Yet another blatant example of media bias: A recent ABC News internal memo by Political Director Mark Halperin referring to the two major presidential candidates has surfaced, stating that ABC doesn't have to "hold both sides 'equally' accountable."
One may not be surprised to find two major faux pas of Kerry's that have been inadvertently overlooked by the mainstream media: exploiting Mary Cheney and promising medical miracles.
VP nominee Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., went out of his way to bring up Cheney's daughter when questioned about gay marriage in the vice-presidential debate two weeks ago. Cheney politely declined to comment any further, just thanking Edwards for his comments about his family. Edwards' statement in itself was benign, although unnecessary. Kerry's contentious and completely inappropriate reference to Cheney's daughter in last week's presidential debate, however, demonstrated a coordinated effort on the part of the Kerry campaign to somehow hang this around the Bush campaign's neck as if it was some kind of albatross. The only one who's suggesting that Cheney's daughter's sexuality is a dilemma for the campaign, however, is Edwards' wife.
In a post-debate interview with Chris Wallace, Kerry Campaign Manager Mary Beth Cahill defended Kerry's remarks by commenting that Mary Cheney is someone who's a major figure in the campaign and that it is "fair game" to bring her up.
If the shoe was on the other foot, and Bush had brought up a homosexual member of Kerry's or Edwards' family, calls for apologies would abound. Instead, Edwards' wife came out swinging. In a radio interview the day after the debate, she stated, "She's [Lynn Cheney] overreacted to this and treated it as if it's shameful to have this discussion... I think that it indicates a certain degree of shame with respect to her daughter's sexual preferences."
This got little attention in the mainstream media, save for an op-ed column by conservative William Safire entitled "The Lowest Blow" in The New York Times. A Lexis-Nexis search also reveals some stories buried in a larger piece about the election or in the back pages of the news section. A Washington Post op-ed column even went so far as to say that Bush and Cheney were the ones who were "using Mary Cheney... to score points against Kerry and John Edwards," even though Bush and Cheney have never brought her up, except for the one time Cheney was directly asked about her at a town hall meeting over the summer.
Besides unabashedly manipulating Cheney's family in a cold-blooded, calculated decision -- which didn't seem to work at all -- Kerry and Edwards employed another politically pandering strategy: blame Bush for preventing Christopher Reeve from walking and make unfounded medical promises to people.
The day before the last presidential debate, Edwards declared, "We will stop juvenile diabetes, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and other debilitating diseases... When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk. Get up out of that wheelchair and walk again."
As columnist Charles Krauthammer (who is a quadriplegic) pointed out, "For Edwards to make the claims he did is the worst demagoguery I've heard in Washington in a quarter century... He's saying if you elect us and you don't elect him, we will get you out of your wheelchairs. And it's a falsehood. It's cruel because it gives a kind of hope of something around the corner, which is not going happen."
Kerry and Edwards have stated multiple times that Bush has "banned" stem cell research, when in fact he has only limited it, and at the same time has made the greatest strides in history in furthering stem cell research. Krauthammer, who has a medical degree and is on the Council of Bioethics, stated that the NIH has 3,500 shipments of stem cells available for research. He also said that stem cells aren't as promising as they're talked about: "Ronald D.G. McKay, a stem cell researcher at NIH, has admitted publicly that stem cells as an Alzheimer's cure are a fiction."
This information, however, is absent from any media reports on Kerry's attack of Bush. A Lexis-Nexis search for stem cell research since Edwards' overtures uncovers a slew of stories devoid of much of this information. An ABC News anchor described Edwards' promises in this way, "He said it with a charm few could resist. I thought he was a trial lawyer, not a televangelist."
These two issues just scratch the surface of Kerry's mounting lies, distortions and political deception that the media fail to call him out on. The media is supposed to act as a conduit of unbiased information to better inform the public. Within this role, they should, and often do, undertake the responsibility of a government watchdog. However, Halprin's version of serving the public interest is pretty clear in his memo: "Kerry distorts, takes out of context, and mistakes all the time, but these are not central to his efforts to win." The Bush administration, according to Halprin, is attempting "to get away with as much as possible." I guess this explains why the Kerry campaign's outrageous statements have gone unchecked.
Whitney Blake is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. She can be reached at wblake@cavalierdaily.com.
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