February 8, 2016

Faux "news" blowhard Bill O'Reilly treated his audience to another round of one of his network's favorite fantasies during his Talking Points Memo this Monday night -- the myth that there's a so-called "liberal media" that's supposedly in the tank for the Democrats and is horribly, horribly unfair to all of the members of the GOP 2016 clown car.

I guess in Bill-O's world, if you're not setting your hair on fire 24/7 and telling everyone that Hillary Clinton is going to jail at any moment over her email server and that Bernie Sanders is going to destroy the country and just wants to give all the lazy moochers who never want to work a day in their life "free stuff," you're somehow "liberal." (Although that's almost exactly how Chris Matthews sounds when he's attacking Sanders night after night these days, which I've had about a bellyful of.)

I hate to break it to O'Reilly, but our corporate media cares about two things; access and ratings. They've all had a love affair with Trump that's gone on for far too long and they lob nothing but softballs to his cohorts running for the Republican nomination. If they were doing their jobs and letting viewers know just how extreme the actual policy positions are of those on the right, there's not a one of them that would be taken seriously as a contender for the highest office in the land.

Here's O'Reilly's latest bit of fiction from his blog: How the American Media Is Covering the Presidential Race:

Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders actually have a lot in common.

They are both running renegade campaigns calling for a complete overhaul of the political establishment.

Yet the two candidates are being treated very differently by the press.

Let's take Mr. Trump first. I think it's safe to say most of the establishment media despises him.

Mr. Trump's populist approach, straight talk about stopping illegal immigration, and punishing those he believes are harming America is unsettling to many liberal people.

Thus, when Trump is interviewed there is usually a question designed to put him on the defensive:

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: "Is Tuesday must-win after the loss in Iowa?"

DONALD TRUMP: "There wasn't a loss. I came in second. I only came in second because of the fact that Cruz took a lot of votes away from Carson that should not have been taken away. He's apologized, but I don't know what comes of that."

We'll get to the Cruz situation in a moment but you can see that Mr. Tapper defined the Iowa vote as a loss for Trump when overall that may not be the case.

Again, the Trump insurgency -- and that's what it is -- is a threat to liberal America and the media doesn't like it.

On the Bernie Sanders front, things are friendlier.

Sanders is rarely attacked by the press even though some of his proposals are so far out they would be impossible to achieve.

Sanders saying things like college students are entitled to free education is swell but impossible due to the cost.

The back and forth between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton does get some coverage, but because Sanders often gets the upper hand it is played down.

Yesterday the senator was asked about the verbal assassin David Brock, who -- despite being a smear-merchant -- is very close to Hillary Clinton.

BERNIE SANDERS: "Let's remember who David Brock is. He is a political attack dog. And I happen to like Hillary Clinton. But I am astounded by some of the people that she has hired, including David Brock. ((EDIT)) This is the guy that Hillary Clinton is making the head of her super PAC? I just don't understand."

Sanders raises an excellent point that you will not hear much about because the liberal media often covers for Hillary Clinton.

In fact it was almost stunning that a moderator who works for NBC News actually hugged Sanders and Clinton after the Democratic debate last week.

She hugged them.

Can you imagine if Megyn Kelly had hugged the Republican contenders?

The media would have run wild with that.

And by the way, Megyn's questions to the Republicans were a thousand times tougher than what we saw at the recent NBC-run Democrat debate.

Finally, we established beyond a reasonable doubt that CNN's reportage of Ben Carson's Iowa situation last week hurt Doctor Carson in the voting.

There is no doubt about it.

We also told you that the Cruz campaign took advantage of the CNN misinformation and that might have skewed the results in Iowa.

But the liberal media did not come down on CNN, yet ripped Senator Cruz.

Does that sound fair to you?

Summing up, all Republicans should understand they will not be getting a fair shake in the presidential election of 2016.

And that's the memo.

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