California's Democrat gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown on Tuesday called his Republican rival Meg Whitman a Nazi.
You probably didn't hear about this because America's media largely ignored it.
By contrast, the press had a field day when Republican senatorial candidate Carly Fiorina made a comment about Barbara Boxer's (D-Calif.) hair that was picked up by an open microphone Tuesday evening.
Why the double standard?
Consider your answer as you read what Brown told KCBS radio's Doug Sovern (h/t NBer Gary Hall):
Brown boasted about his legendary frugality. "I've only spent $200,000 so far. I have 20 million in the bank. I'm saving up for her." It's true - his stay-on-the-sidelines, bare-bones primary run cost him almost nothing, at least in California political terms. But he also fretted about the impact of all those eBay dollars in Whitman's very deep pockets. "You know, by the time she's done with me, two months from now, I'll be a child-molesting..." He let the line trail off. "She'll have people believing whatever she wants about me." Then he went off on a riff I didn't expect.
"It's like Goebbels," referring to Hitler's notorious Minister of Propaganda. "Goebbels invented this kind of propaganda. He took control of the whole world. She wants to be president. That's her ambition, the first woman president. That's what this is all about."
Sovern followed this up Thursday:
The campaign of Meg Whitman has issued the following statement in response to the comments made by Jerry Brown, quoted in my blog posting "Run Jerry Run."
"Just last week, Governor Brown promised he wasn't going to engage in mudslinging, but now he is comparing Meg Whitman to Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. Jerry Brown's statements comparing our campaign to a propagator of the Holocaust is deeply offensive and entirely unacceptable."
--Meg Whitman 2010 Campaign Manager Jillian Hasner
Jerry Brown's campaign spokesman, Sterling Clifford, confirms to the Associated Press that the conversation took place, describing it as "a discussion after a chance meeting while they were exercising. I wouldn't vouch for the accuracy of it, but I also don't want to dispute the accuracy of it. It was jogging talk taken out of context." He says Brown was not comparing the Whitman campaign to Nazis.
UPDATE: Friday afternoon, Jerry Brown issued the following statement: "I regret making the comments. They were taken out of context."
Pretty serious stuff happening in America's most-populated state, wouldn't you agree?
Yet our media weren't very interested.
Although Politico reported this matter late Thursday evening, as did the Associated Press shortly after, the rest of our supposedly impartial press almost completed ignored Brown's disgusting remarks.
According to Google news and LexisNexis searches, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, and NBC didn't file one report on this subject through Friday evening.
NOT ONE!
I can also find no newspaper reports outside of California.
Zero, nada, zilch!
Bucking the trend was Fox News during Friday's "Special Report" and CNN's Jack Cafferty giving it a mention on the same day's "Situation Room."
By contrast, when Fiorina was caught on an open microphone saying that Boxer's hair was "so yesterday," the media had a field day.
CNN has already done eleven reports on this vital matter impacting our nation. MSNBC's done three.
On the broadcast networks, NBC did three reports, ABC did two, and CBS did one. Those actually included a segment on ABC's "World News with Diane Sawyer"
As for newspapers, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Daily News, and the Houston chronicle all found Fiorina saying Boxer's hair was "so yesterday" newsworthy.
I guess our media must think a Republican commenting about a rival's hair is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than a Democrat calling a political opponent a Nazi.
Boggles the mind, doesn't it?
