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May 27, 2008 |
Volume 2, Number 4
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LIBERAL PARANOIA: MEDIA SEE
ELECTION THEFT IN NOVEMBER |
During MSNBC’s live coverage of the May 20
presidential primaries, NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell
channeled Democratic “realists” to promote the idea that
Republican election officials would try to deny Barack Obama a
“fair vote” in November. Mitchell’s suggestion — that
Republicans (but not Democrats?) cannot be trusted to run an
election — echoes her colleague Keith Olbermann’s
embarrassing
effort four years ago to dismiss President Bush’s 2004 victory
as the byproduct of a sinister scheme involving rigged voting
machines in Ohio. [Audio/video (0:42):
Windows Media (2.58 MB)
and MP3 Audio (197 kB)]
Noting Obama's strategists believe he can win states that
previously went Republican, Mitchell raised the counter-argument
posed by "realists" working for Hillary Clinton: "Other Clinton
loyalists, but realists, say that [Obama's] electoral map is a
stretch in one regard: There are, you know, Republican Governors
and Secretaries of State, if you will, Katherine Harris-type
election officials in those states. So, even though he may have
won primaries or caucuses in those states, he has to go up
against the establishment, which would be Republican, and he has
to figure out a way to get a fair vote if he's the nominee in
those red states."
If a Republican campaign had raised such a baseless and paranoid
theory about Democratic election officials, journalists would
have ridiculed it as a desperate smear rather than promoted it
as a realistic analysis. But impugning the GOP as the party of
disenfranchisement is evidently a media theme.
On May 23, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, who in his 2001
book claimed that Al Gore was the true winner in Florida (even
though a media recount determined Bush was the real victor),
appeared on PBS's Bill Moyers Journal to decry a new Indiana law
requiring that voters show identification at the polls. Toobin
condemned it as "a very clear attempt by Republicans to stop
Democrats from voting....The fact is, electoral fraud scarcely
exists in this country. The real agenda was to help
Republicans." [Audio/video (1:11):
Windows Media (4.33
MB) and MP3 Audio
(313 kB)]
Imagining GOP dirty tricks every four years might soothe
liberals who cannot fathom that voters would reject them in a
fair election. But supposedly objective journalists should know
better than to promote a partisan fairy tale that casts
Democrats as perpetual victims of those awful, evil Republicans.
For more, see the
May 21
and
May 27
CyberAlerts.
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