Evan Thomas: "Obama Is Sort of God"

But there's no bias in the media, is there?!?

Question: Can such a "journalist" ever be impartial against God?

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Update: Dennis Miller had a piece of advice for Evan Thomas: "If Obama really is God then please let him lay his hands on you to cure you of the terminal ass-kissing malady you clearly have!"

Shaping the News, The Alexander Panetta Way

From the beginning I suspected that something very strange was afoot regarding the
Michaëlle Jean seal eating story. Oh sure, you can always expect protests from PETA type activists on the Radical Left, but beyond that I just sensed that this story was being overblown.

This was absolutely confirmed today during Rex Murphy's Cross Checkup show on CBC Radio 1, which you can listen to here. Considering that their core audience is Left and "Further Left" (I'm being polite) I didn't know what reaction to expect from such Canadians across the country. Other than missing a few minutes at two junctures to answer phone calls, I caught the entire two-hour show. Of what I listened to, everyone but one was an adamant supporter of Mme. Jean's actions. Read this sampling of e-mails and you'll see more of the same. I was shocked, in a good way, by this tremendous support for her.

On the show, more than a few people suggested that this was a media contrived story. What precisely they meant by this, I do not know for certain, but at the very least one could construe that the story was slanted unfairly.

I did a little digging and the name "Alexander Panetta" of the Canadian Press kept on popping up. He was clearly the CP reporter assigned to cover her tour up there. Here's one snippet from the many stories he wrote:

Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean was awarded a certificate yesterday for her respect of Inuit culture, after images of her eating a bloody chunk of raw seal heart raised eyebrows around the world.

The emphasis is mine. One has to wonder if this was a news story or the caption of an upcoming horror film?

Panetta's latest story is another interesting case. The headline reads, "Clarkson unimpressed with Jean's seal-eating", which was extracted from the first paragraph: "At least one person's unimpressed by all the fuss over the seal-skinning adventures of Michaelle Jean: her predecessor as Governor General."

The word "unimpressed" has several meanings but when presented without any further explanation, most reasonable people would conclude that Adrienne Clarkson was "not impressed" or "not approving" of Michaëlle Jean's actions. Yet read the story all the way through, and that's NOT AT ALL what she said or meant.

I did some more digging and found this from July 2006. The writer there challenges Panetta's truthfulness and professionalism, indicating a similar pattern of deception.

Turns out there's more. Back in October 2006 both Kathy Shaidle and Kate McMillan had a run-in with Panetta here and here respectively.

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Alexander Panetta: Poster-Boy for the Downfall of the Canadian MSM

In the past few years he had ample opportunity to clean up his act but instead his tradition of highly biased, inaccurate reporting continues unabated.

Sad. And pathetic. Any wonder why polls continue to show journalists near the bottom of the list of trust and respect?

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Update: This posting was kindly linked to by Kate at SDA here. Some of the comments therein are absolutely priceless. Pay particular attention to the running debate by SDA regular 'EBD' and someone claiming to be an actual MSM reporter. The latter got caught in logic trap and EBD lit him up big time.

Through the comments, we learned of yet another example of Panetta's reputation as a spinmeister.

Alexander Panetta is, in essence, a columnist. If his writing was clearly published as editorial content then I'd have NO PROBLEM with it whatsoever. But it's published as "news" and, as such, violates the most important tenets of journalistic integrity. Yet none of his bosses, nor the newspapers that print his work, seem to care.

What If . . . We Had Just Passed President Palin's 100 Days?

Victor Davis Hanson takes Barack Obama's actions during the first 100 days of his presidency and juxtaposes them into the scenario of a President Palin presidency. Do you think the media coverage would have been:

1. Precisely the same
2. Somewhat the same
3. Somewhat different
4. Completely different

Answer that question truthfully and you'll understand how incredibly corrupt the mainstream media is in the Year 2009.

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In a parallel thread, have you been following the Telegraph's superb coverage of the rampant corruption amongst MPs in the UK? Imagine that identical corruption had been occurring in the Democrat Party in America. Ask yourself the same question as above about the media coverage of it. Does anyone doubt that we'd have another #4 ???

The Psychology Behind the Rampant Media Bias

Debra Saunders has just published an informative article about the left-leaning bias of the mainstream media. Excellent reading!

