"There is nothing new under the sun."
– Solomon
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I suppose somewhere in history there must have been a group of people less able to think for themselves than today's members of the mainlining media. Unfortunately, that trait destined their civilization for oblivion, and their identity escapes us today.
So you'll have to excuse me if I take today's media drumbeat, "Woe to Republicans – resistance to a Democrat Congress is futile," with a grain of sea salt. This year the preferred "evidence" for the media herd's "independent analysis" is the polling data on press releases.
Oh, yes – the polling data. Would those be the same polling methodologies that declared Al Gore the winner in 2000 – before those of us on the left coast had a chance to vote on our way home from work? One and the same.
Would that be the same polling data that declared John Kerry the winner in 2004 – while phony lawsuits tried to keep the election polls in Ohio open late – so that more dead people, the chronically inebriated and the citizenship-challenged could be ferried by "progressive" campaign workers to vote as often as they liked? The very same.
What are these mysterious polling methodologies? They're actually very simple. You adjust upward the numbers of Democrats polled, while adjusting downwards the number of Republicans. Stir gently and season to taste. Ah, yes – just a sprinkle more Democrat seasoned salt ... now it tastes like a landslide. Soup's on! Press release!
That's how it works in the post-Dan Rather/Mary Mapes world of outright media-generated document fraud. Their justification? "Well, it should have been true!"
There's a lot of talk now about parallels to 1994 and the Republican landslide that drove the Democrats from power. I am one of the few commentators who forecast that change in reports published before the election. I missed predicting the final result by two seats in the House and one in the Senate. I faxed that analysis to most major media outlets a week before the election. The response? Zippo.
As the Media Research Center documents ("How the media vote"), between 60 and 90 percent of the "independent thinkers" in the media reliably vote the Democrat ticket in every election. Honestly, how much "independent analysis" is such a thundering media herd capable of? "Wait! Stop the presses! Another partisan group predicts doom for the Republicans. Cut the Kim nuke story and put the press release on Page 1!"
Such lopsided press coverage of any administration or political party is harmful to the nation and our future. And as the Media Research Center's report shows, that coverage is extremely biased toward Democrats and against Republicans.
In the years when a Democrat administration or Congress is in power, a Democrat press corps will be far more likely to hand out "get out of jail free" cards to wrongdoers. They will also be far less likely to apply any scrutiny to the product of such an administration or Congress.
In the years when a Republican administration or Congress is in power, a Democrat press corps will want to slap "go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200" bumper stickers on wrongdoers' foreheads, all the while criticizing the public policies of those they disagree with for purely ideological reasons.
The height of this disproportionality is the "paging Foley" coverage of a couple of Capitol Hill perverts having closeted IM phone sex. Contrast that with the media coverage of Bill Clinton having actual sex with an intern under the Oval Office desk while his secretary of state sends former President Jimmy Carter to North Korea to help Kim build the bomb. The press response? "Ho, hum. Where's a Republican doing something wrong? Now that's news!"
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