From the Left

/

Politics

'Lame-Stream Media' Charge is Getting Really Lame

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

Republican presidential candidates may have some legitimate complaints to make about media bias, but sometimes I think they protest too much.

For example, after the heavily Republican audience at the Grand Old Party's CNBC debate booed some of the moderators' questions, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina complained indignantly that she'd "never seen that before."

No? She must have missed the debates four years ago. Who could forget the Republican crowd's explosion of boos and jeers in South Carolina, two days before that state's pivotal primary?

The boos came after CNN's moderator John King opened the debate by asking former House Speaker Newt Gingrich about open marriage. King was following up on an interview in which Gingrich's ex-wife said he had sought one.

Gingrich called the question and the timing "as close to despicable as anything I can imagine."

That was Gingrich's idea of coming clean. Don't answer the question; just spur the audience to drown out the question with boos.

 

That was easy. The conservative crowd was no more interested in hearing about Gingrich's former marriage than Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont wanted to hear another word during CNN's Democratic presidential debate about Hillary Rodham Clinton's "damn emails."

In other words, candidates from every party complain about the questions they get in TV debates -- or, even worse for them, don't get. That's why pre-debate negotiations between campaigns and the networks are about as relaxed as the Syria peace talks in Vienna.

Does the ABTMF -- Always Blame the Media First -- strategy work? It did not stop Gingrich's big comeback. After losing Iowa's caucuses, exit polls showed Gingrich won South Carolina with the help of an unusual coalition, according to the New York Times: evangelical Christians, tea party supporters and those who call themselves "very conservative."

Not too conservative, apparently, to ignore Gingrich's personal life in ways they would never have forgiven in a Democrat.

...continued

swipe to next page

(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

Comics

Tom Stiglich Pat Byrnes Walt Handelsman Bill Bramhall John Branch Bill Day