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Reflection down Memory Lane:

Pauline Kael, a Manhattan socialite and NY Times writer, reacted to Richard Nixon's landslide presidential victory over George McGovern in 1972 by saying: "How can that be? No one I know voted for Nixon."

Report Card on the American MSM: D-

Here's a very interesting editorial from Rex Murphy. One thing that he doesn't touch upon however is what has quickly become the key ingredient for Obama & Co. to do WHATEVER they want: The vast majority of the MSM refusing to criticize, or even just mildly question, ANYTHING that the Administration is doing.

I have absolutely no reason to compare Obama with Hitler or Stalin BUT I do wonder if there are some parallels with the MSM today and the press in Germany & Russia respectively when those two aforementioned tyrants took over.

May I offer a prediction? The Obama Administration doesn't appear to like even the mildest form of dissent so I do believe that over the rest of this year we are going to witness underhanded attempts to try to curtail both Fox News and conservative talk radio. It won't be done directly of course but through their legions of brown shirts .... ummmm, I mean "3rd Party Loyalists".

Dangerous times we're living in.

Another "Right Wing Extremist"

Please pay careful attention to when he states that he ALSO protested against George Bush!

Mark Steyn: Would the Boston Globe have covered the original Boston Tea Party?

The original Boston Tea Party was so-called because it took place at Boston Harbor, which I gather is a harbor somewhere in the general vicinity of the Greater Boston area. So there would appear to be what I believe the journalism professors call a "local angle" to Wednesday's re-enactment. Might be useful for a publication losing a million bucks a week and threatened with closure by a parent company that, in one of the worst media acquisitions of all time, paid over $1 billion for a property that barely a decade later is all but worthless.

Full article

Susan Roesgen: Poster Girl for Unethical Journalism

Susan Roesgen is a "reporter" for CNN. With all due respect that "R" word has to be in quotes. She is emblematic of how so many in the mainstream media have strayed far away from any semblance of ethical & professional journalism. The majority of the Americans who took the time and made the effort to peacefully protest their displeasure at the massive amount of debt their government is racking up are not "extreme right-wing nutbars" like Roesgen and her colleagues would have you believe. Yet she could not hold back her personal disdain for all of them, including the man she started to "interview" but then rudely interrupted when what he was saying didn't fall into line with her own political views. What kind of REAL journalist would do that?

The United States of America was founded by citizens just like you see here in Chicago, who were angry at an unaccountable, uncaring government that had grown deaf to their very legitimate concerns. Is history repeating itself? Make no mistake, these people are angry at both political parties and the politicians within. This is not so much a protest at Barack Obama, as it is against the irresponsibility of government as a whole.

As a thought experiment, imagine Susan Roesgen transported back to 1776, shoving her microphone into the faces of the citizens of the original colones and asking them why they were revolting. Then, when not getting the answer she seeketh, pulling away and screaming, "What dost though protest against?! The King of England hath given you so much!"

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Update: The following comment came from a fellow on another site. He lives in SE Florida:

I attended the Tea Party protest that was held in my town, more people than expected showed up and for such a small town, it was pleasantly surprising. One big issue that is drawing alot of justified criticism is the President’s first spending bill, that was over 1,000 pages long but was quickly voted on and signed before anyone had ample time to even read it! Any Republican politician who thinks that it was simply an anti-Democrat or anti-Obama protest is kidding themselves, they started the out of control spending when they were in power and the donkeys just put it all on steroids once they got control of the entire government. When I returned home and watched the coverage of the various protests that occurred all around this country, I was struck by several different observations:

Despite the fact that there were nearly a thousand of these Tea Parties drawing hundreds of thousands of citizens, the crowds were energetic, but very peaceful. There were no riots, burned or overturned vehicles, physical clashes with law enforcement personnel, beatings, property damage or crude effigies of anyone being defiled or destroyed in any way, quite a departure from what we usually see from large left wing demonstrations on any subject. Most participants carried handmade signs, and people of all ages, political ideologies & ethnic groups participated.

