The past week has given us a nice selection of textbook examples of media bias. And not surprisingly, they all revolve around a common theme.
I'm going to warn you right off that right now, I'm mad as hell. So bear with me.
First, the State of Hawaii suspended its state-financed universal health care program for children. After only seven months -- SEVEN MONTHS -- cost overruns and abuse of the system forced the program to end. SEVEN MONTHS. This is huge. I mean REALLY BIG -- socialized medicine fails in a state that ranks 42nd in population, with only 1.2 million residents.
And why did it fail? Would you believe ... "People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free," said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. "I don't believe that was the intent of the program."
No shit, Sherlock. But can you blame them? Think about it. You and your wife both work, you make a decent living, and then get gouged by the government through taxes so you can have the privilege of paying for someone else's health care, while barely being able to afford your own. Who wouldn't want to get back just a little of what they were forced to pay into the system?
This story ended up on the AP wire and was covered by numerous news outlets, but the New York Times just couldn't seem find room for it among all the dirt they were dying to publish about Cindy McCain and Joe the Plumber. More about him later.
The reason for this, of course, is that the failure of socialized medicine in Hawaii doesn't fit "the narrative." It doesn't jibe with the image of the compassionate Big Rock Candy Government lending a helping hand to anyone in need, and the unteachable, pitifully-ignorant masses wiping the tears from their eyes and kissing the feet of their Dear Leaders, unspeakably grateful to them for "leveling the playing field" and "spreading the wealth around."
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The next item is the endorsement of Barack Obama by Colin Powell. Powell is a Republican (Ooooooooo!) and served as Secretary of State during George W. Bush's first term, so the cable networks, mainstream media bloggers, and newspapers have been wild with anticipation about it all weekend -- there used to be a lot of buzz among Republicans about a Colin Powell presidential run, and if Powell is endorsing Obama, then that must mean that a lot of Republicans will give Obama a second look, and if that happens ... so you see why the mainstream media is so excited.
Now let's look at another interesting political endorsement -- the endorsement of John McCain by JOE LIEBERMAN. Remember him? The 2000 DEMOCRAT VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE? Bet you didn't even hear about that endorsement, unless you read a lot of conservative blogs. Where is the media hype? Where is the buzz? Where is the day-in/day-out news cycle coverage of his continued campaigning for McCain? Why isn't every Sunday talking-head show chattering endlessly about it?
I'll tell you why -- if Lieberman is endorsing McCain, then a lot of disgruntled/PUMA/conservative/redneck Democrats might give McCain a second look, and if that happens ... which doesn't fit the narrative of an Obama landslide of hope and change on Nov. 4. So it cannot be discussed, period.
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Finally we come to "Joe the Plumber," Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, a plumber's apprentice from Ohio who was approached by Barack Obama last week during an afternoon of door-to-door campaigning by The One. Wurzelbacher committed the unpardonable sin -- he coaxed His Holiness into giving an off-the-cuff speech, sans teleprompter, and Obama made a little Marxist Freudian slip. John McCain seized upon Obama's slip and mercilessly beat him with it during last Wednesday's debate.
For this act of apostasy, Joe The Plumber was marked for destruction:
The dirt-diggers started Googling. And the next morning, six-term Sen. Biden launched the first salvo against the Ohio entrepreneur on NBC’s Today Show, challenging the veracity of his story: “I don’t have any ‘Joe the Plumbers’ in my neighborhood that make $250,000 a year.” (Does Biden have ANY plumbers in his neighborhood? -ed)
... Wurzelbacher never claimed to be making $250,000 a year. He told Obama that he might be “getting ready to buy a company that makes about $250,000, $270,000″ a year. His simple point was that Obama’s punitive tax proposals would make it more difficult to realize his dream.
Obama’s followers couldn’t handle the incontrovertible truth. Left-wing blogs immediately went to work, blaring headlines like “Not A Real $250k Plumber!” Next, they falsely accused Wurzelbacher of not being registered to vote (he’s registered in Lucas County, Ohio, and voted as a Republican in this year’s primary).
