Thursday, October 23, 2008

"And Biden is the foreign-policy gravitas on the Democratic ticket, so his comments are actually even more disconcerting."

Kirsten Powers, on the double standard over Biden's gaffes, versus Sarah Palin's:

There were a few exceptions. On MSNBC's "Morning Joe," co-host Mika Brzezinski flipped incredulously through the papers, expressing shock at the lack of coverage of Biden's remarks. Guest Dan Rather admitted that if Palin had said it, the media would be going nuts.

So what gives?

The stock answer is: "It's just Biden being Biden." We all know how smart he is about foreign policy, so it's not the same as when Sarah Palin says something that seems off.

Yet, when Biden asserted incorrectly in the vice-presidential debate that the United States "drove Hezbollah out of Lebanon," nobody in the US media shrieked. (It was, however, covered with derision in the Middle East.) Or when he confused his history by claiming FDR calmed the nation during the Depression by going on TV, the press didn't take it as evidence that he's clueless.


Indeed. Michael Totten brought the Lebanon gaffe up, and let's not forget Biden's constitutional flub. I'm for Obama at this point, but I've got to call 'em as I see 'em, and frankly, the bias at work here is blatant, and disquieting.

HT: Althouse, who offers this up, which I agree with:

Even those who support Obama -- not all, but some -- are getting nauseated by the press bias. And it's not just the bias. I'm really queasy about that future Biden is foreseeing. He has access to all sorts of reports of threats that we can't be told. It's as if he's taunting us with his inside knowledge. There will be -- what? -- attacks? And is Obama already planning to respond in ways that they know will dismay us? Tell us more. Is it about Israel?


I don't think one needs to oppose Obama to be vexed by the pro-Obama bias in the press. In fact, as I've argued elsewhere, it gives a lot of the attacks on Obama more legitimacy than they would have otherwise, because when attacks on Obama are rejected by most of the public, it is seen by many as a left-wing media conspiracy, even when it's not, because a lot of the press is basically in the tank for Obama.

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