Worst of the Week: "Strange" "Extremists" vs. Our "Effective" "Hero" Pelosi
With less than two weeks before Election Day, the media elite continue to disparage the GOP's Tea Party candidates while saluting the greatness of the über-unpopular Democratic Congress and its leader, Nancy Pelosi.
On This Week, ABC's Christiane Amanpour - apparently oblivious to the decades of liberal mockery hurled at Ronald Reagan and William Buckley - cited those leaders as exemplifying "a long and venerable tradition" of "intellectual conservatism." Her goal was to insult today's conservatives: "People are looking at the Tea Party and saying this is not conservatism as we knew it, but it's extreme." Conservative George F. Will educated Amanpour: "Which is exactly what they said about Bill Buckley..."
Reporters continue to use any perceived gaffe to smear the entire movement. "We've been seeing a spate of strange claims from Tea Party candidates," CBS's Nancy Cordes insisted on Wednesday's Early Show. Cordes claimed Delaware candidate Christine O'Donnell "appeared unaware of one of the Constitution's most basic tenets," but her evidence was a clip of O'Donnell stating - correctly - that the words "separation of church and state" do not appear in the Constitution.
Despite the hilariously low job approval ratings for Congress - 18%, according to CBS; 23% according to the Associated Press - journalists from those news organizations each churned out a fawning review. "The session of Congress now drawing to a close was the most productive in nearly half a century," the AP's Jim Abrams touted Monday.
On CBS's Sunday Morning, correspondent Rita Braver applauded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as "one of the most effective speakers in congressional history," "a hero in some quarters," and "the irresistible force who marshaled House Democrats to pass controversial administration policies - including the stimulus package, Wall Street reform, and health care."
CBS's Lesley Stahl popped up on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Monday to fret how the dreadful economy is hurting Obama's image, as if his administration's policies are thoroughly unrelated: "He's fighting an economy that just won't give him anything....No credit. No credit at all for what he's accomplished."
Two years ago, the media were undeniably tilted in Obama's favor. Now, they're just as skewed against a public that's rejecting his liberal experiments.
