Bias by Labeling: WashPost's Kumar Notes 'Women's PAC to Take On 'Antiabortion Lawmakers'

Much of the media's liberal bias is furthered by presenting political controversies such that they pit a non-ideological group versus an ideological one, most often of course the ideological group being conservative in nature.

Take the Washington Post's Virginia legislature correspondent Anita Kumar, who informed readers in an 11-paragraph item on page B2 of today's paper that a "Women's PAC [will] take on antiabortion lawmakers" (emphasis mine):

RICHMOND — There were protests and candlelight vigils, stories on national TV and late-night jokes.

Now, a group of women in Virginia has formed a political action committee to try to defeat legislators who backed a pair of contentious abortion bills.

The Women’s Strike Force’s leadership team has several former elected officials, including former state delegates Katherine Wadell (I-Richmond), Robin Abbott (D-Newport News), Kris Amundson (D-Fairfax) and Margi Vanderhye (D-Fairfax, as well as Leslie Byrne, a former congresswoman and an unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant governor in 2005.

“As a former member of the General Assembly and Virginia’s first woman in Congress, I fought for women’s rights in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s,” Byrne said. “We must move the commonwealth and the nation forward, not backslide to denying women rights.”

Of course, if you run a Web search on these women and NARAL -- the National Abortion Rights Action League -- you'll find every single one of them has ties to the abortion-on-demand lobby group, many if not all of them having been heartily endorsed by NARAL Virginia, the Old Dominion's chapter of the abortion rights advocacy group.

Yet Kumar would have readers believe they are simply female ex-legislators who are pushed to react by legislation which went beyond the pale to them as women.

What's more, Kumar failed to note that Rebecca Geller, whom she merely described as "a Fairfax resident who is on the group's leadership team," is hardly a novice at political action. According to Geller's Facebook and Linked In profiles, Geller, a practicing attorney, previously worked for the New Hampshire Democratic Party as well as AIPAC, a pro-Israel lobby group.

"By Sunday afternoon, they had a concept. By that evening, they had a name. After an all-nighter, they had a Web site," Kumar gushed. Why, "The PAC raised $1,600 in its first hour," Kumar went on to note, adding that a Monday appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show "led to more contributions and volunteers."

That's not really surprising given the political pros running the operation, but Kumar left readers with the impression that this is a shot-in-the-dark political action committee that is almost inexplicably doing well.