You can sense the desperation in the Al Gore camp. Liberals in the press are now complaining that media somehow hate Gore. "For Gore, there's zero tolerance for anything but the literal truth," whines Margaret Carlson. "If these slips had been made by any other politician, they would have caused barely a peep," snips Jonathan Alter. How much must be overlooked to claim the media have "zero tolerance" for Gore's lies, errors, and scandals? Let's help them along with a partial list of things the media have invariably ignored or downplayed from the man whose every speech is a clinic... continue reading
Now both presidential contenders can let out huge sighs of relief. They made it through the presidential debates without the race blowing up into a foregone conclusion. But were the debates fair? The moderators - PBS anchor Jim Lehrer for the presidential matches, and CNN anchor Bernard Shaw for the genteel vice presidential seminar - were sober and serious in eliciting information, and gave the candidates great latitude to discuss the issues without directing the attention to themselves. That is good. But as the debates progressed, how could viewers miss how the questions started tilting seriously to the left? Shaw... continue reading
Much like Al Gore, the media have responded to the swing in the polls toward George W. Bush by moderating their partisan ardor between the first and second debates. Gores's tall tales have (finally) become an issue for the press. It doesn't mean, however, that they're handling it correctly. One developing media strategy in the spin around the second debate is to fuzz over Gore's wild exaggerations and lies by trying to blur any distinctions between Bush and Gore on the issue of truthfulness. The morning after the Wake Forest debate, ABC's Jack Ford pointed out to Governor Bush that... continue reading
Democrats are desperate and afraid. The reality that their nominee for President has a compulsive tendency to make things up to make himself look good is sinking in. The image was sealed by the tall tale he told in front of 46 million Americans in the first presidential debate: that he traveled to the fires in Parker County, Texas, in 1996 with federal disaster czar James Lee Witt. As with creating the Internet and suggesting he and Tipper were the inspiration for Love Story, it was not true. This was not the story line the national media pressed after the... continue reading
Some like to think of the Olympic Games as the non-political antidote to geopolitical strife. Not so. On the official, bureaucratic level, ideology and the Olympics are becoming increasingly, and ever more ridiculously, intertwined. Take the distribution of 51 condoms to each competitor in Sydney. "The contraceptives," reported the London newspaper the Mirror, "were issued in a variety of styles, fruit flavors, and textures - including one called 'rough rider.'" Why 51 and not 49, or 52? Because, silly, the Games spanned 17 days and the athletes needed a daily regimen of...three. This politically correct stunt became fodder for jokes,... continue reading
Why do so many TV reporters think they exist in order to sell us on the virtues of government entitlements? The latest fad is the call to add a universal prescription-drug subsidy to Medicare. Suddenly, it's become The Issue We Must All Ponder. An entitlement crusade is always best sold if the networks can make a simple-minded socialist homily out of a victim's story. Enter Winifred Skinner. With some helpful union prompting, the 79-year-old widow stood up last week at a Gore town meeting in Iowa to explain how she walks the highway, picking up cans so she can afford... continue reading
Maybe you're tired of the Olympics. Maybe you've seen enough gymnastics, weightlifting, and beach volleyball over the past two weeks to last you until 2004. Where television viewing is concerned, however, even the most boring Olympic sport is preferable to much of what's already run in prime time this season, and much of what will run in the weeks and months ahead. Let's start with "Girlfriends," a UPN sitcom which debuted September 11. It's from Kelsey Grammer's production company, but this piece of junk boasts not one-tenth the wit of "Frasier." For example, after one Girlfriend says, "I haven't had... continue reading
Despite the polling movement hither and thither on the Bush-Gore race, one thing is clear: in an election this close, the media treatment of the candidates could be the crucial factor in determining which candidate puts his hand on the Bible in January. Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz even put the media-bias issue on the front page, describing it as "the elephant in the room" and "the shadow that some believe is hovering over the presidential race." The media's power to sway elections is not absolute, but it is not a UFO-style figment of conservative imaginations either. Why else... continue reading
Since the first month of 1992, media coverage of Hillary Clinton has been marinated in mourning for her martyrdom. Poor Hillary, the press regularly suggested, with so much intelligence and compassion to offer the world, and so much private pain in her marriage...poor Hillary! As time moved on, a competing storyline emerged, grudgingly conceded by only a few reporters. Hillary was the stiffened ideological and political spine of the Clinton crowd, the one who would ruin any erupting bimbo, stonewall any investigative reporter, object to any independent counsel, refuse any settlement with her husband's harassment targets. Her media sympathizers tried... continue reading
From coast to coast, folks are counting the days until the Clinton presidency ends. But would the end of the Clinton presidency really mean the end of Clintonism? Clearly, Clintonism will bloom and grow all over again if Hillary Clinton and Al Gore reign over Washington after these elections. And the most relentless defenders of Clintonism - the entrenched, unelected, 89-percent pro-Clinton press corps - are trying to see to that. Election Day is drawing near, and the press seems passionately dedicated to carrying Al Gore's bags into the White House residence. One bonafide story after another casting the Democrats... continue reading