Let's keep the Dem's on the run!
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Posted on 10/06/2003 6:25:36 AM PDT by veronica
The Los Angeles Times is no longer just part of the story on recall, they're now part of the election.
SUDDENLY Tuesday's election is more than a recall. It has also become a referendum on the Los Angeles Times.
In an astonishing story from page A34 of Sunday's Times, Readers Angry at The Times for Schwarzenegger Stories, the paper struggles to report the damage done to its reputation over the past three days while at the same time offering a lengthy apologia from editor John Carroll. Andrew Sullivan has described the Times as a "Smear Machine," columnist and former Times reporter Jill Stewart labeled their recent stories on Schwarzenegger as "hit pieces" and the Times' recent actions as "journalistic malpractice," and Susan Estrich used space on Friday's op-ed page to berate the paper for doing damage to women with legitimate charges of abuse. On my radio program Friday, Morton Kondracke expressed surprise and disapproval of Carroll's decisions in the run-up to Tuesday's campaign (Carroll used to be Kondracke's White House correspondent).
What surprises me is these people's surprise. The Times has been an ally of Gray Davis for five years and an undeclared combatant in the recall wars. That the paper doubled-down with Gray behind and fading is no shock. The transparency of their cheerleading has been evident in their lineup of in-house recall columnists, all four of whom have been outspoken critics of Arnold from the day he announced his campaign. And the paper's news coverage has been as unbalanced as its commentary.
THE PUBLIC has come to grips with the Times as an organ of the Democratic party, an incredible waste of its near-monopoly status in Southern California.
What is different about the paper's naked and increasingly wild coverage of anti-Arnold charges is the reaction among even long-suffering Times watchers. A thousand readers actually cancelled subscriptions after Thursday's report on Arnold (that's the number released by the Times; who knows what the real total is). The outrage and anger of readers can be heard on any talk-radio station. So loud is the din that the Times was obliged to cover it.
Yet the Times has its story, and is sticking to it, even to the extent of retailing on the front page new allegation as they turn up. Davis may be hurt if the paper gives moderates a reason strike back at institutionalized bias on Tuesday, and Arnold might be buoyed if disgusted Republicans switch from McClintock to the Terminator as a way of voting against the Times.
Consider the verdict that will be rendered by a win for recall: Except for the absentees, few if any voters will approach the polls ignorant of the Times' allegations.
It seems likely that a solid majority will reject the Times as untrustworthy. The paper may console itself that the electorate doesn't care about the charges, but that would be more self-delusion.
California doesn't trust its major newspaper. Not in the least. Now that's a story worth covering.
Hugh Hewitt is the host of The Hugh Hewitt Show, a nationally syndicated radio talkshow, and a contributing writer to The Daily Standard. His new book, In, But Not Of, has just been published by Thomas Nelson.
Let's keep the Dem's on the run!
Click the Pic!
I no longer subscribe to the NY Times or Newsday....
I now buy individual issues of the NY Times and Newsday (if and) when I want to.
L.A. Times editor hard at work on next Arnold story.
Conservative advertisers should take a one month holiday from buying ads in the LA Times. Let the Times live off of the revenue generated by Illegal Aliens, Gays, Actors and the welfare class!
Let us hope that HH hit it on the head.
"It seems likely that a solid majority will reject the Times as untrustworthy. The paper may console itself that the electorate doesn't care about the charges, but that would be more self-delusion.pingCalifornia doesn't trust its major newspaper.
Not in the least. Now that's a story worth covering." - Hugh Hewitt
Wow! ...What is different about the paper's naked and increasingly wild coverage of anti-Arnold charges is the reaction among even long-suffering Times watchers. A thousand readers actually cancelled subscriptions after Thursday's report on Arnold (that's the number released by the Times; who knows what the real total is). The outrage and anger of readers can be heard on any talk-radio station. So loud is the din that the Times was obliged to cover it.
"Hasta La Vista, Baby !!"
(Click here or on the pics !)
Dems Split As To Whether Bush or Schwarzenegger is the AntiChrist
my demented brain | 10/3/2003 | dirtboy
Posted on 10/03/2003 3:08 PM PDT by dirtboy
Washington (Monday, October 6th) – A major rift opened in the Democratic Party over the weekend as sharp divisions emerged over whether President George W. Bush or Arnold Schwarzenegger was in fact the Antichrist.
The allegations of Republican Antichristness first surfaced in an NPR interview between Bob Edwards and Terry McAuliffe aired on Friday morning. When asked if David Kaye’s interim report on Iraqi WMDs failed to support Bush’s contention that the threat from Iraq was imminent and negated Bush’s claims that Saddam personally visited Niger to purchase yellowcake, McAuliffe replied “Bob, it’s clear that the Bush Administration is no longer content to be just an unelected despotic regime intent on undoing the work of the Clinton Administration – they are now clearly doing the devil’s work and Bush has the mark of the beast on him.”
A poll released an hour later by Newsweek showed that, in a poll of 500 people who were too stupid to get caller ID, 34 percent of Americans did believe that Bush was the Antichrist, with 20 percent of those agreeing once they were told who the Antichrist was and that all Republicans were evil.
That evening at a campaign rally before a gay rights group, Gray Davis pointed to the poll results as proof that an “unholy alliance of religious conservatives and agents of Satan” was behind the recall effort, and that “Arnold Schwarzenegger is the true Antichrist.”
The LA Times the next morning reported on page one that six unnamed actors who had worked with Schwarzenegger over the last thirty years claimed that Arnold had committed animal sacrifices in his dressing room and a grip from the set of End of Days said that Schwarzenegger enjoyed the sequence where the devil enters his body a bit too much.
On the Sunday talk show circuit, a split emerged as the Davis camp, responding to polls showing people returning early from vacations to vote in favor of the recall, pressed their case that Schwarzenegger was the Antichrist. On Meet the Press, Gray Davis, when asked by Tim Russert for proof, stated that “After all, the Book of Revelations says that as soon as the devil found himself thrown down to the earth, he set off in pursuit of the woman, the mother of the male child – looks like Arnold’s been doing just that. And for crying out loud, the guy drives a Hummer and is proud of it – what could be more evil than that?”
But Senator Hillary Clinton, appearing on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, insisted that George W. Bush was the true Antichrist. “Womanizing is no clear indication that someone is the Antichrist. And we’ve all seen pictures of Arnold naked and I, um, you know, didn't notice any 666 on his buttocks. But we’ve never seen Mr. Bush naked, and you can only guess why.” Senator Clinton demanded that an independent counsel be appointed to investigate whether Bush was the Antichrist by saying “Ken Starr spent 40 million dollars to run a DNA test on my husband’s semen, I only think it’s fair, you know, that someone in turn gets to strip George Bush naked and shave his head and look for a birthmark.”
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