Where's the Media outrage over McConnell's staffer smearing the Frost family?
Can you imagine if the roles were reversed and Harry Reid's office acted in the same disgusting fashion as Mitch McConnell's staff did to Graeme Frost? It would be plastered all over Drudge, FOX and Limbaugh--all day and night. Hannity would be having candlelight vigils outside the Frosts' home. The outrage would be deafening and the NRO would be calling for Reid to resign.
Update: Remember the outrage over John Kerry's botched joke? McCain attacked him ferociously. The RNC released their own ad attacking Kerry and demanding an apology. The right wing bloggers spread vile lies about him. (nothing changed there) Yet, the media has gone AWOL over the smearing of a sick, 12 year old boy. Oh, how times have changed.
Here's a question: When are the cable nets and the Capitol Hill press and the pundits going to dig into the role that GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell played in pushing the smear of the Frost family?
Lefty bloggers wouldn't have taken this route, of course, but if this had happened and Reid had done this, I think the cable networks would be all over it. CNN's internet reporter would do a segment on it, Wolf Blitzer would grunt with disapproval, Chris Matthews would drench the Hardball camera with spittle flecks, Richard Cohen would question Reid's character, David Broder would shake his head and mutter darkly about "incivility" and Reid's incompetence, Howie Kurtz would write a story about the coverage of the story, and the rest would be history. That Reid staffer would end up resigning.
Dems are now out there attacking McConnell. Yet we're hearing nothing about this key twist in the story. At the very least you'd think this would be fodder for the cable nets. Bizarre....read on
The DCCC has put out a press release: McConnell Refuses To Explain Why He Misled Kentucky
Sorry unless the kid is attacked by Brittney or O.J. they are never going to cover it. they get paid extra to cover any mistep by Democrats and equal to not cover anything bad done by republicans.
John, there will be no media outrage on this issue.
We should just wait for the fireworks when Mike Rogers finally outs Mitch McConnell, if Larry Craig doesn't out him first.
"Lefty bloggers wouldn’t have taken this route, of course,"
Remember when Hugh Hewitt said the right's pundits are more responsible. Let's see, they've attacked a man who served in Vietnam and lost 3 limbs, attacked a Vietnam war veteran claiming his Purple Hearts were bogus, A man with Parkinsons, a 12 year old child, a 2 year child.....did I miss anything?
Yeah right, the left are the bad guys.
The right/wrong are scum.
I just bet if that staffer suddenly came to work with a busted nose the press would be all over that shit.... Probably blame that mean ol bully 12 year old for that too..... And I'd laugh and say right on, karma does work if that's actually what happened....JD
Well if the democrats would only enact the Fairness Doctrine, that holds the press responsible for the lies and propoganda they spew we might be able to get the truth across to the American people.
I believe that the republicans should have a chance to state their views, I don't believe in restricting them. But by the same token I believe that the democrats should have the same courtesty. I wish there was a way to prosecute the republican media corporations for the lies they spread. The big media companies should be broken up. I thought that it was against the law to have a monopoly. And the worst thing that could happen to this country is the fact that the republicans have a monopoly on the media.
IOKIYAR! 24/7/365
The discrediting of Republicans can hardly go lower.
People are tired and have made up their minds.
Let them wallow further in their own muck.
Finally, all there's left now is time.
It's that rabid Liberal Media in action again.
Black is white. White is black.
John, John, John ... You know the rules of this game. The rules are: Republicans smear, and the media does absolutely nothing (though the bloggers are plenty outraged); Democrats criticize, and the GOP and media are all over them like ducks on a June bug. C'mon. You know the rules by now.
mitch mcconnell is an embarassment to the commonwealth of kentucky.
how long before the unamericans start shipping the kids out gitmo way?
The corporate media only gets outraged when it's a Democrat getting a consensual blowjob from an adult intern.
Marge @ 5 and Anais @ 9 have hit the nail on the head. ALL of the MSM is owned/
controlled/operated by BIG BUSINESS and are in bed w/the Repigs, so any "fairness"
in reporting as relating to the Dems is unheard of and unsportsmanship to report.
The MSM is a joke...that is why soooo many of us now rely only upon the Internet
for creditable, reliable and accurate news reports....at least we can obtain two sides
to each story..and use our common sense in determining which is more believable.
This is why Mitch McConnell is the Avenging Angel's Conservative Transgressor of the Week...
Don't forget all the outrage over the NASCAR memo. (Which didn't mention NASCAR. That was pushed by "a snarky complaint" from Republican Rep. Robin Hayes.)
Because the media treats it as just politics when the GOP does it -- nudge nudge, wink wink -- but portrays it as a moral failing when the Democrats do the same sort of thing.
Maybe it is a matter of bending to the will of advertisers and editors. Maybe it is catering to the whims of their readers, and maybe it is driven by circulation (the same way right-wing talk radio is driven by the listening audience). Maybe it is that the media are a bunch of lazy idiots who love being handed a juicy story, and want to be in on the action when the GOP is stirring up one of their mighty passion plays.
