The New Orleans Times-Picayune has had a decades-long love affair with the Landrieu family, and it has been particularly in the tank for the increasingly difficult re-election bid of U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu this year. But the T-P, or at least its online version known as NOLA.com, outdid itself on Monday with a hideously biased "news" story by "legislative and state politics reporter" Cole Avery. Note: "reporter," not "columnist."
The headline writers captured, and amplified, the editorialized message right from the start: "Rand Paul, Rob Maness endorsements show far-right ready to embrace Bill Cassidy."
Of course, one could probably scour the last five years of NOLA.com and never find a single straight-news reference to the "far left." And while it's clear that Sen. Paul and third-place Senate contender Maness are conservative (or, in Paul's case, libertarian, with a great reception even at U.Cal-Berkeley), they hardly are extremists.
Alas, the headline writers had not taken liberties with the story; instead, they accurately reflected Avery's reporting. The story, about a "unity" rally for Republican Cassidy, now the favorite to take Landrieu's seat, started with a few basic scene-setting sentences, but then its second paragraph ended thusly: "The rally was headlined by Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Rob Maness, a sign the far-right is ready to embrace Cassidy."
Two sentences later, Avery calumnized an entire political movement: "Tea Party supports and others on the far-right gravitated toward Maness in the primary...."
This comes from a newspaper whose editorial board endorsed Landrieu rather extravagantly on October 17, writing of her 18 years in the Senate that "the benefits to Louisiana have been enormous." Furthermore, they wrote, "The Republican opposition is trying to make this a partisan race and falsely paint Sen. Landrieu as a liberal Democrat. She isn't. She occupies the middle ground in Congress."
Middle ground? Her ratings from pro-abortion NARAL Pro-Choice America: 2013: 100%. 2012: 100%. 2011: 100%. 2010: 100%. From the leftist Americans for Democratic Action: 75% in 2012, 85% in 2011, 75% in 2010, and 90% in 2009. Some middle.
The T-P might brand mainstream conservatives as "far-right," but the evidence is that the newspaper itself is far wrong.
