Cooking the Books

Here's a great object lesson in how our mainstream "press" rigs the electoral game in favor of Republicans, over and over again.  It's a story from Daily Kos about the lie-spouting bully who they helped elect governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie.  First, the facts, after the people of New Jersey have had a year to get to know him:

"38% of NJ adults approve of the job Christie is doing, 56% disapprove.
According to this latest Eyewitness News Poll conducted by SurveyUSA exclusively for WABC-TV in New York City, NJ voters by 5:1 say Christie should not run for President.
• By 2:1, NJ voters say Christie would be a worse president than Barack Obama.
• Obama carried NJ in 2008 by 15 points. Obama's approval rating in NJ today is Plus 14 (54% approve, 40% disapprove).
• Voters split evenly on whether Christie would be better president than George W. Bush."

Not so good.  But as Kos documents, Cristie is constantly referred to in the national press in terms like this:

"the confrontational approach has made Governor Christie of New Jersey a hot property," 

"Many are vying for an endorsement from the popular freshman governor, who quickly rose to the national spotlight"

Thus, Christie becomes the latest in a long string of worthless, ignorant, corrupt Republican governors that the press has tried to foist on us as presidential material in the last few dedades:  Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Haley Barbour, Sarah Palin, that asshole in Florida, that other asshole in South Carolina, and the ur-jerks  George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.  And believe me, I don't think we have been all that lucky that so far only two of them have made it to the White House.

How many decades, and how many lies is it going to take before people give up the naive notion that the mainstream press in this country are just dupes of the Republican party, and realize that they are their collaborators?  Without a somewhat honest press, Democracy cannot survive.  I'm afraid that that is the whole idea.

Comments

Poll P. said…
I'm hoping the internet will be a counter-balance to the MSP. But I'm not too sanguine.
May 14, 2011 at 10:58 AM
Green Eagle said…
Well, it is to a good degree. Unfortunately, the internet a lot of people see is just another forum to spread Republican poison.
May 14, 2011 at 5:47 PM
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