Results tagged “Liberal Media” from Don't Go Into The Light

Are they prepping for an announcement? The headline sure makes it look that way: The era of big Clintons is soon over.

There's been a Clinton running for the White House or living in it for approximately forever. Bill, it could be said, was born to run. Running became Hillary's destiny, too.

One quarter of Americans have never known life without a Clinton trying for or having the presidency. Millions have gone from diapers to diplomas in the time of the Clintons.

When Hillary Rodham Clinton finally exits the 2008 Democratic presidential race, she will end a decades-long, power-couple streak of unique political energy, savvy ideas, colossal policy flops and raw ambition dressed in pants suits and briefs, not boxers.

"Every day is an adventure," Bill said cheerfully at the start of it all. And how.

By now, the Clintons have been assigned mystical qualities of perseverance. The notion that the adventure is over is almost beyond comprehension.

"I never quit," she says. "I never give up."

Even in defeat, Hillary Clinton has made history as the first woman favored for a major party presidential nomination — the first with a real shot at the presidency.

Or maybe it's AP's way of telling us that they, like Jimmy Carter, aren't endorsing either Democrat.

Spend a little time over at Newsweek and you might wonder if they have any time left over for journalism. Their left-leaning bias has been obvious in recent years, but they've finally shed any pretenses. Their current cover story is not even a news story, but a long memo to Obama with heart-felt advice on how the Messiah should run his campaign and win this fall. I'm still digesting it, but here's a little jewel from page 2 (emphasis mine):

It's also important for you not to play the race card yourself. You can't imply, or be seen to imply, that anyone who criticizes you is a racist, closeted or otherwise.

The addition of the word "yourself" is telling. Newsweek is actually suggesting that it would be bad for Obama should he play the race card himself, but it's OK through others. What others? Why, Newsweek, of course. The entire issue is devoted to the subject, and they've even developed a whole new poll just to suggest that anyone not voting for Obama just might be racist:

Even as he closes in on the Democratic nomination for the presidency, Sen. Barack Obama is facing lingering problems winning the support of white voters--including some in his own party. In a new NEWSWEEK Poll of registered voters, Obama trails presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain 40 percent to 52 percent among whites.

This even as Newsweek warns Obama that "You will never get the real racists to come around." The poll itself is here, and includes a "Racial Resentment Index" based on the following list:

Disapprove of racial preferences (Q17=2)
Less qualified people hired often (Q18=1)
Whites lose out (Q19=2,4)
Gone too far pushing rights (Q20a=1)
Poor too dependent on government (Q20b=1)
Blacks responsible for own condition (Q21=2)
Disapprove of interracial marriage (Q22=2)
Few things in common with blacks (Q23=3)
Would mind if black person moved close (Q24=1)
Would be upset if daughter dated black (Q25=2,3)

It would be difficult to imagine how they could be more incendiary in their questioning.

NewsBusters notes that there's only one side of the story in the Newsweek poll:

This raises two important questions for Newsweek:

1. Why wasn't it concerned about McCain's lingering problems winning the support of black voters?
2. Why didn't it measure a Racial Resentment Index for the non-whites that participated in the poll, especially for the blacks that overwhelmingly support Obama?

Good questions. The answer is that their interest in McCain is how best to defeat him. In the same issue, Newsweek raises issues about McCain's age and health. Unable to find a smoking gun of imminent Alzheimer's or cancer, they conclude in one article:

But the eventual winner of the election—no matter who it is—should be forewarned. Roizen has assessed data on presidential health back to the 1920s and finds that the stress of the job takes a toll. "Every year in office, you age two years," he says. It's not hard to calculate the effect this would have on McCain. After two terms, his calendar age and Real Age would be right back in line.

And in another, they just go for negativism in the title: "An Answer for Every ‘Little Jerk’" Again, failing to find anything bad in the medical records, they feel compelled to insinuate that McCain's gaffe last December was directed at anyone who showed curiosity about his age and health.

It's sad that any news organization would go to these lengths to promote a political agenda. Sadder still is that this type of in-kind campaign donation posing as journalism will increase as November nears.

AP reaches way down to dredge up some gratuitous victimization sympathy for Obama:

HONOLULU - Growing up as a young man of mixed race, Barack Obama benefited from the spirit of tolerance that defined Hawaii's racial climate.

His childhood in the country's idealized melting pot was far from painless, though.

As part of the islands' small group of black Americans in the 1970s, he encountered racism and struggled to form a black identity.

Obama's experience in Hawaii is echoed by other blacks, including some of his schoolmates, and challenges the state's vaunted image of racial harmony.

