Liberal Democrats show no signs of reading their washout at the polls as a reason to shift to the center. President Obama told 60 Minutes his only mistake was he passed some major legislation but he didnt focus enough on the messy how -- as in how its risky to pass an ObamaCare bill that a majority says it doesnt want.
Nancy Pelosi is the other face of the eviscerated left. A Gallup poll in mid-October found 56 percent of Americans have a negative opinion of her almost double the percentage that feels negatively toward incoming House Speaker John Boehner. Rather that cede the field to a new general without the baggage she is lunging ahead to be re-elected as leader of the shrunken House Democrats.
Now Obama Pelosi and their troops in the media are going to turn to the proposition that the House Republicans must be defeated. Oh the irony. Werent their knickers in the tightest of knots when Rush Limbaugh stated he wanted Obama to fail?
Trying to reduce our $3.5 trillion annual budget by $100 million liberals now insist is impossible. So said morning host Harry Smith on CBS. But Team Obama adding $2.7 trillion to the deficit over the last two years was a piece of cake.
The insatiable left is defining as realistic anything that keeps the gravy train rolling and trying to slow it down is utterly unthinkable. Smith wouldnt be caught dead reading a new study from the Heritage Foundation showing how to cut $343 billion per year in federal spending or more than one-fourth of the 2010 deficit as a down payment toward a balanced budget.
Despite controlling only one house of Congress the GOP has been handed all the accountability for government spending by the press. In every interview the media are pounding tea party politicians to announce where theyre going to cut. Liberals are never challenged to put forth specifics when they genuflect at the altar of fiscal responsibility because everyone knows they really mean tax hikes.
So most Republicans are avoiding specifics like the Heritage plan because they know that for any spending cut they propose the media will go hunting for potential victims of alleged Republican viciousness. They remember 1995 when ABC was doing stories on the brief government shutdown with tear-jerking lines about poor bureaucrats like Joe Skattleberry and his wife Lisa cant afford a Christmas tree.
Its as simple as this: Reporters dont want the budget to be cut. Thats why a look at the Big Three network newscasts by the Media Research Center from Sept. 1 through Oct. 25 found the networks repeatedly telling the voters they faced a choice between reasonable Democrats and freakishly far-right Republicans.
There were 35 evening news stories that conveyed the message that conservative and tea party candidates were extreme fringe or out of the mainstream. But there was not a single network story that spent one second of time to suggest that the conservatives asserted the Obama/Reid/Pelosi Democrats responsible for the most radical legislative agenda in history were out of the mainstream.
When the voters went to the polls and rejected the Democrats they were rejecting the Old Media as well.
Network reporters consistently implied or stated that Obama was already in the center of the political conversation and the GOP was off-the-charts conservative. They applied 62 ideological labels and 77 percent were aimed at conservatives and only 23 percent were for liberals. Both Delawares Christine ODonnell and Alaskas Joe Miller were tagged as ultraconservatives; apparently thats a synonym for the tea party but no Democrat -- not one -- was ever branded an ultraliberal.
In the Pennsylvania Senate race CBS called Republican Pat Toomey conservative but Democrat Joe Sestak (American Conservative Union rating: zero) was not a liberal. CBS stooped lowest by airing an entire story on loud-mouthed loser Alan Grayson (another ACU zero) but never called him a liberal despite his claim that the Republican health care motto was Die Quickly. To the liberals in denial at CBS Grayson wasnt extreme on anything but they felt it necessary to tag his opponent Daniel Webster as conservative.
Despite the thumping that Obama and his media supporters took at the polls no conservative should think the media liberals will learn their lesson. Expect denial and resistance in 2011. They want Obama to declare just for now that hes heard the sound of the electorate. But expect another 1995-style onslaught painting the Republicans as horror-movie shredders of everything good and noble about America.
Founder and President of the Media Research Center Brent Bozell runs the largest media watchdog organization in America.