... Then, suddenly, the journalists who wouldn’t lift a finger to investigate Barack Obama’s longtime relationships with Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright sprang into action rifling through citizen Joe Wurzelbacher’s tax records. Politico.com reported breathlessly: “Samuel J. Wurzelbacher has a lien placed against him to the tune of $1,182.92. The lien is dated from January of ‘07.” Press outlets probed his divorce records. The local plumbers’ union, which has endorsed Obama, claimed he didn’t do their required apprenticeship work and didn’t have a license to work outside his local township. (DailyKos also published Wurzelbacher's home address. -ed)
... After Wurzelbacher told Katie Couric that Obama’s rhetorical tap dance was “almost as good as Sammy Davis, Jr.,” the inevitable cries of “bigotry” followed. (There are now tens of thousands of hits on the Internet for “Joe the Plumber racist.”)
And if that wasn't enough, The Messiah then took it upon himself to mock Joe Wurzelbacher:
A commenter noted, "Obama says the words "a plumber making $250,000 a year" with such disdainful contempt. Like a mere plumber couldn't possibly
work his way into the elite white-collar tax bracket that Obama and his
Ivy League pals inhabit, oh no, that's a laughable presumption for
peasants like Joe."
Jim Treacher observed, "Is it just me, or have we seen more vetting of an Ohio plumber in the last 2 days than we've seen of Obama's mentor William Ayers all year? (Not to mention Obama himself!) Both Bill and Joe are embarrassing to Obama because they've given us glimpses of his true nature, and yet only one of them is being put through the wringer. Only one of them has to fear for his job. Weird, huh?" He also notes, "The whole "He's not a licensed plumber!" non sequitur is really fantastic. So, if you happen to be standing in front of Obama when he publicly reveals his socialism, what does the media do? Demands to see your papers. That's just delicious, is what that is."
Well here's a funny thing, Mr. Messiah-to-Assholes. I happen to know an honest, hard-working young man who is an apprentice plumber. He is not "licensed." Currently he manages a plumbing supply store. Yet a friend and customer of his, a retiring plumber, really, really likes my friend and has offered to sell him his plumbing business when he retires. When that happens, of course, my friend will get his license and join the union. Incredibly, it happens all the time! So thank you, Barack Obama, for making it perfectly clear how you feel about people like my friend -- "Screw you, you'll never be successful, and I only give a shit about you when it makes me look good. And here's your puny tax cut, because you're too dumb to ever make enough money to afford my glorious tax increases."
I've written a lot during the past few months with regard to concerns that I have about an Obama presidency. But finally -- FINALLY -- I can tell you without reservation why Obama in the White House scares the living shit out of me. Well, actually I think I'll let IowaHawk tell you:
Make no mistake about this. This is pure Nazi-style propaganda. You want to Godwin me? Fine. But the media's obsession with Joe The Plumber is meant for one thing and one thing only, which is to distract you from what Barack Obama actually said in reply to Joe's question. That's a primary function of propaganda, and the media is serving it up in heaping spoonfuls right now.
When radicals went a little crazy and burned down the Reichstag in 1933 (the assembly hall for the Wiemar German Parliament) Adolf Hitler and his minions wasted no time demanding an "investigation" into the fire, while stirring up fear of an impending violent revolution if "something wasn't done" about the German Communist Party. The Nazis quickly fixed blame for the fire upon a group of Communist operatives, and Chancellor Hitler wasted no time petitioning President von Hindenburg to enact restrictions aimed at limiting the influence of the Communist Party in Wiemar Germany. With the Communist party outlawed, the Nazis and their sympathizers were able to easily win control of Parliament. And because they were caught up in the sensationalism of the Riechstag fire conspiracy, average Germans failed to notice that the real purpose of Hitler's decrees was to limit all civil liberties in Germany, and outlaw every publication critical of the Nazi cause. Hitler had successfully used the Reichstag fire to distract Germans just long enough to establish the mechanism that would enable him to gain absolute power over the German government. The man was a master of smokescreen propaganda.
Obama's message. Obama's message. Obama's message. Please stay focused. Ignore the smokescreen. Listen to the message.
Bookworm writes,
With the exception of African-Americans (and I do wonder if they’re doing better since welfare changed in the 1990s), America is still a singularly fluid social and economic country. That’s part of why, despite our vast immigrant influxes, we don’t have the banlieus of France (riot central a few years ago, as you may recall), or the tremendous immigrant unrest one sees in other European countries such as Germany, Italy and England. Our immigrants start poor, work hard and, always, have the possibility of “moving on up” — and this is true even if not all of them are able to act upon that possibility. It’s the American dream.
Obama’s plan, however, announces the end of the American dream. In Obama’s USA, there’s no benefit to be had in moving on up. If you move to the head of the line, his government is just going to bat you right back down again.
There’s no doubt, of course, that those who are really, really rich will probably still stay fairly rich, because their vast wealth may take decades of government siphoning before it vanishes entirely. The problem is that those who wish to be rich — and who for America’s whole history could reasonably make that happen — will never get rich in Obama’s America. That’s what Obama told Joe the Plumber.
The Anchoress continues,
America just heard the President Presumptive tell them, essentially, “don’t dream too big. Don’t dare to dream too big, because if you do, we’re just going to chop you down to size, so that everyone is the same.”
That is not an American recipe. It is a recipe that’s been tried several times and all it ever does is sap people of ambition, creativity and freedom. What’s the point in excelling if your excellence will be the equal of mediocrity? What’s the point of dreaming, if your dreams are going to be subject to the whims of others?
America likes its dreams, its ambitions and its freedoms. Between Obama’s slip-of-the-tongue and the increasingly troubling stories of voter fraud - excuse me, voter registration fraud (which is mean to enable voter fraud) - rampant in one state after another, he’s making a lot of Americans wary.
America is the can-do nation; it does not like being told it can’t do something. Americans do not like being told not to dream glorious dreams. They do not like being told that excellence must subdue itself. And they really don’t like cheating the vote. And while Americans may tolerate little lies, the big, bold ones can get under their skin.
Things turn on a dime. This election may well turn not on who “Joe the Plumber” is - but who Barack Obama is revealing himself - finally - to be.
Team Messiah knows this. They really do. That's why they've resorted to harassment and intimidation in order to suppress any effort to connect Obama with William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright. That's why they want to shut down conservative talk radio and blogs with the "Fairness Doctrine." That's why they've targeted Sarah Palin. That's why they are destroying Joe The Plumber. And they will continue to take away your right to free speech and destroy average people as long as it allows them to keep their precious 'Obama Is Our Savior' narrative untarnished.
Hitler had his gangs of youth -- not really card-carrying Nazis, so their association could be disavowed whenever it was beneficial -- to do his dirty work. And today's liberal media has the loony fever-swamps of Daily Kos and Democratic Underground and MoveOn.org. They're not official paid members of the Obama Campaign or staff writers at The New York Times, but somehow they always end up being go-to sources every time the mainstream media needs pro-Obama dirt for its front pages.
It is now obvious beyond all counter-reasoning that the very things liberals accused Bush and Cheney of promoting -- fascism, statism, intimidation, persecution -- are the very same tactics that liberals can't wait to employ against enemies of the Messiah once they assume power. The difference is that you would have a damn hard time finding specific examples of exactly how Bush and Cheney intimidated, persecuted, and indoctrinated average Americans. Yet I've just given you a whole laundry list of examples of how Obama supporters on the Internet, in the mainstream press, and perhaps eventually in the Commerce Department, Justice Department, IRS, and Congress, will do whatever it takes to establish Obamaism as the lone ideology that is legal in the United States. Any dissenters will be castigated as liars, capitalist thieves, and racists. That's going to be the big one. RACIST.
Of course we still have the power to vote. And in 2010, if we no longer approve of our new socialist overlords, we can vote them out. Just like we did in 1994. Because unlike 20th century Europeans, we Americans still have the power to decide our own destiny.
I only hope we make the right choice.
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PS - If you think that the government using force to "spread the wealth around" is what you'd like to see, then you should take a few minutes and read this story about a white Zimbabwean family caught on the wrong side of the wealth spread.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this particular post as it screams what I have been saying all along!
God Bless Joe the Plumber and FOR SHAME on Obama and his mindless zealots!
Posted by: Julia | October 29, 2008 at 07:58 PM
If anyone you know is wondering why so many "classical" Christians are mocked and ridiculed, tell them to read this blog. So much anger, so much hatred, so few clues.
Posted by: Bill | October 30, 2008 at 10:14 AM