1. CBS Scolds Bush for Hiding How "Kerry Talks Tough" on Terrorism In the campaign, "the attacks from both sides are getting sharper," CBS's John Roberts complained on Tuesday's CBS Evening News, asserting that "the first casualty appears to be the truth." Roberts rebuked John Kerry for falsely claiming that Bush would "privatize" Social Security and bring back the draft. His examples of President Bush's claims, however, were not of similar distortions, but of a supposed lack of context for how Republicans have done the same as Kerry or how Kerry "also" does something else. Roberts, for instance, chided Bush:... continue reading
1. CBS Gratuitously Portrays Bush as Driven by "Far-Right Ideology" Without correcting John Kerry's distortion of a quote attributed to President Bush about how he'll "privatize" Social Security, on Monday's CBS Evening News, reporter Jim Axelrod ideologically augmented Kerry's strategy by saying it "is to raise the specter of a second Bush term driven by far-right ideology in which regular folks lose," a label Kerry did not employ. But in the previous story by John Roberts on Bush's day of campaigning, Roberts did not describe Bush's attacks on Kerry as painting the Democrat as a "far-left threat to national security"... continue reading
1. Clift & Carlson Reject "Liberal" Kerry Tag, Yet He's Left of Ted "Bush is out there flailing around with this liberal name-calling," Newsweek's Eleanor Clift complained on the McLaughlin Group over the weekend before she declared that "John Kerry is not Michael Dukakis" and so describing Kerry as liberal is "a very weak argument in the closing weeks of the campaign." Margaret Carlson, on CNN's Capital Gang, insisted that Kerry is "not a raving liberal." But as fellow CNN panelist Kate O'Beirne pointed out, "John Kerry's lifetime liberal ratings" from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action, "is even higher... continue reading
1. Rather Leads by Exaggerating Order Refusal Into "Mutiny" in Iraq Though he acknowledged that the case "is still being investigated" and there's been "nothing proven," Dan Rather, nonetheless, led Friday's CBS Evening News by hyperbolically citing "a mutiny" by "members of a U.S. Army logistical unit" who "may have rejected an order they considered too dangerous." Rather tied the alleged incident to larger problems in Iraq: "With U.S. casualties in Iraq mounting, along with some complaints about lack of proper equipment and not enough troops, American commanders are being forced to think about troops refusing missions." David Martin proceeded... continue reading
1. CBS Analyst: "Presidency Slipping Away From George Bush" All three Thursday morning shows led with Wednesday's debate. Once again, CBS was the most emphatic in declaring that John Kerry had won, repeatedly touting its Web-based poll of 200 "uncommitted voters." Early Show political analyst Craig Crawford insisted that watching the debate "you could feel the presidency slipping away from George Bush." Over on ABC, George Stephanopoulos volunteered that "if you look at three presidential elections where the challenger has come in behind going into the debates and left ahead -- 1960, 1980, 2000 -- that person went on to... continue reading
1. All Three Network Polls Declare Kerry the Winner Once Again All three network "snap" polls, conducted after Wednesday night's presidential debate, declared John Kerry the winner -- CBS and CNN by wide margins, ABC by a single point. After skipping it for the second debate, CBS News resurrected its Web-based survey of about 200 "uncommitted" people who called Kerry the winner by 39 percent to 25 percent over President Bush. CNN's Bill Schneider relayed how those in the CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll of 511 registered voters who watched the debate gave it to "Kerry by a decisive margin, 13 points,... continue reading
1. Since Memo, ABC Does Twice as Many Fact Checks on Bush as Kerry ABC News "fact check" corrections for President Bush now at four-to-two over those for Senator Kerry since ABC News Political Director Mark Halperin's memo last Friday calling upon his colleagues to hold Bush more accountable since "the current Bush attacks on Kerry involve distortions and taking things out of context in a way that goes beyond what Kerry has done." After Friday's debate, ABC corrected two Bush claims but just one Kerry allegation and, in the first "fact check" since then, Tuesday's World News Tonight corrected... continue reading
1. Brokaw Features Gorbachev's Denunciation of Bush's Iraq Policy NBC's Tom Brokaw turned to Mikhail Gorbachev, whom he hailed as "the man who changed the course of Russian history," for an assessment of Bush's Iraq policy. Monday's NBC Nightly News showcased the denunciation of the war, by the media's favorite dictator, as "a mistake" which represented "a blow struck to international law" and the United Nations. The former leader of the expansionist Soviet Union also denounced Bush's "unilateral action." 2. "Facts Are Firewall Against Bias," News Not Driven By "Ideology" "Bias, like beauty, is often in the eye of the... continue reading
1. CBS and ABC Decry TV Chain for Running Anti-Kerry Documentary The chutzpah of CBS and ABC. On Sunday night, both networks decried how the Sinclair Broadcast Group has told its owned and operated televisions stations to run an anti-Kerry documentary, Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal. On the CBS Evening News, reporter Kelly Cobiella noted how "Sinclair has given the lion's share of its political contributions to Republican candidates. This year, the company's CEO wrote out the largest personal check allowed by law to President Bush's re-election campaign." ABC anchor Terry Moran stressed how "Democrats decry this move as... continue reading
1. ABC and CNN Post-Debate Polls Make Kerry the Winner, Barely Post-debate polls from both ABC and CNN made John Kerry the winner of Friday night's town meeting-style presidential candidate debate at Washington University in St. Louis. ABC's survey of 515 registered voters polled three percentage points more Democrats than Republicans and Kerry was assessed the winner by that margin, 44 percent to 41 percent. CNN's same number of respondents picked Kerry over Bush by 47 percent to 45 percent, but as Bill Schneider was quick to point out, in CNN's universe Republicans outnumbered Democrats so, he argued, "for those... continue reading