Double Standards

CNN's Larry King, moderating a panel discussing the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal on his program on Tuesday, tossed softballs at noted anti-Catholic Sinead O'Connor, who recently pushed for Catholics to stop attending Mass. By contrast, King hostilely interrogated former Miss California USA Carrie Prejean in November 2009, to the point where she almost walked out of the interview.The CNN host…

Last night, Bill O'Reilly used recent instances of inflamed, occasionally violent liberal protests to give his viewers a lesson in Media Bias 101. Lefties dominate the mainstream press, and are reluctant to cover events that don't suit their agendas, he stated."The Mainstream media largely ignores crazy stuff generated by the far left because many media types sympathize with liberal politics." It…

Since Obama's health care legislation has been signed into law, the media have been in overdrive about the backlash - whether it's been former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's "reload" metaphor "targeting" certain congressional districts or how Republican lawmakers have supposedly encouraged violence by their floor rhetoric. Media personalities and Tea Party movement detractors have been agog - saying…

CBS's Early Show and NBC's Today on Tuesday ignored the arrest of a man who was plotting to kill Republican Congressman Eric Cantor. ABC's Good Morning America mentioned the story only in a news brief in the 8am hour. Last week, however, GMA highlighted threats against Democrats and worried about "angry talk" from Sarah Palin. The Early Show may have ignored the story of Norman Leboon and the…

After devoting several stories to unsubstantiated allegations of racism and spitting by Tea Party protesters last weekend, the New York Times almost ignored an actual death threat made against a top Republican, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 Republican in the House, that resulted in the first actual arrest since the alleged wave of threats against politicians began.Norman Leboon of…

Put up or shut up, Barnicle . . . Mike Barnicle has accused "talk radio" of serving as "allies" and a "megaphone" for the worst fringe elements on the right.   That's how the former Boston Globe columnist justified the MSM's focus on the right-wing fringe while downplaying that of the left. [H/t reader Ray R.]Barnicle floated his defense of the MSM on today's Morning Joe.  To their credit, Mika…

The student newspaper of Katie Couric's alma mater was silent today about an incident of vandalism Thursday night or early Friday morning against a local Republican Party office, even though the same paper devoted a front-page story on Friday to a severed propane line believed to have been an act of vandalism targeting the Democratic congressman who represents Charlottesville, Va.The March 26…

This could do down as one of the more glaring MSM double-standards in recent times . . . Harry Reid chose the day Sarah Palin was in town to stage a photo-op of himself going shooting. But GMA called Reid the man "in the crosshairs" and as "doing his best not to seem threatened."Imagine if the tables were turned and on a day Reid visited Wasilla, Palin had publicly chosen to go shooting.  Oh…

In another predictable column condemning the Tea Party movement, Paul Krugman called Ronald Reagan an “anti-government fanatic” and disdained “the eliminationist rhetoric of the G.O.P" in Friday's "Going to Extreme," using the same silly examples of alleged violent imagery the rest of the press has been wringing their hands over. So why was Krugman happy with the idea of angry lefties hanging Sen…

In both its print and Web editions today, the Chicago Tribune headlines "Republicans walk the line over healthcare outrage."  It begins:In the days surrounding passage of healthcare overhaul legislation, Republican lawmakers have been left to strike a fine balance between harnessing voter outrage and fueling it.Examples of raw anger have piled up. A call to New York Democrat Louise M. Slaughter…

Words matter. They speak volumes about issues. So when individuals or groups try to change the words associated with a heated political issue, take note and take care. The folks at National Public Radio understand the power of words. Managing Editor David Sweeney announced yesterday that the station would no longer refer to people in the abortion debate as "pro-choice" and "pro-life."…

Newsweek's Liz White took to her magazine's The Gaggle blog today to decry how conservatives critical of the Democratic health care bill have slapped it with "the ominous-sounding term ‘Obamacare.'"You see, most mainstream media sources only use the term when quoting opponents of the bill or when "carefully placed in quotations or alongside an explanation that Obamacare is how opposition refers…

On Thursday's American Morning, CNN's John Roberts repeatedly decried the "troubling language" against pro-ObamaCare congressman which "violate any sense of common decency." But his own program over three years earlier helped promote a controversial 2006 movie which forwarded an imaginary assassination attempt against then-President George W. Bush.Just after the top of the 6 am Eastern hour,…

You really have to wonder what was running through Vice President Joe Biden's head when he leaned toward President Barack Obama and said "this is a big f**cking deal." Did Biden think that after nearly a year of campaigning for health care reform he was alerting Obama to something new? But Biden isn't the first vice president to allow an expletive slip in a public forum in this day and age of a…