Halperin Decries 'Disgusting' Pro-Obama Media Bias in Election Coverage

Would have been helpful had Halperin raised his charge during the campaign, rather than after it.

Would also have been helpful had the media reported more fully-- especially early in the process-- on candidates' positions, rather than on the 'horse race'. It was not helpful that the media designated front runners in both the GOP and Democratic presidential races before a single caucus or primary vote had been cast.

As well, too much time is being spent covering the media, rather than the candidates and the issues.

I need the media to inform me about candidates' positions and careers, not about who is ahead in the polls or who was covered in what blog. The quality of political reporting has descended to truly alarming lows.

Yeah, no mention of how Hillary was treated in the media and how the media is now covering her posible position of SOS. They are rehashing all the negative storeis on Clinton and seem to be upset that Obama is considering her. Halperin and those others on MSNBC beat upon on poor Hillary and intentionally spread lies about her and the former president. I don't blame Obama - I Blame the media. BTW, Jake, you mentioned that Spanish AD ran by the Obama campaign - have you forgotten the McCain AD about Obama teaching kids sex in 2nd grade. That was the most disgusting and evil - can't you see that.

Also, Erika - Chill OUT - McCain loss.

Unbelievable 2008,

You're right. What is such a big deal about Obama releasing his birth certificate? I was always under the impression that nobody would ever be able to run for president without doing that, but evidently there's a gaping hole there. According to "Proofin' the prez: Who's in charge?" (WorldNetDaily), it's the Electoral College's job to check out his credentials (which seems very late in the process to me, coming after the election), and then a matter for impeachment. Whatever happens, this hole needs to be closed so that there won't be any controversies like this ever again. If you're going to run, you have to release your birth certificate. That shouldn't be controversial.

It is simply unnecessary for Mark to raise this topic. It is already a proven fact the media bias has never been more disgustingly obvious than in this election. Now the drones dare to whisper about the fairness doctrine?! I would hope those who know better are unaffected by these media assimilation tactics.

The liberal establishment media’s coverage of this election was extremely biased. It was like the Huffington Post had completely taken it over. No distortion was out-of-bounds.

When Karl Rove said BOTH campaigns had been less than truthful, the Obama campaign turned that into “Even Karl Rove said McCain hasn’t been truthful” in a press statement, and CNN and Joe Klein, among others, reported it that way. That’s a huge half-truth distortion from the Obama campaign itself, on the issue of HONESTY, but it was the McCain campaign that was simply put in the black hat and branded “dishonest,” while the Obama campaign was held up as pure-as-snow “honest.” The Obama campaign also created this talking point that McCain was so dishonest, just to discredit him, and the media happily trumpeted it.

And on every other point of the election, the media acted like an arm of the Obama campaign, putting everything about McCain in the worst possible light while going soft on Obama and arguing in defense of his point-of-view and the Democrats’ as much as possible, from the economic crisis to “lipstick on a pig.” The media was always there to stretch their imaginations to imagine Obama’s position, but never did the same for McCain, whose position was always half-empty rather than half-full. It’s hard to even pick out examples of the bias since the whole election is one big example.

How about:

When McCain suspended his campaign, he drew even with Obama in the Gallup poll. Maybe the move looked presidential, which is why Democrats threw a fit and almost put up a blockade around Washington to keep him away. And the media helped them, as usual during this campaign, by driving the story as the Democrats spun it, and not considering, for balance, that it could be a good, and welcome move.

The Obama campaign and the media spun his remarks from 2001 on “major redistributive change,” which he clearly supported, while also implying that it is possible for courts to interpret the Constitution in a radically different manner than it has always been interpreted.

Obama and the media knew that the Secret Service had determined that no one yelled “kill him” about him at Sarah Palin rallies, but he mentioned it at the final debate and the media trumpeted this story all over the place. According to “The Secret Service and the Obama Death Threat,” (Newsweek): “But even before Obama cited ‘reports’ of the threats at the debate, the U.S. Secret Service had told media outlets, including NEWSWEEK, that it was unable to corroborate accounts of the ‘kill him’ remarks—and according to a law-enforcement official, who asked for anonymity when discussing a political matter, the Obama campaign knew as much.” See also: “In Fla., Palin Goes for the Rough Stuff as Audience Boos Obama,” Washington Post (the original report), “Milbank: Secret Service hasn’t called UPDATE,” Politico, and “Secret Service says ‘Kill him’ allegation unfounded,” Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. But the public is still misinformed on this, and I imagine that years from now we’ll still hear “experts” on TV refer to murderous mobs at Palin rallies, as well as the dishonest McCain campaign, and that Republicans alone caused the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac crisis. Many people still bring it up.

