Media use Republican disarray to bash Democrats
SUMMARY: In recent days, AP writer Tom Raum and U.S. News & World Report contributing editor Gloria Borger have taken pot shots at Democrats while ostensibly writing about problems within the Republican Party.
In recent days, Associated Press writer Tom Raum and Gloria Borger, a CBS News contributor and U.S. News & World Report contributing editor, have taken pot shots at Democrats while ostensibly writing about problems within the Republican Party.
In an April 3 AP article about Republican criticism of President Bush on issues ranging from "Iraq to deficits, from immigration to port security," Raum wrote that "Republicans these days are almost sounding like perennially divided Democrats." Raum went on to assert that "[t]he only solace to frustrated Republicans could be that Democrats seem to be struggling themselves to come up with unified positions on Iraq and many other major issues." As evidence, Raum cited only a joke Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) told at the Gridiron Club of Washington, D.C.'s annual roast on March 13.
From Raum's April 3 article, "Republicans Increasingly Critical of Bush":
From Iraq to deficits, from immigration to port security, some of the most pointed criticism leveled at President Bush is coming from within his own party. Republicans these days are almost sounding like perennially divided Democrats.
[...]
The only solace to frustrated Republicans could be that Democrats seem to be struggling themselves to come up with unified positions on Iraq and many other major issues.
"They say Democrats don't stand for anything. That's patently untrue. We do stand for anything," Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., joked at a recent press dinner.
Similarly, in her column in the April 10 issue of U.S. News, Borger wrote: "Under normal circumstances, when the press characterizes a party that is (a) in disarray, (b) seeking an identity, or (c) without a message, it's usually the Democrats." Borger added: "After all, they have no unifying agenda, and, even if they did, they wouldn't rally around it. They're Democrats. This time, however, it's the Republicans who can't get their act together."
From Borger's April 10 U.S. News & World Report column:
Under normal circumstances, when the press characterizes a party that is (a) in disarray, (b) seeking an identity, or (c) without a message, it's usually the Democrats. After all, they have no unifying agenda, and, even if they did, they wouldn't rally around it. They're Democrats. This time, however, it's the Republicans who can't get their act together. With a president at 34 percent in the polls, an upcoming election with control of the Congress in play, and 2008 just a blink away (really), the GOP is moving into its post-Bush phase -- and it's not pretty.
that's two more on the Rove payroll . . .
I thought Borger was supposed to be a journalist. After reading her I obviously was mistaken because what she wrote sounds like a Rove talking point hot off the email express.
Sorry for the confusion Gloria.
It won't happen again.
I promise.
Again, it's insulting to hear these smug 'journalists' sit back and tell us what is really going on... it's garbage.
Have you ever known a career politician NOT to have some sort of position on ANYTHING? The whole notion is utterly ridiculous... of course Democrats have ideas and policies and thoughts... Would be SO refreshing to hear...just once... one of these smug idiots tell the people what the Dem policies are and let us make up our own mind...
invite some Democrats on and let them talk -- without shouting at them.
... is the proposition that, no matter how bad, how incompetent, how corrupt, how destructive, how divided, or how hateful the Republicans become ...
... it can always be said that the Democrats are WORSE.
With this "reasoning", of course, a populous could support another Adolph Hitler ... or even Adloph himself ... based on the rationalization that the alternative, his opponent, would be WORSE. And this is based on ... that's right ... mere SPECULATION on the part of the speaker. This is the absolute definition of blind partisanship, and we'll be seeing it more and more in the months to come ... from our "mainstream" media and all their talking heads.
Blind partisanship is what defines the Republicans today. Today, the Democratic Party has room for the left, the center and the right. The MSM has portrayed this as some form of disease. It's not.
The Republican Party used to have room for everyone from Nelson Rockefeller to Barry Goldwater, Not so anymore.
In years gone by, both parties would try to reach some consensus and take their message to the people on election day. Those who were elected would work together to reach a compromise and enact legislation. That's how representative government is supposed to work. Because of the Republican control of congress, the white house and the MSM, the playing field has now been changed. Everything is now black or White, with us or against us, up is down, etc.
Hopefully with the announcement today of Tom DeLay's resignation from congress, the Republicans will start their free fall.
It's called fascism.
there goes that so-called "LIBERAL MEDIA' again.
"The only solace to frustrated Republicans could be that Democrats seem to be struggling themselves to come up with unified positions on Iraq and many other major issues."
What kind of mono-cogitative world do these simpletons live in? The reason Iraq is a cataclysmic slaughterhouse is Rumsfeld's battle plan of "big guns go boom boom, bad people die, good people flourish in glorious democracy in 6 days, 6 weeks, I doubt 6 months time."
There is no possible "unified position" on Iraq. There are military positions, economic positions, diplomatic positions, religious positions (missionary positions?) that must all be not only thoroughly debated and planned, but flexibly executed to get us out of that immoral and unprovoked conflagration. This is not Sesame Street.
AP was one of my last best hopes for "excellence in journalism" with a mission statement that includes "we abhor inaccuracies, carelessness, bias or distortions."
Don't we all. Don't we all.