I Want My Mike TV

If alternative universes are real, I've been bouncing between two of them like a ping-pong ball the last couple of weeks. 

Despite the fact that I live in West L.A. I do talk to a lot of Republicans, just not face-to-face in my own neighborhood. Between online networking, blogging, friends and family I keep in pretty regular contact with GOP voters. I also go on the road a lot to places where they still allow a two party system. I meet and speak with a lot of faithful Republicans that way too. 

Given that and the MSM coverage of the Republican presidential campaign, you would think I'd be running into Romney and Huckabee supporters everywhere, right? Here's the tally so far:

Romney-1 (just yesterday)

Huckabee-0

When I'm not talking to real Republicans I wander through the alternative universe of the MSM and guess what I find there? 

"The Mike And Mitt Show" coming at me live 24/7.

I wrote about the media love affair with Romney yesterday. It's clear, however, that this has become one big political threesome with him, Huck and our buddies in the press. 

The manure was put down on the lawn here a couple of months ago so that's not what I'm smelling. Something definitely stinks though.

Just take a look at Real Clear Politics today. There's more talk about Romney there than on his campaign site. It's been like this since yesterday. That followed a week or so of breathless Huckabee swooning. 

I'm not saying that neither of them is newsworthy, it's just that there may be something else on GOP voters' minds besides where the candidate is going for Christmas services. 

This can't really be called a conspiracy on the part of the media, that would be giving too much credit to the intellects of the MSMers. It is more than likely a fervent hope that we'll look away from real issues and focus on the candidates' religions. The obviously liberal MSM could be trying to cherry pick a candidate for us who might match up more favorably against Her Missusness or Saint Obama. 

Guess who among the GOP big guys poll the worst against Hilly and Obie? The media's own omnipresent governor Romney. 

Mike Huckabee is so new to the upper tier dance that RCP hasn't even been tracking head-to-head polls for him and the Democrats, if they exist at all. He may keep up this ascendance up but he's one of those guys whose record doesn't hold up well at all to scrutiny. Any Republican who votes for him solely because he is a preacher isn't thinking much like a Republican at all.

Here are the things that are talked about among real Republicans when considering a candidate:

A) National Security

B) Border Security

C) Controlling Spending

D) Taxes

E) What a useless waste of Capitol Hill office space Harry Reid is.

It's nice that Huckabee is a man of God. It's scary that he taxed like a crazed Kennedy when he was governor. 

And Mitt? His faith does impress. It's also admirable how he keeps in such great shape by doing backflips on issues to fit the election cycle du jour. 

Real Republicans need to decide who will pick the nominee: us or MSNBC?

Cross posted at Real Clear Politics (Vote for it!) 

Cirque du CNN

So, CNN hooked up with YouTube to blindside the Republican candidates with a truckload of biased, juvenile drivel. Gosh, who would have seen that coming?

By now we all know about the gay general who trotted out a question from the 1992 primaries and was "outed" as a Clinton staffer. CNN apparently employed "don't ask, don't tell" when vetting the questioners. Michelle Malkin unearths more suspicious questioners today because, unlike the MSM, she smelled a rat as soon as Brig. Gen. Undecided was revealed. The MSM, for the most part, ignored the story altogether or were satisfied with believing the retired general to be an aberration. Gee golly, if you can't trust CNN who can you...

Anyway...

The Republicans walked right into this one. Why? Because they collectively possess some male anatomy associated with risk taking that the Democrats don't. A CNN/YouTube pairing had far more potential ticking bombs for the GOP candidates than did the Fox News debate that the Democrats gathered up their skirts and ran away from.

Madame Clinton spent the days leading up to the Democrat debate on CNN teaching Wolf Blitzer how to fetch and heel. Only when she was sure that he was under control and wouldn't embarrass her did she relax and proceed. CNN's biggest error of omission that night was having James Carville doing post debate analysis for them. The nutroots over at The Daily Kos were on suicide watch for the next few days because Carville didn't state up front that he was a Clinton staffer (Ms. Clinton is a bit conservative for the Kosmonauts). Is there anyone in America with an IQ over fourteen who doesn't know Carville works for the Clintons? As secrets go, this ranks right up there with OJ being a murderer. Face it, every CNN employee is a de facto Clinton staffer.

I am only surprised because others are surprised by this. It's sort of like going to a Jackie Chan movie and being disappointed by the acting. The powers that be at CNN wouldn't pass an objectivity test even if we graded them on a public school curve. The only reason it even calls itself CNN any more is because "American Al-Jazeera" takes up too much space on the graphics at the bottom of the screen.