The majority of the news media who continually gets clobbered by Fox in the ratings no matter what the time slot tried to downplay the numbers or passion of those of us who chose to attend these rallies, disregarding the fact that many turned out in bad weather to make their voices heard, and these so-called journalists chose to insult us as well which is why Beck’s & O’Reilly’s re-runs beat the prime time programming of CNN, ABC & MSNBC combined in the ratings, Fox dominates the daily 5pm to 11pm time slot by a very large margin. As for this alleged “reporter”, she’s a total disgrace and would be utterly embarrassed if she had any professional pride at all, which she obviously lacks! She humiliated herself and thanks to the Internet, her shameful attempt to “be the story” vs. simply reporting will likely be replayed & laughed at from now until eternity.

Susan Roesgen: Poster Girl for Unethical Journalists Inc.

This is a follow-up video to the earlier one, showing what happened after Roesgen's hit piece. I defy anyone to explain how "Susan Roesgen" and "Ethical Journalist" can be used in the same sentence.


Mark Hemingway shares his thoughts on this despicable "reporter". (That last word has to be in quotes.)

Further Blatant Media Bias: The Boston Globe

Michael Graham reports

The Somalia Pirates Affair - Stage 2

Is it just me or do you find something ridiculous about the U.S. Gov't having to explain in intricate detail why the Navy SEALS shot 3 of the 4 men who were HOLDING HOSTAGE an American citizen?!?

In this particular case, I'm not even going to fault Obama & co. Rather, I think this is the international media pushing forth its very strange agenda of moral equivalency. Something very odd is going on.

The Globe & Mail's Propaganda - Example #87,543

The Globe & Mail newspaper published an "interesting" poll on their website today. Read over the question carefully. How would you vote?

If you're like SDA regular "ET", you wouldn't vote at all. Here's what she had to say about it:

How about this poll question, in the Globe and Mail today? It's an example of 'begging the question', a fallacy, where you FIRST have to accept an internal-to-the-question opinion, before you can answer the question.

Here's the question:

"Will President Obama convince Americans to make the hard choices necessary to change the Bush administration's often-failed foreign policies?"

Heh. There are actually multiple fallacies in this esteemed, impartial, unbiased, truth-seeking newspaper's question.

First, there's the basic begging, where you have to accept as truth 'the Bush administration's often-failed foreign policies'. Notice that the question didn't FIRST ask you if you thought these policies were failures. No way. Truth is, according to the G&M, theirs and theirs alone.

Then, how about 'alleged certainty', where it is accepted as beyond question that Obama's actions will be 'necessary'? Oh? This assumes that any of his foreign policy actions will not be subject to criticism because they are already correct and are thus deemed 'necessary'.

Notice also yet another unquestioned assumption; the descriptive evaluation of Obama, i.e. that Obama KNOWS what is necessary and correct.

All of these fallacies, all in one G&M question.

By the way, not a mention of Obama's naive hug-a-terrorist actions, in his letter to Iran, suggesting that all is needed is to 'get along'.

How about his administration's change of definition of a terrorist action to a 'man-caused disaster', which removes all intentionality of that uh, terrorist, to uh, terrorize and reduces the action to pure accident.

How about his insults to the UK PM, to Sarkozy of France, to the Italian PM?

His Afghanistan agenda? Straight out of Bush's agenda in Iraq, which saw, after the surge had gained control of the country, the new agenda of empowering the local population to themselves fight back against Al Qaeda. The G&M seems to have forgotten this Bush strategy of creating a democracy and then empowering the people.

Posted by: ET at March 28, 2009 12:14 PM

Lawrence Martin: The Vast Right-Wing Media Conspiracy

Not often do I read something that leaves me baffled. But such is the case with the latest mutterings of the Globe & Mail's Lawrence Martin. In what is apparently not satire, he tries to put forward the case that journalism has moved to the RIGHT of the Canadian public. He goes on to make many references to American media outlets that one can only assume he believes the same has occurred in the U.S.

Think about that for a second. Mr. Martin is asserting that journalists in the mainstream media have become more right-wing, more conservative than the average person in the public. Considering that poll after poll after poll of journalists asserts that 98% label themselves as liberal or very liberal, how could he make such an assertion with any sense of credibility? One can only surmise that Martin is working under the old presumption that "if you tell a lie enough times, maybe people will start believing it."

