Halperin Decries ‘Disgusting’ Pro-Obama Media Bias in Election Coverage

I’d say your hatred of Obama & Biden came thru loud and clear.
Plus the press is single handly responsible for giving us Bush and Iraq. You torpedoed Gore from day one and spread the swift boat crap without shame. Maybe you were finally too embarrassed to give us McCain.
I love how “bias” only bothers you when it is liberal.

Wow, now you guys are asking these questions? Why didn’t you speak up DURING the campaign, when it would have mattered? Sorry guys, it’s too late to grow a concience now. You have no credibility.

And I thought “Halperin’s larger point” was the one on top of his head. Now if Mark would just resign in protest, perhaps we can all take his trumped-up integrity rant seriously. What a jackass.

I think that either Jake or Mark complaining about media bias is pretty hypocritical – as both make sure to communicate their disapproval of President Elect Obama at every opportunity.
Yes, an objective press would be a great thing to have, but our press acts as a group of corporate apologists and enablers as it is. It has been a long time since America had an unbiased, objective press that works for the public interest, which is why the last eight years happened, and why the bulk of the press was only to happy to support a continuation of it with the false equivalences and obsession with describing ways for McCain to win long after the intent of the American people was clear.

Media people should be media people. Keep their opinions and judgements to themselves. How do any of us know that we have heard all of the information when we cite a bias? Is it not one person’s opinion?

Halperin is full of it. The failure of the media is in NOT reporting the crimes committed by the right-wing radicals ripping this country apart. I am so fed up with the right-wingers crying foul. Force right-wingers to look at the catastrophe their greed has caused. And the bad news isn’t over yet. How many lifes have been shattered over the last 28 years because of the rampant greed that drives right-wingers’ very existence.

I can’t believe the willful ignorance of this group. Right-wingers did not cause this crises – it was most recently, Dodd and Frank who were on the take and did their best to head off any oversight of FM & FM. 90% of the heads of these greedy companies are ex-Clinton people. How do you keep those blinder on, people?

Well, to be honest, I was shocked when The New York Times endorsed Mr. Obama towards the end of the Presidential campaign. Based on their coverage of the two candidates prior to their endorsement, I thought The New York Times was the official Obama/Biden 2008 PR firm.

The truth hurts – but the hangover will really be a killer.

This ad is probably responsible for Obama being elected. I hope Halperin will write a book about media bias during the Obama campaign.
Obama played the race card whenever needed to gain voters. This shows what Obama is: he consists of nothing more. The first time, Obama did it against Bill Clinton, which served as a warning to anyone who would go against him. All the superdelegates fell into line, for fear of being labeled “racist.” And now, what do we have? A country in serious trouble that will be lead by an arrogant, sleazy man with no experience at anything except getting votes for himself. His supporters can’t list one thing he has ever done to help people. Check out the south side of Chicago. Even his photogenic wife turned poor people away from medical care for a six-figure salary. America is in serious trouble.

Bah everytime the media does anything against the right wing they cry foul. It has been going on ever since the Clinton years if not longer. The republicans are the real nation of whiners, especially in loss. The right wingers should take a lesson from John McCain’s concession speech, unfortunately for him probably the best speech he gave the entire campaign. Now is not the time for whining, but for constructive comments and working together to solve the economic crisis we now face.

It is hard to get any good press when you are running all negative ads. McCain’s numbers went down as the economic crisis hit, and as his convention bounce faded. Faced with Obama’s positive numbers the republicans ran almost all negative ads from that point on. They gave the press nothing to talk about that was positive from their side of the campaign. McCain’s campaign made the election all about Obama. Now if Obama had slipped up at some point this may have worked. But his ability to stay calm under pressure undercut all of these attempts. If you run a negative campaign you get negative coverage. Obama did have negative adds, but he also had 2 minute spots and that 30 minute add that did not even mention McCain and that talked about the issues, and frankly I believe made his own positive coverage.

Hmmmm…
Is this the same Mark Halperin that co-authored a book w/ John Harris of Politico last year in which one chapter was titled “MATT DRUDGE RULES OUR WORLD”???
Is this the same Mark Halperin that sent a letter to RIGHT-WING HACK Hugh Hewitt saying he enjoys their radio talk and he is someone he respects so much, and agree on almost EVERYTHING??
Is this the same Mark Halperin that wrote on his blog in February of this year a list of 16 things that “McCain can do in taking on Obama that Hillary Clinton could not”… which included: #6) Allow some supporters to risk being accused of using the race card when criticizing Obama…#11) Emphasize Barack Hussein Obama’s unusual name and exotic background through a Manchurian Candidate prism”???
Really??? Mark Halperin is the one calling media bais?? Hmmm… that’s what some psychologists call “Projection”… where you accuse others of doing something that you are doing yourself..

The reason why the Spanish language ad didn’t get that much attention from the media is that Obama rarely released his negative ads to the media so they didn’t get scrutinized.
McCain ALWAYS released his negative ads to the media so that he would get FREE AIR TIME. By doing that, it opens McCain up to much more scrutiny from the media.
I would argue that Obama just ran a BETTER campaign than McCain did thus had less negative coverage.

So the right wing media is complaining that not all the media slanted it’s view for the Republicans. What else is new?

it’s about time someone in the media decided to hold the rest of the press accountable….

I do not know what alternate universe Mr. Halperin lives in, but I did not see a prominently pro-Obama coverage for the election. Fox was definitely pro-McCain, but I guess he did not notice that – the rest of the media was pretty much coverage of Sarah Palin in my view.

The media’s credibility is GONE.

Any surprise that the NY Slimes and Washington Compost are in dire financial straits???? The sooner those Dem proganda rags fail the better off our country will be.

I believe the media has been seriously biased against America, freedom, morality, Western Civilization, and Christianity for several years now.
I know you, evil media. You think of yourselves as Americans. You disgust me. You are my enemy, just as you are the enemy of God.

“I think that George Stephanopolus, Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer should be fired. ABC went down to absolutely being ridiculous in their support of Obama ” – Janice
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
So I guess you were out of the country Janice when ABC hosted that hatchet job debate where George Stephanopolus asked questions given to him by Sean Hannity live on the air and Senator Obama was asked if Rev. Wright loved America as much as he did?
The Pro-Obama bias is a myth. Senator Obama FORCED the media to cover him positively by SMASHING every standard of success for organizing, fund raising, and message discipline.
Complain all you want, but Hillary Clinton and John McCain were DEFEATED by the superior candidate. Nothing was given to President-Elect Obama – he EARNED everything he got by being EXCELLENT.

This is just one of the many reasons people trust getting information from the Internet now more then the Media. What boggles me though is how most of the media does not realize this or understand why. It is like they live with their heads in the sand.

“Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised to learn that I too wonder just how fair the media coverage of this campaign was.”
Wonder shmunder, Jake, media coverage was outrageously slanted, and, as one of the few who managed to retain the shreds of his journalistic integrity through the whole sorry spectacle, you know it perfectly well.

Halperin said that obviously some of the positive coverage was for fair reasons. “You do have to take into account the fact that this was a remarkable candidacy,” Halperin said. “There were a lot of good stories. He was new.”
———-
And, he and she are black. Is that it?

Now they tell us…we the public have noticed that from begining ..daah!

Anyone who says the media wasn’t trying to get Obama elected is intellectually dishonest. Period.

Reading through the comments that others have posted, it is interesting to see how decades of liberal bias in the media have affected people. They have become so accustomed to it that when an individual reporter attempts to be objective, they immediately think that he is conservative – or even right-wing! Mr. Tapper, I for one appreciate your article. It’s not easy to critique your own profession, and it is especially difficult when your critique involves issues that are hot buttons for people both inside and outside said profession. Kudos to you.

Hey, look at the bright side. You might just need a PEBO to dig us out of the hole.

I’m against calling it a “failure.” That implies “they” tried to be objective. It was a collapse of what had already become a pretense of objectivity.

Too late now. You guys blew it and now ratings and subscriptions are down. People don’t believe a word you say anymore.

Tapper, you’re the best one out there by far… you should start your own online journalism school…

Halperin is ridiculous. If Obama’s coverage was more positive it’s because there was more positive stuff to report. On the McCain side, there was practically nothing favorable to report.
Doubt that? Ask yourself…who would you rather see handling this economic crisis, Obama or McCain?

jpt,
what i have to say, it
the disgusting thing that the msm did,
was not to fully vet george bush in 2000
many of us saw cracks, and had questions.
but the msm, instead focused on trying to tear down the smart on al. gore, and gave this dunce a pass.
i remember when their first debate was going to happen, the msm kept saying gore, is going to tear bush a part, and got people sympathetic to bush, until gore had to dummy down.
and what have we had the last eight year
a further duming down of the leaders.
bush was an embarrassment from the start, and the msm laid down.
remember the very STAGED press conf. they had, and david gregory (i guess he could not help himself) got off script and asked an unplanned,bush did already have the answer question)
or the time bush told the person-after they asked him a question-no you were not the one i was suppose to call on, i ment-and gave another name.
the msm can shut up now,
the msm let the people down when they did not vet bush from 2000
if the msm had done it’s job
and not laid down, maybe we would not have gotten into this war.
where was mark in 2000?
the Media let us down a long time ago.

Jake, it’s all been said above. . . . an honest look back at the campaign isn’t just about looking at specific instances where either McCain or Obama got the shaft of the storyline. It’s about assigning the appropriate attatention to a particular criticism. How may times did this blog spend twelve paragraphs on a minor internal conflict within McCain’s staff but so little on, say, why small businesses might have serious doubts about Obama’s economic plan?
The MSM was content to further the cause of others without any intellectual honesty.

“Monday Morning Quarterback” stories like this are too little, too late. The proper time for the media to self- examine their campaign coverage is DURING a campaign, not after. For the media to now say they MIGHT have been a “little” slanted in campaign coverge is a classic case of trying to cover your backside if your “chosen one” fails.
Most of the mainstream media sold their journalistic credentials’ souls to do their part to get the incoming administration elected, and now they have to live with the consequences, for better or worse. One of those consequenses is the loss of the main stream media as an “honest broker” in the governmental process. Pardon me if I laugh out loud when you talk about how you should be a “trusted” source for news, because that trust is down a toilet.

JOURNALISM DIED IN 2008!

thanks to the long primary, we know more about obama than we did about bush when he first ran.
the one area the media should have been working was to see if bush really was cap. of being president. and the msm did not do their job there.
if the msm had done it’s job and reported fairly about george bush,
bush NEVER would have won the presidency. NEVER.
and the msm is still doing the people a disservice now, because they have become lazy, and will not get out there and try to find the story the people need to make good decisions.
no the msm is all about taking a headline (no matter if it is true or not) and spinning it. that is all these reporters know how to do now.
they all watch each others programs on tv, and read each others news papers and mags, and then just cut and paste or rewrite what someone else has always said, and put their slant on it.
anybody wonder why, most news papers and news mags have the same story running as a headline and why tv news programs have “at the top of the hour”
the same story?
newspapers and mags, and tv news did not use to be like that.
the three tv stations would all have a different big story running.
walter c on cbs would be focusing on one story and abc, and nbc each something different. not today. we don’t have news programs any more, we have views programs.
media let us down when they did not fully vet george bush in 2000

Isn’t this type of analysis a few weeks late?
The media has completely sacrificed its credibility.
The networks need to stick with reality shows and other nonsense.

Isn’t what you’re saying sorta the dog chasing the tail? It’s not as if this wasn’t pointed out during the campaign. Even so, the media bias continued. Now the media begins its mea culpas as they continue to do what they do best, report with a biased eye. Only when people stop reading the dribble (and they already are but the media outlets keep blaming their losses to internet competition rather than the skewed substance they spew) will things change. In the meantime, ruff, ruff.

