The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : LA Times Loses Mind

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I haven't seen the real-paper version of Wednesday's LA Times, and I am ASSUMING that an editor had sense enough not to let this article see the real light of day (as opposed to the light of cyberspace), but still, whoever allowed this to be put up even "just" on the web has so little sense of objectivity, or scale or balance or neutral reading of basic facts, that he or she doesn't belong anywhere near the "straight news" side of a respectable newsroom. This was, apparently, the first full report on the Times web site on Tuesday night (after midnight Wednesday morning Eastern time, in other words well after the results were all in) about the election scene nationwide. And yes, the headline says the BIGGEST news is that the Dems won congressional victories in (blue) California and (blue) New York.

This must be the first time, EVER, that two House races have been given precedence over two major governor's races, in a national political roundup of a major paper for a city that didn't feature any of the races. And, lemme see, how again is it that a 4,000-vote margin in a purple district with all sorts of anomalies is more noteworthy than a 100,000-vote margin for governor of a major blue state going red?

Only in the TENTH paragraph of the story does this report get around to mentioning that "meanwhile," as in oh-by-the-way, Republicans won the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey. And in Virginia, well, the report makes sure to place the "proper" perspective on it: "In Virginia, McDonnell's victory was no surprise. A stronger, more polished candidate than Deeds, he had history on his side: Virginia voters have not elected a governor from the same party as the president in more than 30 years. The election was fought mainly over local issues; more jobs and better roads. McDonnell did his best to hug the middle, downplaying his conservative social views."

That's rich. After lovingly describing a supposedly epochal Republican split in New York, this article finally talks about the biggest landslide in VA history, and downplays it as "no surprise" with "history on his side" and not on national issues but mainly local ones, and McDonnell hugged the middle while hiding his conservatism. Yeah, right.

And in New Jersey, it was just a battle of two unpopular candidates, in a state that usually just "leans" Democratic. No national significance there at all: Christie "refrained from any criticism of Obama."

Oh -- and back to the Hoffman race. Scozzafava supposedly withdrew because of right-wing concern about abortion and gay marriage. Well, yes. But not a word, in the LA Times, about conservative disagreement with her on card check, ACORN, the stimulus package, taxes,.... etc etc etc etc etc etc etc......

Just us intolerant social Inquisitioners here, dontcha know.

But of course, the establishment media isn't biased. They assure us of that all the time.

View all comments (19) | Leave a comment

Hank Archer| 11.5.09 @ 4:33PM

Link is dead. "Patterico's Pontifications" had a screen capture of the page when I looked at his site a while ago.
patterico.com/

Brad Taylor| 11.5.09 @ 7:09PM

Great point. While abortion and gay marriage are very important to many, health care, taxes and card check matter a lot more to me. Media doesn't want to talk about card check. They just want to talk about those crazy right wing religious nuts ...

Lazy Jack| 11.5.09 @ 9:38PM

Reading this reminded me of the Washington Post 'Salon' scandal over the summer. See below for more thoughts.

The fourth estate, ever vigilant. The funniest example of this pattern are the headlines in the Rasmussen polls posted through Yahoo news. One headline screams,"34% say U.S. is heading in the right direction." In small print buried in the second paragraph the article points out that 60% believe the U.S. is on the wrong track. There appears to be a clear pattern of this type of reversal in the headlines. One has to wonder why. Gotta love it.

http://thanksforthelaughs.word.....-with-her/

ice9| 11.5.09 @ 9:46PM

Man, your stupid flew out of the screen and got in my eye. Damn aggregators.

"Blue NY"--funny. Funnier: AmSpec writers whinging about somebody's objectivity.

Today, VA and NJ have new governors, and more power. Nobody much said it was an Obama referendum except the people who believe that the falling leaves are an Obama referendum. But that NY-23 race...that's some precious stuff. I won't argue that it's an Obama referendum, either, though others do a pretty good job...what it is is a tasty piece of evidence that the teabaggers are pretty entertaining.

ice9

Socks| 11.6.09 @ 5:42AM

icehole

Johnno| 11.6.09 @ 9:30PM

Icehole,

If anyone knows about 'teabagging' it's you perverts on the left. No wonder you bring it up so much. Loser.

Roy| 11.5.09 @ 11:56PM

So uh, TAS, howsabout that there "ignore" button, so that the kind of jackass who writes "teabaggers" doesn't waste my screen space any more?

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martin j smith| 11.6.09 @ 7:55AM

It is what it is--as they say--What do you expect of the LAT or the NYT or the WAPO ? etc etc. Just keep blogging along with alternative views ( i..e the truth ) and expose them for what they are.

Oldefarte| 11.6.09 @ 10:18AM

Assuming the L A Times' preference was concerning Claifornia races, I'm not sure why that should surprise anyone. After all, Nancy Pilosi told all of us that 'We/Democrats won', right? The only amazing/astonishing thing is that the American people/taxpayers/voters ALLOW liberals like Pilosi and newspapers like the L A Times to remain in power or in existence!!!!

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pamela| 4.11.10 @ 11:40PM

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