Bush Responsible for Flu Season, Kills Superman (Rachel Marsden)

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, October 27/04 -- Unlike Election 2000 between George “W” Bush and Al “I Invented The Letter W” Gore, I predict that the race between Bush and John Kerry is not going to end in a photo-finish. This time, I don’t believe that the fate of the nation and the free world will be decided by a handful of senile, incontinent old geezers wheeled out from under a pile of mothballs in some Fort Lauderdale retirement home and straight into the polling booth. Nevertheless, desperate times lead to desperate measures, and in the last stretch of this marathon race, the
‘spinsanity’ has kicked into overdrive.

The battle between conservatism and liberalism can be summed up as one of fact vs. rhetoric. It’s why former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, once said: “If you are not a liberal at age 20, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative at age 40, you have no brain.” Kerry campaign tactics being used in the waning days of this election perfectly illustrate this sentiment as he trots out every no-brain Hollywood celebrity with a pulse. How can facts ever compete with hysterics like:

“If you want rape to be legal, then don’t vote.” (Cameron Diaz);

“And the rich, corporate, horrible, horrible people who have been destructing and ruining everything this country was made on has been really unbelievably damaging to all of us spiritually, emotionally, monetarily.” (Rosie O’Donnell, who has suffered a net gain of millions under Bush’s Evil Empire)

“All the gay guys, all my friends, all my gay friends, you guys you have got to vote, alright? Because it would only be a matter of time before you guys would be so screwed, I cannot tell you. Because, you know, the people, like, in the very right wing of this party, of these Republicans, the very very right wing, the Jerry Falwell element, if they get any more power, you guys are going to be living in some state by yourselves.” (Cher, looking out for Mary Cheney)

Kerry campaign mascot, Ben Affleck, has figured prominently in Kerry’s final days, as has Bruce Springsteen and Sharon Stone, who blamed President Bush back in August for creating a climate in which she wasn’t given the green light for a lesbian love scene with Halle Berry in the
movie “Catwoman.”

When you turn to the Screen Actors Guild directory, and you roll Bill Clinton -- America’s first ‘black’ President -- off his gurney in the cardiac rehab ward to go stumping for you amongst the bruthas and sistas, you’ve pretty much acknowledged that your campaign can’t possibly count on
using mere facts to win.

The Kerry strategy now seems to consist of nothing more than churning out as much slime and bald-faced lies as it can, while praying that the public will be stupid enough to allow some of it to stick. A New York Times story came out this week suggesting that 380 tons of deadly explosives in Iraq disappeared under Bush’s watch. Reports differ as to whether the weapons went missing before or after the US invasion. This isn’t really the issue. In any case, their disappearance proves once and for all that Saddam Hussein had deadly weapons, that they were mobile, and that they could have been passed off to terrorists at any time. All this shows is that Bush was right in having gone in and removed Hussein from power, and that the world is now a much safer place.

John Kerry is making the weapons issue the focus of an ad blitz this week. According to Kerry logic, people are now supposed to be scared to death of the weapons that Saddam apparently never had, and which Bush then failed
to secure when he went in after these non-existent weapons. What are the odds that this guy can send a strong message to terrorists when he even has difficulty sending a strong, consistent message from one side of his brain to the other?

And right on cue, actress/singer/liberal shill Barbra Streisand sticks her nose into the issue. Despite the fact that the missing weapons issue proves Bush’s point about WMDs in Iraq, that hasn’t stopped Babs from SCREAMING on her website, in BIG BOLD LETTERS: “BUSH FAILED TO SECURE NEARLY 400 TONS OF KNOWN, DEADLY EXPLOSIVES IN IRAQ, AND NOW THEY MAY FALL INTO THE WRONG HANDS TO BE USED TO BLOW UP AIRPLANES, LEVEL BUILDINGS AND DETONATE NUCLEAR WEAPONS.”

None of this makes any sense coming from someone who keeps harping on about Bush’s “imaginary weapons of mass destruction”, but WHO CARES! LOOK AT ME! I CAN SING AND ACT! I CAN MAKE MY BOOBS DISAPPEAR IN THE MOVIE YENTIL, BUT I CAN’T PUT TOGETHER A LOGICAL ARGUMENT TO SAVE MY LIFE!

As a political pundit, I would have enjoyed witnessing a battle of rational ideas between Bush and Kerry. By no means has Bush done everything perfectly over the past four years. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I personally disagree with him on issues ranging from certain provisions of the Patriot Act to his policy on illegal immigration. Kerry,
however, has neglected to capitalize on Bush’s biggest weaknesses and, with his changing priorities and inconsistent messaging, has failed to make himself into anything more than an ankle-biter to Bush’s big dog. Kerry’s campaign is to blame, but the buck stops with the candidate. If Kerry can’t even run his own campaign, then he can’t realistically be expected to manage an entire country and the rest of the free world in a time of war.

Yes, Superman died, and people are getting the flu. In a rational, non-politically charged climate, these things wouldn’t normally be blamed on a sitting President. Kerry has one last hope this week to defeat fact and logic with outright lies about Bush. As he runs around the country in
this last week armed with everything from a gun to a dead goose, pandering to everyone in sight, it becomes obvious that his only hope lies in the ability of voters to assimilate toxic levels of BS. In the final analysis, the people will get exactly the President they deserve.

Rachel Marsden (rachelmarsden.com) is a public affairs and communications strategist, columnist and talk show host who has worked in politics and media in the United States and Canada.

Media Bias: Rather Unsurprising

Rachel Marsden

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- It has been tedious watching the mainstream media engage in self-flagellation ever since CBS News anchor Dan Rather was caught potentially trying to affect the outcome of a Presidential election by airing unverified, dummied-up documents suggesting that President Bush didn’t fulfill his military service obligations as a fighter pilot in the National Guard. “Why did he do it?

