FAIR and Balanced

10/15/2010

Listening to CounterSpin by FAIR definitely forces one to look at publications like The New York Times in a different light.  First on the docket: “Tea Party Set to Win Enough Races for Wide Influence,” by Kate Zernike.  One would think that a political writer for the Times would be well enough aware that the “Tea Party” is not a cohesive and singular movement, rather a bunch of disparate and frankly clumsily organized entities with often markedly different agendas and goals.

Here’s a rather amazing one from the Washington Post: “In 2010, may the manliest candidate win: Are the political men of 2010 not man enough for the job?” Are you fucking kidding me? This is not from a high school newspaper; this isn’t even from the Washington Times! It’s from the friggin’ Washington Post, a supposed ‘newspaper of record’!

“W.Va Senate hopeful Joe Manchin has one problem: That pesky ‘D’ after his name” – another WaPo article.  Polls have continually shown that as a whole, Republicans are still less popular than Democrats, which is obviously not saying much, but still-this narrative that anyone with a “pesky ‘D’ after his name” fits into the infamous ‘beltway common wisdom’ Rachel Maddow always speaks of.