Washington Post Admits Pro-Obama Bias
By Patrick Henry · Leave a Comment
Deborah Howell — the Washington Post’s ombudsman — admits the paper favored Barack Obama during the election:
The Post provided a lot of good campaign coverage, but readers have been consistently critical of the lack of probing issues coverage and what they saw as a tilt toward Democrat Barack Obama. My surveys, which ended on Election Day, show that they are right on both counts….
The op-ed page ran far more laudatory opinion pieces on Obama, 32, than on Sen. John McCain, 13. There were far more negative pieces (58) about McCain than there were about Obama (32), and Obama got the editorial board’s endorsement. The Post has several conservative columnists, but not all were gung-ho about McCain….
Counting from June 4, Obama was in 311 Post photos and McCain in 282. Obama led in most categories. Obama led 133 to 121 in pictures more than three columns wide, 178 to 161 in smaller pictures, and 164 to 133 in color photos. In black and white photos, the nominees were about even, with McCain at 149 and Obama at 147. On Page 1, they were even at 26 each. Post photo and news editors were surprised by my first count on Aug. 3, which showed a much wider disparity, and made a more conscious effort at balance afterward….
But Obama deserved tougher scrutiny than he got, especially of his undergraduate years, his start in Chicago and his relationship with Antoin “Tony” Rezko, who was convicted this year of influence-peddling in Chicago. The Post did nothing on Obama’s acknowledged drug use as a teenager….
So the Washington Post overwhelmingly favored Barack Obama during the election. So what? As usual, the Post is a day late and a dollar short — not a great quality for a newspaper. The election is over and the country is stuck with the least-vetted President of the modern era. Thanks in part to the media’s negligence, America is now hoping that Obama’s substance can match his style. That’s a big gamble in a dangerous world.
Matt Damon on Sarah Palin
By Patrick Henry · Leave a Comment
Here’s a clip of Matt Damon excoriating Sarah Palin:
pH Reading — Wednesday, September 10, 2008
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Is Trig at the Heart of Media’s Reaction to Palin?
RealClearPolitics · Mona Charen
There were basically two things known about Sarah Palin when her name was announced on Aug. 29 and the mediasphere began to shudder and pulsate: She was a recently elected governor and the mother of five children including a handicapped infant. The scorn from the mainstream press and the left-leaning blog world was both intense and instantaneous. Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic immediately began circulating rumors that Trig was not the governor’s baby — that she had engaged in a huge charade to cover up her teen daughter’s illegitimate child. The New York Times reported on the front page that Palin had been a member of the Alaska Independence Party. Eleanor Clift of Newsweek described the reaction of most newsrooms to Palin’s elevation as “literally laughter.” US Weekly rushed out a cover story picturing Palin holding her baby son with the headline “Babies, Lies, & Scandal.”…
Obama: “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”
By Patrick Henry · Leave a Comment
Barack Obama took a not-so-subtle jab today at Sarah Palin, saying: “You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.” Obama’s statement was undoubtedly a reference to Palin’s speech at last week’s Republican Convention, when she said: “What’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick.”
Here’s the video:
Ouch! This comment is not going to sit well with any woman who isn’t already in the tank for Obama.
