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SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2009

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the big plan

Beck Will Host Conventions
to Educate America

He's shifting toward political organizer, plans big DC rally

Nov 21, 09 5:06 PM CST
Senate Democrats Clear
Health Care Hurdle, 60-39

Reid gets 60 votes to open full debate after Thanksgiving recess

Nov 21, 09 7:13 PM CST
Palin Pulls in Big Bucks
—for Democrats

'Going Rogue' boosts Dem fundraising to new high

Nov 21, 09 6:50 AM CST
demagogue alert

Lawmaker Paints Target on Barack Obama's Back

Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert panders to dangerous paranoids

Nov 21, 09 9:08 AM CST
Matt Taibbi

Palin: Our First WWE Politician

Pick an asshole, any asshole, and she'll rock the house

3 hours, 51 minutes ago
Reid Gets 60th Vote:
Holdout Lincoln Agrees

She'll allow health care bill to move forward; vote at 8pm

Nov 21, 09 1:51 PM CST
Billboard Links Obama to Jihad

Colo. car dealership wants this opinion heard

Nov 20, 09 8:42 PM CST
HE'S GOT A BOOK OUT, TOO

Beck to Unveil
'Big Plan' at
Saturday Rally

Righty pundit OK with destroying Dems and GOP

Nov 20, 09 8:07 PM CST
Neglected Ind. Fans Boo Palin

Hecklers accuse her of 'quitting on the job'

Nov 20, 09 3:50 PM CST
NO COMMUNION FOR YOU, MY SON

RI Bishop Disses
Kennedy Over
Pro-Choice
Stance

Spat over Patrick's position on abortion escalates

6 hours, 13 minutes ago
Limbaugh's Wrong: Gallup's Obama Approval Below 50%

New survey is latest disappointment for President

Nov 20, 09 2:03 PM CST
Obama's Stimulus Finally
Gets Some Respect

Warring economists agree that it has helped—if not enough

Nov 21, 09 6:21 AM CST
TALK SHOW ROUNDUP

McConnell:
Dems Proceed
at 2010 Peril

Senators hit the Sunday talk shows after health vote

3 hours, 20 minutes ago

|NEXT STORY »

ANALYSIS

Where Bush Was Bashed, Obama Gets Free Pass

GOP faithful can't fathom why press goes so easy on new president

By Harry Kimball| Posted Oct 27, 09 2:35 PM CDT|

(Newser) – Supporters of George Bush are miffed about the passes the media has given President Obama for trespasses the former president would likely have been excoriated for. “We have a joke about it. We’re going to start a website: IfBushHadDoneThat.com,” former Bush counselor Ed Gillespie tells Politico. Some examples of perceived media bias:

Cutting off Fox News: "Had I said about MSNBC what the Obama White House said about Fox," says Ari Fleischer, "the media uproar would still be going on."
Politicizing the White House: Gibbs and Axelrod sat in on an Afghan strategy meeting. "Oh, the howling and screaming that would have happened if Karl Rove was sitting in on even a deputies-level meeting," a Bush aide says.
Secret business: Bush and co. were called to task for talking behind closed doors with the oil industry. Is the Obama administration's dealings with Big Pharma on health care that different?

Click the source link to the right for more.

Former President George W. Bush. (AP Photo)

President Barack Obama. (AP Photo)

View larger images >>

« Prev« Prev | Next »Next » Slideshow

11.20.09

The Health-Care Wars Have Just Begun

11.19.09

Sarah Palin Deserves Some More Attention

50 comments

VIEWING:

Wonka
Oct 27, 09 2:40 PM CDT

The incessant bitching of losers. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

proud_prude
Oct 27, 09 3:43 PM CDT

Hey newser, thanks for the hint. These new pages are so cluttered with promos, pretty graphics, and propaganda I was about to post a bitchy rant about the elimination of the link to the source for the summary. Now I see it, to the right of where it used to be. What fun this website is! Lucky for me I don't have a life so I can spend my whole day here ; -)

IN RESPONSE:

jamerican
Oct 27, 09 6:55 PM CDT

The media is mostly liberal because the rich idealists in the press have convinced most of the stupid and poor in America to follow them into the utopia of the left. For some unknown reason they think they are intelligent is they have no values, no morals, and no standards. Fox and the conservatives fight for values, morality, and the concepts that made America great, like Capitalism and morals. The intelligent will be conservative while the pseudo want to be intelligensia will follow to liberal mediocracy and socialism.

