C
Clay
Guest
By Brent Bozell III
Thursday, April 3, 2008
The presidential campaign seems upside down, like a bad April Fool's
joke. Suddenly, the titans of the liberal media are wondering out loud
if Hillary Clinton should quit the presidential race, while Hillary is
kindly greeting and grinning at every vaunted "vast right-wing
conspiracy" media outlet from Dick Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
to Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a
leading Hillary advocate, hailed Fox News as the fairest to Mrs.
Clinton. It is truly bizarre.
At the start of 2008, the dominant storyline was how the Clinton
Juggernaut would eventually crush everyone in its path to the
Democratic presidential nod. Certainly, Barack Obama's fundraising was
matching hers, and his media clips were so sugary they'd make cotton
candy seem bitter. But no one really believed Hillary would be where
she is today, just three months later, finding herself hounded to go
"home" to New York.
Mrs. Clinton's situation is so dire she's relying on Rush Limbaugh's
"Operation Chaos," calling on his multitudes of listeners to vote for
Hillary to keep the race going. Some liberals don't like this. CNN
reporter Carol Costello labeled it "Rush Limbaugh's dark strategy to
weaken the Democratic Party." Hillary, on the other hand, should be
lighting votive candles in thanksgiving.
Hillary's latest bout with the media arrived when the networks decided
to acknowledge that her tall tale about Tuzla -- she claimed in a
March 17 speech that she landed in Bosnia in 1996 in the face of
"sniper fire" -- was easily and obviously disproven by network news
footage of the event. It showed Hillary calmly walking on the tarmac
with her daughter Chelsea. Even on that story, the networks were slow
to report damaging news. Six full days after the NewsBusters blog
posted old CBS footage, and two days after The Washington Post awarded
the former First Lady "four Pinocchios" for unloading a "real
whopper," the networks finally aired the footage and the memories of
the reporters who actually accompanied her to Bosnia on that day.
The Get-Out whispers have started because many reporters are clearly
worried about the fate of Democrats in the fall. It was Topic A when
Obama allowed interviews on the ABC and CBS evening newscasts on March
27. On ABC, Charlie Gibson wondered "no matter who emerges" as the
nominee, isn't the winner hurt in the general election? When Obama
tried to disagree, Gibson worried further with a Gallup poll showing
28 percent of Hillary supporters would vote for John McCain in the
fall, while 19 percent of Obama supporters would prefer McCain to
Hillary.
In the heat of battle, those numbers are probably exaggerated. But if
the fall election is as close as the last two, even if only one in 10
keep this promise, it could give the election to McCain. Are the
"objective" media supposed to fret so publicly over the chances of the
Democrats?
Sitting in for Katie Couric at CBS, Harry Smith was more obvious with
Obama about urging Hillary to step aside. "If you're the presumptive
candidate here, isn't it time that you say, with some severity, that
we can't go on like this?" After Obama replied, "well, no," Smith
objected: "At the cost of losing the general election?"
These anchors also have behaved like loyal Democrats in how they
glossed over Obama's worsening problem with his minister, Jeremiah
Wright. The day before the interviews, CNSNews.com exposed the
November/December 2007 edition of Wright's church magazine The
Trumpet. Wright proclaimed the crucifixion of Jesus was a "public
lynching, Italian-style" and that "The Italians for the most part
looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans." Again, Wright
proclaimed that in America and around the world, "white supremacy is
clearly in charge."
A news story for the networks? No. Once again, CBS's Smith was softer.
He completely skipped the issue. ABC's Gibson hailed Obama for his
"extraordinary" speech on race, and then gently, vaguely nudged: "Can
you understand why many, particularly white voters, are so repelled by
the remarks that he has made?"
Gibson acknowledged Wright's remarks were repulsive to "many," but
apparently not to him. He did not ask why Obama would donate buckets
of cash to this sinister minister with the "God damn America" sermons
who's now spoiling Obama's appeal with Italian-Americans.
Then there's NBC. By the time they gained their own access to Obama on
the campaign trail, Ann Curry was asking Obama which rock band the
candidate preferred, "Beatles or the Rolling Stones?"
The networks want Hillary to lose Pennsylvania, so she's not making up
the sound of rhetorical sniper fire from her usual media allies. No
one should have any doubt that all will be forgiven when and if she
decides to bow her knee to the media-manufactured majesty of the Great
and Powerful Obama.
=================
Founder and President of the Media Research Center, Brent Bozell runs
the largest media watchdog organization in America.
