Sometimes I have to ask myself, “Why is Yahoo my home page?” A case in point occurred this evening as I started my browser. The lead news story headline (posted at 6pm Mountain time) was “Obama breaks from Bush, avoids divisive stands”. I’m a skeptical political news junkie who watches for bias in the media, so I was hooked, though skeptical. The author, Liz Sidoti (of the Associated Press), using opinionated sentiment, and not objective statements, said that Obama “mostly” avoided divisive partisan and ideological stands. (As I recall, Bush began his administration by saying he wanted to work with the Democrats.)
In her third paragraph, Sidoti said that Obama “overturned a slew of Bush policies with great fanfare”. Someone, please explain how that is non-ideological? He signed an executive order recently which will eventually close Guantanamo Bay, which is a prison camp for terrorists (but Ms. Sidoti ‘reported’ that it’s a prison camp for “suspected” terrorists). Why does she not believe our military when they say the prisoners are terrorists? Explain to me how closing Guantanimo is a non-partisan action on Obama’s part?
The author praised Obama (no surprise) by saying that he was a “picture of poise” when Chief Justice John Roberts stumbled over his words during the swearing in ceremony on Jan. 20, 2009. I disagree. Obama started stuttering immediately, but he did recover just as quickly. The author’s rhetoric soared when she used a quote from Fred Greenstein, a professor from Princeton University (no surprise that she would quote a college professor). Greenstein compared Obama to Superman / Clark Kent. How absurd, and just when will the media’s hyperbole regarding Mr. Obama end? How tedious!
Ms. Sidoti, and many in the media often demonstrate that they do not think out of the box. She tried to praise the mighty O-man and take a slap at President Bush (when will the left ever leave him alone?) when she said that President Obama is the first president to use e-mail, citing his “cherished” BlackBerry as proof. What Ms. Sidoti did not consider is that the Presidents’ correspondence is a matter of public record and that no president should ever use private devices to communicate with anyone. That’s for historical and security reasons, and also to protect the president, in case you were wondering. She also stated that Obama consulted someone else in public and in doing so he admitted to not being on top of a particular issue and thereby Ms. Sidoti inferred that President Bush would never have done something like that. For the most part, what a closed-minded and a partisan media we have!
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