Prospective Democratic chairs all liberal
PANIC PANIC PANIC! Those evil democrats are gonna beat up on businesses, destroy our tax cuts, spend like crazy, and impeach the president! One of them is Polish, and four of them are (gasp) BLACK - one of whom was a corrupt judge!
"LIBERAL MEDIA" MY ASS! This is a total hit piece. Exposed media bias - below the flip.
First off, the title isn't true - the article eventually mentions the following:
Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, who would run the Agriculture Committee, is anti-abortion and as pro-gun as practically anyone in the House. Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri is a longtime hawk in line to lead the Armed Services Committee.
So they couldn't even get past the title of the article without lying. Nice. (Disclaimer - article titles are generally written by editors, not writers, but its pretty clear here that the editors and writer are on the same page).
So who are the chairmen to be?
_a Polish-American lawyer with a reputation for making witnesses quiver.
_a die-hard liberal from New York's Harlem with 35 years in the House.
_a free-spending progressive from Wausau, Wis.
_one of the few remaining "Watergate babies" swept into Congress in 1974.
Oh, gosh, a Polish-American? What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Apparently that's the best they could do to smear John Dingell. Now, I wonder why it's more important to mention that Rangel is from Harlem than it is to mention what state Dingell represents. You see, the author figures it's OK to single out Dingell's ethnicity, but if he referred to Rangel as "black" right off the bat, astute readers (and even not-so-astute readers) will figure out what he's up to right away. So let's use a euphemism - "Harlem". Everyone knows (or thinks they know) what color people live in Harlem. Nice subtle racism here. "Free-spending progressive from Wisconsin" - this speaks for itself. Finally, you have "few remaining 'Watergate babies'" - a subtle reminder that the last massive Democratic tide induced by GOP corruption failed to change the world.
Obey came to Washington at the height of the Vietnam War; ever since, he has been an ardent opponent of GOP efforts to clamp down of domestic agency budgets that Congress approves each year.
I had to read this sentence three times before it made any sense. Notice the typo - "clamp down of" instead of "clamp down on". So not only is this a biased piece, the proofreading is lousy, too.
Rep. George Miller of California is one of three still-serving members of the huge class of 1974 that swamped Congress after the Watergate scandal
"Swamped" congress? Comparing an influx of liberal Democrats to a swamp? Gosh, no bias here, honestly!
For Republicans, the prospect of the House being led by a San Franciscan and so many left-leaning chairmen has supporters in business and Washington's K Street lobbying shops aghast. The switch could mark the demise of Bush's tax cut agenda and would usher into power union allies such as Rangel and Miller.
Like the earlier use of "Harlem", "San Franciscan" is a euphemism for "pro-gay agenda". Notice "demise of Bush's tax cut agenda" - No mention of balanced budgets, or how only the wealthy seriously benefit from Bush's tax cuts.
Black lawmakers would run major committees.
Besides Rangel, there is Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, in line for the top spot on the Judiciary Committee; Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi on the Homeland Security Committee; and Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida at the Intelligence Committee.
Conyers has been accused by former aides of misusing his office by turning them into baby sitters for his children. He is the prime sponsor of a resolution that seeks to investigate grounds for possible impeachment of Bush over the war in Iraq.
Impeachment is hardly the message Democrats want to take to the swing voters expected to decide the outcome of the election.
"Democrats are not about impeachment," Pelosi said last month on NBC's "Meet The Press."
Hastings, a charismatic former federal judge, was impeached and removed from the bench in 1989 for fabricating evidence that secured his acquittal in 1983 on bribery charges.
Do you get the message here? The facts are being selectively reported to portray black legislators as criminals, obviously playing on racist views. Meanwhile, the idea of impeaching a president who has repeatedly broken the law is treated as too "liberal" for even Pelosi.
Republicans award chairmanships based on the evaluation of a leadership committee that takes into account leadership fealty, fundraising prowess and other factors. Democrats would award would-be chairmanships strictly by seniority.
Finally, let's give the Republicans a handshake for their system that rewards blind loyalty and slam Democrats for having a tenure system that is nominally capable of awarding spots to guys like Ike Skelton regardless of where they stand ideologically. Never mind the fact that the whole premise of this article is that (gasp) by and large, the commitee heads of a Democratic congress would represent the Democratic principles of the Democratic base.
JEERS TO YOU, Andrew Taylor of the Associated Press!
UPDATE: More reasons to bash the AP:
Three more AP John Solomon articles faulted for taking pot-shots at Dems, leaving out key facts (from AMERICABlog).
AP Can't Google "Trailhead Group" (from SoapBlox)
AP on Fred Phelps
And for TONS of info and links on media issues, check out Media News Monday here on DKos by Newsie8200
UPDATE 2: Great comprensive piece from Media Matters on pro-GOP media bias.