Actually, that link should have showed the Florida Supreme Court.
Who needs the courts
when Gore has media?
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com
WASHINGTON -- Fox News Channel
did a really dumb thing. It put
George W. Bush's cousin, John
Ellis, in charge of its
decision desk on election
night.
From there, Ellis called states
for Bush while chatting
privately over the phone with
him and his other cousin,
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
Fox wanted an inside track --
and an edge over the Big Three
-- but this was just too cozy.
Old media critics, who are
blind to their own liberal bias
but always alert to
conservative bias, have pounced
on Fox's faux pas.
Washington Post's Howard Kurtz,
for one, said the public will
have a harder time trusting Fox
now.
"The appearance of their man
working both sides of the
street has damaged their
credibility," wrote Kurtz, who
also works for Fox competitor
CNN.
Wait a minute, Howie.
"Working both sides of the
street" presents a credibility
problem for Fox, but not for
ABC News?
While cousin Ellis was
schmoozing behind the camera on
election night at Fox, former
Clinton aide George
Stephanopoulos was spinning the
results in front of the camera
with Peter Jennings at ABC.
And Stephanopoulos clearly has
the more egregious conflict. In
a first for TV news (forgive
the oxymoron), a top aide to a
president has been allowed to
report on White House issues
while his former boss is still
in power.
Yet Kurtz hasn't condemned ABC
for hiring him.
Recall that Stephanopoulos
initially was hired as a
"commentator" or "analyst" for
ABC's Sunday talk show.
But he soon flowered into a
correspondent, reporting the
"facts" to Sam and Cokie, then
Jennings and now even network
doyen Ted Koppel. His power and
influence at ABC grows by the
day.
You've probably noticed that
those facts that Stephanopoulos
reports tend to involve issues
that matter most to this
administration, and always seem
to spin Clinton's or Al Gore's
way.
Oh sure, Stephanopoulos will
speak critically of his former
bosses. But it's usually about
style, not substance.
Point is, the former
Clinton-Gore flack is still
flacking. Most recently, during
the election crisis, he
practically parroted Gore's
talking points, including the
lie that all votes haven't been
counted in Florida.
Yet ABC is dressing him up as
just another correspondent.
Have you ever heard Sam or
Cokie identify Stephanopoulos
as a liberal, or a Democrat or
even a former White House aide?
Nope. But the other George on
the roundtable is routinely
labeled a "conservative."
They announce it as if it were
an expiration date on a carton
of sour milk or spoiled meat.
Watch out! This guy is
contaminated with opinion!
The same goes for other
"conservative" commentators,
such as Bill Kristol, Paul
Gigot, Charles Krauthammer and
Peggy Noonan. Viewers are
almost always warned of their
"right-wing" bias.
But dependably liberal David
Broder is just David Broder,
the "dean" of the Washington
press corps. And Eleanor Clift,
the shrill shill of the Clinton
White House, is just Eleanor
Clift, contributing editor to
Newsweek. Stridently liberal
Mara Laisson is just Mara
Laisson, NPR correspondent.
Comically liberal Juan
Williams' dropline: Columnist.
Apparently, the viewing public
needs no warning when flaming
lefties are on the air. They're
passed off as neutral
journalists with no political
axes to grind.
The irony is that the
"conservative" commentators who
producers try to label as
partisan hacks -- George Will,
Kristol, Gigot, Krauthammer,
Noonan -- are some of the most
thoughtful analysts on TV.
Whereas the usual suspects on
the left -- who are perfumed as
honest journalists -- are fonts
of conventional wisdom. Rarely
do they offer an original
thought.
Katherine 'Republican' Harris
Pinning the label on the
Republican is a favorite game
of the old media. And they've
played it throughout the
election crisis, and not just
with guest pundits.
"Republican" is now Katherine
Harris' middle name. Americans
may not know she's Florida's
secretary of state, but they
can tell you she's a
Republican, thanks to media
chanting.
Palm Beach canvasser Carol
Roberts is a rabidly partisan
Democrat. Yet the media didn't
make her politics a big issue.
The Florida legislature is
described by the media, without
fail, as "Republican
controlled." They can't say one
without the other.
But how often have you heard
the Florida Supreme Court,
which is packed with six
Democrats, described as
"Democratic controlled"?
When the conservative press
breaks news, it's instantly
written off as biased. But if
the Miami Herald breaks a
story, it's embraced as the
gospel truth -- even though the
Herald endorsed Gore.
And when a Democrat rules in
favor of Bush, as Leon County
Circuit Judge Sanders Sauls
did, the media stops calling
him a Democrat.
Even in the New York Times'
front-page smear of Sanders,
which masqueraded as a profile,
readers didn't learn of his
party until the 10th paragraph.
Hard to demonize a judge as
pro-Bush when he's a Democrat.
I look forward to reading the
above-the-fold expose on the
four Florida supremes who've
been spanked twice now by the
highest court for what amounts
to political activism.
Will the Times tell us of their
personal and political ties to
Gore? Will the "newspaper of
record" tell us if any of them
had ugly divorces? Will it fill
us in on reports of
professional misconduct and
incompetence during their
careers on the bench?
Don't hold your breath.
The media won't ID other
Democrats, either, who get in
the way of their fairy tales of
GOP sorcery.
Misery merchant
Barry Richard, Bush's lead
attorney in Tallahassee, is
called a Republican lawyer,
even though he's a Democrat who
works for a Miami-based law
firm with strong Democratic
Party ties.
Misery merchant Jesse Jackson
is charging Florida counties
with racism. He claims Palm
Beach, Broward, Miami-Dade and
Leon counties "disenfranchised"
voters -- and, somehow, Jeb
Bush is behind the wicked plot.
The media echo his
unsubstantiated charges, while
failing to point out that the
canvassing boards in the
counties Jackson cites are all
run by Democrats. Apparently,
Democrats are now racists, too.
But the media is quick to join
Jackson in characterizing the
U.S. Supreme Court as being a
"Republican court," packed with
conservative Reagan appointees.
They knew the high court would
rule against their candidate.
So they colored the decision as
political before it came,
daring the public to accept it.
And that's the spin, now that
it's here: "A narrow, 5-4
Republican majority."
Next: The Miami Herald will
miraculously discover hundreds
of hidden votes for Gore in
those disputed ballots that the
mean Republican justices kept
from Gore. And Stephanopoulos
will amplify the findings on
ABC, maybe even conducting some
focus groups of voters who'll
say they can no longer accept
Bush as president.
Who needs the courts when Gore
has the media on his side? |