"A big joke amongst the brothers was you could be anything else but a brother and have free rein of the world in Hawaii," said Rik Smith, a black former schoolmate of Obama's at Punahou, an elite private school in Honolulu. "When it comes to people of color, black people, there's a huge amount of racism."

Obama has carefully avoided making his race the main issue, but his surrogates and the media use it at every turn. One has to wonder if there will be a backlash against the continuous drumbeat of "If you don't vote for Obama you're a bigot", which the above-quoted article serves to underline. This is a major expansion of the theme, showing Obama as a life-long victim of racism, and the votes that aren't cast for him are just a continuation of that same injustice.

In discussions with friends and around the workplace, I've heard lots of reasons for not supporting Obama. His race isn't among them. If Obama's supporters in the media keep pushing this theme, that could change. Fostering racial division isn't the best way to win folks over.

In a story about old atrocities committed in another country by non-Americans, you'd think the title would identify the perpetrator of the atrocity directly. Not AP, though. Check this headline:

Here's some of the article itself, nearly as bad:

DAEJEON, South Korea - Grave by mass grave, South Korea is unearthing the skeletons and buried truths of a cold-blooded slaughter from early in the Korean War, when this nation's U.S.-backed regime killed untold thousands of leftists and hapless peasants in a summer of terror in 1950.

With U.S. military officers sometimes present, and as North Korean invaders pushed down the peninsula, the southern army and police emptied South Korean prisons, lined up detainees and shot them in the head, dumping the bodies into hastily dug trenches. Others were thrown into abandoned mines or into the sea. Women and children were among those killed. Many victims never faced charges or trial.

There's always a way to blame America, isn't there?

You could also see this as a "name that party" exercise from history - can you guess who, in 1950, was in charge of the US military and his party affiliation from the article?

And the Politico article on the subject goes nicely with the image above - "Hillary turns fire on media". Read it all, but here is the thrust of it:

Clinton has long complained that the media have treated her more roughly than Obama. But the campaign began courting a media backlash as a central strategy after her surprisingly narrow win in Indiana and crushing loss in North Carolina, which together were characterized by the press as sealing the Democratic presidential nomination for Obama.

Campaign aides were particularly livid at Russert's election night declaration on MSNBC that, "We now know who the Democratic nominee is going to be, and no one is going to dispute it" - even before the network called Indiana for Clinton.

Ironic that for years she's complained that the media existed as a right-wing attack vehicle, only now does she learn the truth. Maybe she should try clinging to... well, you know.

The MSM is going scorched earth on Hillary. As she trounces Obama by a greater than 40 point margin in W. Va., an Obama-smitten media is going where they've never gone before in order to minimize the victory - racism in the Democrat party. From the New York Times, we're treated to this wrap-up on W. Va.:

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton won a lopsided victory on Tuesday over Senator Barack Obama in the West Virginia primary, where racial considerations emerged as an unusually salient factor. Mrs. Clinton drew strong support from white, working-class voters, who have spurned Mr. Obama in recent contests.

The number of white Democratic voters who said race had influenced their choices on Tuesday was among the highest recorded in voter surveys in the nomination fight. Two in 10 white West Virginia voters said race was an important factor in their votes. More than 8 in 10 who said it factored in their votes backed Mrs. Clinton, according to exit polls.

Besides a few hints at the end, the article doesn't really say why the 80% for whom race was not an important factor voted overwhelmingly for Clinton. You'd think that would be the bigger story - that, for example, 53% of West Virginia voters felt that the Messiah was dishonest, apparently so much so that 8 of 10 of those actually favored the heroine of the Tuzla Dash at the polls.

For another good example, take this article by the Washington Post with the loaded title "Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause" filled with examples of Obama workers being treated to racism as they courted registered Democrats for the Indiana primary:

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"

You might think the "ugly truths" I reference in the title is that Hillary's base (and by proxy the Democrat party in general) is swimming with racists. Nothing could be further from the truth. (Both parties do have some individuals who are racists, although those of us on the right have argued for years that the Democrat party's policies are racist, as they discourage assimilation into and participation in the American dream.) No, the "ugly truth" is that the media is willing to paint large parts of the population as racist in order to secure the victory of a favored candidate.

Willing, too, is Obama's campaign. All of this is telegraphing Obama's (and the fawning media's) strategy for the fall, as hinted to by Obama's own campaign manager, David Plouffe:

I mean the vast, vast majority of voters who would not vote for Barack Obama in November based on race are probably firmly in John McCain's camp already.

If the Obama camp and the media are willing to go this route in a blue on blue contest, imagine what we'll see in the Fall. In spite of all the pretty rhetoric about new politics and civility, this is starting to shape up as the nastiest Presidential campaign in history.