The media was also there to attack every ad and every claim of Republicans as a lie or distortion, no matter what the facts were.

What say you?
I ....say one thing only...
News Media wake up and Stand for the TRUTH.....PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!!!!
We the American public DEMAND that Mr. Barack H. Obama show the public "his Birth cert." The "real birth cert." not the joker is wild one...we the public know the real from the false....Does the media care more for their paychecks and jobs are they willing to sell us out or can they stand up and SAY show us.... we want to see it! Get together as one big FAT group? We watch and stress... your gameplay is running out of TIME! Honesty has always been the best way to save one's SOULS!!!!!! Can we count on ANY of you ALL?....PLEASE?
HELP US SAVE THE U.S.A. Thas been more than NASTY to have had to wait and watch....

Mark Halperin is just jealous he can't run for president because he isn't a natural born citizen.

Evan, you wrote:

“who ruined America for the past 8 years?....oh ya, thats right, corrupt republicans too worried about their own pocket books to care about the health of the nation.…”

First, the media completely distorted the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac crisis, turning the floor over to the Democrats to give their version of it, which blamed Bush, Republicans, Wall Street, and Reagan, and throwing objective coverage out the window. That threw the advantage to them on the economics question in the election, the biggest advantage of all. It was likely the deciding factor.

The truth is, Democrats were heavily involved in the FM/FM crisis, and they got away with it scott-free! Many are now back in Congress with the public never hearing about how they and some of their fellow party members outside of Congress helped cost the American people $700 billion, and who knows how much more. That was simply negligently dishonest journalism on the part of our media.

Look up these articles, which are among the few which went against the wall-to-wall prevailing coverage that this was strictly a Republican failure:

“Who Caused the Economic Crisis?” (Factcheck), “Fannie Mae and the Vast Bipartisan Conspiracy,” (Slate), “How Washington Failed to Rein In Fannie, Freddie” (Washington Post), “Dodd and Frank, step down,” (Providence Journal), “If Not Now, When? (Hartford Courant), and “Senator Dodd’s Notion of Courtesy.” The last two discuss how Sen. Dodd failed as promised before the election to release documents related to loans he got from Countrywide, which was involved in the sub-prime mess. I’m not sure that he has even to this day.

About "the last eight years," conditions are constantly changing. The 90's saw the end of the Cold War, as the 50's, another boom time, also did. And the baby boomers retiring now, rather than all in the workforce, is a crisis in itself.

Why in Heaven's name would ANYONE care about Mark Halperin's tedious right-wing gripes? Seriously, who's a fan of that guy? Really?

The disgusting, extremely biased, extremely pro-Obama media didn't tell you what Robert Chapman, a retired US intelligence officer, tells you:

"When my Democratic candidates in the primary were knocked down to Hillary and Obama, I began to look into Obama’s background and became alarmed at what I found. But I was fascinated. What I was finding was not reported by the media. It was like being back in intelligence, similar to a counterintelligence analyst, putting pieces of information together.
...
The assembled coalition was put together not by the Democratic Party but by Obama-styled “organizers.” The ideology began 50 or 60 years ago and its implementation began in protest to the Vietnam War and continued afterwards. It was slow, slow, patient, pragmatic organization mixed with hard, never before seen campaign tactics derived from Alinsky's Rules for Radicals."

See fundamentaloption dot blogspot dot com

There were many examples of media bias. One which I found astounding was the lack of coverage of the feminists who did support Sarah Palin. The only one who really covered it was Greta Van Susteren on Fox News. And at the end, a Democrat speech writer Wendy Button came out for McCain - total blackout.

But we heard of every Republican who spoke positively about Obama or negatively about McCain.

Great job main stream media! No wonder people are now saying they trust the internet more for news than print and television. I found out about these things on the internet.

What's disgusting is the fact that Halprin and other's say this NOW, when in fact they should have decried their disgust during the primary and the sexist treatment of Hillary Clinton while they all 'gushed' over Obama.

I know I should just bite my tongue, but I just have to respond to Evan's diatribe against Republicans. First, I must point out how tiresome it is that we Republicans are constantly being lectured that we should put aside partisan differences and get behind our incoming president-- which most of us, I should point out, are doing (despite, not because of, the lectures, I might add). But some of those same lecturers find it perfectly acceptable to spew hate and derision on Bush and Republicans-- no, that's not partisan or divisive, now is it?