Because of the parrot-like behaviour of so many in the MSM, look for others to recite this now as a fact. It's SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for how the Left operates.

How anyone could watch last year's U.S. Presidential election campaign or Canada's recent Constitutional Crisis and come away believing that there is a RIGHT-wing bias in the media is surely beyond the comprehension of even the most learned psychiatrists the world over!

It's one thing for people to have different political views but to think as Lawrence Martin does takes a special kind of stupid.

The CBC's Diversity of Opinion

In this brilliant editorial Lorne Gunter explains why there's as much diversity of opinion at Canada's CBC as there is at the Karl Marx Widget Factory #6. In other words, there's not. It's long overdue to end all public subsidies to the CBC and let it become a specialty channel, supported by those who want to listen to it.

The Slow Death of the CBC

The stated mandate of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) is to provide a Canadian voice to the media, be it on TV, on the Radio, and on the Internet. Because Canada is made up of over 33 Million people, one would naturally conclude that this publicly supported media giant would be as representative of this population as possible. On this front the CBC is an abject and complete F-A-I-L-U-R-E ! ! !

Over a long period the CBC has essentially devolved into the Toronto Broadcasting Corporation of the Left and Extreme Left. Its news division serves as the proxy PR agents of the federal Liberal and NDP parties.

The fact that no one at the network, save for Rex Murphy periodically, says anything that resonates with Center Right or Far Right Canadians gives the CBC an "F" for both objectivity and meeting its mandate.

I rarely tune into the network anymore but when I do, it simply confirms that nothing has changed, even though promises were made late last year that "they were listening" and "changes would be coming". I've formally complained twice in recent months but it's pointless as the executives at the CBC are absolutely deaf to any criticisms or even mild suggestions.

The recent $65 Million shortfall at the CBC is discussed on SDA here. Plus, Charles Adler discussed the same earlier today with Beryl Wajsman. You can listen to it here, starting at 7:00. Absolutely delicious ear candy!!!

Mark Levin Raises the Alarm Bell on Barack Obama

Another Inconvenient Truth

Canada's corrupt mainstream media refused to ask The Messiah (aka Barack Obama) even one difficult question. Yet they're always quick to condemn Canada's Oil Sands. Click on the image above to read more.

An Accurate Take on Canada's Corrupt Media

From a brilliant woman in Ontario:

I think it is clear that our biased MSM is hostile to Harper, for no reason other than that he is not a Liberal and the majority of the MSM all assume that the Liberal Party, regardless of its policies/no policies is the 'Natural Governing Party'.

This MSM ignores the Liberal corruption, ignores Adscam, ignores the stacking of the Senate with their cronies, ignores the patronage and cronyism of that Liberal Party in Ottawa - they are all part of this same 'gang'. Their anger against Harper is simply because he is there.

The fact that he is highly competent is something that they won't even refer to; it is totally and utterly ignored by our MSM.

Their juvenile adoration of Obama - and I simply fail to understand WHY - shows up when someone like Tom Clark gushes on CTV that Obama said 'he loves Canada'..isn't that great'!! Doesn't the idiot think that such a statement is not merely meaningless but only political? After all, how could anyone make such a statement about a country or person or whatever...when they have never, ever, visited the country before? Never set foot in it?

Oh, and Obama 'touched' Harper - that shows his friendship. When Bush did that, it showed his dominance over Harper.

The bias, the juvenile gushing of our MSM over Obama is shameful. And the insistent sneers at Harper - shameful. Meanwhile, the MSM is constantly, endlessly, promoting Ignatieff.

One article, if you can believe it, assures us that Obama and Ignatieff talked about mutual cafes they went to at Harvard, and tells us that both Obama and Ignatieff are 'intellects', deep thinkers...ignoring that Obama's two books are only autobiographies and most certainly not analytical or deep thoughts.

Other articles point out that Harper 'basked in Obama's light'...disgusting.

That's our MSM. By the way, does the MSM remember that Ignatieff signed the coalition agreement - the most vicious attack on our democratic rights in the history of this country?

Posted by: ET at February 20, 2009 10:14 AM

Sarah Palin's Clothes vs. Barack Obama's Pork

Has anyone else noticed that the same MSM that was obsessed with Sarah Palin's wardrobe budget (estimated to be upwards of $150,000) has absolutely no curiosity whatsoever for how the so-called stimulus funds are going to be spent?