Unless you're not paying attention, the over-expansion of SCHIP has little to do with children and more to do with the gradual implementation of socialized medicine. If the Democrats fail to provide President Bush with a veto-proof bill, they'll need a replacement to further their desire for increased socialism. If they succeed, they'll need another target to exploit. Where will that target come from? Win or lose, SCHIP will soon be difficult, if not impossible, target for further expansion - at least the short term. The next target might be a perennial favorite - veterans.

Friday's New York Times offers an unsigned editorial giving us a heads up on what might be next on their agenda:

Although many Americans believe that the nation’s veterans have ready access to health care, that is far from the case. A new study by researchers at the Harvard Medical School has found that millions of veterans and their dependents have no access to care in veterans’ hospitals and clinics and no health insurance to pay for care elsewhere. Their plight represents yet another failure of our disjointed health care system to provide coverage for all Americans.

The new study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, estimated that in 2004 nearly 1.8 million veterans were uninsured and unable to get care in veterans’ facilities. An additional 3.8 million members of their households faced the same predicament. All told, this group made up roughly 12 percent of the huge population of uninsured Americans.

First, the study (which can be found here) is very specific that the numbers are for those who don't qualify for VA medical care in the first place. Yet the Times neglects to mention it, leading the uninformed to believe that we have soldiers maimed in combat going without medical care.

The VA provides medical care to those with service-related illness and veterans who are demonstrably poor. All other veterans used to be able to seek care on a space-available basis - these are known as "group 8", and are defined as follows by the VA:

Group 8: All other non service-connected veterans and zero percent, non-compensable service-connected veterans who agree to pay co-pays.

Note that families are not included in the definition.

Group 8 veterans were seen less frequently in VA hospitals as the draw down during the 90's reduced the number of facilities while increasing the number of veterans, and the VA stopped enrolling Group 8 vets in 2003.

Even the number of uninsured veterans isn't necessarily the tragedy that the Times wishes you to believe. The study, although newly published, is itself not new. One of the authors, Stephanie J. Woolhandler, testified before the House Committee on Veterans Affairs back in June of this year. She admitted to the true nature of these uninsured vets:

Only about half of the 1.8 million uninsured veterans are classified Priority 8, Woolhandler said. The rest may technically be eligible for some VA care but live too far from its facilities for it to be a real option, she said.

In other words, even if they were eligible they likely wouldn't be getting VA health care, due to lack of either capacity or proximity.

We're also provided some insight in to the Ms. Woolhandler's motivations as well:

Woolhandler is a well-known advocate of guaranteeing access to health care for all Americans through a government-run national health insurance program.

Also, the study includes this graph showing that veterans have a measurably lower uninsured rate than the general population, and rate of increase in number of uninsured correlates to that of the general population as well:

Match the graph to the alarmist Bush bashing in the author's press release:

“Since President Bush took office the number of uninsured vets has skyrocketed, and he’s cut eligibility, barring hundreds of thousands of veterans from care. This administration has put troops in harm’s way overseas and abandoned them and their families once they got home,” said Dr. David Himmelstein, co-author of the study and co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program. “We need a solution that works for veterans, their families, and all Americans - single payer national health insurance.”

While the version of the study published in the American Journal of Public Health doesn't have an overly-large agenda-driven bent, this version of it does, as its conclusion illustrates:

We believe that only a single payer national health insurance system can affordably cover all Americans – including veterans.

The NYT finishes this disingenuous editorial with this:

An even better solution would be some form of universal health coverage for all Americans. Then even veterans who live far from a V.A. facility, and a host of dependents who are not now eligible, could get the care they need.

So here we have the New York Times using a highly agenda-driven study with politically-motivated conclusions as evidence that we need socialized medicine. In true form, they ignore the parts of the study that conflict with their assertions. Despicably, they're using veterans and their families as their vehicle of choice to advance their socialist agenda. Don't be surprised if this becomes the replacement for SCHIP in the Democrat's march to socialism.

Funny how much they love the troops when it advances their agenda, isn't it?.

This post was blocked by Blogrolling.

This online film from Nickelodeon has to be seen to be believed. I can't understand the mental process that drove them to feature children being utilized as unwitting tools by the anti-American World Can't Wait (WCW).

While it's to be expected from WCW (they've targeted young impressionable minds before), for Nickelodeon to glorify this kind of disgusting propagandizing of children is beyond reprehensible.

Goodbye, Nickelodeon. You're no longer welcome in our home.

BTW, I don't place all the blame on Nickelodeon. Simple decency prevents me from expressing my feelings about this child's parents - he surely didn't sink into the WCW cesspool on his own.

h/t Michelle Malkin and ArmyWifeToddlerMom