But there is no question. There is a clear double standard here, and it favors the Republicans. While polls show that many reporters may be personally "liberal" in their views and their politics, it has been shown over and over again that aside from some left-wing reflexes -- like bashing tobacco companies, etc. -- those personal views don't translate into favorable, much less evenhanded, coverage of Democratic politicians. In the case of Bill Clinton, the media was actually much HARDER on him.
And with the recent exception of the Larry Craig bathroom imbroglio, the mainstream media typically lets stories about GOP politicians drop dead rather than persuing them. Or they bury the lede (as they did repeatedly with the recent scandals at the Department of Justice).
Most glaring of all, take the infidelity issue. Aside from Spy magazine, did you ever see any newspaper or magazine go after George H.W. Bush for having a mistress? It was a well-known fact in Washington, D.C. But the story was considered untouchable. At one point, and for better or worse, some Democratic operatives tried to punt this fact into the public sphere -- and they were hushed, condemned, and ignored (as well as getting fired, if I remember correctly).
Compare this with, say, the Whitewater investigation, or the White House Travel Office, or Vince Foster's death, or ... whatever.
-- Bokonon
Because the media is as much a bunch of pussies as the Democrats are. If anyone in the media starts seriously questioning Republicans/Conservatives they know they will then be smeared. They don't like that. Just like Democrats the media hates confrontation. That's why they never seriously question Bush.
i am outraged-out....someone else is going to have to outrage for me today.
why don't we just take down their names and round them up in 2009?
These Double Standards need to be discussed and understood. What is possibly the reason for such double standards in the way society responds to people trying to do good and people who don't even pretend to.
rasta @ 18:
Don't you mean..."ground them down in 2009?"
You could have left that headline at "Where's the Media?"
Yet, the media has gone AWOL over the smearing of a sick, 12 year old boy.
On a level playing field and without the double standard afforded to Republicult by default, all things being equal:
GOP and RNC leadership, from the President and Congressional leaders on down, would be asked, in every media appearance to accept responsibility for flying monkey talking points urging violence on the Frost family, including the hanging of 12 yr. old Graeme Frost.
Republican candidates for the ticket would be asked to denounce their megaphones BEFORE being allowed the camera time and column inch to voice their schwah du jour -- if allowed that forum at all.
Any media person who does not ask Repugs this stuff during recent media availability but joined, eg, the MoveOn pile-on, is an out and out right wing shill.
Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
The MSM is not Read
Because it's supposed news is giving us a blow-job too.
here's how it works. bushco carries israeli water in middle east policy and the u.s. msm
agrees to sweep bushcos criminality under the rug.
Where's the outrage over spending 3 trillion dollars on war in Iraq and refusing to spend one cent on domestic programs?
Too many stupid Americans, I guess.
separated @ birth:
mitch mcconnell and my neighbor's powdery, frail and formerly handsome grandmother.
Ooooh , but Ellen's upset about her doggy! That mean dog agency! What? Who is McConnell? Is that turkey-neck muthafucka in that pic up there? Who cares. Aw, Ellen is crying!
It is not an accident that the Repubs are, time and again, given a pass by the MSM. And its not an accident that the Dems, and non-Repubs in general, never get a pass by that same MSM, even when the "transgression" is, as in Kerry's case, a botched punchline to a joke about a lackluster dim bulb of a guy like George Bush.
Not an accident at all. MSM = corporate-fascist-media (CFM?). Murdoch is only the most brazen example of it.
The republican "outrage" machine (OxyRush, MiMi, Fox Noise) is a well designed, well executed echo chamber wherein the right can do no wrong, and the left can get nothing right. The groundwork for this state of affairs was laid decades ago, and has resulted in Iraq, the shredding of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and ultimately, W.
Did you see the smirk on his face this morning when he was speaking about Pootie-Poot declaring himself Prime Minister? Gee, where do you think Putin got that idea? And, do you really think W. will willingly vacate the WH in January, 2009? But I digress.
There is hope. Get involved. Talk -- calmly -- to your friends, neighbors and aquaintances. Volunteer with your local Democratic party organization. Call out the 'thugs on their bloviation. Support responsible companies, and boycott companies that work to take away your rights, and this includes the media.
Vote.
I know, I'm preaching to the choir. Nevertheless, sitting behind a keyboard, as cathartic and empowering as it is, does little to reach the folks who aren't into and don't care about politics. Fifty years ago, union endorsements were critical in attaining office, while today, it's the Dobsons and the Perkins whose endorsements matter. The Right reaches out to these people from the pulpit, and that tactic alone has given them enormous success. Where is the Democratic effort to find its organization to exploit for political gain?
Anais @ 9:
/shrug
Nowhere...the media is nowhere because there is no story here. Graeme Frost wasn't smeared once. I've issued this challenge to Christy Hardin Smith of Firedoglake and she still hasn't been able to answer it. Name one statement or instance where someone made a "smear" about the 12 year old. Just one. I'd like to see one statement directed towards the 12 year old.
