Obama the "Rock Star" & America "Goose-Steps" -- 07/28/2004 - Media Research Center

For Immediate Release: Katie Wright (703) 683-5004 - Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Democratic Convention, Day 2: Tom Pops the Question: "What Did You Mean" by "Un-American"

Obama the "Rock Star" &
America "Goose-Steps"

To document the heights (or depths) of liberal media bias during the week of the Democratic convention in Boston, the Media Research Center staff is preparing twice-daily CyberAlerts. For more detail, come to our Web site at www.mrc.org. The following items are a sampling of the latest findings of notable convention media coverage:

• Another Democratic "Rock Star." MSNBC's on-air crew lionized Democratic keynoter Barack Obama. "He is the best argument for the American dream that's around in politics," oozed Newsweek's Howard Fineman on MSNBC before Andrea Mitchell celebrated how "Obama is a rock star!" Chris Matthews insisted that he'd "just seen the first black President."

Compassionate Communism • Your American Idols. Gushing about the "rock star" quality of Bill and Hillary Clinton the night before, network reporters declared the first night of the Democratic confab a success on Tuesday morning. "People were juiced like I don't think I've seen at a convention ever before," enthused ABC's Charles Gibson. CBS's Hannah Storm said "it was absolutely electric." As for Bill Clinton's speech, NBC's Katie Couric insisted that "almost everybody, even the opposition, agreed last night that he was masterful."

• Comparing Americans to Nazis? MSNBC's Chris Matthews seemingly raised a Nazi comparison to U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan as he asserted that "I don't think we like to be the people goose-stepping through the world."

• Look to Communist China for Moral Leadership? The CBS Evening News on Tuesday matched Democrats' theme on embryonic stem cell research, holding up communist China with its forced abortion policies (though CBS naturally didn't mention that) as a moral leader on the issue. Reporter Barry Petersen lamented that politics prevents American-funded scientists from killing embryos: "The kind of surgery being done in this Chinese hospital is virtually off limits in America. A treatment using cells from an aborted fetus is just too controversial in today's politically-charged climate."

• Tom Pops the Question. While ABC and CBS kept up their sympathetic coverage of Teresa Heinz Kerry, NBC's Tom Brokaw actually confronted her with her own words: "Let's be absolutely clear about this. Did you use the phrase 'un-American traits'?" Mrs. Kerry conceded: "Un-Pennsylva-nian and sometimes un-American traits." Brokaw pressed, "And what did you mean?" That was the question that made her so mad on Sunday that she told a Pennsylvania journalist to "shove it."

• More, More, More! Some reporters actually used the liberal label last night to identify Ted Kennedy and Barack Obama, Judy Woodruff complained about the GOP's lack of "musical diversity," and CBS compared Bush to Michael Dukakis in the tank. Get all the details at www.mrc.org

- Tim Graham, Brent Baker, and Rich Noyes