Did he mean it? What does this mean for the future of journalism? What does it mean for the future of Dan Rather, Giant of Journalism™?” Pardon me while I roll over and go back to sleep, and pray that when I waken, the channel will have changed to something less coma-inducing--like Donald Trump giving that cobra-strike “you’re fired” gesture to some flunky on “The Apprentice”. At least this sort of entertainment is more honest.

Newsflash: the media is biased, has always been biased, and will continue to be biased long after Dan Rather gets his white-knuckle death grip pried off the anchor desk at CBS. This isn’t a new phenomenon to anyone who works in the media; they just want you to think it is. Right now, they’d have you believe that this is as much of a horrific revelation to them as it is to you--because the idea of incompetents like Dan Rather potentially getting fired sells big-time, and they’re going to milk it for all its worth. Just ask Donald Trump, whose top-rated show is all about firing people. In fact, if Trump could can Dan Rather live in primetime, it would be ratings gold. CBS would probably put it on pay-per-view. I’d watch, you’d watch, half the world would watch, and then we’d all go out and ‘ask our doctor’ about that cool new mystery pill with all the x’s and z’s in its name that was featured in a $2-million, 30-second spot during the commercial break. That’s what the media biz is all about.

In 2001, Dan Rather campaigned for the Democrats at a Texas rally a little more overtly than he does on the nightly news. He raised $20,000 for the party in the process. In an interview on CNN’s Larry King Live in 2002, Andy Rooney said of his CBS colleague, “I think Dan is transparently liberal. Now he may not like to hear me say that. I always agree with him, too. But I think he should be more careful.” Yes, Dan Rather pulls further left than Ted Kennedy on a Sunday drive date in Chappaquiddick, but he’s hardly alone. When the new interim Iraqi Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, comes to America and dresses down the press for its biased reporting on the situation in his country, it ought to be more than a little telling.

This is a guy who knows propaganda when he sees it.

Earlier this year, a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that five times more journalists at national outlets self-identify as liberal (34%) than conservative (7%). This, in and of itself, is hardly newsworthy. What speaks volumes is the fact that of the media people surveyed, 69% readily labeled the Fox News Channel a ‘conservative’ network, but most were hard-pressed to name one they would consider ‘liberal’. It just goes to show how much blatant liberalism has permeated the mainstream, under the guise of objective journalism. Dan Rather, who regularly passes off political editorial commentary as objective news delivery, is only symptomatic of a much larger mess.

The problem isn’t the commentators on Fox News, who are largely responsible for giving the network its right-leaning reputation. Those guys don’t have any pretense about who they are and what they think.

They’re hired to do commentary, and yes, the vast majority of Fox News commentators are conservatives. And if Dan Rather was on CBS doing an opinion program and stumping for the Democrats every night, that would be fine, too. At least he wouldn’t be trying to dress it up as objectivity.

But news-reading meat-puppets like Dan Rather are boring, so everyone pays attention to the hotrods like Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly firing on all five cylinders over at Fox. Heated, on-air battles over political ideas are fun, and it’s why Fox gets the great ratings that it does. But it seems that in recognizing the fact that exciting editorialization is usually biased, people have also come to associate boredom with objectivity. It doesn’t work that way.

CNN is, by and large, a giant snoozefest -- except when James Carville and Tucker Carlson are going at each other like little old ladies over day-old bread -- but the network is hardly objective. Witness a CNN website headline that came out on September 28, 2004, in relation to a poll that found President Bush to be leading Democratic opponent John Kerry among likely voters by 52% to 44%: “Bush apparently leads Kerry in pre-debate poll”. Given that the poll was ordered up by CNN in the first place, maybe they should fire their own pollster, since his results ‘apparently’ don’t fit what they really want to say. Note that on April 27, 2004, when Kerry led Bush by the exact same margin in another CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, CNN had no trouble declaring: “Kerry leads Bush in new poll.” CNN is also quick to report every single pro-Kerry bowel movement: “Kerry leads among minority voters” (July 6, 2004), “Kerry takes the lead” (April 12, 2004), and “Kerry leads Bush among students” (April 16, 2004). I bet Kerry is leading Bush among Star Trek loving, bong-toking basement dwellers, too.

Hey, CNN, why can’t we get a headline for that?

So quit whining about media bias. No matter where you’re getting it from, your news is unfair and unbalanced, okay? And so are the people who are feeding it to you. Deal with it. If you really want open and honest news, all journalists should have to include their political affiliation in their byline, like this:

Brit Hume
Conservative

Katie Couric
Liberal

Or in the case of a journalist who has convinced himself that he truly is the last bastion of objectivity and journalistic integrity:

Dan Rather
Liar

Having worked in politics and journalism in Washington, DC, New York City, and her native Canada, Rachel Marsden brings the Washington insider perspective to Canadians and the Canadian perspective to Americans.

Rachel writes regularly for United Press International (UPI), Debate USA, and Political USA. Her work also appears regularly in various print publications around the world (such as the Washington Times and Insight on the News Magazine).

A public relations and public affairs strategist, Rachel currently runs a strategic communications company. She has served as a Director of a Washington, DC-based political think-tank, has worked in network news in New York City, and in nationally-syndicated radio in DC. She is the host of "The Rachel Marsden Show"--a weekly public affairs radio program. Rachel is sought-after political commentator, guest, and guest-host for TV and radio programs. She has also recorded audio commentaries that have run on network radio in the USA.

Rachel holds a Bachelor Degree in Biosciences and French from her native Canada, where she also trained formally as a broadcast journalist before heading south to begin her formal political training. She is currently pursuing a Masters Degree in National Security Studies.

Visit Rachel's official website at www.rachelmarsden.com.

Lando

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