The "Corporate Run"-"Right Wing" media's quotes

From the "If you can't beat 'em join 'em" file:

It's rather clever, actually. Since the main-stream media, on a regular basis, proves that it leans Left (I mean really leans), the Left gratuitously claims the main-stream media is Right leaning. They love to point out that most major news outlets are owned by large conglomerates. As if being a large company and being Republican somehow equate. Sure, Ted Turner founded and ran a huge corporation and he and his wife are bigtime right-wingers but that doesn't mean every other corporate head is also part of a vast right-wing conspiracy.

So, from time to time I'll be using various sources to gather and disseminate quotes with obvious intent.

Let's take Charlie Gibson on World News Tonight, 21 April.

We’ll take ‘A Closer Look’ tonight at John Kerry’s distinguished war record. His opponents are trying hard to use it against him.

Is this news? If it's commentary is it anywhere close to fair or balanced?

I guess one day of sucking up to Kerry wasn't enough.
Peter Jennings on World News Tonight, April 26.

We’ll take ‘A Closer Look’ tonight at John Kerry’s dilemma: After brave and honorable service in Vietnam, a post-war record that dogs him.

Brave, honorable, and distinguished are not facts in evidence. In fact, most of the men who served with him claim the opposite.

So where do the facts line up? According to Capt. Charley Plumly, who had Kerry under his command for two or three naval operations, Kerry's attitude and behavior were less then honorable. "Kerry would be described as devious, self-absorbing, manipulative, disdain for authority, disruptive," Plumly said, "but the most common phrase you would hear [was] 'requires constant supervision.' "

How about the proof of the assertions made on ABC? Honorable, brave, distinguished? The mere fact that medals were awarded, is that proof? That would be enough if there weren't questionable circumstance around the winning of said medals coupled with Kerry's refusal to release his records.

But does any of this matter to ABC... that media outlet owned by huge, corporate conglomerate? Well, I may have been born at night, but I wasn't born last night.



You know, I was going to end it here. Gibson's line is just over-the-top bizarre.

We’ll take ‘A Closer Look’ tonight at John Kerry’s distinguished war record. His opponents are trying hard to use it against him.

Only a moron would try to use a distiguished service record against its owner. Not only that but the phrase 'trying hard to' intimates failure, as in the little engine was trying hard to get up the hill. Let's rewrite this quote so it's news and not spin.

We’ll take ‘A Closer Look’ tonight at John Kerry’s war record. His opponents are using it against him.

Pretty big difference when we remove the spin, huh? Hey Charlie, I'll figure out whether Kerry's war record is distinguished or not. I don't need you to make that decision.
Just lay out the facts as they're known and I'll do the thinking.

Moms Unleash Their Anguish, Anger -- All 8 of them

Moms Unleash Their Anguish, Anger (washingtonpost.com): "Moms Unleash Their Anguish, Anger
Thousands March to End Gun Violence, Renew Assault Weapons Ban "

What's interesting is that this was the Million Mom's March that had 2,000 marchers. And this makes page B1 in the Post? Come on, there are marches of a few thousand all of the time in D.C.; there is absolutely nothing which makes this page 1 coverage. In fact, C-SPAN planned to cover the march on cable and satellite television, but the turnout was so bad they played reruns of "Book Notes". I mean, C-SPAN will show even the dullest of political event but they passed on this pitiful gathering.

But no, the Washington Post headlines the article with the ultimate in Mexican Soap Opera drama, Moms Unleash Their Anguish, Anger. If that's not enough, it fronts section B.

Where is the article about the counter protest sponsored by he Second Amendment Sisters? No Bias, my ass.

Protesters, most of them women, gathered on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol yesterday for the largest gun-control demonstration in four years, a loud and calculated effort aimed at forcing President Bush to renew the soon-to-expire federal ban on assault weapons.

This is the best they can do in four years. No wonder Gore and now Kerry are running from the gun issue.

Inaction by Levin proves politics rules

This morning on Fox News Sunday, the host asked Senator Carl Levin as the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Service when the prison abuse scandel originally broke in January of 2004 what he did? Nothing. Levin said that the reports of allegations of abuse didn't indicate the depth of the problem.

Huh?

Senator Levin, how would you know how deep the abuse goes unless you investigate? Are you saying that when you hear that there are allegations of abuse it doesn't cause you to wonder?

What it says to me is that you don't care at all about the abuse, only the reaction of the public and the world to the abuse. It says your disgust is partisan, your questions are political, and your values are suspect.

Q&A with Richard Miniter on Osama bin Laden on National Review Online