pH Reading — Tuesday, September 9, 2008
By Patrick Henry · Leave a Comment
Palin floats like a butterfly, stings like a bee
San Francisco Chronicle · Willie Brown
The Democrats are in trouble. Sarah Palin has totally changed the dynamics of this campaign. Period…
Obama wrong to spurn Hillary, pick Biden
CNN · Ed Rollins
If Obama had done the smart thing, he would have picked Sen. Hillary Clinton for vice president. If he had, he would have united his party for sure and energized his base. He just couldn’t do it and maybe thought he didn’t need to do it. He was wrong. That choice would have meant that McCain probably wouldn’t have picked Palin. And if McCain had picked anybody else from his shortlist, the Republican convention would have been boring, and the party’s base would not have been motivated…
New York Times’ Hypocrisy Regarding Palin’s Experience
By Patrick Henry · Leave a Comment
The Wall Street Journal located this remarkable New York Times‘ editorial from July 3, 1984:
Where is it written that only senators are qualified to become President? . . . Or where is it written that mere representatives aren’t qualified, like Geraldine Ferraro of Queens? . . . Where is it written that governors and mayors, like Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco, are too local, too provincial? . . . Presidential candidates have always chosen their running mates for reasons of practical demography, not idealized democracy. . . . What a splendid system, we say to ourselves, that takes little-known men, tests them in high office and permits them to grow into statesmen. . . . Why shouldn’t a little-known woman have the same opportunity to grow?
Of course, the Times was supporting Geraldine Ferraro’s nomination for Vice President in 1984. Now, with a Republican woman on the ticket, the Times has repeatedly questioned Sarah Palin’s credentials — or, as the Times called her, the “mayor of a tiny Anchorage suburb” (momentarily overlooking Palin is also a sitting governor). Obviously, the Times‘ opinion is solely dependent on whether a person has a D or R behind their name — and not the merits.
pH Reading — Monday, September 8, 2008
By Patrick Henry · Leave a Comment
When Barack’s berserkers lost the plot
The Guardian · Nick Cohen
My colleagues in the American liberal press had little to fear at the start of the week. Their charismatic candidate was ahead in virtually every poll. George W Bush was so unpopular that conservatives were scrambling around for reasons not to invite the Republican President to the Republican convention. Democrats had only to maintain their composure and the White House would be theirs. During the 1997 British general election, the late Lord Jenkins said that Tony Blair was like a man walking down a shiny corridor carrying a precious vase. He was the favourite and held his fate in his hands. If he could just reach the end of the hall without a slip, a Labour victory was assured. The same could have been said of the American Democrats last week. But instead of protecting their precious advantage, they succumbed to a spasm of hatred and threw the vase, the crockery, the cutlery and the kitchen sink at an obscure politician from Alaska…
pH Reading — Sunday, September 7, 2008
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Thanks, Guys: The media’s attacks on Sarah Palin backfire
The Weekly Standard · William Kristol
The editors of The Weekly Standard believe in giving credit where credit is due. The presidential race looks a whole lot better today than it did two weeks ago. For this, thanks are owed to two men–Barack Obama and John McCain–and to that herd of independent minds, the liberal media…
pH Reading — Saturday, September 6, 2008
By Patrick Henry · Leave a Comment
A Convention That Sparked the GOP
Time · David Von Drehle
There was a moment on Tuesday night when the Republican Convention looked like it just might slide right off the rails. The President had been banished from his own party. The running mate was caught in a media frenzy. And a Democrat was extolling the Republican nominee for a series of accomplishments that most delegates inside the Xcel Energy Arena deeply despise and resent. Campaign-finance restrictions, the Gang of 12 senatorial compromise on new judges, immigration reform, the acknowledgement of global warming — as Senator Joseph Lieberman ticked through the record of John McCain, it was so quiet you could almost hear the hum of the air-conditioning…
Heart on Sarah Palin
By Patrick Henry · Leave a Comment
“Sarah Palin’s views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women. We ask that our song ‘Barracuda’ no longer be used to promote her image. The song ‘Barracuda’ was written in the late 70s as a scathing rant against the soulless, corporate nature of the music business, particularly for women. (The ‘barracuda’ represented the business.) While Heart did not and would not authorize the use of their song at the RNC, there’s irony in Republican strategists’ choice to make use of it there.”
–Nancy Wilson of Heart
CNN’s Campbell Brown Suggests Sexist Reid Attack on Palin
By Patrick Henry · Leave a Comment
How often do CNN personalities defend Republicans?
