Chapter Two Of The Greatest Electoral Fraud In History

Most view the mainstream media and its biased, dishonest and fraudulent reporting almost as a side issue in the grand picture of things. I view it as perhaps the central issue of our time, as the mainstream media is so distorting the political world and so deceiving the public that it is actually in the process of destroying our democratic institutions. It is instrumental in America making the wrong decisions such as on how to wage the war on terror. First, the mainstream media committed the greatest electoral fraud in history by selling one of the most unqualified, inexperienced and unvetted candidates in history. Second, they are now in the process of selling his administration, giving him the same pass he got during the campaign. This means not only our election but also our functioning democracy is to be controlled in a large and dangerous measure by the Obama propaganda of the mainstream media.

Few are willing to admit how dangerous the mainstream media has become and the role it played in the election and is now likely to play in the functioning of government. One thing you can count on when it comes to the deranged Al Gore - he always gets it wrong. His latest pitch says that the same Internet revolution that elected Sen. Barack Obama can now also save the world from global warming. He's wrong on both counts - the Internet revolution wasn't responsible for electing Mr. Obama and we have to be saved from Mr. Gore and his wacky, loony, left-wing theories and remedies. which will set back both our economy and our environment. But the theme of this column is what elected Mr. Obama and what that means now, and not on Mr. Gore's deranged theories and proposals.

In my view, the Internet revolution did not elect Mr. Obama. The bias, dishonest and fraudulent reporting and editorializing of the mainstream media elected Mr. Obama. And if that's not bad enough, there is accumulating evidence that the same mainstream media that pulled the greatest electoral fraud in history, by selling an unvetted, untested, unproven, inexperienced candidate, is now going to continue the fraud by selling his administration by the same kind of dishonest journalism.

So I was glad to see that an expert on media bias got it exactly right. Brent Bozell III, founder and president of the largest media watchdog in America, the Media Research Center, wrote an article titled, "Media Defeats McCain?" Mr. Bozell notes that Mr. Obama's election was certainly historic, but that his election led to more history: "An Obama-smitten news media that completely avoided their responsibility to test the nominee with hard questions ... Obama faced none of the withering scrutiny applied to even the Republican vice presidential candidate. Instead, he was treated to a nearly constant string of encomiums and tributes to his transformational candidacy, while nearly every possible pitfall of political embarrassment or inconvenience has been omitted or dismissed."

Mr. Bozell gives examples of how the mainstream media continued to be in the tank for Mr. Obama, right up to the time of the election. The CBS anchor, Katie Couric, set the tone in her last pre-election interview of Mr. Obama. Mr. Bozell writes, "CBS anchor Katie Couric, last seen ripping into Palin, also used her last pre-election interview to ask about Obama's personal feelings, about whether he was a 'nervous wreck' about the vote, and 'if things go your way on Tuesday and you become this nation's first African-American president, what will that mean to you personally?'

"Couric was tough during that interview - but on the Republicans. She focused Obama on Republicans daring to press the Rev. Wright issue: 'The Pennsylvania Republican Party is starting to run an ad in that state which features your former minister, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, saying quote, 'God damn America.' Do you think they would have run that ad without the approval of the McCain campaign?"

What's so striking about that example and the typical approach of the mainstream media is that the bias, the fraud, the dishonesty of the reporting is so blatant you would think there would be shame. You would think that Ms. Couric would know her hammering of Mrs. Palin was fully reported on and she would make some small move to look like she was fair and balanced. Instead, she made it obvious to the world that she is not a journalist, but a third-rate lapdog, lackey and bootlicker of Mr. Obama. She also made it obvious that the once proud Tiffany Network, the CBS of Edward R. Murrow, is now in the journalistic garbage can, with garbage collectors posing as reporters.

I realized that Mr. Bozell was not only right on target, but that the tributes and encomiums continue even after the election. This column was inspired as I read the Sunday newspapers, and found almost pure encomiums and tributes for Mr. Obama and hardly a sentence on whether his pronouncements and policies make any sense. I had thought now that the people of the mainstream media had successfully elected Mr. Obama, they would take a step back and finally start to pretend they were journalists. I was wrong. It looks like we're going into a four-year celebration of Mr. Obama's election, with no room and no time to analyze his programs. Even after the election, as I read newspapers like the New York Times and Philadelphia Inquirer, I found the same dishonest Obama propaganda they had run all during the election season along with the continuing tributes of Mr. Obama as an FDR, a Lincoln, and perhaps even a Messiah.

Take the Philadelphia Inquirer, which can always be counted on to provide a steady flow of Obama propaganda also spiced with a lack of sound reasoning that perhaps led people like radio host Michael Savage to label liberalism as a mental disorder. When it comes to Obama bias in the Inquirer, you don't have to go beyond the front-page headline: "Next: Test of Obama as a leader: Calm and disciplined, he ran a tight, message-control campaign. The White House is more stress" (Sunday, Nov. 9, 2008). Notice the Inquirer is selling Mr. Obama right away even in the headline, telling us about his great campaign.