---------------
-C-
Thursday, April 3, 2008
The presidential campaign seems upside down, like a bad April Fool's
joke. Suddenly, the titans of the liberal media are wondering out loud
if Hillary Clinton should quit the presidential race, while Hillary is
kindly greeting and grinning at every vaunted "vast right-wing
conspiracy" media outlet from Dick Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
to Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a
leading Hillary advocate, hailed Fox News as the fairest to Mrs.
Clinton. It is truly bizarre.
At the start of 2008, the dominant storyline was how the Clinton
Juggernaut would eventually crush everyone in its path to the
Democratic presidential nod. Certainly, Barack Obama's fundraising was
matching hers, and his media clips were so sugary they'd make cotton
candy seem bitter. But no one really believed Hillary would be where
she is today, just three months later, finding herself hounded to go
"home" to New York.
Mrs. Clinton's situation is so dire she's relying on Rush Limbaugh's
"Operation Chaos," calling on his multitudes of listeners to vote for
Hillary to keep the race going. Some liberals don't like this. CNN
reporter Carol Costello labeled it "Rush Limbaugh's dark strategy to
weaken the Democratic Party." Hillary, on the other hand, should be
lighting votive candles in thanksgiving.
Hillary's latest bout with the media arrived when the networks decided
to acknowledge that her tall tale about Tuzla -- she claimed in a
March 17 speech that she landed in Bosnia in 1996 in the face of
"sniper fire" -- was easily and obviously disproven by network news
footage of the event. It showed Hillary calmly walking on the tarmac
with her daughter Chelsea. Even on that story, the networks were slow
to report damaging news. Six full days after the NewsBusters blog
posted old CBS footage, and two days after The Washington Post awarded
the former First Lady "four Pinocchios" for unloading a "real
whopper," the networks finally aired the footage and the memories of
the reporters who actually accompanied her to Bosnia on that day.
The Get-Out whispers have started because many reporters are clearly
worried about the fate of Democrats in the fall. It was Topic A when
Obama allowed interviews on the ABC and CBS evening newscasts on March
27. On ABC, Charlie Gibson wondered "no matter who emerges" as the
nominee, isn't the winner hurt in the general election? When Obama
tried to disagree, Gibson worried further with a Gallup poll showing
28 percent of Hillary supporters would vote for John McCain in the
fall, while 19 percent of Obama supporters would prefer McCain to
Hillary.
In the heat of battle, those numbers are probably exaggerated. But if
the fall election is as close as the last two, even if only one in 10
keep this promise, it could give the election to McCain. Are the
"objective" media supposed to fret so publicly over the chances of the
Democrats?
Sitting in for Katie Couric at CBS, Harry Smith was more obvious with
Obama about urging Hillary to step aside. "If you're the presumptive
candidate here, isn't it time that you say, with some severity, that
we can't go on like this?" After Obama replied, "well, no," Smith
objected: "At the cost of losing the general election?"
These anchors also have behaved like loyal Democrats in how they
glossed over Obama's worsening problem with his minister, Jeremiah
Wright. The day before the interviews, CNSNews.com exposed the
November/December 2007 edition of Wright's church magazine The
Trumpet. Wright proclaimed the crucifixion of Jesus was a "public
lynching, Italian-style" and that "The Italians for the most part
looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans." Again, Wright
proclaimed that in America and around the world, "white supremacy is
clearly in charge."
A news story for the networks? No. Once again, CBS's Smith was softer.
He completely skipped the issue. ABC's Gibson hailed Obama for his
"extraordinary" speech on race, and then gently, vaguely nudged: "Can
you understand why many, particularly white voters, are so repelled by
the remarks that he has made?"
Gibson acknowledged Wright's remarks were repulsive to "many," but
apparently not to him. He did not ask why Obama would donate buckets
of cash to this sinister minister with the "God damn America" sermons
who's now spoiling Obama's appeal with Italian-Americans.
Then there's NBC. By the time they gained their own access to Obama on
the campaign trail, Ann Curry was asking Obama which rock band the
candidate preferred, "Beatles or the Rolling Stones?"
The networks want Hillary to lose Pennsylvania, so she's not making up
the sound of rhetorical sniper fire from her usual media allies. No
one should have any doubt that all will be forgiven when and if she
decides to bow her knee to the media-manufactured majesty of the Great
and Powerful Obama.
=================
Founder and President of the Media Research Center, Brent Bozell runs
the largest media watchdog organization in America.
---------------
-C-