Free Republic

Radio and TV talk show personalities are distorting the public debate on critical issues with bias and misinformation, Sen. Ben Nelson said Friday. Too many Americans “get their news from entertainers (who) tell them what to be angry about today,” Nelson said. Nelson pointed the finger at personalities on both the right and the left during a speech to the Nebraska Public Policy Center on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus. Both Jon Stewart on Comedy Central and conservative radio icon Rush Limbaugh “slant the news to fit their agenda,” Nelson said. Then he added Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and Sean...

October 30, 2004 4 Years Later, Some Voters Switch SidesBy KATHARINE Q. SEELYE ASHINGTON, Oct. 29 - For all the talk about a politically polarized nation, there are defectors out there among the electorate, a relatively small but distinct subset who voted for the presidential nominee of one party four years ago and now are prepared to vote for that of the other on Tuesday.Both sides say they have been reaching out to these voters in seeking every possible advantage on Election Day. Many of them cite concern about the war in Iraq as the reason that prompted their switch....

(KRT) - Maybe it happens this way in most elections. But it really seems the middle's getting squeezed in this presidential election. The angry idealists are going at it from the left and right, leaving the practical middle wondering which way it should go. I found myself in this predicament recently in New York, where I moderated a 45-minute exchange between Gary Bauer of the evangelical right and Joseph Hough of the Protestant left. The two went after it over matters like how you treat the poor. Even though it was barely 9 in the morning, the interview grew so...

Don't waste my vote: Radical center offers harsh advice for both partiesBy Bill BrozSpecial to The Times The pundits tell us that this year's presidential election promises to be the most polarized in decades. They assert that emotion for and against President Bush is running so high that voters' minds are mostly made up. We swing voters seem to be on the endangered species list here in 2004 and so, the conventional wisdom goes, are in a poor position to "swing" much of anything. Well, not so fast. Polarized the electorate may be, but the margins are razor-thin. If...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The only two senators to miss the final vote on landmark Medicare legislation were Democratic presidential candidates John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, who returned to the campaign trail Tuesday. Kerry and Lieberman had canceled campaign appearances Sunday and Monday to support a filibuster of the bill, but after a pair of procedural votes Monday failed to stop it, both senators skipped the final vote. They said passage of the $395 billion measure was a foregone conclusion. The Senate cleared the bill, 54-44, and sent it to President Bush for his signature. The two Democratic candidates said there...