The “Big Three” networks are doomed by a perfect storm of their own creation.
The economic callapse of 2008 will drain away advertising dollars from broadcasting.
This at the very moment your bias has made you irrelavent.
With ratings down, funds vanishing and public trust betrayed,

Jake, our nation depends on the media doing better. A democratic society can only be as good as its people, and “garbage in, garbage out” is true of the human mind. I get disgusted by trolls all over the place, and wonder if our whole society is troll-ish, incapable of performing any level of Bloom’s taxonomy. We can’t do calculus if we don’t even know 1+1=2.
I think we need to take a serious, in-depth look at how the news media operates and have honest dialog between the THINKING public and the media. A divorce has taken place and the nation is in a huge custody battle that’s killing us all.
Would you be willing to invite people to submit outlines and/or essays regarding where they think the serious disconnects are? We talk about issues and then we move on to the next news cycle and nothing ever gets done.
You seem like a man of action. Do you get tired of the swipes between sides without any real engagement of the facts? Do you think American dialog is mostly pretty shallow – partly tied to the pressure of the news cycle and the public’s poor attention span? Would you like to see those things addressed? And if so, how?

Q: “How many days did the media spew the Rev. Wright garbage?”
A: I would guess about 10, in March, and exactly why is Obama’s active participation in a racist church, and self-professed admiration for the hater at the pulpit “garbage”?! Are you saying he DIDN’T belong to that church for 20 years, or that Wright DIDN’T preach racist hate, or just that it DOESN’T MATTER because a minorities cannot be racists? Or more probably it is that once Obama said it should go away, it SHOULD GO AWAY! The media agreed, and it did!
Q: “How many days was spent on the non existent Ayers connection?”
A: Are you counting the days BEFORE the election, where the media consistently preceded every mention of the connection with the word “tenous”, or the ones AFTER the election, where Ayers went on TV and basically confirmed all the allegations of a close freindship? Or do you think that the fact that his (proudly admitted) crimes were committed when Obama was a child makes it irrelevant? I’ll have to remember that the next time I get slavery shoved in my face – believe it or not, I hadn’t EVEN BEEN BORN when all that happened!
***********
I think folks who ask these type of questions are suffering from the delusion that ANY MENTION of negatives about THEIR candidate is a SMEAR, while constant innuendo and mockery about the other side is “just hardball”.
Like someone said above, they are so used to bias in the media that when it even approaches even-handedness, it is shocking to them. And like someone more famous said, “You cannot reason someone out of a position they did not reason themselves into!”
And a final thought… if you think that the mockery of Palin’s supposed lack of credentials was not in large part excused by misogyny among the oh-so-tolerant, I have two words for you: John. Edwards. You’ll have to dig back into the distant past of 2004 to figure out what I mean, media scholars, but it’s a pretty blatant double-standard.

American media is dead.
Most of the people I know confess that the only place they get their non-sports news is now from Europe (i.e., BBC, France24, German TV, etc.). It should be interesting to see what happens when the next crisis hits our country and nobody believes anything the media says…

What say I?
I no longer watch NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, or CNN. I believe that this will last until changes are made in their anchors and fair coverage.
I am older, and the evening news was a time to set down and relax and hear national and world news. I go straight to Fox. I will not even switch around to see what everyone is saying. The big 3 anchors are not trustworthy, and I cannot forgive Katie Couric, Charles Gibson, and Brian Williams for the insanity they call news. I feel they betrayed the American people. I believe journalism died under their watch.
ps I do like Lou Dobbs on CNN – he has given a balanced fair account of the election. Fox is it for me, at least, until some changes are made at CBS, NBC, and ABC. And, I don’t look for that to happen.

Obama bought the election with millions in undocumented donations.
The media was silent on this crime.
Obama BOUGHT the election; he never won it.

Missy,
More than bush EVER got in 2000

Maybe there was some bias. But there was also some very good justification as to why he got more positive press.
1. He and his staff ran a more effective, coherent, ‘on message’ campaign that had very little controversy (the campaign organization itself).
2. Obama was just plainly a more effective candidate. He came across more intelligent, spoke with greater clarity and effectiveness, and was more consistent in his message during practically every part of the 19 month campaign.
3. Although his campaign ran negative ads, for the most part there was very little in the way of personal attack on the candidates (Clinton or then McCain). The most intense thing Obama said was that McCain acted ‘eratic’. So while they ran negative ads about McCain’s positions and how he would govern, it came across more plausible even if the ads were not always accurate, because there wasn’t the dual track of personal attack.
4. Obama as a candidate did get slammed for the few negative things that could be attributed to him, e.g. his assocation with his pastor (which was unbelievably harsh and negative coverage when it peaked in February). But there just were not many of those issues that could be used againsta him.
5. His policy ideas obviously were more in tune with the country’s needs at this time (as evidenced by the win), and so again that naturally leads to better coverage as there was less to challenge.

missy,
we cannot critize the msm now, after having watch them NOT do their job over the last eight years.
the msm did not start asking the hard questions of our current president.
until the campaigning of 2008.
if the msm had been doing its job back in 2000, we would not have bush now.
bush still will not be asked a hard question.
and if bush is asked a hard question
he will not answer. because he does not know the answer.
——
now don’t get me wrong missy,
i can understand why now people are complaining about the msm now, and saying they are not asking obama the hard questions, (after being in a trance with bush)
evverybody that supported bush blindly, (because it had to be blindly-because if they had looked and listened they never would have supported bush)
are kicking themselves today, for having been duped.
so after having been told to let bush have his way,,and don’t ask any questions,
or just make excuses for bush, by all means lets hold obama’ feet to the fire.
obama can take it. he is smart.
bush never would have passed the feet to the fire test.
he was dumb from the beginning, and no one pointed it out. and look at where it has gotten us.
and the amusing thing is, some people are still holding out to belive bush is going to still do something brilliant, so they can finally justify, and some how make it ok that they supported him
sadly, the hold outs are still being and will probally be dissappointed until jan 20.

The media helped fuel the recount fire for Gore and never did much to get out the truth about how Gore won none of the recounts.
They are bust spindling and mutilating so that Franken wins too.
The media does not shill for Bush it demonizes him daily. We would be way futher along if they would have invested one tenth of their current “unity” BS in favor of Bush but that can’t happen because he is not a lib
As for their coverage of the current banking fiasco, the CRA has received no attention and Obama’s connections to Fannie and Freddie have received even less. So Emanuel and Gorelick can get into Mr Miracle’s admin without a peep of media scrutiny into their mortgage mess involvement and personal windfalls.
Count on Tapper to be silent on this one too.

missy,
we cannot critize the msm now, after having watch them NOT do their job over the summer primary campaign.
the msm did not start asking the hard questions of our current president elect
ever.
if the msm had been doing its job back in 2008, we would not have obama now.
obama still will not be asked a hard question.
and if obama is asked a hard question
he will not answer. because he does not know the answer.

OBAMA WAS NOT ELECTED; HE PURCHASED THE ELECTION WITH TENS OF MILLIONS IN UNDOCUMENTED AND ILLEGAL CONTRIBUTIONS FROM FOREIGNERS AND THOSE THAT HAD ALREADY MAXED OUT THEIR LIMITS. THANK GOD THE FBI IS ROOTING OUT THE CRIME BECAUSE THE MEDIA WON’T TOUCH IT.

Let’s see. Obama gets cover after cover that are all positive on magazines like New Yorker, The Atlantic, Time, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, the list is pretty much endless. McCain lands the cover of Time with up lighting that makes him look almost demonic, then the Time photographer photoshops some of the unused pictures and posts them on her website. Needless to say all those shots were extremely negative. Palin gets the cover of “Us Weekly” with a tag line of “Babies, Lies and Scandal”. McCain gets a provably false front page story about a possible affair with a lobbyist. Obama gets a story about how important his daily workout is to him. Michelle Obama hosts the View and these people fawn all over her. John McCain gets on there and is asked if he wants to go back to the days of slavery. This is just stuff off the top of my head, I could come up with volumes if I did a little research. Anybody that thinks the media coverage was fair or, absurdly, biased to McCain is smoking something. I no longer consider the MSM a news source and will never believe anything I hear from them without doing a whole bunch of fact checking first.

The media has failed us again in this campaign, b/c if you, Jake, & others were doing your job, we’d have had someone report on the long list of misstatements and disturbing ethical lapses Sarah Palin displayed both on the campaign trail & as Governor of Alaksa. SHe continually cited her “successess” and “reforms” back home that were directly contradicted by facts on record (ie Bridge to Nowhere, Alaska pipeline, trade missiones with RUssia, alleged military command of the Alaskan Nat’l Guard, per diems charges for her kids etc etc). While some of the above subjects generated headlines, I saw almost no publiucations beyond the Anchorage Daily News even attempt to challenge Palin’s stump speech rhetoric with what actually has occurred under her watch in AK. ANd tell me when a VP candidate has EVER failed to give a single press conference before an elcetion. NO ONE called her on this! It’s absolutely w/o conscience that this candidate was allowed to slip by that one; and now a precendent has been set. The press BLEW IT here! Everyone should have been demanding unfettered access to her, and instead you all let Palin & her spokespeople put you on the defensive! What about the public’s right to KNOW? People need to know about the disconnect b/t a pol’s words & deeds, and the media at large seemed in this campaign much more interested in salacious gossip than investigation.

Jeez. way to suck up to the right wing. They made this claim after Clinton won. You guys assume every time a Dem wins, it means the press didn’t attack him enough.

“When it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?”
Why was Obama not asked this unbelievably exceedingly extraordinally incredibly hard question?

No one will read this but I will add my two cents anyway. MSM has lost ALL CREDIBILITY. I am no longer getting any of my news from any MSM venue. I DO NOT TRUST ANY CHANNEL OR ANCHORPERSON. If I need to be informed on any subject, I will go on my own and research that subject or turn to certain venues on news that I feel are unbiased. I am convincing many others never to trust MSM ever again and they are becomming informed on their own also. Media News has failed us on a massive scale and took things into their own hands. They helped Obama get elected as well as misinformed/disinformed the public about his platforms. In fact it was the blatantly biased coverage of the MSM that made me vote against Obama because I had to go on my own and inform myself of the truth. What I found out about Obama I didnt like. Thanks for nothing MSM. Thanks for enabling Obama to be president over uniformed sheeple, and thanks for helping me break away from the corral. WE WILL NEVER TRUST YOU AGAIN. Ever.

lisa s,
great point.

And why did the press completely ignore Palin’s lovey-dovey relationship with the AIP?

Greg Mitchel has a great post taking down Mark “Drudge rules our world” Halperin

I will never forget the stupid story on CNN about Obama wearing a pair of jeans and how and watching the video of these so called veteran reporters oggoling like groupies instead of journalists.

Saying that the media did a bad job is so far beyond the reality that it is pointless.In 2008 the media abdicated and became an extension of Team Obama.It’s that simple.Regaining its credibility will not be possible either without a wholesale change, not only of leadership but also of people.Its just way too late for Olbermann,Matthews,Blitzer,Gibson et al to regain their collective journalistic virginity,if it ever did exist.

Jake, there is still time to provide some unbiased reporting. The One has not been elected yet – there is still several weeks to go. Why don’t you jump in an investigate if The One is actually qualified under the Constitution to be president. The SCOTUS is set to take this up in early December – Find out where he was born, if he lost citizenship (if he ever had it), find out why his life story is sealed – Columbia, Havard, etc. WHO IS THIS GUY?

Jake — how nice for you and Halperin to completely ignore the vicious treatment that Hillary Clinton received in the primary– her coverage was completely biased and unfair. Now that she’s up for SoS — the treatment continues.
Obama pretended she had no foreign policy experience and constantly put her down on that basis — meanwhile he urgently wants her as his SoS. So was he lying then or is he lying now?
You know the answer to that one. And you guys let him get away with diminishing her experience, misrepresenting her record and besmirching her character — in fact, Halperin and others were all too happy to chime nad any help him in his cause.
Start talking about that — this woman is ten times as qualified as Obama and every negative about him was ignored and glossed over and every times she looked sideways it was front page news. She was excoriated while he got a pass on his lies, and many flip flops on policy.

