Bias by Omission

First NPR and now PBS; the publicly funded media outlets are revealing their respective bias in different ways, but the net result is the same: they favor Barack Obama over John McCain.

Now available on PBS's NOW segment webpage (not to be confused with the National Organization for Women, subject of my post yesterday) is a poll about Governor Sarah Palin. It asks:

Do you think Sarah Palin is qualified to serve as Vice President of the United States?

Writing Sen. Joe Biden's (D-Del.) recent suggestion that it's "patriotic" to pay higher taxes, Associated Press reporter Douglass K. Daniel provided a bit of cover for the Obama running mate by citing a left-leaning tax group and ignoring Obama's plans to hike capital gains taxes.:

Although Republican John McCain claims that Obama would raise taxes, the independent Tax Policy Center and other groups conclude that four out of five U.S. households would receive tax cuts under Obama's proposals.

"We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people," Biden said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."

The Tax Policy Center may be independent of a political party apparatus, but it is decidedly liberal in orientation, a joint venture of two liberal think tanks, the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution.

KVOA, the NBC television affiliate in Tucson, boasts on its Web site that we're reading "Balanced News You Can Count On."  That may be true.  What's indisputable is, in at least in one instance, it doesn't provide all the news.

Today's case in point is the story, "Congressman's son caught smuggling immigrants," which begins:

TUCSON, AZ - The son of a U.S. Congressman from was arrested in Willcox Sunday, charged with human smuggling. According to court documents John F. Boyd son of Florida Congressman Allen Boyd, attempted to drive through a Border Patrol checkpoint in Willcox on Sunday with five illegal immigrants, including a 6-year-old girl.  

In a statement sent Tuesday, Congressman Allen Boyd said, "On September 14, 2008, my 30-year-old son, John Boyd, was arrested in Arizona, and at a preliminary hearing yesterday, he was charged with alien smuggling."

"This is a family matter that my family and I will be dealing with privately. John is a grown man and must face the consequences for his actions, but he has the love and support of his family," says the elder Boyd.

Illegal immigration has all but disappeared as an issue on the MSM radar screen since the primaries wrapped up, and it's unlikely to be resurrected given the generally liberal immigration stances of both Sens. McCain and Obama.

Nonetheless, some credit is due to the San Francisco Chronicle for not one but two articlesin the Septmeber 17 paper on the city's so-called sanctuary policy and its problems.

For one thing, 3-out-of-10 juvenile offenders who were not reported to the feds as illegal immigrants under the sanctuary city policy were, well, actually adults, noted reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken:

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air noted a revision to an existing Associated Press report carried in the Miami Herald yesterday. It concerned Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius's accusations that Republicans are engaging in racial "code word" campaigning.

The original version that Morrissey cached is here; the revision is here (for now; backup is at my web host here if it changes).

Among other adds, changes, and deletes, the revision deleted a racial reference in the original headline. It also removed a direct quote from Sebelius that "(Republicans) are not going to go lightly into the darkness."

Morrissey wasn't sure at the time he noted the revision whether the Herald or AP and writer Nigel Duara (with editorial help?) instigated the changes.

I can tell you that, as expected, it was AP, as the two Google News search pics taken during the noon hour Eastern Time show:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) continues to accuse Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) of hitting middle-class Americans with a tax increase. The frightening warning: "He wants to tax your health benefits." 

As with any distortion by omission, that leaves out the second half of the proposal: to give you a tax credit as an offset. 

McCain's plan is not a massive middle-class tax hike as Obama portrays it; instead, it's designed to give people a tax credit to put toward choosing their own insurance. 

Kudos to CBS's Wyatt Andrews for his September 15 "Evening News" report (text and video available here) explaining this.

Andrews consulted Len Burman of the Tax Policy Center, who said, "It's mostly a tax break."

Sweetness & Light (S&L) has the goods (HT Michelle Malkin) on yet another instance of resume enhancement in a Barack Obama book.

It is also yet another example of something an inquisitive media has failed to discover in the 21 months since an Obama presidential run became likely.

It's too bad. It's clear, from an underlying 2005 post at Analyze This, and other information S&L gathered, that had anyone in the media undertaken an effort to speak to Obama's co-workers at Business International, the firm where he worked after earning his bachelor's degree from Columbia, they would have found that the reality of that job differed sharply from how Obama described it in his best-selling Dreams from My Father.