-2

IN RESPONSE:

geneparmesan
Oct 27, 09 7:59 PM CDT

The media is mostly liberal? Because the #1 rated news is the liberal Fox machine, the radio waves are flooded with liberal trash, and the internet media is dominated by that leftist Drudge and Breitbart.... Republicans just haven't learned that nobody believes their self-righteous claims of values and morality. If you think Capitalism is a great example of morals and values, you have absolutely no idea what any of those words mean.

IN RESPONSE:

freethemall
Oct 28, 09 1:33 AM CDT

I would remind Jamerican that the following is attributed to Jesus Christ in the New Testament: "The love of money is the root of all evil." Now. what is it that drives capitalism and free enterprise? It wouldn't be the profit motive, would it? Oh, but that has nothing to do with the love of money, does it?

| 0 minutes ago

KennyBoy
Oct 27, 09 2:42 PM CDT

Irrelevant. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

timeandagain
Oct 27, 09 3:01 PM CDT

Much like yourself...

-6

IN RESPONSE:

I_hate_to_say
Oct 27, 09 3:35 PM CDT

Fleisher, you warned the media in general to "watch what you say." And Rove didn't have to sit in on cabinet level meetings, he and his porno-star pseudo journalist paramour Jeff Gannon sat up late in the Lincoln Bedroom creating the agendas for those meetings. And yeah, comparing the compromise struck with Big Pharma to get the public option passed with what Cheney and Big Oil did behind closed doors is like ... hey wait, we never were allowed to know what happened in Cheney's closed door meetings with Exxon and the gang.

| 0 minutes ago

Spraynard
Oct 27, 09 2:45 PM CDT

Hmmm.... "Had I said about MSNBC what the Obama White House said about Fox," says Ari Fleischer, "the media uproar would still be going on." A) Obama got compared to Nixon over this. There was uproar. It was ridiculous. B) Would Bush have been trashed for trashing MSNBC? I don't think so. Maybe I'm wrong? I don't have this a-hole's psychic powers so probably I'm wrong. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

Spraynard
Oct 27, 09 2:47 PM CDT

the whole analogy is ridiculous since MSNBC isn't Fox news or anything like it.

-3

IN RESPONSE:

Reader65069154
Oct 27, 09 2:51 PM CDT

Correct. It's the political opposite of Fox.

IN RESPONSE:

Toon
Oct 27, 09 2:59 PM CDT

As Bush was lying us into war MSNBC was firing Donahue for fear that he might say something against the war. Has Fox 'News' fired any one because they might say something Obama would not like?

IN RESPONSE:

Doctor_Zaius
Oct 27, 09 3:00 PM CDT

Yeah, MSNBC starts off their day with that damn liberal Joe Scarbourough.

IN RESPONSE:

hybrid
Oct 27, 09 4:22 PM CDT

@toon No fox has a spine, plus little don couldn't get the ratings unlike the mighty F O X

| 0 minutes ago

freethemall
Oct 27, 09 2:45 PM CDT

Right after the events of 9/11, bushes approval rating was at about 92%. The media and the public united behind him, worldwide, as the leader of the free world. It was only after he squandered all this goodwill by his arrogance and incompetence, that he became unpopular, and vulnerable to ridicule. I don't see how any thinking person could compare his situation with Obama's. O's detractors are not even giving him a chance, to try to lead this nation out of a crises that is not of his making. Reply