Liberal Democrats show no signs of reading their washout at the polls as a reason to shift to the center. President Obama told 60 Minutes his only mistake was he passed some major legislation but he didnt focus enough on the messy how -- as in how its risky to pass an ObamaCare bill that a majority says it doesnt want.
Nancy Pelosi is the other face of the eviscerated left. A Gallup poll in mid-October found 56 percent of Americans have a negative opinion of her almost double the percentage that feels negatively toward incoming House Speaker John Boehner. Rather that cede the field to a new general without the baggage she is lunging ahead to be re-elected as leader of the shrunken House Democrats.
Now Obama Pelosi and their troops in the media are going to turn to the proposition that the House Republicans must be defeated. Oh the irony. Werent their knickers in the tightest of knots when Rush Limbaugh stated he wanted Obama to fail?
Trying to reduce our $3.5 trillion annual budget by $100 million liberals now insist is impossible. So said morning host Harry Smith on CBS. But Team Obama adding $2.7 trillion to the deficit over the last two years was a piece of cake.
The insatiable left is defining as realistic anything that keeps the gravy train rolling and trying to slow it down is utterly unthinkable. Smith wouldnt be caught dead reading a new study from the Heritage Foundation showing how to cut $343 billion per year in federal spending or more than one-fourth of the 2010 deficit as a down payment toward a balanced budget.
Despite controlling only one house of Congress the GOP has been handed all the accountability for government spending by the press. In every interview the media are pounding tea party politicians to announce where theyre going to cut. Liberals are never challenged to put forth specifics when they genuflect at the altar of fiscal responsibility because everyone knows they really mean tax hikes.
So most Republicans are avoiding specifics like the Heritage plan because they know that for any spending cut they propose the media will go hunting for potential victims of alleged Republican viciousness. They remember 1995 when ABC was doing stories on the brief government shutdown with tear-jerking lines about poor bureaucrats like Joe Skattleberry and his wife Lisa cant afford a Christmas tree.
Its as simple as this: Reporters dont want the budget to be cut. Thats why a look at the Big Three network newscasts by the Media Research Center from Sept. 1 through Oct. 25 found the networks repeatedly telling the voters they faced a choice between reasonable Democrats and freakishly far-right Republicans.
There were 35 evening news stories that conveyed the message that conservative and tea party candidates were extreme fringe or out of the mainstream. But there was not a single network story that spent one second of time to suggest that the conservatives asserted the Obama/Reid/Pelosi Democrats responsible for the most radical legislative agenda in history were out of the mainstream.
When the voters went to the polls and rejected the Democrats they were rejecting the Old Media as well.
Network reporters consistently implied or stated that Obama was already in the center of the political conversation and the GOP was off-the-charts conservative. They applied 62 ideological labels and 77 percent were aimed at conservatives and only 23 percent were for liberals. Both Delawares Christine ODonnell and Alaskas Joe Miller were tagged as ultraconservatives; apparently thats a synonym for the tea party but no Democrat -- not one -- was ever branded an ultraliberal.
In the Pennsylvania Senate race CBS called Republican Pat Toomey conservative but Democrat Joe Sestak (American Conservative Union rating: zero) was not a liberal. CBS stooped lowest by airing an entire story on loud-mouthed loser Alan Grayson (another ACU zero) but never called him a liberal despite his claim that the Republican health care motto was Die Quickly. To the liberals in denial at CBS Grayson wasnt extreme on anything but they felt it necessary to tag his opponent Daniel Webster as conservative.
Despite the thumping that Obama and his media supporters took at the polls no conservative should think the media liberals will learn their lesson. Expect denial and resistance in 2011. They want Obama to declare just for now that hes heard the sound of the electorate. But expect another 1995-style onslaught painting the Republicans as horror-movie shredders of everything good and noble about America.
Founder and President of the Media Research Center Brent Bozell runs the largest media watchdog organization in America.
