Don Imus and Liberal Media Bias

Don Imus and Liberal Media Bias

The number one news story, by far, this week was the fallout from the Don Imus comment. The story was on every news outlet. It even made it to sports talk with significant discussion on the Jim Rome Show. Don't get me wrong. Imus was wrong. He is mean spirited and divisive. He has always personified what's wrong with AM radio. Frankly, I was always certain that he was half-dead, or at least a vampire. He gives Keith Richard a very close run for the longest living walking corpse. But, here's my point. The Imus story illustrates that there is no liberal media. Let me illustrate the point.

The Green Zone bombed was in Baghdad. This is the area where everything is supposed to be as safe as Mayberry. This is the home of the Iraqi Parliament. We've been told that Bush's troop increase followed by the troop surge was making Iraq safer. We've been told that Iraq is safer. We've been told that we've turned the corner. However, downtown Baghdad was bombed this week. Did anyone notice, or did the news outlet just assure that we understood EVERYTHING about Don Imus.

This week, the Department of Defense announced that they will be increasing the tours of duty in Iraq. Clearly, the standing army isn't able to accomplish the mission. The same mission that I think Bush told us we "accomplished" five years ago. Clearly, this is foreshadowing to a draft. Other than making tours of duty two years, how else to do solve this issue? How do you get a troop surge without more troops?

On the Bill Maher show, he stated that "The Ready Brigade" is now deployed. This was the one brigade that we held in reserve for the unseen emergency. We now can't react to a crisis. What if there is another Katrina? What if we are attacked here..since attacking them over there doesn't seem to be working? We don't have a brigade to call into action. This is very newsworthy. But somehow, I didn't see this story on any outlet I follow.

In fact, if I'd guess, the second most noticed story this week, after Imus, was the finalization of the Anna Nicole Smith paternity test. So, now we know who the biological father. But was this more important than the Green Zone story? More to the point, how did the top two news stories harm the administration? They didn't. How might the three stories I mentioned harm the administration? They would harm the administration significantly. What did the Imus story do to the Attorney scandal? It pushed it completely off the table.

Here's the point. If we truly had a liberal media that was out to get the President, the bombing, the increased tour time, the call up of the Ready Brigade, and even the attorney stories would have buried Imus and Anna Nicole. The media is out for ratings and bad news that makes the US look bad or that is complex doesn't sell. The media isn't liberal. The media isn't conservative. The media really only cares about what sells.