Here are just three of many examples from S&L, comparing how Obama characterized his job and the reality described at Analyze This:

Maryland's state Court of Appeals recently blocked a ballot initiative to overturn a Montgomery County law that would, among other things, give transgendered persons the right to choose which public restroom they will use, regardless of their biological gender.

That "Ruling Inspires New Hope For Transgender People," exulted the Metro section front page* headline for Washington Post staffer Ann Marimow's September 15 story.

Marimow noted the fact that the ballot initiative did clear Maryland's hurdle for making the November ballot, but buried it in paragraph nine, which made the print edition beyond the jump on page B6.:

It has already been established (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) that the Obama campaign's ad ridiculing John McCain's computer skills, including the claim that McCain "can't e-mail," has several reality-based problems:

• McCain has been an e-mail devotee since 2000, if not earlier, receiving help from a loving spouse to respond to messages, and was described by Forbes Magazine that year as "the U.S. Senate’s savviest technologist."
• The reason McCain gets help with e-mail is that his severe war injuries prevent him from doing many things many of us take for granted, including typing on a keyboard.
• Further, the current and previous Oval Office occupants have rarely used e-mail -- the former because he never learned how while in office, the latter because of legal considerations. Future occupants will likely be, and probably should be, similarly constrained.

So it's as clear as can be that Obama's ad is wrong and, intentionally or not, very mean to a man whose physical challenges are a result of beyond-the-call service to our country.

Beyond all that, Kevin Aylward at Wizbang has noted that McCain's 2000 presidential run was effusively praised as a groundbreaking high-tech campaign by a Democratic Internet pioneer in a 2005 book.

John Stephenson at NewsBusters early this morning asked, “Will (the) Media Report Obama’s Mocking of McCain’s Disability?”

The answer is "I doubt it," at least beyond their blogs. Print edition or televised examples will be rare to non-existent.

Two other pertinent items will also probably be ignored:

• Bill Clinton's acknowledged lack of tech skills and virtual non-use of e-mail.
• More important, the high likelihood that the next President of the United States, like his two predecessors, will rarely, if ever, use e-mail.

NB commenter "mikej" at Stephenson's post did some web searching a falsely giddy Team Obama apparently didn't have the time for (or do they not know how?). "mikej" found the following January 28, 2004 CNN Reuters item carried at CNN.com about Bill Clinton's nearly non-existent e-mailing during his presidency (bolds after title are mine):

How interesting that ABC's Charles Gibson, as noted in this Associated Press dispatch, focused on Sarah Palin's foreign-policy bona fides when he interviewed her (a transcript is here). Also note the biased AP evaluation (bolds are mine):

John McCain running mate Sarah Palin sought Thursday to defend her qualifications but struggled with foreign policy ..... acknowledging she's never met a foreign head of state.

..... She also said she had never met a head of state and added: "If you go back in history and if you ask that question of many vice presidents, they may have the same answer that I just gave you."

Indeed. Palin's contention gains more support if you look at the prior experience of at least a couple of presidents and vice-presidents during the past few decades:

"Former GOP senator calls Palin a 'cocky wacko'" teased the Chicago Tribune on its online front page. Curious as to who that might be, I clicked the link to find out who.

Let's just say I didn't exactly spit out my coffee when I read the Associated Press story only to find out the culprit is none other than former Sen. Lincoln Chafee (RINO-R.I.).

Of course, for those like NewsBusters readers who are well-informed and politically engaged, the only thing Republican about Linc's name is, well, his first name. But your average newspaper reader is likely unfamiliar with Chafee, particularly in a story carried over a national news wire.

Yet the reader doesn't get any hint of his leftist voting record in today's five-paragraph Associated Press article:

Mario Cattabiani of the Philadelphia Inquirer wants you to know that Governor Sarah Palin's selling of her state's plane is no big deal. Why? Well, because Democrat Governor Ed "Fast Eddie" Rendell sold his state's plane, too, and he got a better deal. So, Palin's plane purveying pales next to Rendell's according to Cattabiani. Only, there are quite a few facts that Cattabiani seems to have skipped in his story. So, apparently, the only way for the Philly Inquirer to pooh pooh Palin's efforts is to mislead us about Rendell's. Unfortunately for Cattabiani, his piece ends up being just another way to lie about Palin's record.

