Free Republic

The Paycheck Reduction Club01/13/2003 The liberal chant against President Bush's proposed tax cuts began before the details were even announced. Here are the comments on the story by the three broadcast networks. Monday Evening, 01/06/2003: It's Just Bad, Bad, Bad! [Key words & phrases: criticism, skepticism, epic battle, controversial, heavily weighted, wealthiest, wartime, blame, class warfare, throwing a bone to the rich, spend money to make money, real drag, difficult year, spending, more expensive, defensive, skewed to benefit the rich.] Tom Brokaw, NBC Nightly News: "Good evening. What's the best way to help the American economy? When Congress reconvenes tomorrow...

The Problem with Helen 11/18/2002 I will risk being acused of being mean to old people now: Helen Thomas has become a doddering idiot. She has lost all good sense if she ever had any. And look out, she's getting crazier! Check out her recent comments at MIT: "I censored myself for 50 years when I was a reporter. Now I wake up and ask myself, 'Who do I hate today?'" What a lovely thought! Imagine a conservative pundit saying such a thing! Yet she goes on: "I have never covered a president who actually wanted to go to war....

Rat Chat Archive

Did Voters Have a Message for the Mainstream Media? 11/11/2002 As a conservative voter, I was thrilled by the outcome of last week's elections. Living in the Pacific Time zone, it was incredible to watch the Republican onslaught roll westward. In the aftermath, political junkies have spent a lot of time examining the message voters sent to Washington. As a media bias activist, I began to ponder if there was a message hidden within the vote for the mainstream media. It is well known that a majority of reporters and TV anchors are of the Democratic persuasion. The fact that...

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A Politically Correct Sniper: Feel the Joy!10/14/2002 The residents of the Washington D.C. area have plenty to worry about here lately. The so-called "Beltway Sniper" has murdered citizens as they go about the most mundane errands. Yet there is one thing they don't have to worry about: at least this sniper is not motivated by racial prejudice. This warm-fuzziness is brought to us by the Washington Post. On October 4, after the first five victims had been gunned down in Montgomery County, Maryland, the they ran a story with the following headline: "Arbitrary Victims, Identical Fate" with the subhead, "County's...

George Stephanopoulos Shows His True Colors10/07/2002 When George Stephanopoulos was made anchor of ABC's This Week, a Sunday morning news program, media bias activists were quick to express contempt for ABC's decision. The idea that Clinton's former spinmeister could morph from liberal propagandist to balanced journalist seemed both laughable and sinister. Last weekend, Stephanopoulos put on such a vivid display of his true colors as to leave no doubt even to the "give-the-lad-a-chance" protagonists. The September 29 edition of This Week opened with Stephanopoulos' pre-taped interview with Congressmen Bonior (D-MI) and McDermott (D-WA) in Baghdad. After they had ranted about...

Lying in Ponds is an attempt to quantify and analyze partisanship in the American punditocracy. Lying in Ponds believes that a lack of excessive partisanship is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for constructive punditry. The views of pundits who are excessively partisan cannot be taken seriously, because their ulterior motives or uncontrolled biases are certain to frequently contaminate their judgements. Lying in Ponds currently tracks the Democratic and Republican biases of all of the regular political columnists from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

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Hoping for Neutrality06/24/2002 This week ABC News President David Westin put an end to the worst kept secret in broadcast news and officially declared that George Stephanopoulos would take over as the host of ABC's This Week in September. Media bias activists don't buy the magical metamorphosis from Clinton's spin doctor to unbiased newsman, but most had been reading the smoke signals and were not at all surprised. What was disturbing was some absurd commentary from people who ought to know better. Consider the comments of Eric Burns, host of Fox News Watch, who advises us to wait and see...

Self-obsessed Aaron Brown06/17/2002 It comes as no surprise to media bias observers that CNN's Aaron Brown reports every story as if it is all about him. Last Monday night, 6/10/2002, he went over the top. "Good evening again. I'm Aaron Brown. So here's a nice day at the office. The administration says the half-century-old doctrine of containment in matters military is outdated and the United States in the future will exercise, if it so chooses, a first strike option against terrorists in those countries that harbor them. We've always said we are not a country that starts wars -- and...

Rather Obsessed06/10/2002 If you take Dan Rather's word for it, the most important thing about the proposed Department of Homeland Security is the timing of President Bush's brief prime time announcement speech! Certainly, the question of timing is legitimate, but such a huge reorganization of government raises multiple important issues. Prior to the speech, during the CBS Evening News, Rather charged: "President Bush moved to take the spotlight away from the hearing and capture the headlines by suddenly asking for national television time tonight." Later, as he began his networks coverage of the 8pm speech, he again focused on possible...

Strangeness is nothing new at ABC, but since when is the name of Jesus a dirty word? Bare butts are okay, foul language of all types is tolerated, but let a talk show host say, "Thank you, Jesus," and its time for the censors to step in! On May 23, this exchange occurred on The View, a daytime talk show: Meredith Vieira: "So yesterday, yesterday if you say this show, you know it was the last day of the weigh-in, the scale is gone." Joy Behar: "Yes, and thank you, thank you, Jesus, is all I have to say! Goodbye...

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Dan Rather, Rumor-Monger Dan Rather's behavior of late would cause most reasonable folks to guess that he's gone off his medication. Long considered the Great Satan of media bias, he still managed to touch our hearts and rally our spirits with his declaration of patriotic love of our country and support for our president in the difficult time after September 11. (1) Then last week, in a schizophrenic twist, he expressed a fear that patriotism was getting in the way of asking the tough questions and that a reporter might be "necklaced" for failing to be patriotic enough. He added,...

Fundraising Outrage 05/20/2002 This has been a week full of truly outrageous media bias. We went from former President Carter's trip to Cuba to Democratic Party irritability over the fund-raising photo of President Bush to the hysterical pack howl of "cover-up". In an environment like this, the only healthy choice has got to be the silliest. And what could be sillier than Al Gore and fellow Clintonista, Joe Lockhart, criticizing Republican fundraising methods? Only ABC news taking seriously the criticisms of these two ethical "giants"! Admit it - you feel more lighthearted already! On Wednesday, 05/15/2002, on Good Morning...

ABC's Terry Moran: Character Assassin 05/06/2002 Here is the ultimate example of twisting words! ABC's Terry Moran has made House Majority Leader Dick Armey into the equivalent of Slobodan Milosevic! Wednesday evening, 05/01/2002, on MSNBC's Hardball, Rep. Armey made the statement that "there are many Arab nations that have many hundreds of thousands of acres of land and soil and property and opportunity to create a Palestinian state." He further explained: "I am content to have Israel occupy that land that it now occupies and to have those people who have been aggressors against Israel retire to some other...

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Murderous Victims 04/29/2002 Three Palestinian teenage boys, carrying bombs and knives for the purpose of killing Israelis, were themselves killed by Israeli forces as they ran toward an Israeli settlement. Undoubtedly the residents of Netzarim, in central Gaza, were relieved that the attack was stopped. Yet as Dan Rather and Peter Jennings tell it, these boys are victims. Rather led into the April 25 story on CBS Evening News this way: "Israeli soldiers killed seven Palestinians today in Gaza and the West Bank, but many on both sides are stilled stunned by the deaths Tuesday of three victims too...