I think that when historians look back at our period of history, they will remark upon how the media worked tirelessly to undermine our democracy by manipulating the information the people received. Mr. Tapper, I would like to say I’m encouraged by this thread on your blog, but I’m not. One lonely, little voice in the MSM wilderness is just not cuttin’ it. And for those of you who think Fox is the big boogeyman, it’s only because the other networks refuse to do anything that can harm the leftmost candidate’s chance for office and control. So if you feel like you’re in enemy territory when you accidentally flip past Fox, this is how the other half of the country feels when they are deluged with CBS, ABC, NBC, MS-NBC, PBS, NPR, CNN, and on and on and on.

So, how about some articles about the efforts in the various states to work out better voter registration/verification procedures?
Does any state have the goal of having auditable voting by 2010?

I have lost ALL respect for main street media. I also no longer watch Good Morning America, Nightline, or The nightly news with Charles Gibson. Every one of these shows has been SO-O-O biased during this election.
I stopped watching The View a long time ago because the so called ladies are disgusting in their comments and behavior.
What has happened to ABC? How dare you think you should make decisions for the American people? Report the FACTS and let us decide!!!!

The MSM totally disgusted me this election cycle. The biased mainstream media just can no longer be believed or trusted. Such a shame and such a disgrace. The sad thing is, it will never change. They learned nothing from Dan Rather. The current crop of advocate “journalists” have destoyed their craft.I no longer watch any of the network news. I had watched ABC for years but Charlie Gibson’s performance with Sarah Palin ?–Sorry Charlie, –I’m gone. I also ended up cancelling a 40 year subscription to Newsweek and The Boston Globe–I won’t even read their taglines on the internet. Ditto for the treasonous N.Y. Times. I even cancelled my PBS contributions. From now on it’s Fox News
and the Internet.

Yeah, the way the press is so positive towards Reagan and gives him a pass is amazing. It’s like the guy is teflon or something.

The question now is “When’s the kissing going to stop?”. Apart from anything else, it’s become as boring as having your ear bent incessantly by your friend on the wonders of the guy she fancies. Gasp “I saw him going to the gym today”, slurp “He’s a fantastic mover on the dance-floor”, squeal “He’s so witty you wouldn’t believe it and he’s also sooo romantic”. Yuck!

The fawning coverage of Obama was just the most glaring example of the dishonest failure by the media. What about the coverage of Democrats in general? If the Republicans had controlled Congress and their chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (which writes tax law for the rest of us) had been found to have cheated $100,000+ on his taxes, there wouldn’t be a single person in this country who didn’t hear about it. However, because he was a Democrat-virtual silence from the mainstream media.
It is no wonder that a vast majority of Obama voters (most of them college educated) didn’t even know the Democrats control Congress. They only knew what the media wanted them to know, like how Sarah Palin spent $150,000 on clothes. After all, that was the important issue, right?
I have no hope the media will begin to be fair, but we must insist that they openly declare their bias instead of allowing them to hide behind some supposed “objectivity.” We must call them on it until they are forced to openly admit it.

For god’s sake will you give it up?? These ARE NON STORIES. Just because you, Hannity, and Rush want these so called associations to be some incredible damning evidence against Obama doesn’t make them so. They were not reported extensively FOR A REASON. You’re no better than 9/11 conspiracy theorists. Check your head.
“It’s time to let American people know aboutAyres, Rezco, Kalidi, birth certificates, Acorn,college records, and on and on.”

I’ll not be one to claim that McCain was the best possible candidate. But I would contend that had the press done the job it claims to be doing the results of the election would be far different than what actually happened. People, and the press, are “suddenly” discovering that they know almost nothing about Barack Obama or that he never really said the things they think he said.
Frankly the press did an abominable job and in your rush to elect Obama you left the interest of the nation “under the bus.” Well, the press created him and now you get to live with the results just like the rest of us.

I think that disgust should be turned inward toward Halperin itself, who said and did squat during the campaign, when it might have made a difference. It’s a cheap and easy courage for Halperin to state the obvious now, when the deed is already done, and when Halperin risks nothing, personally or professionally.
At this point, Halperin is implicated in all the dishonesty and unprofessional conduct of the MSM, so he might as well just clamp his piehole.

the fact that your comments and blog are a lead in from a supposedly neutral internet story seems to destroy your argument completely. The reality is that all but a handful of newspapers and radio and tv stations in this country are moderate to ultra conservative. The so-called liberal bias simply does not exist except in the minds of paranoid ultra right wingers like you.

momsmatter,
YOu didn’t lose faith in the msm in 2000 with bush?
wow!
the msm sold us out then, and look where it has gotten us.

When McCain complained about the unbalanced coverage, most in the press just said it showed desperation on the part of the candidate to criticize the press.
So what can be done?
You can say it was a “gold standard” in campaigns, yet that is partially a result of the lack of critical analysis of the campaign. What about the way the campaign was financed? What about the histories of the people behind the candidate? What about the history of the candidate himself?
Where were the inside stories of the trip to Europe? What did other leaders think of him, why did reporters so easily believe the Pentagon had interfered with his visit to wounded troops in Germany?
Lack of criticism helped create the myth of the gold standard. The myth of the gold standard helped justify the lack of criticism.
In the end, most in the media wanted to see this historic moment happen. Usually they only get to do that by trying to bring a candidate or politician down. This time they got to do it by building one up.
Jake did a good job. He was almost alone in this.

Mark is better telling stories about Beth from Wellesley in the Simmons kitchen at 3 am than he is commenting on slanted TV coverage. McCain was always old news, Obama IS and was the new news.

we only have one president at a time
and right now that is george bush.
why won’t anyone talk about our current president bush?

it is not fair that we skip over bush, and act and talk as if he is invisible,
and jump right to talking and critizing obama before he becomes president.
bush is still the prez. lets talk about him.
we are not being fair to bush.
he is still the president.

“I’ll bet you think bush has been a great president over the past eight years,right?”
Nope. He was a dismal failure, inept despite good instincts, IMHO. Wondered why he was elected either time, with so little to offer; so you MUST understand why I recognize OHB as a nice glib fellow with little life experience relevant to a POTUS but a blank slate for voter aspirations, now beholden to a long list of established special interest groups. All who thought Dubya was Cheney’s hand puppet should be watching how Joe Biden plays his more innocent boss. Take that back… OHB is a Chicago pol, and no one can out-manipulate them.

the only way i use george bush’ name in the same sentence with the word good is
Bush will soon be out of the white house, and not messing up this country more.
Good.
Bush is gone to texas, good.
bush should be brought up on some charges, good.
Bush just moved into his new house, good.

Halperin is a right-wing hack who did his utmost best to kiss Hugh Hewitt’s a$$ a year ago; who declared McCain the ‘winner of the week’ when McCain ‘suspended’ his campaign due to the economic crisis; who listed 16 things that “McCain can do” in taking on Obama that the vanquished Hillary Clinton could not (the list included “6. Allow some supporters to risk being accused of using the race card when criticizing Obama” and “11. Emphasize Barack Hussein Obama’s unusual name and exotic background through a Manchurian Candidate prism.”)
Halperin used one example to ‘proof’ his opinion: the two profiles that NYT ran of Cindy and Michelle. Well, it’s too bad Michelle didn’t have an affair with Barack when he was married to somebody else I guess; or that she didn’t steal drugs from her own charities; or that she didn’t lie and barely avoid jail, did not become a drug addict, did not lie about the the circumstances of adopting a baby abroad, and so on.
Or should the NYT have omitted those stories about Cindy? Is that what Halperin thinks should be done? Lie about Michelle and make up stories to get some “equivalence” in bad stuff? Or leave out bad stuff about Cindy? Sometimes some people ARE more sympathetic to readers than others. That’s not the fault of the reporters or of Michelle’s, it was Cindy’s doing.
Halperin did not cite anything else. I like to see his proof. Obama’s associations, trips abroad, campaign-funding, religiosity, patriotism was heavily scrutinized during the campaign. Where were the stories about McCain’s associations (IRI anybody?), trips abroad (Latin American dictators anybody?), religiosity (switching from the liberal Episcopelians to the rightwing Southern Baptists just in time?), patriotism (McCain never wears a lapel pin, where were the stories about that?)

What you sore losers seem to not understand is mccain/palin stood for one thing and that was attacking obama on his character. If they had anything worthy to report like an issue but they had no answer to the issues because they knew that they knew nothing! So you sore losers can call it what you want but you know there was nothing to report from your camp but nastiness.

this country is in serious trouble
Thanks goodness we elected a serious man with the intellectual rigor and intellectual curiousity to study the issues and surround himself with strong minded experts in their field.
People from the left and right are applauding the transition and the individuals being selected for the cabinet.
John McCain lost for a number of reasons:
1: lack of knowledge on the economy
2: pick of Sarah Palin /exacerbated by his age
3: lack of a plan to govern
The republicans have shown us they know how to run for office – they are just not not good at governing.
Since Ronald Reagan eliminated the Fairness Doctrine and deregulated the media – we have had a country brainwashed by right wing talk radio, Fox News and Matt Drudge.
These are the voices who 24/7 ranted against Sen Obama – and for once it did not work.
We all need to support our new President,
For those posters who are still stuck on the already debunked birth certificate etc – do your homework.
Barack Obama is the 44th President of the USA.

“The whole election was way too long and way too expensive. Why do we not have an election that lasts about two to three months. With the money spent on this election, and others, plus the cost of the inauguration we could have fed all our starving children, found homes and clothed many of the homeless. Politicians don’t care about the people, they care about themselves and power they will get from being in office.”
———————————–
Limey ,
You may have the found the one issue that all of us agree on!!!…LOL
The primaries should not start until May. Then the entire thing gets contained inside 6 months. Unfortuneately, there will always be campaigning well before the first primary, but at least the major blitz will be more contained.

“What you sore losers seem to not understand is mccain/palin stood for one thing and that was attacking obama on his character.”
LOL….oh really….Well that did seem to be the way the media wanted it to sound.
In FACT, watch what happens in the next few weeks…the economic ploicies that are about be enacted are going to look a LOT more like McCain’s than those Obama campaigned on.

Olberman is indeed an interesting case….for any shrink in the country willing to deal with him.
Amazing how a guy whose only claim to fame was having his face on ESPN, somehow came to think of himself as the UBER LIBERAL….
Stranger is how anyone thinks he is actually relevant.