Then in the reporter's lead, he proceeds to declare a criticism of Mr. Obama as "absurd." Of course, to the Obama propagandists at the Inquirer, all criticism of Mr. Obama is absurd and off base. He notes at the Republican convention, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said, "Barack Obama has never led anything, nothing! Nada! Nada! Nothing." Then he notes that in retrospect that is absurd as Mr. Obama led a massive campaign, raised $700 million, and persuaded "more than 65 million people to vote [for] a man - the first-term Democratic senator from Illinois who had never led anything else."

This is the first time an unqualified and incompetent candidate was retroactively declared a great leader by virtue of his campaign. It turns out that what the Inquirer called "absurd in retrospect" was not absurd at all. He had never led anything else. The Inquirer's logic suggests that, if you win, you don't need any resume, experience or qualifications. The fact that you won automatically makes you a great leader, in the near-blind eyes of the Inquirer.

The Inquirer then proceeds to gush forth praise of Mr. Obama, his campaign, and his leadership style, without raising any real criticism or question about his leadership. The only hints of criticism are couched as praise: "Obama doesn't tend to commit many unforced errors. Those that he has committed - including his comment in April about bitter small-town Pennsylvanians who cling to their guns and religion - stand out for that reason."

That shows you how the Inquirer is so deep in the tank for Mr. Obama that they try to paint him as perfection and Messiah, and don't even think straight in the process. He made few unforced errors, because he rarely got away from his scripts, his handlers and his teleprompters. He seems to have made few unforced errors as they were covered up by the media. But those unforced errors he made reveal a leader without good judgment and a leader without enough experience. The unforced errors he made standout not because they are rare; they stand out because they are so outrageous that you have to wonder how he could be taken seriously. How could any first-rate leader say Iran is a tiny country and not a threat? How could any first-rate leader tell a small country, subjected by invasion and aggression from Russia, that it should exercise restraint? And yes, how could any leader that understands and appreciates America tell hard-working patriotic Pennsylvanians that they are clinging to their guns and Bibles and somehow hate strangers?

And how could anyone who is supposedly in the habit of telling the truth, claim that he was in Rev. Wright's church for 20 years and never realized what Rev. Wright was about? And how could anyone who supposedly believes in a free-market democratic, capitalist economy say it's a good idea to spread the wealth around? How could any American leader view an American flag on someone's lapel as a symbol of false patriotism? Only a false patriot.

And when the Inquirer is pushing the perfect campaign as proof of leadership on Mr. Obama's part, it fails to point out that there are serious questions about the legality of the contributions, as that perfect campaign fixed its Web site to facilitate fraud by making it easy to go over campaign limits, by making it easy for non-citizens to make illegal contributions, by making it easy to make anonymous contributions, and by making it impossible to check on the legality of tens of millions of dollars of the contributions.

And this campaign that proves Mr. Obama is the Inquirer's Messiah also involved Storm Trooper tactics in trying to silence criticism, as this column has previously documented. It included encouraging St. Louis prosecutors to threaten Obama critics with criminal prosecution. It included calls for government bodies to investigate Obama critics and also to pull the government licenses of critics. It included Obama campaign working to silence critics scheduled to appear on a Chicago radio station by flooding the station with calls and protests (while at the same time declining to appear with the critics to answer their charges). And it included the well-established and documented association of the campaign and of Mr. Obama himself with ACORN, father of all voter fraud and registration fraud.

There are some other things to note about this bias and intellectual garbage from the Inquirer. They made it the most important story of the week, as it is on the right side of the front-page (facing it) and it is supposed to be their most important story of the week as it is in the Sunday edition. Yet it tells you almost nothing you don't know and very little that is worth knowing. It analyzes leadership simply as winning, as managing, without regard to what leadership of America and the free world means. The Inquirer has nothing to say about the values of the leader or the vision of the leader. Newt Gingrich, in his book Real Change, starts his analysis of leadership by asking, "What do you value?" And then asks, "What vision of success do you have for achieving what you value?" And he goes on from there. The Inquirer, and much of the mainstream media, in analyzing Obama leadership, make the same mistake ignoring values and vision and focusing on campaign strategy and electoral success, what is called horse-race coverage. They would tell you Lincoln won two elections, and how he did it, but would not tell you what Lincoln valued or what he envisioned for America.

To further test the media, I did what I usually avoid, and that's watch the news magazine "60 Minutes" (Nov. 9, 2008). It managed an exclusive interview with all the key players in the Obama campaign, to tell the public how Mr. Obama succeeded. I thought I'd hear some tough questions asked. Instead, the reporter asked such softball questions that he made Larry King, king of softball questions, look like a tiger. But as we heard all about the campaign from the insiders, something struck me. They never mentioned any of the real values or visions or objectives of Mr. Obama. It was all the same fluff we heard daily for almost two years - Mr. Obama wants change and he wants to get things done. The "60 Minutes" reporter gobbled up the fluff as if it were a great revelation brought about by tough investigative journalism.