All that was pointed out (to quote Mark Steyn) is that “…a two-property three-car family does not demonstrate the need for entitlement expansion.” especially when neither of the parents work a full-time job.
Where's the media outrage about anything the Republicans do? Please.
"The media" has never been interested in anything but money.
Isn't it about time we stopped pretending "the media" is about anything else?
truthmattersfa @ 31:
ok...so they smeared his family....called his parents crooks....and said that everything he said in his speech was untrue
feel better now you uncaring cocksucker
care to debate the issue? ill print out everything that was written on stalker malkin's site...and is still being written
and stop printing lies, or i will track your family down, and prove to the blogosphere that your dad is the mailman
Someone wake me up when congress votes to condemn McConnell and the rest of the douchebags who have helped the wingnuts carry out their jihad against the Foster family.
I won't be holding my breath...
I've just read one of the Tim LaHaye books, highly popular "Christian" novels about the end times. What struck me was that the "good guys", the Christians, used all the same methods as the Antichrist's side -- violence, deception, consuming enemies in supernatural plagues, even forms of torture. The post-Reagan Republican Party has organized itself on a war footing -- though, luckily, most of its members are chickenhawks. So there is no point in looking for moral consistency from them -- they have decided who the enemy is, and will go after them in any way that works. They are on the right side because they are the right side, not because even they really believe their cause is just.
Our job is no longer to prove they are bad, let alone to complain about it. Our job is to apply the organized force of a majority of this nation to Congress to make them act. If your member of Congress is a Democrat or not a Koolaid drinking Republican, you should make sure you are part of an active process that keeps the pressure on her or him. The Democrats have to know that some serious action, if not impeachment then a war funding cutoff, has to happen, and has to happen soon. The more vetoes Bush uses the better, because each one he uses, like SCHIP, will energize a new group against him.
Hey OTAY. You can't please everybody all the time....but you can please somebody most of it. You know what Democrats are not Perfect...OK...
truthmattersfa @ 31:
Haha..awesome, you have your own smear and hate campaign on your shitty page. But "no death threats" ...nice touch. We know what that really means, ey ? nudge, nudge! Enjoy your playdoh, inbred.
Troy @ 36:
Perfection has nothing to do with it. Consistency, honor and integrity have everything to do with it. It's really that simple: if you take a stand on something, then for goodness' sake, take a stand on something along the same lines but from the opposite party and much, much worse.
It's obviously that liberal-media bias at work again! Just turn on a.m. radio and they will tell you how pervasive it is. In our area, I picked up el rushbo on seven different channels in one afternoon. There's no escaping the guy! I wish just once he would tell us where to find all them libruls. They must be broadcasting on a different wavelength?
there is no way to spin this one to make it out to be anything but what it was. it can't be tweaked . the tapes can't be altered. so they keep quiet hopin that we will ignore the fact that attacked a true innocent and put his address out for crazies to get and endangered his life, iin this case silence is not golden but the sign of cowardice
the corporate media are always ready to be memory holers and helicopter parents for the righties. Anything to keep the corporate tax cuts in tact
Olbermann? A little help here?
*
The Political Junkie @ 2:
I am tapping my foot in anticipation.
The left wing media doesn't go after republicans. Didn't you know that? They only pile on the left like Move on or Media matters. The Limbaugh thing sat without even a mention on the nightly news. I'm sure they had a cute kitty cat segment or two during that whole "phony sodier" thing where they could've mentioned it but no. And they won't bring it up for Mitch either. Even when he tries to send goons to a 12 year olds house. Don't know what the right would have to do to be outed on their pure evil. Maybe kill a fellow senator but don't know if that would even come up in the "LIBERAL PRESS"!!!!
This is not bizarre, and no, times have not changed. This is the "Liberal Media" at work.
This proves yet again that there is no such thing as the Liberal Media. The media powers-that-be are actually pussies. This shows the fear they have of upsetting right-wing conservatives, who are well-known for going batshit whenever you say anything bad about them.
Liberals/democrats, on the other hand, act like adults and are thin-skinned enough to take a ribbing. Unfortunately, they take it far too much. It's simply now acceptable (and too easy) to attack a liberal.
We really gotta stop being surprised by this. It has been this way since Bill Clinton entered the White House.
The only way to stop it is to stop taking this shit. The media loves a good spectacle. That's why reality TV shows are the rage, and news organizations try so hard to find crazy ignorant people to provide witness accounts.
Liberals are too nice. Especially the Democrats in Washington. They keep touting bipartisanship, as if making a deal with the devil is a good thing. They need to go for the jugular constantly until the Republicans get the point. As it stands, Democrats keep getting bullied and keep backing down. You would think they would be smart enough to know that when you let someone take advantage of you, they will keep doing it.
Stop playing the little bitch and FIGHT BACK DAMMIT! Stop being afraid to be ruthless! Democrats need to think of this as war. Yes, it's a horrible way to hold a governing body. But when the other side doesn't fight fair, and behave like children, it's time to spank them hard.
I screwed up a bit...I meant to say Liberal/democrats are thick-skinned enough. My mistake!
Where is the media period?
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