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December 29, 2008
All The Difference from D to R
Michelle Malkin marks an early example of the can't-make-this-stuff-up media bias that conservatives will no doubt make a regular pastime of spotting over the next few years:
Sighed smitten reporter Eli Zaslow, "The sun glinted off chiseled pectorals sculpted during four weightlifting sessions each week, and a body toned by regular treadmill runs and basketball games." Drool cup to the newsroom, stat.Zaslow imparted us with vital information about buff Bam's regimen: "Obama has gone to the gym for about 90 minutes a day, for at least 48 days in a row." The Washington Post enlightened us with more gushing commentary from Obama friends and associates, who explain how, as the subtitle of Zaslow's opus put it, "Gym Workouts Help Obama Carry the Weight of His Position."
Compared with:
Former Washington Post writer Jonathan Chait famously attacked Bush three years ago in an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times headlined "The (over)exercise of power." Recounting how President Bush ran 3.5 miles a day and preached more cross-training to a federal judge, Chait fumed, "Am I the only person who finds this disturbing? ... What I mean is the fact that Bush has an obsession with exercise that borders on the creepy."Chait argued that Bush's passionate devotion to exercise was a dereliction of duty. "Does the leader of the free world need to attain that level of physical achievement?" he jeered. "It's nice for Bush that he can take an hour or two out of every day to run, bike or pump iron. Unfortunately, most of us have more demanding jobs than he does."
Can you imagine any member of the Obamedia mocking the incoming gym rat-in-chief this way?
No, I cannot. Neither can I imagine that any comments from mainstream media types will treat Obama's periodic flights out to remote Hawaii in the same manner as met Bush's jaunts to his own vacation spot in the middle of the contiguous states.
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Is the incoming president not allowed any honeymoon period with the press? He's not even inaugurated yet! Apart from the fact that Malkin is not to be taken seriously, her comparison of a pre-inauguration puff piece to an opinion column four years into a wartime presidency is hardly an apt comparison.
Posted by: Pragmatist at December 29, 2008 2:13 PMPrag, leave Michelle alone - we don't want to hear her going into full "Oh, those mean 'ol liberals pick on Filipino women" mode again.
Posted by: rhody at December 29, 2008 3:20 PMSo, you find a 3 yr. old piece in a LA newspaper and thats supposed to represent ALL media? You forget that there IS a right-wing media machine out there giving us the "fair and balanced" stuff everyday.
Posted by: Rick at December 29, 2008 3:52 PMThey along with NYTimes columnists Billy Kristol of course...
Stop crying about 70's media bias', its 2009! (almost)
Is the incoming president not allowed any honeymoon period with the press? He's not even inaugurated yet!
prag,
Posted by: bobc at December 29, 2008 6:36 PMHoneymoon period! Seems to me before GW was inaugurated, the headlines were about how he stole the election.
bobsie
The election of 2000 was a little out of the ordinary. The state (Florida) that helped decide the election was politically run by the brother (Jeb Bush) of one of the candidates ( George Bush).The secretary of state ( Kathleen Harris)who doubled as George Bush's campaign coordinator statewide certified the election results not once but three times with different numbers each time. The voting irregulaties were countless. The legal battles over recounts ended in the U.S. Supreme Court. And you think that the press should not have reported about the disputed result. Remember also how many people protested at Bush's inauguration. That certainly was newsworthy too.
Posted by: Phil at December 29, 2008 7:49 PMPhilsie, setting aside the fact that most local election boards in Florida were and are controlled by Democrats, would the New York Times satisfy you as a source for the final result of the 2000 Florida presidential election?
They and some other newspapers recounted ALL ballots (not just the four counties that Al Gore had angled for). They determined that George Bush did indeed win Florida.
Seriously, sometimes I wish Gore had won in 2000. At least we wouldn't have had the AGW hysteria foisted on us.
Posted by: Monique at December 29, 2008 10:50 PMMonique
Thanks for the new name. I quess that you feel that I've been deprived having only one when you on the other hand have so many. I don't want to refight those old battles. I wrote with one exception facts relating to the election of 2000. The point was that the press was covering a big story and that the story of the election's result was still a big story at the time of the inauguration.
Posted by: Phil at December 30, 2008 6:35 AM