Stuart Taylor lashes out at the ‘major newspapers and television networks’ in his latest column for National Journal. Taylor believes that they have not reported honestly about the campaign for the elections for president in the United States.

‘Some who have been admirers of John McCain think that the war hero has debased himself by using gross distortions to trash Barack Obama and his record. Others see the media fury over McCain’s campaign ads as more evidence of a double standard driven by liberal bias at most major news organizations,’ writes Taylor.
‘Both are right,’ he adds.

The reason: McCain has indeed lied and distorted… and the ‘elite media’ are biased against him as well. Instead of reporting about Obama’s distortions and lies, for instance, the major newspapers and TV channels have added ‘to Obama’s distortions rather than acting as impartial reporters of fact and referees of the mud fights.’

Some examples:

* In Sarah Palin’s first big media interview, on September 11, Charlie Gibson of ABC News asked: “You said recently, in your old church, ‘Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.’ Are we fighting a holy war?” Palin responded: “You know, I don’t know if that was my exact quote.” Gibson pressed: “Exact words.”

Viewers had no way of knowing that, in fact, Gibson was distorting Palin’s meaning by leaving out critical context and thus making an unremarkable exhortation to prayer sound like a declaration of holy war. Palin had not said that the war was a task from God. She had urged her listeners to “pray” that it was a task from God. A September 3 Associated Press report by Gene Johnson distorted Palin’s meaning in exactly the same way.

* A front-page story in the September 12 Washington Post, by Anne Kornblut, was headlined: “Palin Links Iraq to Sept. 11 in Talk to Troops in Alaska.” This was misleading, as were the first two paragraphs. They implied that Palin had advanced the long-discredited “idea that the Iraqi government under Saddam Hussein helped Al Qaeda plan the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.” In fact, Palin’s reasonably clear meaning was not that Saddam had a role in the 9/11 attacks but that (as the article backhandedly acknowledged) the troops would be fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq, which is related to the group that launched the 9/11 attacks.

* The New York Times did a huge (3,120-word) front-page story on February 21 implying that McCain had had a sexual affair with a female lobbyist while doing her political favors. But the article lacked strong evidence either that there had been a sexual affair or that McCain had crossed legal or ethical lines to do favors. Would The Times have printed the same story had the senator been Barack Obama or John Kerry? I doubt it.

But that’s not all.

There’s also the issue of ‘Obama wanting to legislate to teach ‘comprehensive sex education’ to kindergarteners.’

The elite media jumped on the claim propagated by Team McCain, condemning them, saying it was a smear, one big lie, etc.

Now, they were partially true. Team McCain said Obama Obama’s “one accomplishment” in the area of education was “legislation to teach ‘comprehensive sex education’ to kindergarteners.” That was not correct, Taylor explains:

But the bill was not Obama’s (he was not a sponsor), was not an accomplishment (it never passed), and would not have been his “only” accomplishment even if it had passed. More important, it called for extending only “age appropriate” sex ed from sixth grade down to kindergarten. There is no reason to doubt Obama’s explanation that he wanted kindergartners to be taught only the dangers of inappropriate touching.

But:

a Times editorial overstated the case in saying that “the kindergarten ad flat-out lies” and that “at most, kindergartners were to be taught the dangers of sexual predators.” In fact, whatever Obama’s intention, the bill itself was designed “to mandate that issues like contraception and the prevention of sexually transmitted diseases be included in sex-education classes for children below sixth grade, and as early as kindergarten,” as Byron York demonstrates in a detailed National Review Online article.

And then there are Obama’s negative, dishonest ads and words which are not covered by the media at all, Stuart writes.

The conclusion:

I was deeply dismayed by the 72-year-old McCain’s reckless choice of the inexperienced and untested Palin to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. But I am also deeply skeptical when I see front-page headlines like “As Mayor of Wasilla, Palin Cut Own Duties, Left Trail of Bad Blood” (Washington Post, September 14), or “Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes” (New York Times, same day). Such loaded language is a badge not of a newsroom committed to impartial investigation but of an ideological echo chamber.

For those who wonder; no Taylor is not a partisan Republican. He’s quite an objective person, who simply wants to receive good information about candidates and their plans before making a choice between them. I think that he’s not the only independent / moderate to feel that the American ‘elite media’ have betrayed him.