Starting out suitably flippant, Cattabiani takes a sarcastic jab at Palin telling her that she should "take a lesson from the Rendell administration on how to sell a state airplane," and then goes on to relate how Rendell sold his state plane at a profit. And Cattabiani then quotes a Rendell crony to the effect that Palin is "inexperienced" because of it all. Naturally, there is no investigation into what sorts of planes the two Governors sold, nor what they were worth because it turns out the Pennsylvanian plane was worth more than the Alaskan plane in the first place -- nor does Cattabiani give the Palin camp any space to reply to the political jab.

On September 3, an Asian Times writer known only as "Spengler" described a radically different scene at Invesco Field during the final night of the Democratic Convention from that conveyed by the networks and pundits. If Spengler's take is accurate, it reveals a media elite more in the tank than even its harshest critics have imagined.

Rush Limbaugh mentioned Spengler's column during his show today (see Item 9 at the link; page will go behind Limbaugh's paid subscription wall in a week). As usual, Rush is right; it's a read-the-whole-thing item. Here's one important point Rush noted:

This guy thinks (Barack) Obama is going to lose because he has no character, he has no friends, all he has are people that he has used and stepped on as rungs of a ladder to get where he goes. He has no room for a real friendship because his angry wife, Michelle, crowds them all out.

If you think that's something, wait until you read some of Spengler's description of the atmosphere at Invesco Field on the night of Obama's Greco-Roman Oration. Rush says that what Spengler has written confirms what an unnamed friend of his relayed to him from another final-night attendee:

ABC's "Good Morning America" isn't afraid to call 'em like they see 'em.

On health care, Chris Cuomo set up his resident health expert to deliver an outright insult to the American people. Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) advocates more patient choice and flexibility in buying health insurance, but ABC’s medical editor, Dr. Tim Johnson, scoffed at that notion in a September 5 story.

“The idea that individuals are going to have enough knowledge and enough savvy and enough insight and, frankly, enough guts to make choices all by themselves is pretty much a pipe dream,” Johnson said.

ABC’s Web site touts Johnson as “one of the nation's leading medical communicators of health care information.”

The indefatigable Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs has the news:

Alaska Democratic Party Deletes Page Crediting Sarah Palin with Killing 'Bridge to Nowhere'

A web site paid for by the Alaska Democratic Party says unequivocally that the state of Alaska officially abandoned the Bridge to Nowhere project, and credits Governor Sarah Palin.

Or ... it used to say that, before the page mysteriously vanished some time during the past few days

Indeed, the link goes to a now-empty page.

But Johnson notes that it has since been revived at another URL.

[Update, 3:05 pm: Transcript of Toobin's remarks added below.]

For two straight days, CNN repeated liberal rumors about Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s political record – rumors that had already been debunked by their own correspondents, as well as the respected FactCheck.org, a group led by former CNN reporter Brooks Jackson.

During Monday evening’s Election Center program, CNN’s senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin claimed that Palin "wants to ban all abortions," despite a September 2 report by his own network which included a quote from the Alaska governor that she is "pro-life... [w]ith the exception of a doctor's determination that the mother's life would end if the pregnancy continued." Toobin also claimed that Palin "wants to treat -- to have creationism taught in public schools." This isn’t the entire story. A FactCheck.org report released on Monday, which aimed to refute "dubious Internet postings and mass e-mail messages making claims about McCain's running mate," clarified that Palin "supports teaching creationism alongside evolution, though she has not actively pursued such a policy as governor."

It doesn't seem to be unusual for the media to mention a positive story for the McCain campaign, only to be explained away by a surrogate or two. But ABC News outdid themselves today. In a four page online article about the 2008 presidential feud for female voters and a byline of McCain doubling their female volunteers, ABC News managed to squeeze in five different quotes/remarks to rebuke any positive news for the McCain/Palin ticket.

Quote ratio? Five to one, if you include the quote from Obama's campaign ad. Five views/endorsements favoring Obama and one perspective from McCain's campaign/surrogates. You have to love all that balance.

Here's ABC News' interpretation of the story:

I sent the e-mail that follows to Sam Stein of the Huffington Post on Saturday evening, and followed up by resending it on Sunday morning.

I originally promised to call him out in public this morning if he did not respond, but other business matters intervened. I noted this morning that my call-out would occur this afternoon.

