Double Standards

After devoting several stories to unsubstantiated allegations of racism and spitting by Tea Party protesters last weekend, the New York Times almost ignored an actual death threat made against a top Republican, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the No. 2 Republican in the House, that resulted in the first actual arrest since the alleged wave of threats against politicians began.Norman Leboon of…

Put up or shut up, Barnicle . . . Mike Barnicle has accused "talk radio" of serving as "allies" and a "megaphone" for the worst fringe elements on the right.   That's how the former Boston Globe columnist justified the MSM's focus on the right-wing fringe while downplaying that of the left. [H/t reader Ray R.]Barnicle floated his defense of the MSM on today's Morning Joe.  To their credit, Mika…

The student newspaper of Katie Couric's alma mater was silent today about an incident of vandalism Thursday night or early Friday morning against a local Republican Party office, even though the same paper devoted a front-page story on Friday to a severed propane line believed to have been an act of vandalism targeting the Democratic congressman who represents Charlottesville, Va.The March 26…

This could do down as one of the more glaring MSM double-standards in recent times . . . Harry Reid chose the day Sarah Palin was in town to stage a photo-op of himself going shooting. But GMA called Reid the man "in the crosshairs" and as "doing his best not to seem threatened."Imagine if the tables were turned and on a day Reid visited Wasilla, Palin had publicly chosen to go shooting.  Oh…

In another predictable column condemning the Tea Party movement, Paul Krugman called Ronald Reagan an “anti-government fanatic” and disdained “the eliminationist rhetoric of the G.O.P" in Friday's "Going to Extreme," using the same silly examples of alleged violent imagery the rest of the press has been wringing their hands over. So why was Krugman happy with the idea of angry lefties hanging Sen…

In both its print and Web editions today, the Chicago Tribune headlines "Republicans walk the line over healthcare outrage."  It begins:In the days surrounding passage of healthcare overhaul legislation, Republican lawmakers have been left to strike a fine balance between harnessing voter outrage and fueling it.Examples of raw anger have piled up. A call to New York Democrat Louise M. Slaughter…

Words matter. They speak volumes about issues. So when individuals or groups try to change the words associated with a heated political issue, take note and take care. The folks at National Public Radio understand the power of words. Managing Editor David Sweeney announced yesterday that the station would no longer refer to people in the abortion debate as "pro-choice" and "pro-life."…

Newsweek's Liz White took to her magazine's The Gaggle blog today to decry how conservatives critical of the Democratic health care bill have slapped it with "the ominous-sounding term ‘Obamacare.'"You see, most mainstream media sources only use the term when quoting opponents of the bill or when "carefully placed in quotations or alongside an explanation that Obamacare is how opposition refers…

On Thursday's American Morning, CNN's John Roberts repeatedly decried the "troubling language" against pro-ObamaCare congressman which "violate any sense of common decency." But his own program over three years earlier helped promote a controversial 2006 movie which forwarded an imaginary assassination attempt against then-President George W. Bush.Just after the top of the 6 am Eastern hour,…

You really have to wonder what was running through Vice President Joe Biden's head when he leaned toward President Barack Obama and said "this is a big f**cking deal." Did Biden think that after nearly a year of campaigning for health care reform he was alerting Obama to something new? But Biden isn't the first vice president to allow an expletive slip in a public forum in this day and age of a…

Journalists love the marketplace of ideas until people start selling ideas they find objectionable. The liberal media somehow manages to shout about its right to speak freely while demanding others be silenced.Glenn Beck is probably the most popular target for the left's demands for censorship. Cokie Roberts and her husband Steve picked up that ball and ran with it today in their joint syndicated…

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has announced that it is disbanding. Though the hard-leftists that formed or were running it are likely to show up in some other venue and perhaps in a successor organization down the road (Update: or perhaps burrow themselves into the government, as NB commenter "Hunter 12" suggests), this is a moment to savor. Two twenty-…

Sometimes, certain claims made by establishment media reporters or people who are quoted don't pass the smell test. Then, when you dig in, to borrow a phrase from Michael Savage, the stench makes you clench. Such is the case with a front-page story ("Number of People Living on New York Streets Soars") that went up online at the New York Times late Friday, and appeared in its Saturday print…

Is The Washington Post playing favorites with causes that inspire people to exercise their First Amendment rights and take to the streets to protest? When it comes to opposition to Democratic efforts to reform health care versus opposition to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it appears so. In a March 20 Washington Post story headlined "Obama delivers plea to 'help us fix this system,'" Ben Pershing…