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Harry Reid Blames Right Wing Media Bias

by Ed Driscoll

The Senator Majority Leader, gaffe machine and human canker sore"Claims Media Is Unfair to Democrats," Alec Torres writes at the NRO Corner:

In an interview with Politico, Senator Harry Reid argued that the media is being unfair to Democrats in its coverage of the shutdown. Reid said he believes that there is no way someone viewing the situation objectively could conclude that Democrats are at fault for the shutdown.

"You and other journalists have a real shortcoming in that you are trying so hard to be fair that you are unfair," Reid said. "Democrats have had almost nothing to do with the problems here. It's all Republicans."

As Torres goes on to note, "Media Research Center, a conservative media-watchdog group, found that in 39 stories in the two weeks leading to the shutdown, CBS, ABC, and NBC blamed Republicans 21 times for failing to reach a budget agreement, both parties four times, and didn't once blame the Democrats. In the 14 other instances, the reports blamed nobody."

In 2002, Al Gore blamed media bias from the right for his party losing the midterms to the GOP that year. Two years later, David Brock would launch Media Matters in his related quest to destroy all things conservative, along with his own sanity. At the end of 2004, Howard Fineman of Newsweek blamed conservative media parity forJohn Kerry's loss, and the phrase "Swift Boating" quickly spread as a pejorative on the left, in speed and fashion reminiscent of Genghis Kahn. In 2010, Frank Rich blamed the media for the success of the Tea Party with voters. When the left plays the conservative media bias meme, you know things aren't going well.

Or it could just be paranoia from inside the cocoon, as in the case ofChris Matthews last year, after Mitt Romney was crushed by the MSM.

In any case, as Lance of the Small Dead Animals blog writes, "I'm guessing Reid has seen some internals that the rest of us haven't. Naturally though, he's wrong, as the article makes clear."

It sounds like the "Barry-cades" and other tactics of the "Spite House" and what Jim Geraghty dubs "The Sadism of Harry Reid" in not allowing bills to continue appropriations to fund the government to hit the Senate floor for a vote aren't playing how the left expected them to go in the real world.

In other words, it's not 1996 anymore, and Barack Obama doesn't enjoy the personal popularity, roaring economy and monolithic media that saved Bill Clinton then — but only because, as George Stephanopoulos later admitted, Republicans blinked.

Update: Rut-roh: "Obama Throws Reid Under the Bus: Hey, That Guy's In Charge of All of This, Not Me."

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Harry Reid Blames Right Wing Media Bias
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John Hames