Stein has still not responded, so here we are.

________________________________________

Here is the original e-mail sent Saturday:

Mr. Stein,

The following assertions about the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman (the VF) that you made in your August 31 report are untrue, and should be corrected:

The media and the Obama campaign (but I repeat myself) are comparing the "experience" of'the Democrats' presidential nominee to that of the GOP's vice-presidential pick -- meaning, one must assume, that the debate over his experience vs. John McCain's is over, in McCain's resounding favor.

Let's look back a couple of months at a post I put up on July 14 (with minor revisions) that gives a, uh, concrete example of one of Barack Obama's management "experiences" -- one that the national media has (of course) totally ignored.

______________________________________________________

Barack Obama's $100,000 Gazebo

Here's an interesting story I found in the Chicago Tribune archives (obtained from ProQuest library database; for fair use and discussion purposes):

The Washington Post printed Robert Novak's column about his brain tumor today, but it substantially edited the ending. The Post removed a mean-spirited quote from Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame attacking Novak that appeared in the version distributed by Creators Syndicate.

The original column by Novak ended like this (emphasis added, more below the fold):

There are mad bloggers who profess to take delight in my distress, but there's no need to pay them attention in the face of such an outpouring of good will for me. I had thought 51 years of rough-and-tumble journalism in Washington made me more enemies than friends, but my recent experience suggests the opposite may be the case.

But Joe and Valerie Wilson, attempting to breathe life into the Valerie Plame "scandal," issued this statement: "We have long argued that responsible adults should take Novak's typewriter away. The time has arrived for them to also take away the keys to his Corvette."

In both the printed and Web editions of today's Chicago Tribune appears the short piece, "Rangel had interest-free mortgage:"

Rep. Charles Rangel paid no mortgage interest on a beach resort property for more than 10 years, a lawyer for the powerful House committee chairman said Friday.

The New York congressman's lawyer, Lanny Davis, told The Associated Press that Rangel got his no-interest deal for the villa in the Dominican Republic because he was an original buyer in the resort development, and in the early days after the purchase the rental income failed to meet expectations.

Not mentioned is that the powerful Ways and Means Committee, which Rangels chairs, writes tax laws.  You know, laws like paying taxes on rental income. Additionally, Rangel's political party is not identified, no doubt merely an inadvertent lapse in reportage.

Guess we're really going to have to put on our thinking caps to figure out to which party Charlie belongs.  Think, think, think.  What, you already know?

This story didn't get the attention it ordinarily might have because it occurred during the Democratic Party's convention.

On Monday, August 25, "the largest single-workplace immigration raid in U.S. history" took place in Laurel, Mississippi. 595 workers suspected of being in the country illegally were detained.

Traditional media coverage, including this Associated Press item carried in USA Today, was predictably sympathetic towards those who were detained and their families.

But, as yours truly noted was the case with the Swift Co. raids in the spring of 2007 (posted at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), there was even less national media interest in what happened after that.

The Clarion, Mississippi's statewide newspaper, is the only outlet I found that considered the following worthy of publication as a standalone story:

At long last, the soon-to-be erstwhile Democratic mayor of Detroit, Kwame Kilpatrick, pleaded guilty and will resign as mayor. The Detroit Free Press reports all of the salacious details--except the singular detail that Kilpatrick is a Democrat.

In a courtroom this morning, Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to two felony counts of obstructing justice by committing perjury. He will spend four months in jail, pay up to $1 million in restitution, and serve five years' probation. [...]

CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien disavowed any knowledge of a bias on her network against Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, particularly concerning the issue of her five children, during a segment on Wednesday’s Newsroom program. She moderated a segment with two bloggers, a conservative and a liberal, both of them mothers. When the conservative, Rachel Campos-Duffy of "The Real World: San Francisco" fame, stated how "journalists even on this network say things like, you know, can she really -- is she up to be vice president because she has five kids," O’Brien replied, "I have not heard one journalist who works for CNN, if that's what you're talking about, say that at all. We've interviewed people who said that and ask some similar questions about, isn't that sexist? So I'm not sure exactly who you're referring to."