Barack Obama's current "stimulus" package (aka "PorkFest") is sitting at $820,000,000,000. That is Five Million, Four Hundred and Sixty Six Thousand, Six Hundred and Sixty Seven (5,466,667) times more money . . . and yet the the vast majority of the MSM chooses to not question how any of it will be spent.

And those same members of the MSM have the audacity to tell us that they have no particular political bias!

The Double Anti

I've been thinking a lot more about the various groups attending the pro-Hamas rallies. For those who aren't aware, this includes some gays and even some Jews. If you were a psychologist and your boss said, "I need you to come up with a solid explanation of why those who would be immediately oppressed if Fundamentalist Islam seized power would possibly rally in support of the same right now", what would your explanation be?

These days I'm reading an amazing book by Tony Judt about Europe after WW2. I'm currently in the section focused on the 1950's. It was clear that while the USSR was oppressing millions of people, some very horribly, many in the West refused to criticize them; some even publicly showed support to the USSR and against the USA. Note that this especially included many in Western Europe, who just around a decade before had only escaped the clutches of Adolf Hitler because of America. Talk about a short memory!

Were all of these people mentally ill? That's an easy way to sum things up but probably not accurate. Judt concludes that they were "anti anti-communist".

So in their minds, most of these folks went to sleep each night, comfortable that they were not pro-oppression. They were of course, in deep denial about what was going on behind the Iron Curtain. But absolutely no different than those today who will first & foremost criticize America & Israel yet be highly reticent to criticize Radical Islam, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, North Korea, Russia, China, Cuba, or any number of African dictators.

Though in the end equation, to any of us with even a mildly right-leaning bent, refusing to criticize totalitarian regimes appears to be exactly the same thing as lending them support; or at least giving them a free pass to do whatever they want.

Looking at the psychology of all this . . .

The Left is generally more emotional, more moved by the immediate circumstances, and rarely looks at the long term view and/or long term repercussions. Words like hypocrisy, dishonour, and self-responsibility have little meaning to those on the Left.

The Right tends to focus on the bigger picture, longer term view. Morality and Right & Wrong have more meaning with the Right, but even more so in the macro than the micro.

Note: Before anyone points out to me about corrupt conservative politicians, religious leaders, business executives, etc. let me state unequivocally that these individuals are phony, greedy poseurs. They are actually the worst of the lot, pretending to be one thing but something else entirely when the rubber hits the road.

A perfect example of this Left-Right difference is the situation of whenever a Canadian soldier kills a Taliban fighter in Afghanistan. In no way, shape, or form can Canada be accused of being an imperialist power. So why did that Canadian soldier pull the trigger on his gun, which killed the Taliban man? The Right understands that a mother's child has just died but focuses on the bigger picture, namely that the Taliban is a horrific regime that will bring nothing but oppression and immense cruelty back onto the innocent people of Afghanistan should they be allowed to return to power. The Left, on the other hand, can pretty much only focus in on the individual death and suspects that an injustice has occurred. For them, thinking beyond the immediacy of that death just doesn't occur.

Members of the media are almost always on the Left. From a psychological perspective, I don't precisely know why this is. It might be because the nature of their work has them bombarded with event after event after event. So they tend to focus most of their attention on the immediate rather than the bigger picture. Historically I wonder if there was more of a balance between Left and Right journalists, unlike the reported 98% to 2% polls say it is now. So professionally, it's very unwise for a new member of the media to espouse anything but Leftist views.

What is so dangerous about the media being so inclined is that their power to shape public opinion is enormous. And like with any good marketing campaign, be it to sell the latest widget or fashion accessory or be it to dehumanize Jews to the level of pigs & dogs, they do alter public opinion more readily than we'd all like to admit. Of course, they take no responsibility for this, citing the old canard that "they're just reporting the news". Sigh.

One saving grace is that the mainstream media is very quickly going broke. I will regret the day if there are no more formal news reporting agencies but hopefully they will remain, albeit with much more balance ... and dare I say it, professionalism. In the early part of this millennium that P-word is sadly lacking across the journalistic spectrum. It has gotten so bad that we now have prominent TV news channels faking deaths.