Posted on 10/12/2004 10:43:23 AM PDT by NewMediaFan
October 12, 2004 -- CONSERVATIVES are up in arms about the memo written by the chief pol itics producer at ABC News, which leaked out on Friday. They shouldn't be. Mark Halperin's memo is very useful: It reveals as no other document ever has the existence of a deeply ingrained double standard in the way political news is reported in the United States. Simply put, Republicans and conservatives are subject to exacting scrutiny of their actions, while Democrats and liberals are treated with far greater leniency.
You can see this in the memo, when Halperin informs his colleagues, "The current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done." He also says the Bushies are making "stepped up, renewed efforts to win the election by destroying Sen. Kerry at least partly through distortions."
Let's stipulate that some of the Bush attacks on Kerry feature distortions. For example, the president's claim that Kerry is proposing a government-run health-care system is a bit of trickery. Kerry proposes no such thing — though his plans are so unbelievably costly that it's more than fair to argue they would inexorably lead to government rationing of health care. But the president doesn't really argue it. He states it as fact, and if we lived in a universe in which everybody played fair all the time, he wouldn't do that.
But we don't live in that universe. We live in a universe where politicians of both sides make ellisions in their arguments — Sen. Kerry no less than President Bush. On matters ranging from tax policy to the No Child Left Behind Act, Kerry is guilty of precisely the same sorts of distortions.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
A fact made manifest to me in high school during the 1964 election between Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater. Johnson was depicted on TV news and in the press as a "Peace Candidate" and Barry Goldwater as a "War Monger". As president, Johnson escalated Vietnam and Goldwater, as a US Senator, ended the draft.
Nothings changed, AAMOF, it has only gotten worse.
Podhoretz makes a great point.
We should be thanking Halperin for confirming what we already new about the MSM.
Whatever works. Kerry and his liberal pinko clone-masters are avowed enemies of our Constitutional Republic and we will tilt the battlefield in our favor. This is not just another election. This is about the survival of the nation.
Is this the same Halperin as in "Soros and Halperin"?
I'm certainly not up in arms. The memo as the Post writer says, is useful, and an illustration of a bias within the partisan media, that those like Halperin, Brokaw, Jennings and Rather say doesn't exist.
In 1964 they told me that if I voted for Goldwater, there'd be riots in the cities and we'd have half a million troops in VietNam. They were right. I voted for Goldwater and we had riots in the cities and half a million troops in VietNam. (OK, I was 14, but I did live in NYC.)
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