Double Standards

New York Times legal reporter Neil Lewis's Wednesday filing was headlined "Stark Contrasts Between McCain and Obama in Judicial Wars." But the truly "stark contrast" was how Lewis treated the respective camps with regard to their hypothetical Supreme Court nominations. Lewis painted an uninvolved McCain as paying "fealty" to "the conservative faithful," while an engaged Obama would be merely…

Before Scott McClellan was President Bush’s Press Secretary, there was Ari Fleischer, and when Fleischer left the White House he wrote his own book, “Taking Heat: The President, the Press, and My Years in the White House.” Unlike McClellan, Fleischer did not take pot shots at his former employer, but did include some telling examples of the liberal bias of press.Perhaps not surprisingly, then,…

Barack Obama's penchant for gaffes is hardly anything new, but as the Illinois Democrat has come closer and closer to becoming the official Democratic presidential nominee, it seems the mainstream media have become less and less likely to note his gaffes. A cursory Web search finds a few instances of the mainstream media picking up on Obama gaffes in 2007, when Sen. Clinton was well ahead of…

Also see the compare-and-contrast example in the final paragraph. A city councilman in Lorain, Ohio, a city of about 75,000 west of Cleveland, was arrested during a prostitution sting on Friday. Of the six stories I found covering the event (the Google News search is for May 22-26), only one referred to the political party of councilman Dennis Flores, who is a Democrat (scroll down to "Second…

Guess Which Party, and What Label? Here are Old Media excerpts relating to recent presidential contenders you might find interesting. First, here's the Associated Press from May 15 (fourth short item at link): The United Steelworkers union endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president Thursday, giving the Illinois senator a powerful advocate in attracting blue-collar voters. The endorsement…

Old Media has mostly ignored Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's poor showing among non-African-American voters, even though it was obvious way back in the early-March Ohio and Texas primaries. To the degree that there has been coverage of the situation at all, it has been presented as if there is something wrong with the voters, not Obama himself or his "message." Clay Waters at…

It seems that the drive-bys in the mainstream media have decided to keep on driving past a Rasmussen poll that contradicts the message of certain left leaning darlings on the presidential campaign trail. (h/t MKFreeberg) The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 62% of voters would prefer fewer government services with lower taxes. Nearly a third (29%) disagrees and would…

Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters posted Saturday on Barack Obama's tirade against Fox News. The underlying report by Ryan Alessi of McClatchy's Lexington Herald-Leader also contained this nugget (HT National Review' Online's Media Blog), showing that the candidate's basic geography challenges continue: Obama conceded that he has a steep challenge to get his message and background to voters in…

Riots in the street or no, Denver might be the place to be this August, if only for August Ritter's sweet Convention after-parties.DenverPost.com has an article, complete with photos, delving into Gov. Bill Ritter's (D) son reveling with friends at a December 2007 boozefest in the Governor's Mansion. The only rules of said party, the Post noted citing an invitation, were "no throwing up" and "no…

Applying the AP's McCain Standard to Barack Obama Shows Sudanese Connections to His Campaign It's a strange one sided sort of game the Associated Press is playing in its latest attack against John McCain. AP writer Jim Kuhnhenn is applying a six degrees of separation style standard in trying to accuse John McCain of investing in the Sudan because his wife owned some mutual funds that had holdings…

Does the media treat hypocrites of differing political preferences similarly? The evidence would suggest not. When noted Christian televangelist Jim Bakker was found to have committed adultery and mail fraud back in 1986, the national media were beside themselves with glee, running hundreds of stories about Bakker's hypocrisy. The same pattern repeated itself with other Christian evangelists,…

During the 1992 presidential campaign, when incumbent Vice President Dan Quayle made a spelling mistake, the New York Times was all over it. It's clear from the Times's story that the rest of the media was also in full pursuit: So Jay Leno has a week's worth of new Dan Quayle jokes. At a school here, everyone was quite hush-hush the day after the visiting Vice President spelled potato wrong…

It must be nice to be on Old Media's "free pass" list. For years, Apple Computer has been on that list (disclosure: yours truly is a 23-year Mac user). Apple has been the cool, innovative tech darling, the noble foil of big, bad monopolist Microsoft. Another free-pass beneficiary is Al Gore, who sits on Apple's Board of Directors. Wait until you see what ClimateCounts.org thinks of Apple's…