The Liberal Bias Dictionary
"Conservative: An individual or policy that opposes change in political and social matters."
"Liberal: An individual or policy that favors change in political and social matters. It can also imply tolerance and open- mindedness."
- Definitions from the 1992 "Los Angeles Times in Education" Presidential Election Kit for teachers classroom use. (Thanks to Douglas Cavanaugh)
Why A Pro-Clinton Bias?
"The lure is the midnight phone call, the walk in the Rose Garden, being on a first-name basis with the President, getting the invites to state dinners...Its wanting to be Ben Bradlee to Clintons Jack Kennedy."
- Time Associate Editor Walter Shapiro to reporter Howard Kurtz, September 1
Washington Post.
Media to Public: Oh, Grow Up
"My reaction to that button [`Rather Biased] and others, in part, is a button I bought yesterday that says `Yeah, Im In The Media, Screw You!....I do understand why a lot of people are upset with us, why we rank somewhere between terrorists and bank robbers on the approval scale. We do criticize. Thats part of our role. Our role is not just to parrot what people say, its to make people think. I think that sometimes I want to say to the electorate `Grow up!"
- Newsweek reporter Ginny Carroll on C-SPANs Journalists
Roundtable, August 21.
84,000 Jobs - Whos Counting?
167,000 Jobs Lost In US Last Month
- Washington Post, September 5
83,000 jobs lost in August
- Boston Globe, same day
More Hillary Fans
"You might think Hillary Clinton was running for President. Granted, she is a remarkable woman. The first student commencement speaker at Wellesley, part of the first large wave of women to go to law school, a prominent partner in a major law firm, rated one of the top 100 lawyers in the country - there is no doubt that she is her husbands professional and intellectual equal. But is this reason to turn her into `Willary Horton for the 92 campaign, making her an emblem of all that is wrong with family values, working mothers, and modern women in general?"
- Beginning of Time cover story by Deputy Washington Bureau Chief Margaret Carlson, September 14 issue.
"When you hear yourself held up, as you were at the Republican convention, some people have used the word `demonized, does it make you hurt or make you mad?...What was the worst thing youve heard said about you?...Alright, what was the grossest distortion of your record?"
- Jane Pauleys questions to Hillary Clinton, September 8 Dateline
NBC.
Still Missing Communism
"But for the simple folk of Uzbekistan, people like Kurban Manizayov, these are mind-wrenching times. Their simple wants were nicely cared for by the communists. But now theyve been thrust into the hurly-burly world of market capitalism, and nobody even bothered to ask if it was all right."
- CNN Moscow reporter Steve Hurst, August 31 World News.
Joe Klein on Bus Trips and Conventions
"Clinton and Gore had, once again, transcended the traditional rites and cliches of politics...The crowds this time wouldnt be quite so large or enthusiastic, the candidates wouldnt be quite so eloquent - but something was happening out there on Highway 61, an emotional connection that mocked and then demolished the industrial-strength cynicism of the 150 journalists tagging along."
- Newsweek Senior Editor (and CBS News consultant) Joe Klein in the August 17
Newsweek.
"The whole week was double-ply, wall-to-wall ugly...the Republican Party reached an unimaginably slouchy, and brazen, and constant, level of mendacity last week...[Bush] is in campaign mode now, which means mendacity doesnt matter, aggression is all and wall-to-wall ugly is the order of battle for the duration."
- Klein, August 31 Newsweek.
Raising Taxes: A Must?
"I think by the time we get to election day, I think the American voter will be so confused about whats going to happen, theyll probably acknowledge that taxes will have to rise...This is going to be the solution whatever happens in the election...Nobodys counting the number of times taxes were raised. Thats not a material factor. The factor is will they move to the root of raising taxes to solve the problem."
- United Press International Executive Editor Steve Geimann, September 7 Fox Morning
News.
More Horton Jabs
"The campaign business has become a full-scale industry....It even offers that staple of more mature industries, an award ceremony: The Pollies, which every two years honors the best in political advertising (winners cant be `blatantly unethical or misleading.) The Willie Horton ad didnt win."
- Wall Street Journal reporter James P. Sterba, September 1.
A Boston Globe Convention
"Bush, the exponent of a `kinder, gentler approach to government at the 1988 convention, was presented with a 1992 platform loaded with puritanical, punitive language that not only forbade abortions but attacked public television, gun control, homosexual rights, birth control clinics and the distribution of clean needles for drug users."
- Boston Globe reporter Curtis Wilkie, August 18.
The GOPs 1984 platform, on which President Reagan ran for re-election, called the opposition `the Democratic Party, but the platform committee last week amended the phrase throughout to `the Democrat Party, a phrase popularized by the late Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin, whose relentless search for government communists in the 1950s gave birth to the word
McCarthyism."
- Boston Globe political writer Martin F. Nolan, same day.
The Reagan Years? No Bias Here
"`You do your job, she said, `and you remember that bias is in the eye of the beholder. She said she is impressed that during eight years of covering the Reagan White House, `they never hanged that allegation on us."
- NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell quoted by Houston Chronicle reporter Mike McDaniel, August 22.
"Steelers at Oilers (10 1/2): Houstons recent practices disrupted by debris (mostly discarded venom spewed forth by Pat Buchanan) left over from Republican National Convention in Astrodome. Pick: Steelers...
Rams at Bills (11): Citing `family values, Rams Coach Chuck Knox announced that all rushing plays this week will be run `to the extreme right. Pick: Bills."
- Washington Post sports writer Norman Chads NFL football picks, September 4.
- L. Brent Bozell III;
Publisher
- Brent H. Baker, Tim Graham; Editors
- Brant Clifton, Steve Kaminski, Marian Kelley, Tim Lamer;
Media Analysts
- Jennifer Hardebeck; Circulation Manager