In a rather hilarious bit of news, both the Michelle Bachmann campaign and the Ron Paul campaign are accusing CBS NEWS of bias in the way that it conducted last night's republican presidential debate. Paul's campaign points out that the Congressman only got 89 seconds out of an hour and a half debate to answer questions. Bachmann's staff has released the text of an e-mail mistakenly sent to them in which a CBS producer mentioned before the start of the debate that Bachmann would not get many questions. In other words, CBS steered the questions away from Bachmann and Paul. In short, CBS did display bias.
The real question, however, is why anyone could be upset at bias at CBS. That is sort of like being shocked at bias at a Klan meeting. All one had to do is listen to the hostile tone of the questions coming CBS's Scott Pelley and compare it to that of the questions from Major Garrett of National Journal and the bias was clear. Pelley seemed to design his questions to knock down the candidates whenever he could. Indeed, his exchange with Newt Gingrich about the use of American millitary power to kill "American citizens suspected of terror activities" put a clear spotlight on the CBS bias. Newt corrected Pelley that Anwar al Alawki was not "suspected" but was a known terrorist who was a target by law. Pelley could not let that go and pointed out in a rather smug manner that there had been no court action so Alaski could not have been targeted by law. Gingrich then, in a rather masterful moment, explained to Pelley the difference between "law" when it pertains to a criminal trial and when it pertains to combatants in a war. Newt managed to shut up Pelley with the facts.
We should all remember that it was CBS that put the phony charges on 60 minutes that George W. Bush had skipped his National Guard meetings years earlier. The whole CBS charge was based upon a forged document that people on the internet were able to recognize as a forgery even though CBS somehow missed it. The key, though, was that CBS announced at the time that while the document may not have been real, the charges against Bush may still have been valid. The evidence against Bush was totally phony, but CBS was still pushing the charges. No bias there!
Just remember, the C and B in CBS NEWS stands for Completely Biased.
2 comments:
I have no doubt that CBS is biased and you are correct in calling it and Scott Pelley out on it.
However, I don't see how a memo indicating a plan to give Michelle Bachmann less time than the amount to be given to leading candidates such as Romney, Cain and Gingrich is evidence of bias. It would have been justified if CBS had removed Bachmann from the debate -- alomg with Huntsmann -- just based on her poll numbers. Instead, they decided to allow her to participate but with reduced amount of time. That sounds eminently reasonable. If Fox had done that, I doubt that conervatives would have accused it of bias. The same standard should apply to CBS.
If CBS wants to reduce the time given to particular candidates, it should say it will do so in advance. Instead, it holds a supposedly fair debate and slants the number of questions given to each candidate. It is media bias at its worst; CBS slants the result but pretends that it has not.
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