| You would think someone at ABC would eventually catch on that this left wing tripe doesn't sell
This might be a really stinky episode for Santorum, but there is at least an equal chance that the outcome will be a huge public backlash against the media. A whole bunch of people in the media think that they are going to do to Rick Santorum what they did last year to Trent Lott. It will be easy; they will just do the same things they did to Lott. Down goes Santorum. Except that this time, they are in for a fight — and a big surprise. The public is just coming off the experience of observing the American news media blatantly lie about nearly every aspect of the war in Iraq, on a daily basis, with the clearly apparent purpose of discrediting the President and the military, while lending blatant support to the President's critics and to anti-war activists. It was perhaps more subtle, but no less shamelessly dishonest, than the performance of the Iraqi Information Minister. People in the media neither know this nor believe it, because they do not associate with anyone who is not also a liberal Democrat. They have no idea how much the public's opinion of their credibility has changed in the last six weeks. So here they come with "Let's get Santorum." It is quite obviously a partisan political attack, because we can see actual Democratic Party figures participating. Then we find out that the "reporter" who seeded this story is married to John Kerry's campaign manager. The parallels with the attack on Lott are obvious, except that this time it is the media itself that is leading the charge on behalf of the Democrats. Since the Lott episode, there have been several rather outrageous statements made by Democrats, none of which seemed to interest the media in the least. The contrast could not be more striking. Senator Schumer makes blatantly anti-Catholic remarks, and that is not "news." But now here comes a full-blown media crusade... against another Republican. And it's the same media that just lied its way through Gulf War II as the advocacy arm of International A.N.S.W.E.R. and the Democratic Party. The unfairness is apparent. The bias is apparent. A willingness to lie to the public in pursuit of that bias is apparent. The involvement of an Associated Press reporter married to a Democratic Party campaign manager is apparent. And the piling on by the usual suspects, the same people who lied all through the war to discredit the Republican White House, looks more like Witch Hunt II — the Evil Republican, than it does a news story. I think they have gone to the well one too many times here. It's too soon after the last one. There have been too many intervening similar-but-ignored events involving Democrats in the months since. And the same news organizations that are perpetrating this obviously partisan attack are coming off a performance in the war that was so blatantly biased that it shocked the public. Somebody might indeed go down here, but it might not be Rick Santorum. |
I think it's bigger than that, and I think that somebody does get it... or at least they are worried about it. Hence these comments in Notes. There is not a little "CYA" going on here... just in case.