I was betwixt and between right and left at that time. Bush 41's nomination of Clarence Thomas and Thomas' subsequent vilification was my first major experience seeing the way black people who weren't Democrats weren't really thought of having earned the right to call themselves black. Leon Higginbotham acted as though the late Thurgood Marshall's slot on the court was his birthright, and Cornel West said that he wanted a black man to replace Marshall, but not "the wrong black man." That made me think.
Weeks earlier, I had read a Jack Anderson column in which he said that the National Organization for Women had hired staffers to call everyone that had ever worked with Thomas, digging for something to "Bork" him with. I took it with a grain of salt, but between the Friday that was supposed to be the last day of the Senate hearings on Thomas and his vote the following week, Anita Hill was dragged kicking and screaming into the open by Nina Totenberg and Cokie Roberts (then working for NPR).
The way that the news coverage painted Thomas as guilty until proven innocent disgusted me. Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, and Howard Metzenbaum were treated as heroes, while John Danforth and Orrin Hatch were portrayed at grasping for straws to protect Thomas. For NBC News, Tom Brokaw actually had Catherine MacKinnon beside him as a expert commentator. She believed Anita Hill, and made no attempt to be objective.
By the way, while everyone was hot and bothered about Thomas, Antonin Scalia, every modern liberal's least favorite Supreme, just barely squeaked through the confirmation process with a UNANIMOUS vote. You don't hear many of those tenured Demos remind you that they voted to confirm Scalia, do you?
The dim candidates make exaggerated claims and statements because they know the MSM is not going to call them on it. The MSM distorts the News not by what they say but by what the OMIT.
Iraq is a classic example.
Our soldiers, aside from security, are working like dogs helping to rebuild the infrastructure in Iraq.
There are literally hundreds if not thousands of stories of our soldiers building water plants, sewage plants, electric power, pipelines, passing out food, rebuilding homes, and on and on.
I have not seen one, not one, 'good' story from the MSM.
Oh yes, Howard Metzenbaum, now that's a blast from the past. I remember seeing him on TV in a gun-rights debate years ago. I forget who was debating against him, but he lost it, went into a jumping-up-and-down, red-faced rage, about private citizens owning firearms. That guy was a full-blown Communist.