+15

IN RESPONSE:

Doctor_Zaius
Oct 27, 09 2:58 PM CDT

"I don't see how any thinking person could compare his situation with Obama's." Exactly!

| 0 minutes ago

Doctor_Zaius
Oct 27, 09 2:48 PM CDT

Dana Perino admitted that they (the Bush administration) froze out the NY Times and NBC. Obama hasn't said he won't do interviews with Fox, he just identified them correctly as entertainment for the mentally challenged. I never realized what whiney little pissers they could become. Reply

| 0 minutes ago

Netstorm2k9
Oct 27, 09 3:00 PM CDT

'Orwell Rolls In His Grave' http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1925114769515892401# Reply

IN RESPONSE:

Netstorm2k9
Oct 27, 09 3:02 PM CDT

If you want to know why a particular media organization acts the way it does, take a look at the corporation that controls it, and how they act.

| 0 minutes ago

Fondue
Oct 27, 09 3:17 PM CDT

From Monday night's Countdown; OLBERMANN: I'm trying to get the moral relativism here. This administration criticizes Fox. Therefore, on Fox, Obama is Hugo Chavez. And the previous one - let me read the list again. It cuts off MSNBC. It threatens NBC. It has its political party threaten to back out of a Tom Brokaw-moderated debate, if I'm not removed as a news anchor. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

hybrid
Oct 27, 09 4:26 PM CDT

Secret business: Bush and co. were called to task for talking behind closed doors with the oil industry. Is the Obama administration's dealings with Big Pharma on health care that different? Just answer that ? for me fondue, and as always i will listen to every word.

IN RESPONSE:

Fondue
Oct 27, 09 4:52 PM CDT

No different. I'll point out what many have been saying; there have been disappointments with Obama. The one you brought up is one. Allowing the insurance industry at the table after saying they wouldn't be. There's transparency, but not as much as we thought. You know, several here on Newser falsely proclaim everyone on the Left thinks of Obama as "Omessiah" and other b.s. platitudes - it simply isn't true. -- Why are you asking me about that when the discussion is about FoxSkews?

IN RESPONSE:

hybrid
Oct 27, 09 5:22 PM CDT

well fondue i don't think fox thinks obama is Hugo chavez. I was just wondering what your thoughts were on that statement...that is the one i found interesting and your opinion seems to be the one i respect the most on the left side of things.......Not that i agree most of the time but your comments seem to have more meat than the rest of the rants, witch i have been guilty of as well(more than i like)

IN RESPONSE:

kokuaguy
Oct 27, 09 7:43 PM CDT

Hey old buddy-- you know how fond I am of you, dude, and if I thought our comrade "hybrid" were about to turn over a new leaf thanks to your willingness to engage, I'd be truly happy for you both, but ... I don't think you can really compare (on any level) the deal struck with Big Pharma by Obama with the series of top-secret WH meetings convened by Cheney's Energy Policy Task Force. Those identified as having been involved included then-Enron President and Chairman Kenneth Lay and lobbyists Haley Barbour and Marc Racicot, as well as Stephen Griles, sentenced to prison for obstructing a Senate investigation of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Cheney and his aides held at least 40 meetings with interest groups, most of them from energy-producing industries. The Bush Department of Justice four times appealed federal court rulings that the vice president (Dick Cheney) release task force records, and finally the case was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. If any lawsuits have been filed by public interest advocacy groups against the Obama Administration I am unaware of them, Fondue. So, once again as most have supported on this page, it is absurd to compare the record of the Bush cabal with that of the Obama Administration when it comes to transparency.

