Watch it here
Posted on 02/01/2006 7:43:42 PM PST by Aussie Dasher
While CBS News coverage of the State of the Union speech showcased the bombast of New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, the ABC News coverage was the most hostile to Bush and conservative policies with its analysis delivered through a liberal prism. Anchor Elizabeth Vargas began the evening by emphasizing Bush's low approval rating fueled by "an inept response to Hurricane Katrina, and the indictment of a high ranking White House official and, of course, growing dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq." She resurrected Watergate as she highlighted how Bush's 42 percent approval level "is the worst for a President entering his sixth year in office since Watergate hammered Richard Nixon." Charles Gibson noted that Bush "tries to unite," but then painted Democrats as victims of Bush deceit as he stumbled through an adage which many have mocked Bush for once messing up: "A lot of Democrats feel this has not been a uniting President. They have gone down that road before trying to work with the President, and of course the old expression is, ah, 'Fool me once, ah, shame on you. Fool me more than once, fool me twice or ten times, shame on me.'"
Following the speech, Vargas noted how Bush had offered an "olive branch" to Democrats. That prompted Gibson to again suggest that Bush is more to blame for partisan fighting: "Yes, he did. And you wonder if he had done this four years ago, five years ago, if indeed there might have been greater comity in the city of Washington, greater cooperation in the city than there has been so far through the Bush presidency." Gibson also relayed the odd analysis, from ABC's political team, that of 62 paragraphs in the speech, "48 could have been given verbatim by President Bill Clinton." Dr. Tim Johnson, a "single-payer" advocate, complained that on health care Bush "was just...tinkering with the system that is basically broken."
Of the broadcast networks, ABC uniquely highlighted the Spanish language Democratic response from LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Vargas relayed how he "blamed the Bush administration's, quote, 'reckless policies for increasing the national debt, the number of uninsured Americans, including 39 percent of Latinos, and the number of failing students and the ranks of the poor.'" As if one Democratic response were not enough.
The MSM is still working toward Watergate II, because they believe that will open the American public's opinion up to a favorable Impeachment.
ABC is going to be quite pissed some time at the president because of that IED blast.
Which is a big freeking wake up call for the US military. When an Anchor or a well known talking head/media personality, you need to protect that person as if he or she were a five star general.
Zarqawi has been ruthlessly targeting reporters knowing that killing one of them is worth killing 50 US troops.
You're kidding me! Who knew?
ABC attempts to disparage & smear President Bush with their slanted coverage after the SOTU address.... but we're supposed to feel sympathy & sorrow for Woodruff & Vogt, who were likely planning on broadcasting an anti-Bush Iraq news story either just prior to or following the SOTU address. Sorry I don't feel anything for these liberal left-wingers!
Since I don't along with most people watch MSM news, I hear it more from Laura, Rush, Hanny, etc then if they did not cover it then, no one would hear it but because of radio, these tv folks get all the attention.
As if anyone cares what Elizabeth Vargas has to say !
...is anyone surprised by this???
Bull, did you see Woodruff's first two reports from Iraq when he got there, especially the one in the Iraqi ice cream store? They were quite positive.
They might be still up on ABCNews.com and they were quite good.
If that is the case, then we need to keep these reporters out of there. Our troops are busy enough with their own work than having to play babysitter to some dang wanna be Pulitzer prize hopeful.
Watch it here
There is a video circulating on the web that is allegedly of Woodruff's attack. Impossible to say, but I'm sure it is being analyzed. Pray for the men, it is not child's play to report from Iraq, no matter what our feelings are on embedded journalists.
Then they should STFU!
Carried unanimously!
What ABC needs to worry about...is when Woodruff comes out of the hospital...he will be more positive than ever about our troops and the mission. I expect that they will have to terminate him by the end of this year.
Vargas is fairly new to political reporting and had her very first invite to the annual Whitehouse SOTU Luncheon -- I heard the President was very nice to her and showed her around...
Democrats appear to be concerned with a scenario in which an innocent person in the Middle East calls his friend in the United States, and that call is inadvertently monitored by the government. Republicans appear to be concerned with a scenario in which a terrorist in the Middle East calls his contact in the United States, and that call is not monitored by the government.
In a perfect world (the fantasy world in which liberals dwell), only guilty people will be monitored. In th real world, where our President and other adults dwell, we recognize that mistakes will be made, but that monitoring the communications of innocent people is a lot less problematic than NOT moniotoring the communications of the guilty.
So, it wasn't just me.
I don't watch the lunatic news of CBS/NBC/ABC any longer. And no, I don't think anything is quite good from ABC. Their track record says otherwise. Woodruff did a complete whitewash newscast about North Korea. Apparently the North Korean people are happy, fulfilled, contented and angry only the bad insensitve U.S. Of course the fact that most of their population is starving to death was overlooked or unreported by Woodruff.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.