Huh . . turns out the media doesn't like Al Gore very much

History Watch

The publication of Eric Alterman's book "What Liberal Media?" will cause a small ripple of public commentary about which way our media is skewed. That the media is liberal, the convenient lie, is being shouted by our very conservative press. That it is not should be fairly obvious in the way the media treated Al Gore through 1999 and 2000. They worked very hard to "misinterpret" every Gore utterance as a lie, while at the same time remaining silent about Bush's verbal gaffs, the obvious and scary lacunae in his experience, his criminal past, his feckless military "career", his callowness, his lack of depth, the anemic rationales for his stated policies, and his crooked business dealings. They had to work very hard to somehow miss all of those things about candidate Bush, while picking through every Gore statement which could be twisted as a lie, like a gaggle of moralizers in a church basement, playing Elvis slowly on their turntable and listening for naughty words. But they really came through for Bush. Very little was said about the behavior of the media by the media at the time. The best archive for all of this malfeasance can be found at The Daily Howler, a very important site now that the next campaign is gearing up and it is once again open season on Democrats.

However, it is important to understand what Gore was up against in his campaign, to watch for that behavior again. Here are some of the surprisingly few resources which describe the screwing that Gore took by the media, apart from the Daily Howler. Read the playbook, and watch for the plays. .

• "The Press versus Al Gore"
• "Al Gore versus the Media"
• A wrap up of the horrible jobs done by Connelly and Seelye by Bob Somerby.
• "Gore's too-willing executioners"
• "One Voter Strikes Back"
• "Truth be Told", some too little, too late bitching by Richard Cohen, who didn't speak up much during the campaign.
• Finally, check out this article by David Podvin on his theory about just exactly why the media were so Bush-philic during the campaign.Not for the faint of heart.
• By way of contrast, here is an article about how comparatively easy the media were on Bush and Cheney.

Environment Watch

Thanks to Gary for this article, a well-balanced and informative look at the Bush administration's record on the environment. Loosening environmental regulations and lax enforcement is a two-fold win for Bush. First, it is political payback for polluting campaign contributors. Second, as the environment gets worse, more people are sickened, impoverished, and marginalized by our terrible system of healthcare. You can't concentrate on how the rich are making themselves richer if you have to fight for healthcare.

Iraq Watch

A brief article about the political fallout for Tony Blair and the damage done to NATO by Andrew Murray, "No Mandate to go to War".