Paul Begala nails it, in response to an utterly idiotic question by the usual media moron (in this case CNN's John Roberts), asking "Why can't Barack Obama make that point stick?"
Because the press won't do its job, John...it is the media's job when a politician flat out lies like she's doing on this "bridge to nowhere" to call her on it. Or this matter of earmarks, where she's attacking Barack Obama for having earmarks. When she was the mayor of little Wasilla, Alaska, 6,000 people, she hired a lobbyist who was connected to Jack Abramoff, who's a criminal, and they brought home $27 million in earmarks. She carried so much pork home she got trichinosis, but we in the media are letting her tell lies about her record.
Of course, the idiot media moron then has to conclude by making the comment, "We still have 56 days to talk about this back and forth." As Steve Benen of Washington Monthly points out:
...We don't need 56 seconds of "back and forth." There's an objective truth here, and CNN, as a neutral, independent news source, is supposed to tell viewers what the facts are.But CNN can't do that, because reality has a well known liberal bias. If Roberts conceded that Begala was telling the truth about demonstrable facts, then he'd be "taking sides." For a media figure to acknowledge that a candidate for national office is lying shamelessly would be wholly unacceptable -- it would break with the "balance" between competing arguments.
As usual, the media's got to pretend that there are "two sides" to everything. Thus, if a Democrat comes on and says that the earth is round, and a Republican says it's flat (not that this would ever happen - ha!), the media moron will say some variant of, "Well, we have xx days to debate this fascinating question, now back to my fellow media morons busy jabbering about the latest shark attack and/or missing white girl."
And the corporate media wonders why people don't respect it? My question is, why does anyone watch this crap?
"The state, however, never gave back any of the money that was originally earmarked for the Gravina Island bridge."
There's a recap of the lie about "telling Congress thanks but no thanks" regarding the Bridge to Nowhere, among other things:
http://mediamatters.org/items/...
What was the real chronology of this project? It isn't complex. Here we go:THE CHRONOLOGY: In the summer of 2005, Congress directed Alaska to build the bridge using federal funds. After Hurricane Katrina hit in September, this use of federal funds turned into a political firestorm. In November 2005, Congress rescinded its order-but Alaska was allowed to keep the federal money that had been earmarked for the bridge; the money could now be used for any purpose the state saw fit. One year later, in her campaign for governor, Palin said she still favored building the bridge. She finally dropped the idea in September 2007-specifically saying that Congress wouldn't give the state any more money for the project.
the media moron will say some variant of, "Well, we have xx days to debate this fascinating question, now back to my fellow media morons busy jabbering about the latest shark attack and/or missing white girl."You don't hear about missing minority girls much on national news.
Yeah, the media, having corporate concerns, are obviously restricted from telling the truth. This is why Upton Sinclair's "the Jungle" is a historic piece of literature rather than the norm in investigative journalism. Muckrakers is a bad terms for people rather than a medal of honor. Good thing blogs are slowly replacing pamphlets.
NPR and PBS need more funding too, btw.