The Republicans aren't going to get a fair shake from CNN, The New York Times or Hollywood. It's that simple. I was actually shocked at the relative softball nature of the biased questions. I fully expected this one to start with a video of some of the children weeping and asking how many puppies each candidate planned to kill with his big carbon footprint if elected. Instead, they attempted to highlight the difficulties that gays in the military face using a gay man who made it all the way to Brigadier General. That just made the policy seem like "Don't ask, don't tell, give me a helluva pension!"

The bias will continue unabated. A debate recap in the New York Times bemoaned "the lack of diversity on the stage..." and whined that "Most of the videos were from white men..." See how it works kids? The Democrats are suddenly representative of America because they have one African-American and four boobs (Hillary's two plus Kucinich and Dodd) running.

The fault lies more with us rolling over and allowing these sham debates that have more audience plants than a TV evangelist trying to raise money for a new Learjet. Each format revision seems to suck more than the last. Serious followers of politics on both sides should get angry and protest (we could call ourselves "youths") until some candidates agree to air it out for real.

Cross posted at Real Clear Politics (Vote for it!)

"It was just my imagination..."

Or was it? Whenever I bring up the topic of liberal bias in the media with one of my many Democrat friends I tend to get a response not unlike one you'd give a wild-eyed man who just told you that aliens took him up for a probe on the Mother Ship last night. They vary in tone but the gist is usually "You're crazy and you're imagining this." Now, I have very few arguments against my lack of sanity. I was just talking to myself about it this morning. In fact, four out of the five voices in my head agree that something is wrong with me. But I know I'm not imagining the leftward tilt of the mainstream media in this country.

Up until now, if you trotted out facts in support of bias claims you would run into the same problems. First, Democrats are allergic to facts. This allergy enables them to ignore global terrorism and spend their lives in a panic about Manhattan being swallowed by the Atlantic ocean. There's a better chance that Manhattan will be swallowed by Al Gore during a business lunch than by a melting glacier.

The second problem is that the sources of media bias facts would be questioned. You'd be told that Brent Bozell is conservative, so he just finds what he wants to find. Or that Bernard Golberg is disgruntled and has an ax to grind. Sooner or later, they'd find a way to say it was all funded by Big Oil.

But look at who just published the latest set of facts supporting the bias claim. Newt Gingrich? No. Me? I told you I'm busy talking to myself a lot lately. Darth O'Reilly over at Fox News? Nope. That renowned conservative think tank, Harvard University, gives us today's numbers to chew on. Not even your most ardent left wing conspiracy nut will be able to downplay the news by claiming that Harvard suddenly drank the Kool-Aid.

Here are the results of the joint survey done by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Harvard's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy. To those of us who have been paying attention to reality instead of cartoons about drowning polar bears, none of these results are surprising. CNN is the most hostile to Republicans. Really?!?!? Next you'll be telling me that Joan Rivers has had some work done on her face. Seriously, people.

PBS (American Pravda) threw up a big goose egg in the percentage of stories favorable to the GOP. NPR (American Pravda Morning Edition) went negative on Republicans almost four times as much as they did Democrats. The article doesn't mention Katie Couric because, well, nobody mentions Katie Couric any more. Naturally, according to most of the media, Barack Obama should skip the presidency altogether and go right to sainthood. Every time we see him stumble in his own b.s. he seems to land in halo polish as far as the press is concerned.

What I've never understood is why the modern media can't just own up to its political leanings. A New York Times reporter who feigns objectivity is either a phenomenal actor or abusing Xanax. It's like parents pretending they think all the other babies are as cute as theirs. I used to avoid contact with other parents when my daughter was little just so I wouldn't have to fake a compliment about some little troll baby. When you're a parent you think none of the other children measure up to your own and when you work at the New York Times you think all Republicans are the spawn of Satan. Let's admit it already!

Hey, let's use one of the liberals favorite arguments against them: they do it in Europe! Remember, according to the Left, if it happens in Europe it's even more awesome than Obama. Newspapers all over Europe, especially England, not only proclaim their political leanings, they boast about them. Let's stop pretending that the New York Times is ever going to endorse a Republican for president again and get on with the business of the day. I don't see why the Left is against this, it makes perfect sense...oh...

Cross posted at Grizzly Groundswell