Hillary and Obama, centrists? That's what chief political reporter Adam Nagourney claimed in Monday's "Staking [1]His Campaign on Iowa, Edwards Makes a Populist Pitch to the Left [1]."
"This time,[Edwards] is a candidate of the left in a state marked by a strong antiwar and liberal streak, filling a vacancy created as Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have campaigned from the center."
(The American [2] Conservative Union [2]awarded Sen. Clinton a lifetime rating of 9 out of a possible 100, Sen. Obama an 8.)
Another bit of labeling bias came in Tuesday's story [3]by Robert Pear [3], who is currently on the immigration bill beat.
Give Pear credit for actually going to Georgia and talking to citizens opposed to the Bush-backed immigration bill now tied up in the Senate. But Pear lost points with this lopsided sentence: "The provision of the bill that appeals most to Hispanic groups and many Democrats - a path to citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants - generates the most opposition from conservatives."
For the sake of balance, why not just say "liberals" and "conservatives," instead of applying ideological labels only to opponents of the immigration bill?