Of Reporters and Bloggers (Old Media vs. New Media)

By: Brian Sikma 

While I was down at the MRLC working with media credentials, I had the opportunity to observe liberal media bias up close and in action.  Perhaps the most obnoxious question that I heard was repeated by the same reporter to just about every Republican that she interviewed.  The question went something like this “What are your thoughts on Sen. John Warner’s statements about the situation in Iraq?”  Frankly, as a conservative Republican I could not possibly care less what Sen. Warner thinks.  Sen. Warner is very much infatuated with Sen. Warner and he shamelessly checks the direction of the political winds before he issues his policy pronouncements.  (Unfortunately, she didn’t ask me the question so I never got to use that answer.)

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Just prior to the conference Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner declared that the President should bring some of the troops home from Iraq by Christmas.  Additionally, Sen. Warner declared that if the President didn’t heed his advice he would vote with the Democrats if that was what was necessary to force a withdrawal.  Media everywhere picked up the story as if Sen. Warner’s opposition to President Bush was something that was new.  Possibly the story should have been about how Sen. Warner and Sen. Levin had just recently issued a statement in which these cautiously optimistic words appeared: “The military aspects of President Bush’s new strategy in Iraq…appear to have produced some credible and positive results.”  The media didn’t give a lot of attention to that line.  Nor did the media bring that statement up whenever they talked about Sen. Warner’s latest declaration of defeat. 

Sen. Warner’s flip-flop is not the only interesting story about politicians and their stand on Iraq these days.  Sen. Hillary Clinton, the likely-heir-to-the-crown/nomination, spoke at the recent VFW convention and had the audacity to say that “It’s (the surge) working.”  Of course, ultra-liberals will argue that her statements should be expected since she voted for the war and her opposition to the war has come as a change of course in order to win the Democratic nomination.  Such charges however cannot be leveled against Washington Congressman Brian Baird (D).  Rep. Baird has consistently opposed every step of the Iraq War.  As one of the most consistent opponents of the War he can honestly claim that he voted against the original authorization to use force.  It’s harder to be more against the War than he is.  Nonetheless Rep. Baird had these words to say when he got back from his 5th trip to the Middle East: “One, I think we’re making real progress. Secondly, I think the consequences of pulling back precipitously would be potentially catastrophic for the Iraqi people themselves, to whom we have a tremendous responsibility … and in the long run chaotic for the region as a whole and for our own security.”  He also had this to say: “I have come to believe that calls for premature withdrawal may make it more difficult for Iraqis to solve their problems. … Local Iraqis are standing up against the extremists on all sides. They are turning in the insurgents. They are fed up with al-Qaida. … If I didn’t think there was some chance of a reasonable outcome by staying a little longer, I would be calling for immediate withdrawal.”

Inspite of these three examples of (one of them from Warner himself) of statements that acknowledge the progress being made in Iraq, the reporter who fired off a question and Gov. Huckabee, and later Chairman Murray Clark, asking them their thoughts about Sen. Warner, never made any attempt to put Warner’s statements in their proper place.  Although a first glance at the Huckabee press conference would cause an observer to think that one could expect soft questions from the Republican bloggers and one Huckabee supporting journalist (she had her lapels lined with Huckabee for President pins), at the end of the presser it became clear that some of the most substantive questions asked came from the new media and conservative media people.