Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Not Fooling Anyone, You Know

Steve at NMMNB has Time's Mark Halperin figured out to a T.  Halperin starts out this week by warning that the Republican have no chance to repeal Obamacare.  But, as Steve points out, Halperin goes on to hand the GOP a number of talking points they can use as they lose the repeal fight and long after.  Halperin blames...the liberal media! (Surprise!)
So if right-wingers actually shout racist and homophobic slurs at Democratic lawmakers, or spit on them, and it's reported -- that's media bias! If people get benefits and their lives are thereby improved and the press reports that -- that's liberal media bias too! I suppose if a teabagger takes a shot at someone and it makes the news, that'll be bias, too.

Right-wingers are going to run with what Halperin says here. They're going to say that "even the liberal Mark Halperin" "admits" that the press isn't going to play fair. They're going to blame any positive poll response to health care reform and the Democrats on sinister media propagandizing, just as Halperin described it. Halperin helps them argue to their base that the jackbooted fascists are being enabled by a propaganda army of a press.
If this looks familiar, it's because it's the same prospect they used in 2007 and 2008 to try to sink Obama.  (Google "In the tank for Obama" sometime.)  That worked out well and of course Obama and the Democrats were destroyed, McCain/Palin won in a landslide and the GOP controls the House and Senate.

Oh wait, I see.  Halperin's using psychic jujitsu!
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1 comment:

  1. In Ur Blog Eatin Waffles (Accept no fail imitations)March 23, 2010 at 12:46 PM

    ...both sides claim the media is "bias"...

    "Overall, the major media outlets are quite moderate compared to members of Congress, but even so, there is a quantifiable and significant bias in that nearly all of them lean to the left," said co‑author Jeffrey Milyo, University of Missouri economist and public policy scholar."

    http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx

    or

    "Just before the November 2008 presidential election, 68% of voters said most reporters try to help the candidate they want to win, and 51% believed they were trying to help Democrat Barack Obama. Just seven percent (7%) thought they were trying to help his Republican opponent, John McCain."

    "Fifty-one percent (51%) of voters say the average reporter is more liberal than they are. Eighteen percent (18%) say that reporter is more conservative, and 20% think their views are about the same ideologically as the average reporter’s. That view is largely unchanged from October. "

    http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/january_2010/67_say_news_media_have_too_much_influence_over_government_decisions

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