Mark Halperin: 'Democrats Often Have the Media on Their Side Because of Liberal Bias'

March 18th, 2016 5:38 PM

"Democrats often have the media on their side because of liberal bias."

That sounds like a very common complaint among conservatives. However, that is exactly what liberal Mark Halperin stated yesterday on Bloomberg's With All Due Respect when he admitted the very obvious. This admission came during a discussion about how the Senate refusing to hold hearings on President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court will supposedly help Democrats. In fact Halperin and co-host John Heileman were practically leaping for joy in their belief in how this issue will damage Republicans in the upcoming Senate elections. Perhaps it was this anticipatory glee that caused Halperin to let down his guard and make his surprising admission about liberal media bias.

 

Democrats often have the media on their side because of liberal bias. This is a case where the media believes the Democrats are doing the right thing. And I think  over time if the White House continues to perform this way, public opinion is going to shift in a way that is going to spook the Republicans.

Or it could very well shift in a way that is going to spook the Democrats. Why? Unmentioned by Halperin is the gun rights issue of D.C. vs Heller among other things. The National Review explains:

...Garland has a long record, and, among other things, it leads to the conclusion that he would vote to reverse one of Justice Scalia’s most important opinions, D.C. vs. Heller, which affirmed that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to keep and bear arms.

Back in 2007, Judge Garland voted to undo a D.C. Circuit court decision striking down one of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. The liberal District of Columbia government had passed a ban on individual handgun possession, which even prohibited guns kept in one’s own house for self-defense. A three-judge panel struck down the ban, but Judge Garland wanted to reconsider that ruling. He voted with Judge David Tatel, one of the most liberal judges on that court.

Halperin might have had a convincing point about the liberal MSM helping the Democrats on this issue if this were, say, 1990 but in 2016 in the Age of the Internet, there is no longer a liberal monopoly on the news. When word gets out about Garland's very liberal position on gun rights, it could well be the Democrats who are "spooked."