ABC News Channeling Mary Mapes?
Captain's Quarters
The talking-points memo that ABC News reported this weekend that supposedly encouraged Republicans in Congress to support the emergency bill for Terri Schiavo looks fishier all the time. As Power Line noted last night, the memo itself has finally been scanned to PDF and placed on the Internet, although not by ABC. The memo has some odd characteristics, as Rocket Man points out:
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The memo is not only "unsigned," as it was described by the Washington Post; it is not on House or Senate letterhead, nor is there any indication of source or authenticity. It is a memo that anyone could have typed and distributed[.]
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Not only that, but unlike regular TP memos, the arguments appear amateurish and poorly written. They also do not descend in order of impact, as most do in order to allow quick scanning by Congressmen and Senators. But most damning of all is the header of the memo, which reads, "S. 529, The Incapacitated Persons Legal Protection Act." Senate bill 529 was in fact a proposal to establish a federal anti-doping agency. The bill in question was S. 539, a mistake that a staffer would be highly unlikely to make.
This, combined with the ABC push polling this weekend, calls into question the entire editorial process at ABC. This appears to be a coordinated effort to misrepresent the news by ABC, using misleading poll questions and a memo of highly questionable authenticity to cast Republicans in the worst possible light over the Schiavo issue. It smells of another Exempt Media ideologically-based attack, just as the Killian memos formed one during the final weeks of a presidential campaign. However, in this case, a young woman's life is at stake -- apparently a fact that ABC news missed in its zeal to discredit the GOP.
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin's new column talks more about the bias at ABC News:
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ABC News did not see fit to inform either the poll takers or its viewers of the truth. Instead, it misled them -- and the result was a poll response that produced -- voila! -- "broad public disapproval" for any government intervention to spare Terri from slowly starving to death. ...
Imagine how the poll results might have turned out if ABC News had made clear to participants that Terri is not terminally ill. Not in excruciating pain. Capable of saying "Mommy" and "Help me." And of "getting the feeling she's falling" or getting "excited," in her husband's own testimony, when her head is not held properly.
Imagine how the poll results might have turned out if ABC News had informed participants that in a sworn affidavit, registered nurse Carla Sauer Iyer, who worked at the Palm Garden of Largo Convalescent Center in Largo, Fla., while Terri Schiavo was a patient there, testified: "Throughout my time at Palm Gardens, Michael Schiavo was focused on Terri's death. Michael would say 'When is she going to die?' 'Has she died yet?' and 'When is that bitch gonna die?'"
Now, if you were in this situation, would you want to be kept alive, or not?
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Imagine a major news agency that actually reports objectively on political issue. Unfortunately contradicting John Lennon, it's not easy even if you try.
Posted by Captain Ed
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