'Liberal media bias' and other tired shibboleths

Allow me to say that I have grown weary of hearing about liberal media bias every time Sarah Palin comes across poorly in the press.

This has come up most recently in a political discussion on a religion and humor forum I frequent. An acquaintance of mine known as RBP recently complained that the coverage of former Democratic candidate Jon Edwards' affair in the press was delayed and sorely lacking, Coverage of the teenage pregnancy of Bristol Palin, the daughter of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has been extensive and immediate. It's a double standard obviously. (You may read RBP's comments here, if you like, along with the entire discussion.)

Now I will grant that the coverage of Bristol Palin's teen pregnancy has been overdone. She's not running for vice president; her mother is.

But not newsworthy? Sarah Palin has been running in part on her supposedly superior family values, including an opposition to safe sex education, which does lead to a reduction to teen pregnancy. The contrast is worth noting.

As for Edwards, I don't know how much the news media knew before he finally admitted to the extramarital affair, but let's be fair. Saying that legitimate news media failed to cover something reported in The National Enquirer is rather like taking them to task for failing to cover Bat Boy.

Edwards is a public person, but at the time the Enquirer broke the news, he was not a presidential candidate nor even particularly clearly a favorite for vice president. I'm not sure what public good was neglected in this case. And again, The Enquirer is hardly a font of credible journalism. Perhaps the respectable news media should be all over the impending Bush divorce that the tabloids have been reporting?

Let's look at other high-level affairs and how the news media have covered them.

Not that many years ago the press dug into the story of Clinton's affair with such thoroughness that not only were there stories on how many news outlets were covering Zippergate, there were news stories about many news outlets were covering the coverage of Zippergate. Was that a liberal bias at work, or a conservative bias? Or was it merely pandering to the baser appetites of the public for salacious details about our leaders?

For that matter, John Kerry didn't even have an affair in 2004, but the media still dug into the private life of one of his campaign staffers and made her life a living hell.

Gary Bauer took the unusual step of holding a news conference during Primary 2000 to announce that he wasn't having an affair with his staffers, and was pretty much given a free pass. I mean, really, there's not much of a better way to draw attention to a potential impropriety than to insist that it's not what people think, especially when no one publicly is thinking it.

From I have been told by other journalists, the word around Washington, D.C., during the presidency of George H.W. Bush is that he also was having an affair. I recall no coverage of this at the time. Further liberal bias at work?

I know that "liberal media bias" is an important shibboleth within conservative culture, but let's be fair. Repeat it enough, start assuming it from the get-go, and dang if you won't find boatloads of evidence of it. The New York Times could say that President Bush walks on water, and the response would be "Those dirty liberals are suggesting Bush thinks he's above the law of gravity!"

There are plenty of other reasonable explanations why the Edwards affair wasn't aired immediately, and the Palin situation was. Let's be reasonable, and stop blaming news we don't like on a liberal media bias.



Copyright © 2008 by David Learn. Used with permission.


Tweet

Kerry by default

I expect I will vote for Kerry on Nov. 2, but if Nader weren't a looney, he might be a viable candidate for me to vote for.

In no event is a vote for Nader a vote for Bush. It's a vote for Nader, even if it indirectly leads to a Bush victory. The Star-Ledger published a voter's guide Sunday that I want to look at more closely, since it's possible its presentation of third party and big two candidates will lead me to reconsider my vote.

(Yes, I am still relatively undecided because, quite frankly, neither of the main two candidates appeals to me.)

remember to vote

Just to make sure everyone has heard:

Because election officials are expecting a large turnout at the polls for the presidential election, because of the low number of poll workers, and mostly because of the potential for physical altercations between Republicans and Democrats, Congress has decided to alter the election turnout rules:

• Democrats are to vote on Tuesday, Nov. 2.
• Republicans are to vote on Wednesday, Nov. 3.
• Members of third parties are to vote on Thursday, Nov. 4.

This also should allay fears of voter intimidation and tampering, and should eliminate problems of the sort of that jeopardized the 2000 presidential election.

Remember, every vote counts!

Our toxic political zeitgeist is driving the national divide

Something to consider as we head toward the presidential election:

Barring some kind of paradigm-changing, cataclysmic event, [pollster John] Zogby sees the election and its outcome in almost apocalyptic terms.

"Welcome to the Armageddon election," Zogby says. "I've never seen anything like it. We're partisan and polarized and in two warring camps."

Zogby likened this year's election to the watershed election of 1800, which saw President John Adams lose to his vice president, Thomas Jefferson. That election was so divisive - Adams was demonized as a "royalist," while Jefferson was reviled as "an atheist and a whoremaster" - that Americans would call the presidency of James Madison, who succeeded Jefferson, the "Era of Good Feelings."

Today, after years of growing polarization, the next president - whether Bush or Kerry - will face another historic opportunity to reach out to the other side and attempt to begin a period of healing, if not "good feelings." But at this point it is difficult to see the losing side accepting such an olive branch.

But at some point we must find accommodation as a nation - even unity. I am as certain of this one thing as John Zogby is of the outcome of the election.

If we remain divided, we will fall. And hard.

This divide has been bothering me for years.

Much of the prevailing political divide has its roots in Bush's narrow win in Florida in 2000; much else of it has to do with the Republican attempt to impeach Clinton in his second term, driven by the pugilistic realpolitick of Newt Gingrich. Many liberals still dispute the legitimacy of Bush's victory and resent the Supreme Court for stepping in and ruling in such a way that Bush was able to take Florida, just as many conservatives still revile Clinton for his peccadilloes.

I'm not convinced that Kerry can win the election. So far, he has been unable to get a message across or even to appear as charismatic -- but the growing sentiment against Bush may be all that he needs to win.

We'll have to see what happens, but I do hope that the talking heads in both the GOP and the Democratic Party will be able to treat one another with at least the modicum of respect that's due them as human beings. I don't recall much nastiness in the Reagan races. Quite the opposite. When Mondale tried to make an issue of Reagan's age. Reagan responded with aplomb: "I see no reason my opponent's youth and inexperience should be held against him."

Despite his use of racial dog whistles and other shortcomings on civil rights, I don't recall anything in the Reagan campaigns like the loathsome and racist Willie Horton ads that Lee Atwater's team threw against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential election, or the negative tone of George H.W. Bush's re-election campaign.

The negative, personal and extremist language of the politics has to stop. It's divisive, it leaves voters disenfranchised and it discourages meaningful participation in a democracy. 

It's probably going to be even worse this year since neither major candidate is particularly inspiring to the general public, however they may appeal to the core constituents of their own parties.

Hopefully Kerry and Bush and their campaign managers will take high road this time around, instead of the win-at-all-costs road, and we'll be able to survive this election with our wits and nation intact.

And while I'm at it, I'd like a pony ...