Scary Conservatives: AP's Hanna Negatively Frames Likely Conservative GOP Gains in the Heartland

Gosh, I think John Hanna and the Associated Press need to do something about their use of eliminationist language and violent imagery.

Look at how AP headlined Hanna's late morning report on the rise of conservatism in several midwestern and southern states at the likely expense of moderate incumbents (shown in full because of its brevity and for fair use and discussion purposes).

Here it is:

Let take each underlined item, one at a time.

"Cull moderate Republicans" -- The definitions of "cull" which are relevant are:
- to take out (an animal, esp an inferior one) from a herd.
- to reduce the size of (a herd or flock) by killing a proportion of its members.

Obviously, "killing" is not on the table, and no one has said that the people conservatives want to replace are personally inferior. They just have different views of what need to be done.

"To drive them out" -- another herding analogy.

"Reshaping government" -- Conservatives want government to get back into constitutional shape and scope.

"Political groups are helping to finance" -- Oh, here we go. Big bad money in politics, as if major liberal and union organizations don't also spend big amounts in campaigns.

"More strict conservative policies" -- Make that more constitutional policies that are within the scope of what those who established the various states clearly intended. You won't find any examples of "more strict liberal policies" (entered with quote marks) in a Google Web or Google News search. Zero.

Kansas "slashing state income taxes" -- The "slash" in the income tax was from a top rate of 5.95%, which is from what I can tell well above the 50-states' median, to about 4.5%. Rates are also reduced in other income groups. Slash my a**.

I'll be looking at Hanna's greatly expanded report published late Friday for more doozies. It's reasonable to believe that there will be many of them.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.