When there were ideal openings for important follow-up questions, the "60 Minutes" reporter passed. For example, the Obama insiders at first said that race was never even considered or discussed. Why didn't "60 Minutes" ask, "Then why did Obama play the race card?" (He said that the Republicans are going to tell you I have a funny name, don't look like the other presidents, and that, by the way, I am black. That of course was a false charge). Why didn't the reporter go beyond the meaningless generalities that Mr. Obama focused on and try to extract a molecule or two of the missing specificity. I can only conclude that like the rest of the mainstream media, "60 Minutes" wasn't interested and did not investigate Mr. Obama, they merely campaigned for him, and decided to continue to do so even after the election. The "60 Minutes" report on Mr. Obama was a disgrace to the "60 Minutes," to CBS and to journalism. There's a reason "60 Minutes," newspapers like the Inquirer, and the mainstream media focus on the campaign and avoid the candidate's values, positions, record, history and associations.

There is a reason "60 Minutes," the Inquirer and the mainstream media are pathetically superficial. There is a reason "60 Minutes," the Inquirer and the mainstream media emphasize such things as that Mr. Obama was "calm and disciplined ... ran a tight, message controlled campaign." The reason is that "60 Minutes," the Inquirer, like the rest of the mainstream media, never looked seriously at Mr. Obama's record, his associates, his voting positions, his values, and his vision. They never dug into those issues, and simply sold him on the most superficial basis possible. He sounded good, and made pretty speeches (lacking in substance). They are as foolhardy as Mr. Obama by accepting his words that we're going to get there ... but we don't know where he is taking us. There will be change ... but we don't know what kind of change. There will be hope ... but we don't know what we're supposed to hope for.

I'll make some suggestions about what we ought to hope for. We ought to hope that the public stops reading and viewing such journalistic disgraces as CBS, its "60 Minutes" and the Philadelphia Inquirer. I would suggest the change is that the public ought to look to the alternative media and other sources of more fair and balanced reporting. And I'll tell you where we ought to be going. We ought to be going to groups, publications, and organizations that are going to do something to end the reign of the biased, dishonest and fraudulent mainstream media, and to sources of fair and balanced reporting that will enable us to properly analyze the president-elect, his agenda and his proposal.

Based on available evidence, he is going to offer up the discredited Democratic Party line of higher taxes, bigger government, more regulation, more centralization of governmental power, weaker national defense, weaker national security, a pro-appeasement foreign policy, and decline and disaster for the greatest nation in the history of the world. We bought Mr. Obama and now we must move urgently to minimize the damage his administration will inflict.

Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner, Pennsylvania Public Utility Commissioner, and professor at the Wharton School. He is a longtime Philadelphia journalist and consumer advocate. He is also a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of the Sciences. His column appears daily in The Bulletin. You can reach him at advocate@thebulletin.us.

It is tedious, a twice-told tale.
I subscribed to the AIM Report back during the Carter Administration, but let my subscription lapse because I was convinced. All each issue was was one more example of media bias piled on an already heaping pile. At some point the only thing that matters is not whether by why - and what can be done about it?
And you are familiar with my vanity post, The Right to Know, which is the result to date of my examination of those questions.

I wonder if Obama will be as generous as the clintons in feting his friends?”

I don’t think Muslims party alot, and since they abhor alcohol, the MSM will not be very inclined to go where they cannot indulge in fine food and lots of drinks.

But- they did drink the Kool Aid for almost 2 years of the campaign, so maybe Kool Aid will be the drink of choice at NObama fetes.

the Internet revolution wasn't responsible for electing Mr. Obama

Well it sure played a part...

I signed up for both campaigns. The daily emails from Dem candidates were energising and exciting. McCains emails were pessimistic and angry.

Two emails from Oct 29:

Sarah was absolutely right. Obama does not see America as she and the honorable people of America see their country. While Sarah and her supporters’ reverence for their country is seen as naive and inviolable, Obama and his supporters see America as flawed, its masses stupid and its agenda worthy of any distortion, lie, fraud, or ruthless and authoritarian exercise of power. Unfortunately ruthlessless beats naivety every time.

Frightening to see happening but no shock to any conservative who saw the events firsthand. We all know how outrageous and dangerous Obama and the DemocRATs are but now we must act! We must keep up with the legislative bodies in DC, too much is accomplished with hidden agendas and votes. It is up to us to see which laws are being proposed and covered up by the leftists, we expose them, we fight against them with e-mails, mass protestation in the form of phone calls, this has worked before and the Pravda arm was unable to do a thing about it. No time left for pity-partys, the time to act is now.

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.