IN RESPONSE:

kokuaguy
Oct 27, 09 7:46 PM CDT

Oops - forgot this: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cheney_Energy_Task_Force

| 0 minutes ago

Rocket448
Oct 27, 09 3:20 PM CDT

This article's premise is completely dishonest, disingenuous, and hypocritical, yet another case of false equivalency. Mr. Bush did not encourage openness with the media, did not fail to politicize every decision, did not hesitate to undermine basic constitutional rights. Mr. Bush and did not hesitate to sign many laws he should have vetoed, choosing instead to alter the law's meaning with a signing statement, in the process overreaching the legislative branch in breach of the constitution. Mr. Bush and his advisers increased the gap between the wealthy and the middle class as well. Should Mr. Bush's presidency be compared to that of Mr. Obama's, or should it be compared to presidencies like those of Buchanan, Tyler and Taylor? Surely Mr. Bush's presidency should be considered in comparison to other, equally flawed, presidencies. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

tomodachi
Oct 27, 09 3:30 PM CDT

At the 2006 State of the Union Address, GWB proclaimed the US was addicted to oil, then under his breath said: "Cha-ching." I bet he laughed like an idiot when he successfully used federal lawyers to stop California from forcing the Auto makers into producing electric cars. Where would the US be today if GWB had EMBRACED the electric car technology... instead of squashing it for his oil lust? Answer: cleaner air and less dependency on middle eastern oil from people who'd like to kill us... more US jobs and less of our money in the hands of Saudi Oil Barons.

| 0 minutes ago

tomodachi
Oct 27, 09 3:25 PM CDT

It's totally different. You can't hold a good president (Obama) under the same scrutiny you would for the worst president ever (GWB). I find it humorous, that 11 months later, the republican politicians are still whining about losing the presidency. GWB should be in jail. And the US should have had functional health care reform many years ago. Reply

| 0 minutes ago

JoeQ
Oct 27, 09 3:34 PM CDT

Methinks they doth protest too much. Reply

| 0 minutes ago

GlennH
Oct 27, 09 3:57 PM CDT

What a bunch of whiners. In the first place, if Fleisher had said about MSNBC what the Obama White House says about Fox, he would have been lying. And if Karl Rove was sitting in on a meeting, you can be sure it was for darker purposes than Gibbs and Axelrod had. Finally, yes, the Obama administration's dealings with Big Pharma are that different. These guys just can't get over the fact that of course an intelligent, capable President is going to be treated differently from that doofus Bush and his buffoonish crew.. Reply

| 0 minutes ago

culchie
Oct 27, 09 3:59 PM CDT

Let me see if i have this straight. Newser, which yesterday breathlessly reported, as news, that some guy thinks Fox Is a news operation, today quotes a conservative site called Politico which reports, as news, the fact that a former Bush counselor feels that Obama is getting an easier ride from the media. I wonder if I could trade a bit of the excess irony for a little journalism. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

SPH
Oct 27, 09 5:51 PM CDT

Newser is a news aggregater, they make no pretense of being journalists (Off Grid excepted)...The fact that you, in your obvious ignorance of Newser operation and role, make for a truly ironic situation.....

IN RESPONSE:

culchie
Oct 27, 09 9:33 PM CDT

Well, gee, SPH, you'd better talk to Michael Wolff about that. As soon as you start collecting news, and deciding what runs, you've crossed into journalism, like it or not. Have a better day.

| 0 minutes ago

Jayster999
Oct 27, 09 4:46 PM CDT

Duh. Democrat media + democrat prez = softball. Reply

-5

IN RESPONSE:

geneparmesan
Oct 27, 09 5:55 PM CDT

Democrat media led by the #1 ratings grabber, the Democrat leaning Fox? Do Republicans have any idea what irony is? You guys far too often bring that up to support your claim that most people think a certain way. You can't exclaim that Fox gets more viewers than anyone AND that the media is left biased. Those 2 things contradict each other. But maybe we can add irony and contradict to the long long list of words Republicans do not understand. Nevermind, they are already on the list.

