Our Sick Edwards-Excusing Media

Media Research Center ^ | Aug. 12, '08 | Brent Bozell

[T.L.Sink]

You know there are some in the liberal media who have simply lost touch with reality when they ask with great detachment whether John Edwards will be able to run for office again soon. For months the Enquirer has been trickling out the goods they collected on Edwards having an affair and possibly a love child with campaign aide Rielle Hunter, staking out Edwards in a California hotel - and how he hid in the bathroom to avoid them. Throughout this time, the very same media spread unproven trash on John McCain's alleged relationship with a lobbyist because the source was the allegedly "professional" New York Times. ONLY when everyone was familiar with the Edwards story thanks to the New Media, and Edwards was forced to confess did the networks break their obedient silence. Two days later, NBC anchor Lester Holt asked the apparently unthinkable: "Is Obama touched or tainted by this in any stretch of the imagination?" NBC analyst Chuck Todd was fervent in his reply: "I don't think he is at all, Lester." Holt worried that Republicans might stoop so low as to speak of Edwards: "Is there any stomach for McCain using this, taking some political advantage of this, or will he simply leave this alone as a third rail?" (Translation: we would like to make this an untouchable third rail.) Todd was emphatic once again: "Not at all. McCain had to deal with a Times story their campaign was very upset about. This stuff ends up getting swept under the rug pretty quickly."

[T.L.Sink]

Bozell adds: "But the networks didn't sweep this under the rug. They sat on top of the dirty rug for months while the Enquirer dug out the Edwrd's affair. Even stranger, Todd thinks McCain being slimed by the New York Times should shame him into shutting up, when it didn't provoke any shame within Todd's own profession. This is not the network "news" approach when the scandal shoe is on the other foot. What did Larry Craig's shoe placement in an airport have to do with the national Republican Party? The media treated this story as a bigger scoop than John Edwards cheating on a wife dying of cancer. It was a story that led the news for days and weeks. Here's Matt Lauer on day one: "Can the right wing withstand yet another scandal involving one of its own?"

[TribalPrincess2U]

It’s a liberal thang!

Yes mat liar. Right Wingers can stand a lot these days.

You want to keep count? Hmmmm No? I didn’t think so.
You don’t even want to got there.

[Rudder]

Bozell feigns shock at discovering what he’s known all along: Liberals, viewed by fellow liberals, can do no wrong except lose power.

[TribalPrincess2U]

got = go grrrr

[ripley]

“our sick edwards-excusing media”

obfuscation: to make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand.