defense of Dean..saying the media was running a "gotcha" campaign...gee..ya think he wants to be the WH press secretary?

[dead]

The former Vermont governor is angry, gaffe-prone and unelectable. How do they know? Republicans, and anonymous Democrats, told them so.

Or maybe they’ve seen him a couple of times on their television.

[Steve_Seattle]

"I have to assume this is because no one has heard of him or knows anything about him."

Ten months before they were elected president, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were unknown to a majority of Americans.

[Steve_Seattle]

The media focus on gaffes because the media are arrogant know-it-alls who like to feel superior to everyone else. But it is hardly true that they have been particularly unkind to Democrats. Just ask Dan Quayle. And doesn't every Bush gaffe also get big press? And even things that aren't gaffes - like the Thanksgiving turkey - they try to make an issue of.

[Eva]

I couldn't get through this article, I got stuck thinking about how the diminutive Dr. Dean left the stage before Gore came on to announce his support for Dean. I was laughing to myself at the thought that if Dean had stood next to Gore, Dean might have looked like a puppet with Gore pulling the strings. It would have made for great political cartoons.

[Historicus]

When the Washington Post introduced readers to Howard Dean in a long Page 1 feature July 6, part of a series of "meet the Democrats" candidate profiles, the paper went for the jugular......
yes, that WA Po is a genuine right wing, knuckle dragging, neanderthal, NRA loving Republican mouthpiece allright.
This guy has got to be kidding.
Is it true that for every vote 'Howard the Coward" Dean recieves the voter gets a free copy of the Koran?

[Izzy Dunne]

Gore gave an interview to CNN in which he artlessly said, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

soon the urban legend about Gore having claimed to invent the sprawling Internet took root in the political landscape.

I missed something - how did we get from direct quote to "urban legend"?
Is this clown parsing the difference between "creating" and "inventing"?

[js1138]

Ten months before they were elected president, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were unknown to a majority of Americans.

I suspect something similar could be said about Kennedy, which means that a democrat's chances of being elected president improve the less people know about them.

[small voice in the wilderness]

We mock and lambaste because we FEAR. Yes, that's right. Dean is obviously a force to be reckoned with, a genious on the political front, and actually 6'5.

We beg you to teach us a tough-love lesson: let Dean be the Democrat nominee.

[SpinyNorman]

Holy Crap!! Reading this rather subjective piece, you would believe that Bush's interactions with the press were all cakewalks!!

The author of this POS forgets the incident where Bush was sandbagged with the names of obscure foreign leaders and asked to idetify them (at least Bush knows that the Soviet Union no longer exists), the way his daughter's behavior has been scrutinized (unlike that of AlBore's son, recently arrested again), the innumerable times that the press has harped on his mispronunciations, the dissection of his record as Texas governor (where he got the majority of the Hispanic vote, in a state where there actually is a minority populatio) etc., etc., while completely ignoring Bush's likeability stats, economic success, war success, anti terrorism successes, etc., etc.

Yup, that big bad VRWC in the press!! That is so laughable, that I pity the author for his political blindness.