In this video, CNN anchor Campbell Brown questions Senator Harry Reid’s use of the word “shrill” to describe Sarah Palin’s convention speech. Brown observes shrill is most frequently used to describe women, and questions whether Reid’s use of the word suggests sexism.
pH Reading — Friday, September 5, 2008
By Patrick Henry · Leave a Comment
Sarah Palin gets the spiteful Margaret Thatcher treatment
The Telegraph · Janet Daley
There are few sights more bloodcurdling than the liberal pack in full cry. The viciousness of the attacks on Sarah Palin is a testimony to the degree of panic her appointment has generated in Leftist circles…
Sarah Palin’s Address to the Republican National Convention
By Patrick Henry · Leave a Comment
Gloria Steinem on Sarah Palin
By Patrick Henry · Leave a Comment
“Sarah Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Hillary Clinton.”
–Gloria Steinem
pH Reading — Monday, September 1, 2008
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The Audacity of Hype
The New York Times · William Safire
By choosing the venue of a vast outdoor stadium as John Kennedy did for his “new frontier” acceptance, and by speaking on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” address, Barack Obama — whose claim to fame is an ability to move audiences with his words — deliberately invited comparison with two of the most memorable speeches of our recent history. What a mistake…
pH Reading — Sunday, August 31, 2008
By Patrick Henry · Leave a Comment
Who is Prepared to be President? Nobody
RealClearPolitics · Richard Reeves
Is Barack Obama prepared to be president? No. Neither is John McCain. I have written about 12 pounds of books on the presidency over the past 22 years, three long studies that focused on the day-to-day work of John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. This is the most important thing I learned in doing that, a paragraph at the end of the introduction to “President Kennedy: Profile of Power”: “John F. Kennedy was one of only 42 men who truly knew what it is like to be president. He was not prepared for it, but I doubt that anyone ever was or ever will be. The job is sui generis. The presidency is an act of faith.”…
The Daily Brief — Saturday, August 30, 2008
By Patrick Henry · Leave a Comment
Biography: Who Is Sarah Palin?
NBC11.com
Born in Sandpoint, Idaho, Sarah Palin and her family moved to Alaska when she was an infant. She was elected Alaska’s 11th governor in 2006, making her the first female governor and the youngest governor in the state’s history. Palin earned her bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Idaho, where she minored in politics. She moved back to her hometown of Wasilla, Alaska, where she became a two-term mayor from 1992-96… more»
Style Over Substance: Obama Delivers Coronation Peroration, Clarifies Platform
By Patrick Henry · Leave a Comment
Barack Obama’s convention speech before 84,000 screaming partisans was high theater. Just getting that many Democrats to cheer in unison is an accomplishment. (Woodstock was the last time this many cheering liberals gathered in one place.) But getting them there without readily accessible pot? Now that’s truly a feat!
Of course, Senator Obama’s speech was more spectacle than substance…
The Daily Brief — Friday, August 29, 2008
By Patrick Henry · Leave a Comment
Oprah on Obama: ‘I cried my eyelashes off’
Associated Press
Oprah Winfrey is leaving Denver with the candidate she wanted, but reportedly without her eyelashes. The talk-show host said she was moved to tears by Barack Obama’s acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. And those must’ve been some serious tears. “I cried my eyelashes off,” she said in the bowels of Invesco Field, moments after Obama accepted the nomination for president before an estimated 84,000 people… more»
The Daily Brief — Thursday, August 28, 2008
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Economy rebounds at better-than-expected pace in the spring, mostly spurred by exports
Associated Press · Jeannine Aversa
The economy shifted to a higher gear in the spring, growing at its fastest pace in nearly a year as foreign buyers snapped up U.S. exports and tax rebates spurred shoppers at home. The Commerce Department reported Thursday that gross domestic product, or GDP, increased at a 3.3 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter. The revised reading was much better than the government’s initial estimate of a 1.9 percent pace and exceeded economists’ expectations for a 2.7 percent growth rate… more»
It’s the economy, stupid? –PH