IN RESPONSE:

geneparmesan
Oct 27, 09 6:25 PM CDT

I forgot to mention the Democrat dominated media format of radio, that really makes things easy for Obama...And the internet media is dominated by the disgustingly lefty Drudge Report, man that Obama sure is getting a free pass from the media.

| 0 minutes ago

Ucantusethatname
Oct 27, 09 5:36 PM CDT

Dems will continue to blame Bush for everything that goes wrong. And the media will continue to glorify Obamessiah. The country is paying a terrible price for electing an arrogant, inexperienced narcissist. Reply

-2

IN RESPONSE:

geneparmesan
Oct 27, 09 5:49 PM CDT

kinda the way Republicans blame 9/11 on the Clinton administration, 9 months after they were given the responsibility.

IN RESPONSE:

Doctor_Zaius
Oct 28, 09 6:09 AM CDT

Whether or not you want to admit it, Bush is responsible for every major problem we face now. He either caused it or allowed it to fester under his watch. He is undoubtedly the worst president ever even eclipsing Buchanan who allowed the Civil war to occur by his incompetence and was regarded as the worst president to date.

IN RESPONSE:

Silverbow7
Oct 28, 09 10:05 PM CDT

Talk about projecting...

IN RESPONSE:

Silverbow7
Oct 28, 09 10:07 PM CDT

Talk about projecting... btw Sorry Doc. I clicked on the wrong 'reply"

| 0 minutes ago

RockyPneumonia
Oct 27, 09 6:15 PM CDT

Ari: If you had gone off on MSNBC, it would not have been true. That' the difference. "Truth" is no longer being defined as "what right-wing wackos want to hear." Reply

| 0 minutes ago

kansas1946
Oct 27, 09 6:18 PM CDT

what the Obama White House said about Fox," says Ari Fleischer, "the media uproar would still be going on." ********************************************** That is because if you had said it about MSNBC it would have been a lie. What Obama said about FOX is the truth. You know, there is a difference between a lie and the truth. It is just that Republicans don't know it. And ANYONE who wasn't bashing Bush after a few years in office was ONLY doing so because of Republican bias. Any American, including the media, in their right mind could see what Bush was doing to, and not doing for, our country. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

Shannonals
Oct 27, 09 8:34 PM CDT

Funny how right wing nutcases failt to remember the war Bush had with MSNBC, or how his advisors cried whenever a negative story was released. So the Obama has called out Fox news, big deal, name one president who hasn't had a life/hate relationship with a news channel in the past 20 years

| 0 minutes ago

fancygapva
Oct 27, 09 8:27 PM CDT

Oh GIVE me a break! Please recall "Mission Accomplished" and the fact that Bush did not confront the press for months at a time and then only with the most Bush friendly organizations. Please recall maybe not a lot of free press for Bush, but nobody calling him on the fiasco of Weapons of Mass Destruction or countless other gaffes such as giving Merkle a shoulder massage at a state dinner or popping an olympic vollyballer on her cute little rear. Just a picture, not a scandal. Nobody questioned that he fell off the couch while eating peanuts and ended up with a black eye....Bush should have been grateful for all the press he DIDN'T get. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

Rocket448
Oct 27, 09 10:35 PM CDT

And, if you don't agree, just think about the uproar that would follow if Mr. Obama tapped a girl's butt on camera. Yeah, there's your free pass.

IN RESPONSE:

geneparmesan
Oct 28, 09 2:17 AM CDT

yeah, Obama got bad press just for looking at another womans rear

IN RESPONSE:

kokuaguy
Oct 28, 09 2:41 PM CDT

The worst part is that he wasn't even doing what the pictures were set up to show him doing.

| 0 minutes ago

Count-Spatula
Oct 29, 09 3:58 AM CDT

Bush delivered a new scandal every ten days for eight years, but still made it to the end of his term. So give me a f***ing break. Reply

| 0 minutes ago

jay08701
Nov 2, 09 1:58 PM CST

The love of money is not the root of all evil. It is the love of the perceived benefits of money- power, lust, jealousy. Reply

| 0 minutes ago

View all 50 comments »

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