Word is out that high profile Barack Obama supporter and Us Weekly Magazine publisher Jann Wenner is using his magazine to smear Governor Sarah Palin from grocery store check out aisles and newsstands across the country. (h/t Michelle Malkin)

The tabloid style attack hypes the ridiculously out of context claims of the Huffington Post that Sarah Palin ridiculed State Senate President Lyda Green in an interview with radio talk show host Bob Lester on the popular Bob and Mark radio show. 

On January 15, Alaska governor Sarah Palin laughed along with an Alaskan shock-jock DJ who called her political rival Lyda Green a "cancer," a "b#@ch" and ridiculed her weight. (Green is a cancer survivor.)

The Us  magazine cover story is filed under the URL slug "sarah-palin-very-difficult-to-work-with". This particular smear job on Sarah Palin was literally spoon fed to the magazine and bloggers on the left by the Huffington Post that featured a hacked up YouTube version of the interview that was edited to take Governor Palin out of context and make the incident sound worse than it really was. (Full interview here)

There is an ethics squabble going on in Montana perpetrated by the senior counsel to the Democrat Governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer. It has been revealed that the Governor's "senior counsel," a man named Eric Stern, has been caught trying to "back-door" the judge in a case in which he is involved on behalf of Governor Schweitzer. The ethics violation is bad enough, but it has also been discovered that, even though he is claimed to be an attorney and the Governor's senior counsel, Eric Stern, is not licensed to practice law in the state of Montana. This seems to say that Eric Stern is practicing law without a license, doesn’t it? Strangely, the media have not bothered to report this most important fact.

According to reports, Eric Stern "a senior official in the governor's administration" improperly contacted the commissioner of political practices "outside of official proceedings in an ongoing ethics case." In effect, Stern is accused of trying to "back-door" the judge by discussing the case outside of official proceedings, an extremely blatant ethics violation.

The Obama-infatuated media knows a quote to ignore when it hears one.

That Barack Obama and the Democratic Party is in trouble on abortion is inarguable. Obama has been caught red-handed lying about his past positions and votes on Illinois' Born Alive Infant Protection Act laws, appearing indifferent as to when anyone wishing to eliminate their baby completes the task. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has generated outrage from Catholic bishops and practitioners with her ignorant comments about the history of the Church's opposition to abortion. John McCain's nomination of prolife walk-the-walker Sarah Palin has made the contrast between the two parties' positions as obvious as I've ever seen it.

Fanning the flames by reporting yet another controversial comment from Michelle Obama would add dangerous fuel to an already-burning fire.

That likely explains why you're not hearing about this comment Ms. Obama made at the Women’s Caucus of the Democratic National Convention on Thursday about her husband (bold is mine):

Confirming that John McCain picked Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, as his running mate, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos were quick to jump on the corruption within Alaska’s Republican party, but did not tell the whole story. George Stephanopolous noted that Senator Ted Stevens is under indictment and the state’s at large congressman, Don Young is "facing corruption charges is still in the middle of a recount for their Republican primary."

All of which are true, but Stephanopoulos, a former Clinton aide, did not reveal that Palin actually supports Don Young’s primary opponent. Stephanopoulos also does not seem to have the same concern about Chicago’s Democratic machine when covering Obama.

In fairness, host Charlie Gibson called her a "Republican maverick" and noted she has been "sharply critical" of Alaska’s corrupt Republican machine.

The transcript follows.

In a "Leading the News" story primarily about Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden's prior praise of John McCain, Susan Crabtree at The Hill noted previous posts made by yours truly about the alterations made to Biden's Wikipedia entries shortly before and after he was named by Barack Obama.

Those posts showed that at least these changes were made since I downloaded -- and kept -- Biden's main Wiki entry on Friday:

• (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) The details of Biden's undergraduate grades went away, and other text in the related paragraph was worked over.
• (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) The section relating to 2004 under "Presidential Campaigns" was deleted, and most of the text that had been contained there moved to a section before the 1988 campaign. It was if the idea that Biden campaigned for the presidency was true before Obama selected him, and not true after that.
• (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) The footnote relating to the original entry's claim that Biden had only plagiarized British politican Neil Kinnock one time, which never related to that claim anyway, was removed. Further, no Wiki entries relating to Biden -- before or after -- adequately described the full extent of his 1987 plagiarism, which included Kinnock at least one and probably several other times, and other plagiarizing of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Hubert Humphrey.

What Ms. Crabtree wrote follows. It includes some follow-up she did, which is in bold: