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The 2,039th CyberAlert. Tracking Liberal Media Bias Since 1996
5:45am EDT, Monday August 29, 2005 (Vol. Ten; No. 152)
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2. Boston Globe Touts Wonders of Cuba's "Free Universal Healthcare"
Becker's nine-paragraph August 26 story, "In Article, Roberts's Pen Appeared to Dip South," appeared on page two next to a longer anti-Roberts story: "Gay Rights Groups Urge Defeat of Nominee." The subhead: "Appeals Court Judge's Ideology is Called 'a Mortal Danger to Equal Rights.'"
The August 19 CyberAlert recounted, about the Becker story from that day's paper: The front page of Friday's Washington Post featured an article with a lead clearly framed through a liberal prism intended to paint Supreme Court nominee John Roberts as an extremist and/or a male chauvinist. "Roberts Resisted Women's Rights: 1982-86 Memos Detail Skepticism," declared the headline over the August 19 story it took three reporters to research and write, Amy Goldstein, R. Jeffrey Smith and Jo Becker (along with six more credited at the end of the article.) The loaded lead: "Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. consistently opposed legal and legislative attempts to strengthen women's rights during his years as a legal adviser in the Reagan White House, disparaging what he called 'the purported gender gap' and, at one point, questioning 'whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good.'"
For an excerpt from the August 19 Post article, and a link to it: www.mediaresearch.org Now, back to the August 26 Washington Post hit on Roberts, "In Article, Roberts's Pen Appeared to Dip South." An excerpt from the "news story" by Jo Becker: When John G. Roberts Jr. prepared to ghostwrite an article for President Ronald Reagan a little over two decades ago, his pen took a Civil War reenactment detour. The article, which was to appear in the scholarly National Forum journal, was called "The Presidency: Roles and Responsibilities." Roberts was writing by hand a section on how the congressional appropriations process had evolved. A fastidious editor of other people's copy as well as his own, Roberts began with the words "Until about the time of the Civil War." Then, the Indiana native scratched out the words "Civil War" and replaced them with "War Between the States."... While it is true that the Civil War is also known as the War Between the States, the Encyclopedia Americana notes that the term is used mainly by southerners. Sam McSeveney, a history professor emeritus at Vanderbilt University who specialized in the Civil War, said that Roberts's choice of words was significant. "Many people who are sympathetic to the Confederate position are more comfortable with the idea of a 'War Between the States,'" McSeveney explained. "People opposed to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s would undoubtedly be more comfortable with the words he chose." John M. Coski, the historian and library director of the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, said the term was commonplace in the South until the 1960s or early 1970s. He said some people use "War Between the States" out of habit, others think it quaint or iconoclastic, and still others use it because they believe the Confederacy was right to secede. "You can't always draw the inference that someone who uses the term does so with an ideological intent, but at the same time you can't be blind to the fact that some people do," Coski said.... END of Excerpt
For the short article in full: www.washingtonpost.com
His brother, Rush, devoted a segment of his Friday radio show to lambasting and ridiculing Becker's article. The posting of a transcript of his comments is accompanied online by a drawing of Roberts in a Confederate uniform: www.rushlimbaugh.com 
"Free universal healthcare has long been the crowning achievement of this socialist state," Boston Globe reporter Indira A.R. Lakshmanan touted from Havana in a front page story last Thursday. In the August 25 article headlined, "As Cuba loans doctors abroad, some patients object at home," Lakshmanan relayed all the cliches, promoted by the left, about the wonders of Cuban health care, without any regard to the accuracy of the figures or the quality of the health care workers. But before that, Lakshmanan blamed the U.S., not Cuba's communism, for the terrible state of its economy as she described it as "crippled by the U.S. embargo in place since 1963." The Globe reporter championed how, thanks to "one of the best doctor-patient ratios in the world," the "small country has made significant contributions to reducing infant mortality rates and serving disaster victims worldwide." Lakshmanan trumpeted how "advocates of the Cuban system point out that all Cubans are entitled to free healthcare and medicine, while more than 44 million American residents -- nearly one of six people -- have no health insurance."
The Boston Globe story reminded me of an even more enthusiastic newspaper story, which ran almost exactly a year ago, about the wonders of Cuban health care. From the August 16, 2004 CyberAlert:
For an excerpt from that tribute, go to: www.mediaresearch.org HAVANA -- Free universal healthcare has long been the crowning achievement of this socialist state, but the system is now under fire from Cubans who complain that quality and access are suffering as they lose tens of thousands of medical workers to Venezuela in exchange for cheap oil, which this impoverished country desperately needs. The close friendship between Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has netted Venezuela a loan of 20,000 Cuban health workers -- including 14,000 doctors, according to the Venezuelan government -- who work in poor barrios and rural outposts for stipends seven times higher on average than their salaries at home. Castro has vowed to send Chavez as many as 10,000 additional medical workers by year's end. In return for farming out more than one-fifth of its doctors to the petroleum-rich state, Cuba is permitted to import 90,000 barrels of oil a day from Venezuela under preferential terms. The arrangement gives Cuba's struggling economy, crippled by the US embargo in place since 1963, the biggest boost since the country lost Soviet subsidies in the early 1990s. The Cuban doctors program is wildly popular among Venezuela's poor. But Cubans have begun to object that the exodus of their healthcare workers is taking a toll on medical care for Cubans. Most people interviewed would speak only on condition that they not be identified or asked that just their first names be used, for fear of reprisals.... Cuban doctors and nurses have long worked overseas in humanitarian missions, and their small country has made significant contributions to reducing infant mortality rates and serving disaster victims worldwide. With one of the best doctor-patient ratios in the world, Cuba could afford to loan more than 52,000 medical workers over the last four decades to 95 needy countries, including Algeria, Equatorial Guinea, and Haiti, according to official figures. But over the last 2 1/2 years, as Castro and Chavez's cooperation has blossomed, the Cuban assistance program has substantially increased the number of medical workers overseas, with the overwhelming majority in Venezuela.... With 66,567 doctors, Cuba boasts a ratio of 1 doctor per 170 citizens, compared with 1 doctor per 188 residents in the United States, according to the World Health Organization. The emphasis on preventive, personalized care has yielded life expectancy rates almost identical to those in the United States, and infant mortality rates even lower than its northern neighbor's, WHO data show. Advocates of the Cuban system point out that all Cubans are entitled to free healthcare and medicine, while more than 44 million American residents -- nearly one of six people -- have no health insurance. The much-praised system has suffered setbacks, however, since the cutoff of Soviet aid some 15 years ago, with hospitals and clinics in need of renovation and equipment, pharmaceutical costs soaring, and patients complaining that they must bring their own bedclothes, sheets, food, and fans to hospitals. But complaints about a lack of medical personnel are new, dating to the cooperation with Venezuela that some observers disparagingly call the "oil-for-doctors program."... In a July 26 speech, Castro dedicated a long passage to improvements to healthcare, including renovations at 50 hospitals and repairs to nearly a third of 444 health centers known as polyclinics. Castro said nearly all polyclinics now have electrocardiographs and ultrasound. "I know how much a heart bypass costs in the US....I dream that one day Americans will come to Cuba to receive treatment," he said, to approving applause. But when he boasted that "100,000 Venezuelan brothers and sisters" will fly to Cuba for eye treatment this year, a number of Cubans watching at home groaned at what they perceive as favoritism toward outsiders. "It's all the Venezuelans who need cataracts surgery first, and then the Cubans if there's any time left," sniffed Georgina, 60, a retired Havana clerk. Carlos, a 37-year-old engineer with a chronic ear problem, used to get house calls. He resents waiting 20 days for an appointment because his specialist is in Venezuela. "Now when I need hearing tests, I see technicians who haven't even graduated yet," he muttered. Many medical workers interviewed dismissed the criticisms as the gripes of a spoiled population unaccustomed to waiting. "Before, there was a family doctor for every block or two of this city. Now you may have to walk six blocks -- so what?" scoffed Migdalia, a 57-year-old nurse at a Havana polyclinic. "It's still free and the quality is the same, you just have to make an appointment nowadays or wait....Cubans can even get plastic surgery -- a free boob job," she exclaimed, "so what are they complaining about?" Matilde, 56, a senior doctor in Camagüey, explained that ''before, we had a doctor in every factory, every school, every preschool. They were frankly underutilized. We've eliminated a lot of doctors at midlevel administrative desk jobs, and it's probably a leaner, more efficient system now."... Meanwhile, medical training in Cuba has been trimmed by two years, from six years of study and a minimum four years of residency, a change that will bring more doctors into the system faster. Medical school enrollment and graduation rates are up from last year, according to official figures. Matilde, a veteran of three overseas missions, added that Cubans shouldn't forget the exchange with Venezuela is not a one-way street; "Because of the US embargo, we need trade and oil from Venezuela. Cuba is benefiting too." END of Excerpt
For the article in full: www.boston.com -- Brent Baker, ending a long weeend in New Hampshire
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More slimy innuendo from the Washington Post aimed at portraying Supreme Court nominee John Roberts as an extremist, this time as someone who regrets slavery ended when the South lost the "War Between the States." A week-and-a-half after she was one of three reporters who wrote a front page hit job, "Roberts Resisted Women's Rights," which distorted an anti-lawyer quip into a slam at women becoming lawyers, Jo Becker got solo authorship on a page two story on Friday about how, when ghostwriting an article for President Reagan, Roberts "scratched out the words 'Civil War' and replaced them with 'War Between the States.'" Becker helpfully relayed how a professor told her that "'many people who are sympathetic to the Confederate position are more comfortable with the idea of a 'War Between the States,'" and, those "'opposed to the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s would undoubtedly be more comfortable with the words he chose.'" She none-too-subtly cited another expert who asserted that some people use "War Between the States" because "they believe the Confederacy was right to secede." 