Sometimes, media bias is all about the headline . . . The New York Times has a decent piece this morning detailing the background that led to the approval by the Obama admin of more than a half-billion in loan guarantees to the soon-to-go-kaput Solyndra solar firm. The article paints a picture of an Obama admin that was eager to get the money out the door and was heavily lobbied by Solyndra and its major player who was a big Obama fund-raiser.
But check out the headline: "In Rush to Assist Solyndra, U.S. Missed Warning Signs." What do you mean, "U.S.", Gray Lady? That "U.S" suggests that perhaps the previous Bush admin also let itself get bamboozled by Solyndra. Except that the truth is just the opposite, as these paras from the article demonstrate [emphasis added]:
Bush administration officials had started the review of the Solyndra application in May 2008. They were anxious to approve the deal, because members of Congress were complaining that the loan guarantee program, signed into law in 2005, still had not given out its first award. But in the final weeks of the administration, Energy Department officials put the brakes on any loan commitment to Solyndra, partly out of concern that its costs made the price of manufacturing power capacity significantly higher than its competitors.
The Obama administration, though, was determined to move ahead.
Thanks to the Times's misleading headline, a casual reader might have concluded that the Solyndra screw-up is a bi-partisan scandal. Except it isn't. Try your hand at re-writing that Times headline if it had been the Bush admin that had granted the guarantees.
