Media Bias History Repeating Itself Against Romney-Ryan
Bias: As powerful as Romney's choice of Paul Ryan is, the mainstream media's power — from moderating the debates to censoring interviews — is being wielded against it. Fortunately, Ryan has a potent weapon: the truth.
To say that the establishment media's entirely predictable onslaught on Mitt Romney's running mate, Paul Ryan, is nothing new would be an understatement.
The Media Research Center this week dug up video of the press' welcome of previous Republican vice-presidential nominees.
"Mediocrity and hypocrisy" were the words ABC Nightline anchor Ted Koppel had for Dan Quayle in 1988 — this because he served in the National Guard, which is more than can be said for many in positions of power in the media.
ABC's John Martin dismissed Quayle as "a young man who got a long way in life on the kindness and power of family and friends," while Hardball's Chris Matthews, back when the ex-Tip O'Neill aide and Jimmy Carter speechwriter was a McLaughlin Group panelist, said, "the guy has nothing to say and when he speaks it's frightening."
On John McCain's choice of the charismatic governor of Alaska in 2008, Newsweek's Howard Fineman on MSNBC said in terms of experience, "Sarah Palin makes Barack Obama look like John Adams."
CNN's Jack Cafferty said that if "this woman" as vice president "doesn't scare the hell out of you, it should."
Knowing this history, it's inexplicable that the Romney campaign agreed to a series of moderators for four debates that all represent this same pro-Obama media establishment.
PBS' Jim Lehrer, who as moderator in 2004 played up Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's Vietnam War service; CBS' Bob Schieffer, who a few months ago said, "Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive. It's going to be a tough job for" Republicans to beat Obama.
Or, worst of all, CNN's Candy Crowley, who reacted to the Ryan choice last weekend by wondering whether it was really a Republican "death wish."
Crowley will preside over a town hall format, which — as we've seen in the Republican debates — will give the media the ability to field some of the most leftist-oriented, loaded questions imaginable.
Why the glaring omission of a moderator from Fox News, like ex-ABC White House correspondent Brit Hume, or Bret Baier?
Fox, after all, has been cleaning CNN's clock in viewer ratings, after overtaking the so-called "Worldwide Leader in News" many years ago.
Then there is the dark craft of editing TV interviews. As Hot Air's Ed Morrissey reported, CBS' "60 Minutes" Sunday, interviewing the GOP ticket, not so innocently seemed to leave out Ryan's powerful retort to charges that he wants to gut Medicare.
"My mom is a Medicare senior in Florida," Ryan told Bob Schieffer, stressing that "we need to preserve their benefits," and that his reform ideas "have bipartisan origins. They started from the Clinton commission in the late '90s."
Maybe, as PJ Media's Roger Simon suggests, it's time to remove the media from the presidential debates — and from being the filter between the public and politicians.
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