This idea that there was an inordinate amount of media bias for Obama is just way overstated. There was more coverage for Obama, but often it was very negative and scrutinized Obama’s mistakes and mis-statements WAY more than McCain (e.g. Czechoslavakia?).
Plus, the main source of negativity for McCain was that he trailed in the polls, and the media has/was all about the horserace/polling numbers.
But name any intelligent, positive, or creative steps that the McCain campaign did for itself (that was not related to attacking Obama).
I can not think of one positive thing they did (the Sarah Palin choice clearly drove away moderates – Colin Powell, yours truly, et. al.)
Name the 3 main (and original) things/ideas that McCain proposed doing for America (again that had nothing to do with attacks on Obama).
I seriously have no idea what their main message was. They changed their message more often than the Bush rationale for invading Iraq. Was it Change/Reform Washington? That is about all they presented and how believable was that (when everyone knew there would be a Dem. Congress and you had a Washington neophyte in Sara Palin).
As the McCain campaign has said, they thought the campaign was going to be about Iraq and terror. That is all they seem to have prepared for. When that didn’t turn out to be the main theme they had nothing to come back with. They were more bankrupt than Washington Mutual.
During the primaries McCain ran as George Bush III – an improved, smarter warrior with an Iraq strategy. He won by default because the GOP field was so pathetic. The only candidate to raise any kind of enthusiastic following in the primaries was Ron Paul.
The McCain campaign had a 3 month jump start with which it could have done serious grass roots work in the battle ground states.
They did nothing.
The Obama campaign devoted dramatic amounts of resources and multiple visits to Red states, but the McCain camp ignored them. When they finally realized they were in trouble it was too late. They could have been visiting VA/NC/IN to prop them up, but they did too little, too late.
But most of all, McCain was about the worst presidential candidate ever. The saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks definitely applies to McCain. Obama adapted and improved himself throughout the campaign, McCain did not.
McCain’s demeanor was poor throughout the campaign.
His debate performances got worse as he went on.
And worst of all, he showed himself completely out of touch with the American reality – most memorably when he said that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.”
Undisciplined, unimaginative, uninformed = unelected.
(And I might remind readers here, I was a McCain delegate in 2000).

hmmmm.
Maybe the reason he didn’t get negative coverage is because he ran a positive campaign.
Hmmmm. Maybe there is nothing negative that is newsworthy in his past.
hmmmm. Maybe it is because his time in washington is so brief, no one has any dirt to dredge up on him.
hmmmm. you think that since mccain begins his campaingn with britney spears paris hilton and MOSES in ads against obama maybe had an effect on mccain.
hmmm. ya think maybe the reason mccain got negative coverage is maybe because he is a mean old crotchety man who has was the new poster child of 8 years of horrendous republican rule.
hmmmm. maybe it was because folks at rallies was screaming terrorist, kill him, and marxist and mccain didn’t speake against it.
hmmmm. just maybe it was his choice for vp who the lower 48 only knew for two weeks before she began to question obama when we had no clue who she was.
hmmmmm. maybe just maybe it was because barack obama had ONE message and mccain has SEVERAL.
true mccain had to go negative. but this is what you get when you go negative. you turn off folks …even the media.
grow up and get over it.
mccain took a gamble and HE LOST.

Get over it! There are so many “broke republicans” out here that are crying over this election. He is our president. So accept it and move on! You will be the first ones running to the mailbox when he sends out the next stimilus check, but indoors you get on the internet and cry about how the election was unfair, etc. Shut up, and go wait by the mailbox for your check. There are what 62 million people who voted for and will support our President. The rest of you can cry me a river!

Note to Republicans:
Thank you for continuing this devisive talk. You turn off more voters and they come over to the Dem’s side.
Instead of you confessing your TRUE problems which are:
Division
Hate
Greed
Fearmongering
And you focus on other superficial issues and simply believe that you are not speaking loud enough is the reason why people are not buying your goods.
Continue to look into Obama palling around with terrorist and his pastor and who he brought his house from as we try and pull this country out of the ditch.
Continue to cart out the sarah palins and joe the plummers of the country to dislay their stupidity and ignorance as we continue to rack up seats in the senate and the house.
Please continue. I would love for the Democrats to be in power for the next 20 years. Maybe by then we will be a stronger country.

100% correct.

For those of you who still claim that Palin hurt McCain, do you not read the exit polls that all show the opposite? Maybe you just listen to the mainstream media, who still says she was a “drag” on the Republican ticket, whatever that means.

I am deeply ashamed that the greatest nation in the world would elect an inexperienced, ultra liberal “community organizer” as its president. Obama has been campaigning for president for years. His vast senate experience comes down to three years, most spent on the campaign trail. He looks good in a suit and has excellent public speaking abilities, but has absolutely no record of accomplishing anything. Did the media help to understand this man with a classified birth certificate, who works side by side with terrorists and who changes his position as the wind blows? NO! The media fell in love with the enigmatic Obama and never reported anything unfavorable or controversial. Our country was led down a primrose path towards a future of wealth redistribution and socialist policies. God save us.

When I was in elementary school I remember learning about journalism and how reporters are “independent”. No longer.
I don’t care about a celebrity’s or a journalists opinion. Celeb’s are paid to entertain us and journalists are supposed to disseminate facts/information – PERIOD.

The mainstream media are biased in favor of writing things that people read/watch — things that make them the most money. The organizations that maninstream journalists work for demand this above all else — these organizations’ care for the “public interest” goes only so far as the degree to which serving the public interest is something that ostensibly serious news organizations are expected to do by a small segment of the population who are genuinely engaged with knowledge about actual issues. I’d guess that for every one person who wants reporters to approach these stories objectively without commentary, there are 4 people who want reporters to give more commentary. The fact that there was probably favoritism toward Obama undoubtedly reflected the feedback news organizations were getting from readers, ratings, newspaper circulation, web traffic, etc… — people were far more interested in Obama than McCain, and found Obama far more likable. I suspect that this bias in favor of giving people what they want (as opposed to journalism organizations presuming their own authority to report about what people need — which is fair appraisals of both candidates and equal time for both) above all else, is why Obama got more and more favorable coverage. Until news organizations adopt more principled reporting directives, this isn’t going to change and these kinds of biases are just going to continue to be something that you and other reporters continue to report about because, again, this kind of “controversy” is what you’ve learned people like to talk about (instead of actually talking about what the candidates are going to do or other important policy information that you’ve learned is read by much fewer people). You can’t have it both ways by giving the greatest number of people what they want (which is often garbage) and also pretend like you’re giving people what they need to be informed.
P.S. I’m an Obama supporter, but I don’t deny that coverage was slanted toward him. And I don’t really believe that you care that coverage was slanted — you’re just pretending to care because this makes for good debate.

How did it happen that there are no investigative reporters any more ??? Obama has more skeletons in his closet that Hillary Clinton !

I was pro Obama and I agree completely. The media coverage was totally biased. The truth is the truth.

We have our media tools here in Australia too. But to say that I now hold nothing but contempt for the big U.S. press outlets after watching this campaign from afar would be an understatement. Pravda couldn’t have done better (in fact the Russians themselves criticised the U.S. media coverage).
Sure McCain ran a poor campaign in some respects but the fury hurled at Palin and her family with mainstream outlets from the Washington Post and the Atlantic posting Trigtrutherism as news was sheer viciousness not news or a critique of either his policies or his campaign. Let’s not go to the NYT whitewashing Dorhn and Ayers and their sordid association with Obama.
And the free ride given to Obama, the shadiest, most underqualified, morally vacuous man who will ever occupy the White House was an international disgrace. The advocacy journalism and the nutroots reaction of the Obamatrons did more to expose the ugly side of America than all of American history combined.
So congratulations America, you just installed an empty-suited racist into the White House. I mean who else but a racist calls himself a “mutt”? The only two candidates who made racist statements were Obama and Biden. Repeatedly.
Like Steele said, Obama played the reverse race card beautifully – as did his fraudulently funded campaign – and Americans who voted for him swallowed that hook line and sinker.

Response to William:
You should have been asking God to help save us from the last 8 disastrous years under the leadership of an “experienced” President.

Ask John Kerry and Al Gore if the media was biased in their favor.

Journalists do not exist in a vacuum. What they write and how they write is influenced by all of the things that might make that person perhaps a liberal or a conservative. It’s up to the reader, the listener, or the news watcher to listen to different points of view and form their own opinions. The idea that news is “fair and unbiased” is an oxymoron.
You have to determine what the reporters bias is and whether you agree or disagree. News is slanted in a variety of ways. If you approach the news from the standpoint that it is designed to educate and entertain you then I would assume you will want to gather your information from a variety of sources and form your own opinions.
I did not cast my votes in the last election based on the spouse of the candidate nor did I place any credence in the report that one of the candidate’s used to pal around with domestic terrorists.
Finally, he “looks good in a suit and speaks well” is probably the same critique they gave Jack Kennedy. In this era of TV news I will predict that any candidate who hopes to get into office probably needs to meet the same criteria. How many of the 100 million voters do you think looked at either candidates voting record?
I would wager they either voted for the old war hero or the young good-looking guy with a voice for change.

I personally voted for the McCain/Palin ticket. But they lost, so therefore its time to give the other guy a chance. He’s going to be our president, whether you like it or not so I suggest get behind him and give him your support. If Mr. Obama does a good job, I don’t believe the republican party should waste any money trying to elect a president in 2012. Still that remains to be seen.

Get over it republicans, you LOST.
Leave the country if you want.
Just stop crying.

Give me a major break. Consider the following items:
Lipsticks on a pig, 3:00 AM Phone call, willing to meet with our enemies without preconditions, Can’t win the blue collar vote, Hillary’s supporters may not support Obama, Michelle’s “proud of country” remark, Rev Wright, Right wing radio, community organizer, Celebrity, Paling around with terrorists, Bradley Effect, and etc.
McCain and Hillary ran poor campaigns. She went through a ton of money in the process and did not prepare campaign for the caucuses. McCain choice as VP was not a success.
The liberal media forced Palin not to answer Couric’s questions. I guess you a right, the media is bias. Give me a break.

Bias? Perhaps if you believe that news people gravitating toward newsworthy issues as their being bias!
McCain did not offer any provocative ideas, nor did Palin. Even Obama failed to impress me with creative thoughts, but the model for his success was his consistent message until I was tired of it.
McCain offered more variety in his messages, but they were all about Obama and not about the issues. Both he and Palin assailed Obama freely and they had to do it because they were losing. Why blame the media for going with the winner. They called it right. Perhaps there were times that equal time was not given to both candidates on some channels, so sue them. But don’t complain that this was the reason your candidate did not win.
McCain didn’t make that complaint at the end of the race. He was very gracious in conceding defeat like a true warrior should. He did his best to shut up the crybabies and praised his opponent for running a well-run campaign. Let’s move on America as one people. We are in this together whether we like it or not.

Just another example of conservatives being out of touch with reality – a study just a few years ago by Columbia University showed that the stories pushed by Rush Limbaugh and his ilk about liberal bias were bald-faced lies. Despite that, they have managed to continue to push the media bias even more TOWARD the conservatives, not away from them, an effect exacerbated by the ownership of nearly all major news outlets by radical conservatives. What’s troubling to me is that these same people continue to push news coverage further away from reality because as the saying goes, “reality has a liberal bias”, and continue to push the lies manufactured by the republican propaganda machine. I am also disgusted by the news coverage in this past election, but by the rampant bias TOWARD conservatives, not against them. I think it shows just how much people are now rejecting the whole idea of conservative superiority when the liberals can still win so handily despite the negative environment they are forced to operate in. As for me, I’m glad to see a little bias in favor of the liberals after years of hearing lie after lie from the conserviatives pushed to extremes by the conservatively biased media.

He is the best thing that happened to this country in 8 years! Keep on hating…because Haters never win…and Obama is a winner.

Ms. Swinton
Just to clarify something. I did vote for John McCain as I feel he was the better option of the two.
But I say this so that everyone who feels like everyone who voted for McCain is a sore loser, might just consider that most do not feel that way.
It is amazing to me that some here have labeled McCain supporters with such demeaning terms. I guess they have not ever heard of gracious winners.

Yes the media was Pro-obama all the way. It sucks and it’s biased 100%, but what do we do about it now or from happening in the future??

People will soon see that O will be the wrong choice. It is obvious – the media was bought, when the $$$’s need to be paid back, and the favors need to be paid back for……We will see how corrupt this truly was. I agree with Haperin, he has courage to stand up. Wonder how long he will have a job….

Would that be the same Mark Halperin who told Hugh Hewitt, a right wing radio personality, that he agreed with almost everything Hewitt said? There’s nothing like a sore loser, eh?

obama, osama, what’s the difference. just goes to show you how completely stupid the majority of american voters really are.

I just found out why we Republicans lost the last election!! There are too many mean, nasty,angry spoiled brats who are Democrats. This is my first response to a blog and I can’t believe the above remarks. I ask you, do you have a job? if not, why not. You had 12 plus years of free education and illiterate immigrants are working everywhere. Have you traveled the country or the world in the past 7 years? Were you hijacked or kidnapped while traveling? How many electronic devices do you own? Have you thought how much health care you could buy with the money spent on those devices, plus the piles of CD’s you bought. These are just a few ideas that could turn your life around so you can be a happy contented American. You have never had it so good and yet so many of you carry on like this is the worst place in the world and Bush and the Republicans are the cause of all your complaints.

McCain lost the election because he was a poor candidate and Obama was what people wanted.
If he had been a white man he would have gotten more votes don’t you know.
Republicans can dish it out but can’t take it when they lose.

Mike, Remember it was a substantial black vote in California that pushed back in defense of marriage. I met Barack once and I can tell you that the guy seemed bright, clean, and articulate. (lol)

I share the point that this analyzation of the media’s bias is way after the fact.
As a former Hillary Clinton supporter, the bias was A LOT worse than McCain ever had to deal with. With McCain the press basically just ignored him, or made fun of Palin.
With Clinton, it was much more of a visible rage that she was ahead. Articles were harsh and critical of everything that came out of her mouth. Anytime her husband said anything in her defense, he was mocked. It was despicable.
When it came to McCain, I didn’t think the press was entirely as harsh.
The fact is that McCain’s stance on most issues was the same as Bush. But he wanted everyone to think it wasn’t. Then he got mad when the media wasn’t putting stories out that supported his campaign stump speeches. Half of what came out of his mouth was smoke and mirrors.
Change? County First?
The Republicans haven’t had these things on their agendas in the past 10 years.

I just have one question for all the Obama supporters. Since when does spending millions of dollars on exaggerated campaigning considered running a good campaign? In my opinion, Barack Obama did not run a good campaign, he bought his way into the white house. All you Obama supporters voted for him because you were so concerned with our nations economy but didn’t seem to be concerned with the fact that Mr. Obama spent $600 million dollars on his campaign. And, yes, I agree, I have never seen a more bias election since I’ve been allowed to vote. Mr. Obama could actually say absolutely nothing during the debates and he would still have been considered the winner of the debate. You couldn’t even go to CNN.com or MSNBC.com without seeing a huge advertisement for VOTE OBAMA. Gee, I wonder how those got there. I guess McCain got the shaft for not spending ridiculous amounts on advertising. It amazes me how easily the patrons of this country are won over with smiles and money. I believe the last leader who had this much praise for wanting change was the longest running dictator in a country which is still to this day living with socialism and communism. Way to go democrats

Well, for the life of me I can’t see how republicans could even fathom another eight years of the complete collapse of our economy, the ridiculous war in Iraq resulting in enormous loss of lives…the absolute lies of the Bush administration and Bush himself…I do recall him saying “our economy is strong….” yea…so strong it is collapsing. About Michelle and Cindy. There is no comparison between the two. One born into wealth, and she is a cheerleader, an alumnus at some university (who can remember), a mother, her non-profit organization (that she stole money from to support her prescription drug habit). Ok. Then Michele…graduate of Harvard…lawyer at a large law firm (I work at one of those…it is NO JOKE believe me…), a mother …..so all of you that make that comparison, you need to stop. Cindy is who she is…I don’t condemn her. THANK GOODNESS the media didn’t hop on her. They were actually being kind. Well, obviously you DO live in a cave. The rest of the country is moving into the future with or without you.

I once read a conservative newspaper’s story on media bias. It stated that more than 85% of journalists vote democrat. This was used as an argument to support bias for Obama and against McCain in media coverage. I see it differently. It appears to me that those who understand policy and politics, those who have the most insight into what is truly going on, are the ones who chose to vote democrat. This would, of course, lead to some bias in reporting. I don’t see how it could not. But one must ask, is this not for the greater good? I’m an independent voter, but it was very obvious to me in the last election that McCain was outsmarted in various ways. Who wants a leader so early made insignificant?

Can you show this information to me on a touch screen Jake? Sure, my grandma loves her talking head O’Reilly and friends. He’s “fiery”. The media has gotten themselves confused with their purpose, though.
I used to want personality from correspondents but have found they are completely out of touch with the rest of the country. My news source: multiple sites on the internet. When you hold multiple articles up to the light, the bias shines through in each of them. Just deliver the facts, if anyone wants an opinion on the matter we’ll create dialogue.

I think it is sad that you cannot move on and just support our country and president-elect as a whole. It’s funny when the shoe was on the other foot and the media came down hard on Obama and his wife you did not have a issue with the media then oh but now the shoe is on the other foot and you are crying foul!! Ouch!! Most of the comments I find very racist.We all live in this country together and work side by side each and every day, own homes, educated and have a new generation to follow and you continue to show hatred. Maybe you all should re-evaluate your lives and see if you can make a difference for your children and their children.

Everyone talks about how the past 8 years have been a disaster…someone tell me how? Let’s see people can’t control their money, “I want more I deserve it!” “GIVE ME GIVE ME”, well you got it, Barack will give you nothing but false hope!. Todays society is just plain lazy. The problem with this country is that we have gotten away from God and now we are falling from the inside (remember how Rome fell). You want more government well you are about to get it, you want protection, well the government is about to be in your pocket. This country needs to get back to its roots, but it won’t happen, the end times are coming, I pray that you have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior.

To all the folks WHINING about President Elect Obama BUYING the election, please get a clue.
In the FREE MARKET, Senator Obama was allowed BY LAW to raise as much money as HIS SUPPORTERS were willing to give.
That is called the AMERICAN WAY.
Senator McCain had the advantage of knowing how much money Senator Obama was capable of raising BEFORE HAND by watching the Democratic Primaries.
And yet, instead of ADAPTING to the situation, he chose to plow ahead with his traditional plan, which DID NOT WORK. (Sound familiar?)
Senator McCain has no one to blame for this but himself.
Just because the Republican Party did not have the advantage of skirting the campaign finance laws with unanswered ads from 527 groups this time, there is no need to get all “pro campaign finance reform” now.
You got beat at your own game.
Deal with it.

“the ridiculous war in Iraq resulting in enormous loss of lives…”
For the love of Mike Megs, the Iraq war is over. Bush won.
There are more Americans murdered each month in Obama’s Chicagoland then there are Americans killed in Iraq these days. You have soldiers returning from tours who have never had to fire a shot. Apart from trouble spots around Mosul your guys and Coalition forces with them are only keeping the peace these days.
Your country just granted freedom to 25m+ Iraqis and helped establish the first Arab democracy in the Middle East and you are bleating like a selfish baby.
The men and women on the U.S. armed services deserve to be welcomed home as heroes and they and their families should be applauded and respected for their sacrifice. Bush should be congratulated for having the guts to finish the job unlike you and others like you who would no doubt cry over the turkey on your Thanksgiving dinner table.
Get over yourself.

Be aware of who the Media wants to win an election. Guess what happens when America has an economic profile like that of a South American country. The Rich get much more powerful. CNN all sounded like a bunch of Puppets. Im no right winger but the media in this country is a big joke. I don’t watch CNN anymore. The problem is the silent majority don’t have time protest there busy working hard and taking care of their families.

Yes, the media is incredibly biased. It is so obvious it is sickening. How dare anyone look any deeper into Obama association with his “mentor” Wright. Jeremiah Wright is a racist and we have no room for that in this country. Can you imagine if McCain had an association with the Klan? He would be crucified. But that’s ok, we can’t question the “chosen one”

How can anyone look at the last 8 years and say the Republicans did a great job? Obama can’t do any worse, and if all he winds up doing is getting fewer of our soldiers killed in Iraq, I’d call his presidency Mission Accomplished.
Spend the money at home, people. I personally don’t believe the war in Iraq is responsible for keeping terrorists out of our country, but I have a solution for those who do: use the money we’re spending in Iraq to hire Americans to guard America’s borders.

Halperin should be asking where was any Bush=Cheney coverage questioning their repeal of Habeas Corpus, Lies to America about the Iraq War…outing a valuable CIA agent, Halliburtons war machine…the loss of billions of dollars to war criminals…Blackwater connections to Cheney…How about bringing those two war Criminals to justice??? perhaps the slant was because Obama was so much more qualified…I hope that’s obvious to Herr Halperin

Hey, Noketech. You’re half right. The war in Iraq is over, but nobody won. No one has anything bad to say about our soldiers, just the government who sent them over there. Do you think the war was justified? Or would our assets (human and financial) have been better spent here? Then we wouldn’t have Obama in the White House to worry about.
And I wonder what Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior would say about your pride over the Iraq war, or any war for that matter.
Finally, I don’t see how you can blame Obama singlehandedly for the crime rate in Chicago.

Sorry, Noketech. I accidentally blamed you for the charitably Christian post by the well-named “Saint.”

The media was SO biased that everyone
knows everything negative about Obama!
Can ANYONE remeber one negative thing about McCain’s past? NO! The media just harped on Obama’s… how one sided is that?
Does anyone know one shady character john McCain associated with in 70 years of life? NO! Does anyone know anything about his divorce? NO. (His first wife was ignored by the media and his bio). Lets face it… the media was so bias it ingored the negatives of on candidate! You people are just looking for someone to blame … Hint: its not the media~

First off I want to say Im a Democrat and proudly voted for our President Barack Obama.
In a sense I understand his frustration. The McCain campaighn was unfairly run by the media. I recognized it, But at the same time, theres a hell of alot more Republicans than their are Democrats. There were lies spread about Obama that were fairly extreme ( such as saying hes related to terrorists) which were much worse than what anyone had to say about McCain. Yet the people chose to vote for Obama for a reason. McCains wife is a AMAZING person, and she was treated unfairly. Thats what ive seen in the media and Im sticking to it. Michelle is also a amazing person and im sure that if they could have found some dirt on her they would have exposed it as well. McCains campaighn was fairly brutal and disrespectful when it came to the way they treated Obama so I have no sympathy for them whatsoever. During the debates McCain was not only disrespectful (he would never look at his opponent)in my opinion but in the opinion of many others as well.

K-man – Bush was right to go into Iraq.
And you need to look at Obama’s Illinois senate record if you want to know how much he cares about the violence down the street from Rezko-row where he lives.
I noticed he couldn’t resign from the U.S. senate fast enough – world record for a president elect. Far be it from him to even vote present on anything between now and January.

We have a president elect, who will run the country next four years whether we like it or not. If you wish Obama to fail because you don’t like him, you are actually wishing ill on the country. Not a patriotic thought. I thought Republicans are big on that sort of a thing (patriotism).
I didn’t vote for Bush both the times; wished and prayed my hunch on his ineptness is wrong. If my hunch was wrong we wouldn’t have been in this kind of once in a century mess. One way or other, we all became victims of his ill advised actions.

tsk…tsk…tsk… Obama won the election fair and square; he played politics the way it was designed to be played. He studied the people, listened and discovered “CHANGE”. He studied the media and discovered “OPRAH”. He is studying the economy now, and has discovered “GREEN”. Neither McCain nor Hilary had any chance against such a highly funded intelligent campaign. So please get over it, pay your bills on time and HOPE for a new vibrant nation that sees beyond regurgitations of old bigoted individuals.

halperin didn’t run any campaign

just like to add my comment on the last election. I wonder how long it will take Obama to mak this Country a socialist country? Since he and his Muslim Friends along with all the ight rollers in the Democratic Party bouh him the White house. I never thought that the Ofice of the President of the United States was up for Sale but i guess i was wrong.Look back in History and see wht has happen to other countrys and then emember how it was in this country when you had your freedom.

SLL, I got a chuckle at your comment about “someone deserves a pat on the back (again, i.e., our President)” for the falling gas prices. The reason they’re falling is because the entire world’s economy is in the toilet. The Saudis have been dropping the prices because no one would buy gas otherwise. So if you want to pat Bush on the back for the world’s financial crisis, you go right ahead.

This may be an unnecessary observation, but there are a lot of unhinged folks that are commenting on this story.

“Obama did resign from the senate and jump into the president-elect role at a record pace. Which shows he’s not letting the grass grow under his feet, he’s leading like a president should.”
You only have one President at the moment and that is George Bush. The pretentiousness of Obama with the fake seals and ‘office of the president elect’ (the law allows for money for office space etc, it is not an actual function or position; let’s not go to Obama’s mockery of the presidential seal etc) is amusing to behold. Given he has resigned the Senate, he is, at the moment, nothing more than Mr Obama.

to CS: There is nothing else to find in Obama’s closet…Joe Biden warned everyone that the guy is articulate and “clean”…a few of us realised what he meant, but some morons called the statement racist. I only have one question for you; are you articulate and clean?

ALL MEDIA IS BIASED! I learned that in the sixth grade I believe. It is up to the listener to interpret that biased and if people can tell than they are just plan dumb. It isn’t like there are not right leaning shows and networks, and some that are pretty middle of the road. This is why I get my news from more than one source like an intelligent person.

THe media was biased *FOR* mcain in 2000 – he was a maverick compared to other republican choices – and that made him attractive to coverage. A lot of good that did for him. Bush won the repub nomination. the rest is history.
This time Obama was a more unusual candidate and was more attractive to the media. Obamas very identity made hm more of a marverick than mccain. Plus Obama has a high level of charisma or star power, mccain doesnt have. Mccain was a walking characterature. With his antiquated “my friends” message and his interest in replaying the cultural issues of the 60s. Mccain could have won more media fascination by picking lieberman. But that would have backfired against the republican base. they already consider mccain a democrat. so mccain was between a rock in a hard place. ran a boring and unclever “tough” campaign. it didnt appeal to the media. whatever.
republicans have been pursuing a primitive style of spin and propaganda. it may work with uneducated masses. but lying and making false accusations “muslim” “black church extremist” etc loses cred in the long term. we live in a time where people are looking for some direct honesty, intelligence and pragmatism. hope the republicans have some of that to offer in the next elections.

Amazing! I was beginning to think that Obama was the second coming, the way the media was depicting him. As for “change”, I think its funny that all his cabinet picks are ex-Clinton or Clinton themselves,…sound like the same song!

In a current article, Bernanke says that the financial crisis was caused by/triggered by the failure of the sub-prime mortgages/loans given to “people with tarnished credit or low incomes”.
Sub-prime loans were the direct result of the “Community Reinvestment Act” passed in 1977 by the Carter Administration and the Dim-o-crats and further enhanced by the Clinton Administration.
Therefore, the financial crisis was caused by the Dem-o-crats and electing Obama and expecting “change” is not a rational (read stupid) act.
Why hasn’t the national media this fact known, in no uncertain terms, to the great unwashed couch potatoes that voted for Obama?

Its just to bad he won’t go back to texas now and count all the money he made for his saudi buddies and don’t forget cheney we only have 2 months left with that moron hope we aren’t in depression by then lame duck pres for 8 yrs

How was the coverage unfair. Fox was in the tank for McCain. MSNBC for Obama. CNN was very fair. Now, if you talk print media, well, there are far more left leaning print outlets than right, so naturally, there are going to be more positive print stories about Obama than McCain. Maybe if Repubs didn’t screw up the country over the last 8 years, they would get more positive press.

Still getting hate filled emails from my Republican friends, I thought Republicans were patriotic? After 8 yrs of what we went through its simply amazing.

It will be nice to get Cheney(who is nothing short of a criminal) out of office…actually all you hear on the radio is the extreme right wingers..thank god people didn’t listen to all the lies of the right wing pathology!

Come of folks – he’s been elected so let’s move on. We dictate what the media reports by asking for it. We wanted to see more Obama and that is what we got. The public was/is fascinated by him and need the media to satisfy that curiosity. And, let’s be honest – Obama didn’t make a lot of mistakes. He ran a good campaign, his team was excellent and he won. How sad and cynical, that we feel the wool must have been pulled over our eyes because Obama may just be a decent, hard working person. Who earned the presidency from hard, honest work.
We need to pull together now and let this man run the country. He announces his economic team and the world economy strengthens. People in countries around the world, celebrated his victory. The media didn’t create some sort of mythological figure through positive manipulation – they just reported on what he was doing and who he was. Let us all embrace the decision and stop talking about what would have happened if the media had decided to create the story, rather than just report it.

I voted for Obama in hopes of change..
now all I see are Clinton people around
him, not to mention Clinton’s wife…..
Bush made a sorry mess of things but let’s not think for a minute it can’t
get any worse. “there’s no where to go
but up’ is a little premature.

Hey PAB,
I’m not a sore loser, just a stunned McCain/Palin supporter who can’t believe the number of people too stupid to see what the media was doing.It’s true that Obama is smart and articulate, however, each speech he gave seemed well rehearsed and memorized for he never skipped a beat.You go on to mention Harvard and Obama in the same sentence as if only Ivy League alumni are fit to run this country. Well, if that’s the case, what in God’s name went wrong? I’m angry because the majority of votes Obama received were not by educated, well informed individuals, but by a majority of people who have never voted before in their lives and can’t tell you the difference between the Republican or Democratic Party. As I watched the news coverage on TV on Nov.4th, I saw the long lines at the polls as people waited for hours to exercise their right (for the first time)to cast their vote. And it didn’t surprise me that every citizen that was interviewd was an Obama supporter. Their answers to the most simplest questions made me cringe. If they are representative of who put Obama in office, then God have mercy on our souls…we’re all in trouble.

If people weren’t racist before the election, NOW THEY ARE and with reason

Halperin is only restating what everyone already knows about the media. The media has lacked credibility since Walter Cronkite died. It will be interesting to see if the modern media will give as much coverage to PEBO’s missteps as his successes. Expect PEBO to be like every other president since JFK. They all (regardless of party) made major mistakes on foreign policy, dealing with the economy and working within the beltway to get things done. PEBO will too. Just watch.

McCain’s disgusting ad depicting Obama as the Anti Christ didnt get much media attention either… The producers of the ridiculous “Left Behind” fictional books came up with that little bit of venom and hate. Considering they used biblical imagery to paint Obama as Satan and got away with it does that make the media right wing biased?

liberals have been in charge of congress for over 2 years

McCain lost this election all by himself. I started out leaning toward McCain. Then he STUPIDLY and OPENLY lied to Dave Letterman to be on Katy Couric instead of on the Letterman show. Now, the maxim that all politicians lie, is well known…but, McCain cooked his own goose with this lie…1) We found out what ‘putting his country first’ really meant to McCain – putting himself and his campaign (which was allegedly on hold)first and that ‘country first’ serves as a great excuse to cancel at the last minute. 2) We found out that McCain is incredibly stupid about lying – after all Dave Letterman’s been in show biz forever and has all kinds of ways to find things out – but McCain STUPIDLY thought Letterman wouldn’t ever know when Couric taped the McCain appearance. I don’t like liars, but if you’re going to lie, at least be smart about it. I simply couldn’t vote for anyone that dumb.

This new President was media elected. When you say something over and over and over again people begin to believe. I find it quite funny when I ask one of the Barack supporters why are you voting for Barack? They often quote a campaign phrase of “we can’t afford another 8 years of Bush,” my response is “what is it about Bush policy that was a great failure in your opinion?” I often then here another campaign phrase “we just need Change”. This question I find is usually a stumbling block for Obama supporters. The signing of teenagers for support (would you let your teenager control your checkbook?), the people he associated with, and the countless other questionable facts about our new President could only be overcome by what was fed to the public through the media. If people really did their research on the candidates they would have discovered that the lesser of the two evils would have been McCain. When Americans would answer in polls that they thought McCain was running unfair attacks on Barack did they ever ask themselves if Baracks campaign was running a super clean campaign or was there just no mud to sling on McCain? It just goes to show that most of Americans believe what comes on CNN as the gospel, and are to lazy to do a little research on their own to find out the real story on the candidates!

Unbelievable. It is nearly a month since the elections and you people are still ticked that a black man won. He is not staged and rehearsed. He is smart and articulate and you people just don’t get it. Who would elect someone who barely passed military school. Get over it.

You’ll please note that Halprin rages against the bias AFTER the Democrats get elected.

Hmmm. Hammering Obama on the Rev. Wright, William Ayers, being a Muslim (not!), being born in Kenya (not!), not wearing a flag pin, not putting his hand over his heart for the national anthem (not required; only for pledge), and nattering about Michelle’s comment about being a proud American for the first time (taken totally out of context) is being pro-Obama? Whew! What would it have been like if the media had been against him? Not a word mentioned about McCain’s cheating, wrecking planes, calling his wife the nastiest of names, the U.S.S. Forrestal incident, graduating near the bottom of his class, Cindy’s drug habit, etc., etc., is being against him? Seems like the media was biased: against Obama and protective of McCain. Anyway it doesn’t matter an iota at this juncture because the DEMS WON and the REPUBS HAVE BEEN SENT PACKING. Good riddance after 8 years of destroying this country. Go back under your rocks and lick your wounds.

We are sure going to need a lot of cheese to go along with all of that whining. GOOD LORD PEOPLE. You are disgusting to me. You have real short term memory. Obama has been blasted his whole campaign…Jesus, how long did we hear about Rev Wright. And thanks to that racist Fox News, Rev. Wright magically reappeared at the end of the campaign. Barack Obama is the closest thing we have to any leadership in the last 8 years.

This is an exercise in sweating the small stuff. Blaming the media is ridiculous. Blaming the uneducated is ridiculous.
How many people writing these comments actually allowed themselves to be swayed one way or another by a media story? Is the news biased? You say yes, right? It’s always biased against whatever side you’re on. If you’re a lefty, it feels like it hides right-wing corruption. If you’re a conservative, it feels like it creates a messiah out of fool. Guess who’s biased? Viewers. Who cares what the media says? Would it really have changed the course of this election if the NYT had written a fluff piece on Cindy McCain? No. McCain altered the election when he chose careless words about the economy, when his choice of running mate seemed reckless even to those of us who liked him, when his campaign failed to find a message and instead never moved beyond unfocused criticisms of a man who showed razor-like focus. Obama also impacted the election, when he chose a running mate conservatively, when he stayed on message, appearng unfazed no matter what came his way, when he wooed conservative after conservative to his side.
Both these men did far more than the media to change the outcome of this election. To say that Obama voters are stupid and uneducated and that they were swayed (or “tricked”) by the media is to belittle the conservative position. First of all, the right has its fair share of uneducated voters, so it does no favors to the right to bring this issue up. Secondly, the conservatives have a position that many many intelligent people who are not greedy thieves believe in. Had they been able to make anything resembling a compelling argument, the election results might have been different. They would not need to now be saying that the left had bought the media and turned the ignorant masses against the right. By the way, the right lost some of its brightest superstars and most intellectual powerhouses to the left in this election, and i have to wonder if some of you posting here honestly believe that those of us who have been conservative till now and who hold phds or senior writing positions were hoodwinked by the likes of ABC? Seems a bit farfetched, no?
My advice to the right? Stop whining, isn’t that what we’ve been leveling against the left all these years? Regroup, find your core philosophy and try again in 4 years. And bring a better candidate and a better message.

The media (major networks and most large newspapers) pick their candidates based on their own liberal agenda’s and go to work also like they are on the candidates own campaign team. That’s fine if they were honest about it. But what is so sickening is their attempt to look objective while spinning almost everything they do not like… and what they omit to tell or investigate is also just as bogus. I no longer have much faith in the media for truth -
The reporters from CNN and NBC stating after the election at Obama’s acceptance speech that “we do not really know this man” was enlightening…. well you had 2 whole years to send a REPORTER out to find out and you felled to do so.
So much for integrity.

Excellent observation Rat! No associations were ever really investigated… particularly the long run 20 year self-professed Obama mentor racist minister Wright.

What say me, Jake?
The admission of extreme media bias from the left is as stupid as the left saying that “now” we all need to be civil.
The left has castigated our President to no end. This is to the point that some idiots believe it all, hook, line, and sinker.
There are still idiots that say Bush lied about WMD, and that are not even aware that every single thing said about WMD before the war were said in the late 90′s by the Clinton administration, long before George W. Bush was anywhere near the white house.
But, the left NEVER let facts get in the way of their agenda. And, the media supports this premise.
I finally broke my addiction to the ABC morning news format. I haven’t watched it in over 2 months, and that is after I watched it for YEARS. I know I’m not alone in finally turning off the crap.
The silver lining is that I think that fair journalism will make somewhat of a comeback when the MSM finally and FINANCIALLY gets the message that their bias has turned off MILLIONS of people.

The year is 2008 and the M.S.M. declared their allegiance to Obama. When Bush ran the M.S.M. had a love affair with Gore.

Umm, Tapper, maybe you weren’t paying attention, but McCain did run an ad with unfair charges, that could *arguably* exploit racial tensions. He also made the comment that Obama just “discovered” the Latino vote. And released an ad implying that Obama didn’t care about Latin America. It got NO coverage.
The truth of the matter is, both candidates ran ads that distorted each other’s records, but the McCain camp ran more ads that took on an ugly tone — and some of his campaign rhetoric matched that tone.
I failed to hear your faux outrage when McCain blatantly accused Obama of being a traitor to his country throughout the campaign…woops…i’m sure you documented it here.

The media is always biased. This year’s election coverage was an example of the worst kind of arrogance and ignorance in the media. I have followed politics for 65 years and know that nothing you read in newspapers bares a resemblance to fact. But the adulation of Obama was frightening. It more resembled a totalitarian controlled press than a free one in a democracy.

I think this may have been the easiest coverage for the Media. Impeccable reputation of Obama and Michelle. More than shadowy past of McMain and Cindy. How did they meet? Looking at Obama definetly has the presidential credentials; any deficiency plugged with Biden. McCain some presidential credentials; deficiency plugged with Palin. Who couldn’t pass up that reporting?

“Moder8″ (not me, ‘moderate’), you said the media has not been credible since Walter Cronkite died. Ummmm, Mr. Cronkite is pretty old, but he ISN’T DEAD.
You’re right, though, the media has lost credibility. Mr. Halperin talks about the contrasting stories about the potential first ladies as run by NYT. The breaking point for me was actually a Newsweek issue, also featuring Cindy McCain. She was on the cover and the article inside talked about “what’s behind the smile.” The take was basically that John McCain was pondscum who left Cindy to manage on her own in the wilds of Arizona while he was happily partying in DC, where Cindy did not feel welcome when she first arrived. The very next article in the magazine was a glowing piece about how the Obamas are the leading examples of a new phenomenon in Washington, families that choose to remain behind in their hometowns while Dad the Congressman works in DC and heads home as often as possible. There was discussion of how the Obamas decided this was best for their daughters and for Michelle’s career. There was no mention of the irony of praising the Obamas for doing essentially what the McCains had done for years– McCain was depicted as selfish and careerist but Obama was depicted as a loving dad. As I recall, there was an essay elsewhere in the issue about ‘what obama should do if elected.’ It was not the only time that I noticed how often Newsweek, in opinion pieces and in articles (and its getting harder and harder to distinguish between the two there), worked from the premise of Obama’s inevitable election. Columnists offered him advice. News stories were pegged to problems he would face, etc.– one memorable piece was about how black people would react if he were not, somehow, elected. It was ridiculous and disappointing to see this bias in a magazine I have read since I was a teenager.

Nice article. Glad to see reporters discussing the obvious bias toward Obama established early in the campaign – actually, one might go back to an article in Time or Newsweek, I don’t remember which, when Obama was an Illinois Senator.
Now that the need for the bias is over – well, not really, because it will be sustained for at least the next 4 years unless the Presidency is totally clueless – will the media begin reporting somewhat objectively that this is a human being, neither Messiah nor Buddha? Probably not.
The 63 or 67 million Americans who voted for him are happy now. Let’s see how happy they are as this machine rolls through the next 4 years of “change”. Big spending in an economy with no money? A 21st Century “New Deal”? “The Office of the President-Elect”? Have we ever had one of those? He doesn’t have official duties until he is sworn in as President. You’d think he already was!!
A media creation. Not the first, but maybe the most undecipherable.

Liberal media bias has been around a long time, but it sank to an all-time low in the 2008 presidential campaign.
The blatant pro-Obama reporting was disgusting.

In other news… Joe Lieberman has been declared by Obermann as the ‘Worst Person In the World’ and I concur! :-)

I felt ABC had a pro-Hillary twist until she fell behind Obama then suddenly they jumped ship on her. In various articles I saw in different venues and news reports on tv, I was astounded at what passed for news. MSNBC was appalling for their blatant one-sided ranting againt anything Republican. Even the SNL send-ups of Palin became more insulting than satire… a few articles that circulated reported Tina Fey refused to do a skit with Palin in a disrespectful display of bias. The media should have been more critical of Fey’s behavior but it got virtually no airplay.
I never heard good journalists challenge Obama substantively and forcefully. CNN was all over the place at times appearing to be way too quick to assault McCain and way too forgiving of Obama. The few times they criticized Obama, it seemed they went out of their way to mitigate it. The crush of the tv media seemed to evolve in a giant love fest along with the various liberal blogs I read.
Overall though the media didnt challenge one thing that I believed needed challenged aside from the candidates…. the viciousness of the left wing bloggers and political supporters including members of congress who made hateful and demeaning comments about not only the opposition but people who disagreed with them. Their attacks suggested extreme intolerance and having them now with great influence in goverment makes me worry for our First Amendment Rights. It is as if the First Amendment exists solely as a tool of the left and doesn’t extend to the right, Christians or Republicans.

The media is incapable of being completely balanced and fair. Every human / reporter has bias and these are reflected in beliefs, which are reflected in writing and statements. We tend to notice bias only when it no longer reinforces our own beliefs. Hence the author now “sees” liberal bias, and likely liberals saw little to no bias.
Given this, media consumers MUST look at a variety of perspectives and make up their own minds and educate themselves concerning the problems of bias and how they may be affected.
We cannot expect ANY news outlet to be perfectly balanced as all media are run by imperfect humans with cognitivie bias.
Once we realize this and are to some degree aware of our own information gathering responsibilities, we can each go about the business of understanding what is going on and making individual judgments using all the sources that are now literally at our fingertips.
WE NEED TO STOP BLAMING THE MEDIA: EVERYONE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THEIR OWN THINKING AND BELIEFS AND SHOULD CONTINUALLY ADJUST THESE BASED ON INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE OBTAINED THROUGH EVIDENCE AND EXPERIENCE.

Hey Pa in PA:
More college-educated people voted for Obama than for McCain. McCain represents the past. Palin represents the worst the neocons can offer. The neocons offered a third rate politician in McCain. I will waste no time in assessing Palin–a total moron! The neocon party is short on brains and full of crap!

Jake, it is now official. You are aiming for Rush Limbaugh’s audience. Really sad. Your Spanish ad piece to disparage Obama missed the point. You focused on Limbaugh’s stance (anti-immigration/anti-McCain’s toughness) rather than the fact that Limbaugh tried to thwart the entire election process by having ‘Operation Chaos’ voters vote for Hillary to prevent Obama’s win. Hispanics, like most Americans, don’t like anybody trying to throw our elections. When McCain came out with the Palin and Joe the Plumber gimmicks, that sealed all doubt in the Hispanic (and other) minds that McCain was trying to pull another unpatriotic piece of wool over our eyes to prevent democracy.
Please adjust your goals higher. Don’t aspire to be Limbaugh, Hannity, Levine or any of the WMAL carricatures. They are a dying media and a dying audience.

Let’s look at a fact for-which there is some hard evidence. In 2000, the media in general fawned over Bush, and downplayed all his entrpreneurial management failings prior to his gov stint. They also repeated monumental Bush soundbites about Gore even though they were untrue – “He said he invented the Internet.”
The fact is that PEW Research on the Press did a study after the election of fifteen “mainstream” news outlets in a variety of media to measure how many of the articles about each were positive and negative. The result was that 63% of the stories mentioning Bush were postive. Only 42% of Gore mentions were positive. If you go back over the last forty years you see a trend in the media. The “new” guy on the national stage always gets more favorable press because reporters find them much more interesting than a politician they’ve covered for years and have already pigeonholed. It happened with Bush-Gore, Clinton-Bush, Reagan-Carter, Carter-Ford, Kennedy-Nixon. The details of the new guy’s climb to the nomination, policy positions, history, family,etc is more intriguing to reporters because they’re always after some new piece of information nobody’s reported yet. The fact that Obama received more favorable coverage is hardly a surprise when you consider he was running against an entrenched Senator running for Pres a second time, whose economic and social policies mirrored the current President’s, and HE’S THE FIRST BLACK CANDIDATE FROM EITHER MAJOR PARTY FOR PRES. The latter of course is about as new, unexpected, and groundbreaking the press could hope for. The press plays up the new because breaking stories justify their existance. It’s much easier to come up with something new on someone less well known than a national political graybeard. So its less about a liberal bias as it is about competing for the “get.”

Mark Halperin is not objective enough to make such a judgment. His fawning over right-wing media personalities such as Hugh Hewitt disqualify him from saying anything meaningful about bias.

Obama outspent McCain $7 to $1, had the endorsement of 4/5 of newspapers, and the votes of 97% of black voters. With all this, he got 53% of the popular vote. Obama’s campaign peaked on the next-to-last day of the Democratic convention. The next day was the Nuremberg rally, and the next day Sarah Palin was introduced.
BTW, McCain’s father graduated low in the class at USNA also. But, in active duty at war, he became a 4-star admiral.

As Colbert says, “reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

Wow what a breaking story! You mean there is a leftist slant to the media? This story has been exposed years ago by countless others and it is now considered a fact. Everyone knows it and its been this way for years. The New York Times endorsed Walter Mondale for President! Walter Mondale! He had a about 200 votes out of all America. That is another example of the medias bias. The keep talking about Obama’s massive win and landslide. Comparatively Reagan was more popular and won more convincingly than Obama could ever hope for – 49 states to 1.

All the people who voted for Obama and his change are getting what they deserve. The big old shaft. He is creating a cabinet of long term inside the beltway politicians, Hillary Clinton who he attacked vehemently about her foreign policy judgment will be our Secretary of State? People that voted for Obama voted for an idea, they hoped he was the next “one”, but they never really paid attention to the fact he is a Jr. senator that has absolutely no legislative accomplishments in his 2 year senate career. Blinded by hatred for President Bush they rallied around a man that will become the most inexperienced president ever elected. He isnt the one. The good news is with a congress and senate in his hands he wont have anywhere to run from the problems he creates and he will be another Jimmy Carter – soft on terrorists, hard on Americans.

and to anyone who calls obama inexperienced, i would rather see someone untested go into office rather than 2 morons who have failed their entire lives……

Individual eporters (not the media) are trying to get their story to print or to air ahead of everyone else and the only way that happens is to find an enterprising, controversial, sexy angle. Even Halperin here for example, looks for the controversy angle to get his top billing. How boring would it be to have him say that election coverage was even-handed.
The truth is that media coverage goes to what is making news. A reporter isn’t looking to spin a positive or negative story, a reporter looks for a positive or negative hook to make a story more interesting and exciting.

A number of individuals here say they don’t listen to the media but do their own research instead. Tell me, where exactly DO you do this independent research and get your information?

I know I should just bite my tongue, but I just have to respond to Evan’s diatribe against Republicans. First, I must point out how tiresome it is that we Republicans are constantly being lectured that we should put aside partisan differences and get behind our incoming president– which most of us, I should point out, are doing (despite, not because of, the lectures, I might add). But some of those same lecturers find it perfectly acceptable to spew hate and derision on Bush and Republicans– no, that’s not partisan or divisive, now is it?
So, on to Evan’s post. He wrote, “Yeah, Democrats are so dumb…oh wait, who ruined America for the past 8 years?….” Umm, Evan, America has not been ruined in the past 8 years. For most of Bush’s 2 terms, in fact, things went well. He led a government that prevented any further terrorist attacks on American soil after 9/11 and engineered an economic recovery after that devastating blow as well. Yes, lately things have gone terribly awry, but that is not “the past 8 years” and, as I recall, for the past two years, Republicans have not controlled Congress. But Evan claims, “oh ya, thats right, corrupt republicans too worried about their own pocket books to care about the health of the nation….” That’s too childish to require a reasoned response.
I’d rather get to his next statement: “And please, keep spending money on the war and keep asking “Gee how could this economic crisis happen?” maybe because you doubled the deficit by spending billions of dollars that does nothing more than kill…” Wait, the current plans to swell the deficit in the name of saving the economy are okay, remember? That’s the Democratic talking point and I tend to agree, with reservations. Different leaders will have different ideas about what is crucial enough to our future to justify deficit spending. Bush felt the war on terror justified it. And I have always wondered about this fixation some Democrats have about the expenses of the war in Iraq. Yes, some money was misspent, with inadequate oversight and waste. But most of the money spent on this war, or any war, is not simply “wasted” money spent on “killing.” We pay salaries of military and contractors– that’s jobs, which is important, right? We buy material to prosecute the war— trucks, munitions, uniforms, binoculars, you name it, most of it was manufactured in America by American workers. Remember how WWII helped end the Great Depression? War can help stimulate an economy. We did not simply take the money to Iraq and burn it in the desert– we spent in, much of it in the United States.
You can lecture me on the mote in my eye when you remove the log in your own.

There were many examples of media bias. One which I found astounding was the lack of coverage of the feminists who did support Sarah Palin. The only one who really covered it was Greta Van Susteren on Fox News. And at the end, a Democrat speech writer Wendy Button came out for McCain – total blackout.
But we heard of every Republican who spoke positively about Obama or negatively about McCain.
Great job main stream media! No wonder people are now saying they trust the internet more for news than print and television. I found out about these things on the internet.

Why in Heaven’s name would ANYONE care about Mark Halperin’s tedious right-wing gripes? Seriously, who’s a fan of that guy? Really?

Mark Halperin is just jealous he can’t run for president because he isn’t a natural born citizen.

The liberal establishment media’s coverage of this election was extremely biased. It was like the Huffington Post had completely taken it over. No distortion was out-of-bounds.
When Karl Rove said BOTH campaigns had been less than truthful, the Obama campaign turned that into “Even Karl Rove said McCain hasn’t been truthful” in a press statement, and CNN and Joe Klein, among others, reported it that way. That’s a huge half-truth distortion from the Obama campaign itself, on the issue of HONESTY, but it was the McCain campaign that was simply put in the black hat and branded “dishonest,” while the Obama campaign was held up as pure-as-snow “honest.” The Obama campaign also created this talking point that McCain was so dishonest, just to discredit him, and the media happily trumpeted it.
And on every other point of the election, the media acted like an arm of the Obama campaign, putting everything about McCain in the worst possible light while going soft on Obama and arguing in defense of his point-of-view and the Democrats’ as much as possible, from the economic crisis to “lipstick on a pig.” The media was always there to stretch their imaginations to imagine Obama’s position, but never did the same for McCain, whose position was always half-empty rather than half-full. It’s hard to even pick out examples of the bias since the whole election is one big example.
How about:
When McCain suspended his campaign, he drew even with Obama in the Gallup poll. Maybe the move looked presidential, which is why Democrats threw a fit and almost put up a blockade around Washington to keep him away. And the media helped them, as usual during this campaign, by driving the story as the Democrats spun it, and not considering, for balance, that it could be a good, and welcome move.
The Obama campaign and the media spun his remarks from 2001 on “major redistributive change,” which he clearly supported, while also implying that it is possible for courts to interpret the Constitution in a radically different manner than it has always been interpreted.
Obama and the media knew that the Secret Service had determined that no one yelled “kill him” about him at Sarah Palin rallies, but he mentioned it at the final debate and the media trumpeted this story all over the place. According to “The Secret Service and the Obama Death Threat,” (Newsweek): “But even before Obama cited ‘reports’ of the threats at the debate, the U.S. Secret Service had told media outlets, including NEWSWEEK, that it was unable to corroborate accounts of the ‘kill him’ remarks—and according to a law-enforcement official, who asked for anonymity when discussing a political matter, the Obama campaign knew as much.” See also: “In Fla., Palin Goes for the Rough Stuff as Audience Boos Obama,” Washington Post (the original report), “Milbank: Secret Service hasn’t called UPDATE,” Politico, and “Secret Service says ‘Kill him’ allegation unfounded,” Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. But the public is still misinformed on this, and I imagine that years from now we’ll still hear “experts” on TV refer to murderous mobs at Palin rallies, as well as the dishonest McCain campaign, and that Republicans alone caused the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac crisis. Many people still bring it up.
The media was also there to attack every ad and every claim of Republicans as a lie or distortion, no matter what the facts were.

Unbelievable 2008,
You’re right. What is such a big deal about Obama releasing his birth certificate? I was always under the impression that nobody would ever be able to run for president without doing that, but evidently there’s a gaping hole there. According to “Proofin’ the prez: Who’s in charge?” (WorldNetDaily), it’s the Electoral College’s job to check out his credentials (which seems very late in the process to me, coming after the election), and then a matter for impeachment. Whatever happens, this hole needs to be closed so that there won’t be any controversies like this ever again. If you’re going to run, you have to release your birth certificate. That shouldn’t be controversial.

Would have been helpful had Halperin raised his charge during the campaign, rather than after it.
Would also have been helpful had the media reported more fully– especially early in the process– on candidates’ positions, rather than on the ‘horse race’. It was not helpful that the media designated front runners in both the GOP and Democratic presidential races before a single caucus or primary vote had been cast.
As well, too much time is being spent covering the media, rather than the candidates and the issues.
I need the media to inform me about candidates’ positions and careers, not about who is ahead in the polls or who was covered in what blog. The quality of political reporting has descended to truly alarming lows.

Yeah, this is the understatement of the year!

Unbelievable 2008
Are you seriously still asking about the Birth Certificate? He released that long ago. A certified copy from the state of Hawaii where he was born. As for the original, I have no clue where MY original is. It was lost years ago.I’ve gone through several in fact. But whenever I need to present it, I just write to the state where I was born and request a certified copy. Just like anyone else does.
Is it possible that people actually believe that a Harvard educated lawyer, who has been in the Senate, has been through school in this country,and has been employed in this country, was secretly born in another country and no one noticed? Are you suggesting that his parents knew he would one day run for President so they started using a fake birth certificate for him from birth on? Well if that is not the case, then would there then not be in all of his records growing up another birth certificate giving his “real” place of birth?
He carries a US passport. Do you have a passport? Do you know what you have to go through to get one? Don’t you think if he had provided a faked birth certificate, someone would have noticed?
I have heard so much foolish conversation around this that I am about ready to scream. Someone actually said that she could tell that his birth certificate is a fake because it didn’t have the little feet on it,like hers did! If he was going to present a fake birth certificate, I doubt if it would be so obviously fake that random people on the internet with no training at all,could detect the fraud.
Bottom line is that if he was able to get through life, work, and serve in the senate and get a passport with a faked birth certificate, I don’t have any confidence at all in our screening processes here and feel that I was unnecessarily burdened having to provide certified copies with raised seals to enroll my kids in school and to get our passports and to prove citizenship for my jobs.
And if he actually did run for President with fake information,he would give new meaning to his book, “The Audacity of Hope.”
Of all of the nonsense I have heard, this topic is probably the most absurd, because it is so easily proven false. And despite the fact that it has been proven false, people just keep bringing it up.

Why did the MSM do more vetting of Joe-the-Plumber than Obama-the-Presidential-Candidate?

Erika,
Place of birth is not relevant to the Constitutional Requirements of the office of presidency. Natural Born Citizen has long been misinterpreted to mean one born in the United States. In fact, all it means is that one must be born a citizen. That is to say have American parent(s) or be born in the United States.
Unless you’re wanting to challenge the notion that Barack Obama’s mother was who he says she was–and maybe you’re that brand of crazy–then it is irrefutable that he is a naturally born citizen of the United States of America. He’s also over 35. That means he’s Constitutionally qualified to be elected president. How long are you guys going to hold onto this silly argument? I mean, John McCain wasn’t born in the United States. That doesn’t mean he’s not naturally born.

Impunity relates to what I mentioned in that the Obama cammpaign most likely received millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions due to a conscious decision to remove the anti-fraud security from his donation website. No one will investigate. There will be no consequences, and, therefore, campaign financing laws have become a de facto joke. When a countries laws become a joke, it is on the way to achieving third world status. In the third world countries that I have lived and worked the rule of law is a joke.

And for a little less serious look at this issue, see “Is this Obama’s real birth certificate?” (WorldNetDaily).

Erika,
All other arguments, logical and otherwise aside,do you really think that Obama would have been able to run for President if he were not a natural born American Citizen? In these days NOTHING is private and ANY information can be found.
A massive number of people would have had to have been involved in a conspiracy to pull this off, including as I mentioned before his parents who would have had to have had the foresight to start using a fake birth certificate at birth to make sure no other one existed.
I do have a question though, as I seriously do not know the answer and figure this would be as good a place as any to ask since there seem to be a lot of experts on the matter here. Seriously, not sarcastically.
I am currently pregnant and am a natural born American citizen born in the US and lived here all my life. If I go on vacation to a foreign country and give birth there, will my baby be an American Citizen? Or will I have to go through a process to make her a citizen?
If anyone knows the answer, I’d appreciate it. Thanks!

If McCain had engaged in the same race-baiting, character-smearing, falsehood-fest that Obama did in the “Dos Caras” ad, we would’ve heard about it from that day through the end of the election. It’s just a bit ironic, given the circumstances, that McCain was the one compared to George Wallace. Of course, the saddest fact isn’t that the Obama campaign ran that advertisement — it’s that they ran that advertisement knowing that criticism from the press would be minimal.
No campaign would ever risk running such a racially-charged ad without knowing they were safe from press criticism. Obama knew he enjoyed such safety — and felt free to run it. Why?

Actually, the article is, “FAQs About Children Born Abroad to a U.S. Citizen Parent or Grandparent,” not “of Grandparent.” But I just copied and pasted the title from the Greencardlawyers site, so I’m not sure if search engines pick up both.

Why do people keep saying Obama has not released his birth certificate? He did already and it has been verified. Note:
“Allegations raised on the Internet say the birth certificate, showing that Obama was born in Hawaii on Aug. 4, 1961, is a fake.
But state officials in Hawaii say they checked health department records and have determined there’s no doubt Obama was born in Hawaii.
The nonpartisan Web site Factcheck.org examined the original document and said it does have a raised seal and the usual evidence of a genuine document.
In addition, Factcheck.org reproduced an announcement of Obama’s birth, including his parents’ address in Honolulu, that was published in the Honolulu Advertiser on Aug. 13, 1961.”
How could factcheck have verified it and the state of Hawaii have verified it, if it was never produced?
Further how would his parents have had the foresight to publish a fake birth announcement when he was born in an Hawaii paper?
I just don’t understand why people keep saying he hasn’t produced his birth certificate. It simply isn’t true.