Six short odds and ends items
today as we wrap-up the campaign season:
1. Discussing the GOP's
performance, CBS reporter Bob Schieffer charged that
"the harshness of their rhetoric...frightened people."
2. You can't escape
Hollywood's left-wing tilt by watching escapist shows. Star
Trek linked a murderer to Richard Nixon.
3. To illustrate how
NRA-backed candidates lost, The Washington Post cited as a
loser a man who won.
4. The Washington Post
refuses to tell readers the race of suspects wanted for
violent crimes. .
5. Some poll
findings: One third see tilt to left; three times as many people get
their political information from TV as newspapers; and most think media
have too much influence.
6. David
Letterman's Top Ten list from Friday: "Top Ten Questions I've
Always Wanted To Ask The President. Presented by the country's most
respected correspondents."
1) Past CyberAlerts have quoted examples of
reporters tagging Dole, Gingrich and conservatives as "harsh"
and examples of reporters stating as fact that it was the Republicans who
shut down the government, as if President Clinton had nothing to do with
it. Well, MRC analyst Steve Kaminski alerted me to a media bias combo
quote in which CBS reporter Bob Schieffer did both. On the November 3
Sunday Morning Schieffer asserted:
"Newt
Gingrich has become sort of a logo for harsh Republican rhetoric. I
don't think there's anybody who would tell you today that the
Republicans maybe did not go a little too far in the harshness of their
rhetoric. They really irritated a lot of people, poll after poll shows
it, local officials will tell you that, when they shut down the
government. They got the blame for that and I think in some ways it
really kind of frightened people."
2) UPN's "Star Trek: Voyager" episode last Wednesday, November
6, revolved around the crew of the Voyager, which is from the 24th
Century, traveling back in time to 1996 Los Angeles in order to avert the
destruction of the Earth in the 29th Century. The cause of the future
disaster: a Mr. Henry Starling, played by Ed Begley Jr., who heads a
computer company ominously named ChronowerX.
Because of a
time-travel mess up Starling has obtained technological know-how from a
29th Century spaceship. The Voyager crew learns he's an evil businessman
who became rich and powerful by using this knowledge to create a new
computer chip in 1969 and dominate the new industry. They conclude the
"computer age of late 20th century shouldn't have happened." In
order to keep the Voyager crew's arrival secret, businessman Starling
dispatches one of his goons to murder the astronomer who alerted him to
their arrival.
Anyway, at one
point the camera pans his office and full screen for a couple of seconds
is a picture on a table: a framed photo of "Starling" shaking
hands with President Richard Nixon.
3) The November 10 Washington Post ran an editorial titled "Slim
Sales at the Polls for the NRA." A reliable source, a CyberAlert
recipient, urged me to check the editorial's content. It reads in part:
"Though the big campaign contributions from the NRA flowed as usual
this year, they didn't pay off the way they once did. Some of the
strongest opponents of responsible handgun and assault weapon controls
were among the losers." Conveniently, the Post supplied a list of
these losers: "Among the NRA favorites who lost....In Senate races,
Wayne Allard in Colorado..."
Wayne Allard,
known to those outside the Post as Senator-elect Allard, captured 51
percent of the vote versus 46 percent for his Democratic opponent.
4) While we're on the Post, the November 11 Weekly Standard observed:
"The Washington Post has editorialized against color-blind public
policies, but it has embraced colorblindness in an area where color
presumably does matter -- in describing the appearance of
individuals....we read in October 26's Post of an abduction from a garage
at Tysons II Galleria mall near Washington: 'Police describe the suspect
as muscular, about 6 feet 1 inch tall and about 190 pounds, with short
dark hair and dark eyes.'...
"In fact,
the police described the suspect as muscular and dark-skinned...so at
least the warning posters at the mall said the next day. But the police
description was too politically incorrect to be reproduced by the Post,
which is evidently more afraid of getting angry calls from black
'community leaders' than it is interested in helping apprehend a
rapist.'"
Indeed, that's
not an isolated example. The November 9 Post carried an account of a
street robbery in D.C. suffered by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg. Here's the complete description of the purse-snatcher as
provided by the Post: "The thief was a man of undetermined age who
wore a white satin jacket, police said."
5) Here are some poll numbers I never found the space to run before the
election. So, before they become antique:
-- A September
poll of 1,000 registered voters for the Freedom Forum (conducted by the
Roper Center), found that most who believe the media are biased think
the media are biased to the left: "Nearly one-third (31%) say
coverage favors the Democratic party, while 9% say coverage favors the
GOP. More than half (53%) regard coverage as balanced."
-- Recall how
the networks ignored many Clinton scandal stories that newspapers
covered? The same Freedom Forum/Roper poll showed why that's relevant:
"More than half of all voters (56 percent) said they get most of
their information about the presidential campaign from television. An
additional 30 percent get most of their information from newspapers (17
percent), radio (11 percent), or magazines (2 percent)."
-- A Pew
Research Center for the People and the Press poll released October 25
found: "A huge majority of voters (67%) believe that among four
leadership groups in the country, the news media exerts too much
influence on which candidate becomes President, followed by business
corporations (59%), labor unions (45%) and the churches (15%)."
6) Friday the Late Show with David Letterman was taped at the Warner
Theater in Washington, D.C. As provided by CompuServe's E-Drive Forum,
here's the Top Ten list for Friday, November 8:
Top Ten
Questions I've Always Wanted To Ask The President. Presented by the
country's most respected correspondents, from Washington D.C.
10. Have you
ever seen Strom Thurmond naked? (Jane Robelot, CBS)
9. Mr.
President, are you aware that for a quarter more you can super-size
those fries? (Wolf Blitzer, CNN)
8. Are you sure
you didn't have anything to do with Madonna's baby? (Fred Barnes, Weekly
Standard)
7. As leader of
the free world, can you do something about Richard Simmons? (Greta Van
Susteren, CNN)
6. As leader of
the free world, can you do something about Letterman's hair? (Michael
Kinsley, Slate)
5. Are you
going to buy a retirement gift for David Brinkley? (Frank Sesno, CNN)
4. Have you
ever met Batman? (Cokie Roberts, ABC)
3. Can you tell
us once and for all: Is Perot nuts? (Sam Donaldson, ABC)
2. Why is it
that you're always jogging, but you never seem to lose weight? (Helen
Thomas, UPI)
1. Does being
President help you to get a better table at Hooters? (John McLaughlin)
(c) 1996
Worldwide Pants, Incorporated. All Rights Reserved.
--
Brent Baker
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