So, on to Evan's post. He wrote, "Yeah, Democrats are so dumb...oh wait, who ruined America for the past 8 years?...." Umm, Evan, America has not been ruined in the past 8 years. For most of Bush's 2 terms, in fact, things went well. He led a government that prevented any further terrorist attacks on American soil after 9/11 and engineered an economic recovery after that devastating blow as well. Yes, lately things have gone terribly awry, but that is not "the past 8 years" and, as I recall, for the past two years, Republicans have not controlled Congress. But Evan claims, "oh ya, thats right, corrupt republicans too worried about their own pocket books to care about the health of the nation...." That's too childish to require a reasoned response.

I'd rather get to his next statement: "And please, keep spending money on the war and keep asking "Gee how could this economic crisis happen?" maybe because you doubled the deficit by spending billions of dollars that does nothing more than kill..." Wait, the current plans to swell the deficit in the name of saving the economy are okay, remember? That's the Democratic talking point and I tend to agree, with reservations. Different leaders will have different ideas about what is crucial enough to our future to justify deficit spending. Bush felt the war on terror justified it. And I have always wondered about this fixation some Democrats have about the expenses of the war in Iraq. Yes, some money was misspent, with inadequate oversight and waste. But most of the money spent on this war, or any war, is not simply "wasted" money spent on "killing." We pay salaries of military and contractors-- that's jobs, which is important, right? We buy material to prosecute the war--- trucks, munitions, uniforms, binoculars, you name it, most of it was manufactured in America by American workers. Remember how WWII helped end the Great Depression? War can help stimulate an economy. We did not simply take the money to Iraq and burn it in the desert-- we spent in, much of it in the United States.

You can lecture me on the mote in my eye when you remove the log in your own.

Saying the media was biased for Obama is like saying all the headlines that say the market rebound yesterday and Friday was due to Citi's rescue. Everybody knows that the real reason for the rebound was Obama's economic team announcements, but the media doesn't want Obama to have the positive credit he deserves.

The market began recovering on Friday immediately after the Geithner appointment. Citi had not been rescued on Friday. Nobody's happy about Citi's rescue, not even small community banks that Paulson won't help. The only people rallying on that news are short-sellers who screwed up your 401Ks thanks to Cox and Paulson.

The media has been biased AGAINST reporting positively about Obama and his plans.

A number of individuals here say they don't listen to the media but do their own research instead. Tell me, where exactly DO you do this independent research and get your information?

The media bias was evident right here on this very blog. There were plenty of times I came here to comment during the primaries, and depending on which intern was moderating, I would see pro-Hillary/anti-Obama comments wiped and the Obama ones kept up.

This continued into the general election, where many anti-Obama comments here were removed and pro-Obama or anti-McCain comments were left standing, even the most rude and foul-mouthed ones.

Individual eporters (not the media) are trying to get their story to print or to air ahead of everyone else and the only way that happens is to find an enterprising, controversial, sexy angle. Even Halperin here for example, looks for the controversy angle to get his top billing. How boring would it be to have him say that election coverage was even-handed.

The truth is that media coverage goes to what is making news. A reporter isn't looking to spin a positive or negative story, a reporter looks for a positive or negative hook to make a story more interesting and exciting.

Yeah, Democrats are so dumb...oh wait, who ruined America for the past 8 years?....oh ya, thats right, corrupt republicans too worried about their own pocket books to care about the health of the nation....And please, keep spending money on the war and keep asking "Gee how could this economic crisis happen?" maybe because you doubled the deficit by spending billions of dollars that does nothing more than kill...

and to anyone who calls obama inexperienced, i would rather see someone untested go into office rather than 2 morons who have failed their entire lives......

At least all the negative press that was given to McCain over the election was well deserved. Id rather know the truth about his horrible service record in the military that he tries to hide behind (just like he hid behind his father his whole life) and the fact that he picked Palin as his running mate and then all of the jackass irresponsible things she did in office (i love how they call Obama inexperienced when Palin is even LESS experienced and was expected to be VP, its a riot that will surely go down as one of the biggest political jokes in history). All the negative press gathered by right wing media was totally bogus...yeah obama is a muslim....wow thats not racist or anything. Lets boo hoo and whine even thought you got beat fair and square