Never say they aren’t consistent. As per usual, during 2016 the media ignore Democratic scandals while hyping Republican Scandals.
Between the three of them, the evening shows of ABC, CBS and NBC spent a combined 6 minutes, 56 seconds on the LePage controversy, just in the month of August. For contrast, here are some Democratic scandals that they neglected to cover:
On his Sunday show Reliable Sources, host Brain Stelter brought out a panel made up a proverbial who’s who of Donald Trump opponents to whine about how the media was being “unfair” to Hillary Clinton and going easy on Trump. “All year long, I have been hearing one very specific description of the election coverage,” Stelter stated to start off the first segment, “No, it's not bias, but it's close, it's false equivalents.” Stelter insinuated that there was false comparisons being drawn between the two and that Trump is, “graded on a curve making it easier for him.”
CNN was earning its moniker as the Clinton News Network during their morning show New Day Sunday. For the first political segment of the day, host Victor Blackwell wanted to talk about Republican Vice Presidential candidate Mike Pence’s unreleased tax returns. Even though the segment was introduced as such and the chyron indicated they would be talking about Pence all attention was put on Donald Trump’s transparency, while mentions of Hillary Clinton’s were shutdown by Blackwell.
The top story on the left side of the Sunday Washington Post is tough on Hillary....sort of. Post reporter Karen Tumulty suggests that if Hillary Clinton hadn't been so allergic to transparency, maybe the "vast right-wing conspiracy" would have never become such a malignant force. (She failed to ponder the other side: the Clintons were so corrupt -- and they knew it -- that the only option was to delay and deny, delay and deny, as they did in the Lewinsky scandal/impeachment.)
To Tumulty: the right wing is uniquely vehement and extreme:
On the Friday “Week in Politics” segment on NPR’s All Things Considered, liberal columnist E.J. Dionne and “conservative” columnist David Brooks were as usual in agreement. Anchor Ari Shapiro asked about the FBI document-dump on their interview with Hillary about her private e-mail server. Dionne regurgitated the Hillary spin that these notes only underlined why FBI director James Comey recommended against indicting her. Then Brooks agreed, and compared her to a small poetry magazine.
The media just loves the Ku Klux Klan. Here’s a small sampling of headlines: The New York Daily News: Donald Trump supported by former KKK leader David Duke: 'I hope he does everything we hope he will do’ Then there was USA Today: Former Ku Klux Klan leader declares support for Donald Trump
On Friday's Anderson Cooper 360, CNN host Cooper moderated a debate between two liberals, one of whom took a stridently critical position of Hillary Clinton for her flimsy excuses for mishandling classified email when she was Secretary of State. As CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin came to the defense of the Democratic presidential candidate, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley was sharply critical of Clinton as he accused her of "trying to portray" herself as "something of a village idiot" in claiming that she misunderstood the marking of classified email, and calling her explanation "perfectly absurd," and asserting that it "borders on insulting." Turley: "It's bizarre to read her accounts saying that she had no idea what that was. I would put it as virtually impossible that anyone who had a clearance would not know what that type of letter and a parenthetical means. And, you know, it's trying to portray yourself as something of a village idiot -- which no one believes Clinton to be. So it's perhaps the most absurd aspect of this record."
The headline at a video posted by the Washington Free Beacon is a real jaw-dropper: "CNN Fact Check Confirms Clinton Aide Destroyed Mobile Devices With Hammers." What?
The key part of the video, in its second half, shows the network's Brooke Baldwin as very skeptical — I would say disbelieving, to the point where she wouldn't stop loudly saying "Hang on" until the guests stopped talking — when Donald Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn stated that "They (Team Clinton) destroyed Blackberrys with hammers in the State Department." Baldwin went to CNN's Evan Perez for confirmation "on the fly." The answer: Hillary's aide did exactly what Epshteyn contended.
During his big immigration speech on Wednesday night in Arizona, Trump brought on a group of "Angel Moms" -- women who lost children due to crime by illegal aliens. My friend Cameron Gray at NRANews.com noted the media double standard when it comes to mourning mothers:
To borrow a phrase from President Obama, let New York magazine’s Chait be clear: “Republicans nominated Donald Trump [because] Republican voters like Donald Trump. This theory has the virtues of simplicity and truth.” Chait’s peg for his Friday post, however, was an “alternate theory” he rejects: that “Trump prevailed at least in part because liberals blew their credibility by hyperbolically denouncing previous Republican presidential candidates, thereby conditioning Republicans to ignore the warnings when Trump came along.”
Conservatives warned us President Barack Obama’s health care reform would be unsustainable. Reporters brushed off the claims, essentially cheerleading on behalf of the administration. In the annals of media bias, ObamaCare reportage will have its own meaty chapter. Reporters didn’t do the ObamaCare heavy lifting by themselves. Celebrities promoted the overhaul like it was a $200 million film with their careers on the line.
ESPN Magazine’s Howard Bryant: insightful on sports, but prone to suffocating liberal piety when he starts talking politics. As a special treat for fans, ESPN posted online Bryant’s “The Truth” column for the upcoming September 19 NFL Preview II Issue: “Response to protest shows the power of the sports machine.” That would be the protest of infamous San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whom Bryant predictably hailed as a hero for failing to stand for the National Anthem at a preseason game last week, citing United States “oppression” while collecting a $19 million annual salary in that same oppressive country. Bryant portrayed the quarterback, whom many criticize as hypocritical and ungrateful as well as anti-police (his workout socks featured pigs in cop hats), as “awakening” into brave dissent despite the pile-on of intimidation by the "predominantly white media."
It’s no surprise that the left is on a ceaseless and scandalous search to uncover, and encourage, gay athletes to “come out.”
It appears as though Colin Kaepernick, Eric Reid, and Jeremy Lane will have some company next time they decide to kneel, or sit, during the playing of the National Anthem.
Sanctuary cities? What are they? I never heard of them. They must be phantoms.
Such was the feigned ignorance of Democrat vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine on CNN's New Day on Thursday. It was so embarrassing in its pretense that even host Chris Cuomo had to call Kaine out on it as you can see: