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Turn on the News

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According to Prof. Reynolds:

WHILE I WENT OUT TO GET FROZEN YOGURT, the InstaWife watched CBS news. She pronounced it “one long commercial for the Democrats.”

Needless to say, no examples of this supposed egregious bias were proffered. And since the InstaWife feels that whether the InstaWealthy can afford new InstaGrills is a valid way of analyzing the economic impact of the InstaPresident’s tax cuts, I am disinclined to take her word for it. So, reluctantly, I actually took advantage of the Pacific Time Zone and watched that evening’s newscast. Here are the stories:

1)Bush lawyers up. Unquestionably a major story. The story specifically says that nobody thinks President Bush was responsible for, or knew anything about the leak that outed Valerie Plame. Given the fact that the InstaHusband famously dismissed the Plame scandal–on the basis that 1)Joe Wilson opposed the war, and was therefore inherently unreliable, and 2)Republicans could never do anything mendacious–was one of the most laughable examples of hackdom in the long and illustrious history of InstaPunditry. Nonetheless, there’s no bias here.

2) Enron traders boast about fleecing Californians. No connection with Bush is drawn at all. Now, if the InstaWife believes that Enron is (as InstaFavorite Mickey Kaus would say) a synecdoche for the Bush Administration’s crony capitalism in general and reminds one of Bush’s close ties with Enron in particular–well, she said it, CBS didn’t. Obviously, a major story.

3)Chalabi an Iranian mole. Clearly a major story. The ties between Chalabi and the Administration are glided over. Obviously embarrassing for Tennessee Dim, as a completely uncritical supporter of Dr. Chalabi’s absurd fantasies, but that’s not really CBS’s problem.

4)Car Bomb Kills Several in Iraq Obviously a major study. Covered straight. On after the first commercial.

5)Brigadier General Janis Karpinski. Story about soldier involved in Abu Grahib scandal being accused of shoplifting. No mention of Bush Administration’s role. Political effect, if anything, is to reinforce “few bad apples” crap being pushed hard by Instapundit.

6)Paxil. No political significance.

7)Drug smuggling among youth. Typical evening news alarmism. No partisan significance.

8)New Jersey commission kills “ladies night” at bars. Seems like the kind of lame “political correctness run amok” thing that Reynolds himself would link to. Heh, indeed!

9)Human interest story about someone beating a murder rap by watching Curb Your Enthusiasm. How this helps the Democrats is unclear.

To summarize, these were major stories and trivial human interest stuff presented straightforwardly. It does allow us to uncover Glenn Reynolds’s definition of “media bias,” which is “hard news that presents facts inconvenient to the dogma of reactionary hacks.”

I am, therefore, unpersuaded by the InstaWife’s complaint about CBS. But I remain entirely persuaded that the InstaHusband’s blog is one long hacky commercial for the Republican Party.


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