Posted on 09/27/2004 8:09:56 AM PDT by FlyLow
Longtime National Public Radio legal-affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg put on her campaign reporter's hat last week, filing profiles of vice president Dick Cheney and Democratic VP nominee John Edwards for NPR's Morning Edition.
Totenberg's liberal leanings are well known to NPR listeners, viewers of the political chat show Inside Washington, and, for that matter, readers of the MRC's publications, so no one in any of those groups should be surprised that she treated Edwards more favorably than she treated Cheney.
[Tom Johnson, who monitors NPR for the MRC, filed this item by CyberAlert.]
The Edwards piece, which aired last Monday, September 20, played up the routing of the North Carolinian's campaign through relatively small, downscale towns, locales in which, Totenberg hinted, Edwards' "populist message" may fall on receptive ears: "These are often places of quiet desperation, where the unemployment rate can run as high as 14.8 percent...In many places, basic services have been cut beyond the bone." She described the candidate's typical entrance in terms first merely upbeat and then semi-erotic: "The eternally sunny, youthful-looking Edwards bounces off the bus...He wades into the crowds, touching, grasping, hugging, and kissing."
Later, Totenberg remarked, "Although Edwards blasts Bush daily, he still seems unable to demonstrate the nasty streak that is the traditional stock-in-trade of vice presidential candidates." (Republicans, however, have no such inability: "Back in Washington, the GOP is not hesitating to take a sledgehammer to Edwards and his occupation as a trial lawyer.") She closed enthusiastically: "Win or lose, though, there's no doubt that Edwards plans to be back again in a future campaign, and not as number two."
By contrast, Totenberg's Cheney profile, which aired this past Thursday, began: "In this campaign, Dick Cheney is the hit man whose task is to discredit the Democratic presidential candidate. It's an assignment he's carried out with a monotoned zeal." Totenberg referred to "seemingly orchestrated" responses from Cheney's audiences (e.g., the "flip-flop" chant) and mis- characterized the Vice President's "the danger is that we'll be hit" comment regarding John Kerry. In her account, Cheney "even suggested that if Kerry wins, the country will be attacked," a paraphrase to which she added: "Within days, Cheney backpedaled on the statement, but in truth it's only marginally more harsh than what he says every day."
Much of the report's second half dwelled on the standard anti-Cheney talking points: his penchant for secrecy, his missteps on Iraq, his involvement with Halliburton, his confrontation with Senator Patrick Leahy. Toward the end, Totenberg returned to her Cheney-as-hit-man theme, stating that he "stays on the attack on social issues, too. He's a cheerleader against gun control, against abortion."
Tell it to the doctors he's sued.
Yeah, that's one way to put it.
Two threads on NPR's "Swing Voter" and how he was outed as a Kerry campaign donor.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1226282/posts?page=1
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1219157/posts?q=1&&page=1#1
NPR. Talk about your liberal media enabler.
NPR is the reason I volunteered to work for my local GOP. They made me so angry with their bias. I have lost count of the people I have helped register this year.
Cheney will murder Edwards in the debate. I am going to relish the bloodbath.
Regards, Ivan
NPR is so biased, yet they have no clue how transparent they are. Nina T really thinks she is reporting in a nuetral tone. If they would just come out and admit, "yes we want Kerry to win" i would respect that so much more. This is why Talk Radio has such a huge audience. We know where these people stand, they don't try to hid it behind the veil of so called journalism.
My liberal daughter no longer listens to NPR in the car. She has no quarrel with their politics, but she finds the new NPR stupid and BORING. No good music, no funny talent. Nothing but snide talking heads and whiners.
In Totenberg's case, it was Clarence Thomas she tried to "bring down."
"NPR Delivers Glowing Look at Edwards, Critical Take on Cheney"
Media Research Center
Well, I'll be damned!
Good going. I'm seeing more Bush/Cheney yard signs and hope we can stay above voter fraud. That's the only way the two johns are going to win this.
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