Saturday, April 19, 2008

I was told there would be no math - Betsy's Page "Has liberal cocooning hurt Democrats? ": "Democrats just aren't as used to getting that sort of tough questioning about matters that they know will make them less appealing to the average voter. Republicans are used to those sorts of questions because they get them all the time from the media."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Translation: "Waaaaahhhh! My football team gets ALL the bad calls!"

Anyone who thinks Democratic candidates get perennial "free rides" from the media while the Republicans are always hammered is a fool.

The concept might come to one naturally, or it might be an act of deliberate positive self-reinforcement, but either way it's ridiculous. And never more so than in this McCain cycle.

JorgXMcKie said...

anon: pull your cranial cavity out of your anal aperture often? Oh. Probably not, given that you are evidently unaware of some 30+ years of studies showing the bias, let alone being honest enough to watch what happens with even the least bit of awareness.

I'll believe you when Helen Thomas starts asking questions that are even only mildly biased (it would be the first time in her 50 year career.)

Eric said...

Sorry, Anon, but the evidence is overwhelming, year after year, that the press corps is almost monolithicly sympathetic to Democrats.

http://www.mediaresearch.org/biasbasics/biasbasics3.asp

And it was two veteran reports who recently wrote on Politico that the media is in the bag for Obama. But I'm sure the MSM will turn super-objective during the general election. Not.

Anonymous said...

Zap, right to the usual sob story. But the STATED premise was: "Democrats just aren't as used to getting that sort of tough questioning about matters that they know will make them less appealing to the average voter. Republicans are used to those sorts of questions because they get them all the time from the media."

Which is simply not the case. Do you MSM-panicked partisans really need a list of specific counterexamples of tough questioning towards Democrats, or powderpuff treatment of Republicans? Analogous comparisons between troublesome Dem and GOP situations in which the Republican has received lighter treatment? Past and present?

The premise above -- we always get screwed, they always get pampered -- is indulgent nonsense.

But "you and me against the world" is such a seductive concept. Eric cites a series of polls of as few as 28 subjects as posted on mediaresearch.org. And 2 "veteran reporters" on Politico.com, jumping the gun by proving what's GOING to happen!

Media Research and Politico: two unimpeachably neutral and evenhanded sources. To see them invoked as exposers of bias tells a story in itself.

The larger reality is that to the extent the "lefty" mass media acts in concert, it reinforces orthodoxy and corporate interests (which are generally, though not always, in accord with conservative policies). Which outweighs any "they voted for Kerry... freaking KERRY!" headcount. But THAT doesn't give Bernard Goldberg anything sexy to write about.