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News

Michele Bachmann wins Republican primary debate in New Hampshire

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From the mainstream media:

From Twitter:

John Hawkins (Right Wing News)
Winner? Michele Bachmann. Last place? Herman Cain. His Muslim answer sounded awful. #cnndebate

Kathleen McKinley (Houston Chronicle, Right Wing News)
Now that Bachmann has proven herself a worthy candidate, the msm will go after her like they did Palin #waitandsee

Erick Erickson (Red State)
That sound you hear is millions of jaws hitting the ground by Bachmann’s stellar answer on Libya. She just did very well with that.

Erick Erickson (Red State)
Newt proved he can handle the debate. Bachmann wins as the strongest non Romney. Romney wins overall as no one knocked him off his perch.

Jennifer Rubin (Washington Post)
@daveweigel and Bachmann exceeded expectations

Jennifer Rubin (Washington Post)
who thinks Palin could have been more impressive than Bachmann?

Kathryn Jean Lopez (National Review)
michelle bachmann wins tonight and i suspect mitt romney is quite comfortable with that. #cnndebate

David Freddoso (National Review)
Lesson 1: Bachmann is a more serious candidate than Gingrich.

Jim Geraghty (National Review)
Bachmann’s performance tonight was so strong, it will take Ed Rollins at least half a week to derail her momentum…

Larry Sabato (Democrat)
Bachmann also pleased with her performance, with reason.

S.E. Cupp (Moderate conservative)
Romney looked good tonight, so did Pawlenty. But it must be said, Bachmann was actually the only rockstar on that stage.

S.E. Cupp (Moderate conservative)
David Gergen also says it was a very good night for Bachmann. So who did you think won the night?

Ezra Klein (Democrat from Washington Post)
Romney won. Bachmann surged. Cain disappointed. Pawlenty whiffed. Gingrich slept. Santorum fretted. Paul scolded. #CNNDebate

Keep in mind that Romney is the establishment candidate, the pick of the moderate Republicans and the Democrats. However, he did do well – it’s his record on abortion, religious liberty, global warming and health care that troubles me. (See related links below)

Debate transcript:

Best sound bite:

KING: Congresswoman Bachmann, should the president have supported and jointed more U.S. presence, but now a NATO operation? Was that the right thing to do? Is that in the vital national interest of the United States of America?

BACHMANN: No, I don’t believe so it is. That isn’t just my opinion. That was the opinion of our defense secretary, Gates, when he came before the United States Congress. He could not identify a vital national American interest in Libya.

Our policy in Libya is substantially flawed. It’s interesting. President Obama’s own people said that he was leading from behind. The United States doesn’t lead from behind. As commander in chief, I would not lead from behind.

We are the head. We are not the tail. The president was wrong. All we have to know is the president deferred leadership in Libya to France. That’s all we need to know. The president was not leading when it came to Libya.

First of all, we were not attacked. We were not threatened with attack. There was no vital national interest. I sit on the House Select Committee on Intelligence. We deal with the nation’s vital classified secrets.

We to this day don’t yet know who the rebel forces are that we’re helping. There are some reports that they may contain al Qaeda of North Africa. What possible vital American interests could we have to empower al Qaeda of North Africa and Libya? The president was absolutely wrong in his decision on Libya.

This is the answer that EVERYONE is pointing to as her finest moment.

Check out this Jennifer Rubin column that was just posted.

Excerpt:

There was some news made Monday night, as Bachmann declared her candidacy and showed herself to be a serious candidate. She often invoked her congressional experience (voting against TARP and against raising the debt limit and introducing a bill to repeal Obamacare). She gave an impassioned speech on the right to life, but said she wouldn’t go into states seeking to repeal their laws on gay marriage. As a federal matter, however, she would support a constitutional amendment if the Defense of Marriage Act doesn’t survive judicial scrutiny.

Read the whole thing. Michele is the candidate we need support.

You can contribute to her campaign right here. You can be her friend on Facebook here and also here.

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Commentary

Should the Republican candidates agree to debate on left-wing news channels?

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From moderate Republican Hugh Hewitt writing in the Washington Examiner.

Excerpt:

One week from today, the first debate featuring all but two of the key GOP contenders for the presidency will occur.

Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, businessman Herman Cain, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum will participate in the debate on the campus of St. Anselm College, from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT on Monday, June 13.

Incredibly, once again, GOP primary voters will only get to see their would-be nominees through a lens ground by traditional media. The event is being sponsored by CNN, local television station WMUR and the New Hampshire Union Leader.

CNN Chief National Correspondent John King will moderate the debate, with reporters from the local outlets. No doubt these are fine journalists, but like King, they will almost certainly carry with them all the biases and predispositions of the mainstream media.

If Dr. Charles Xavier could leave his X-Men films to read the minds of these and other journalists, how many do you suspect he would find who support a right-to-life amendment, oppose same-sex marriage, are eager to slash the corporate tax rate?

We all know this built-in bias exists, but still the candidates (except Sarah) agree to play by rules dictated by media that is overwhelmingly opposed to their election.

Expect the standard stunt questions on abortion in the event of rape or incest, weapons of mass destruction, evolution, global warming, or any of a dozen other dog whistles to the left designed to create the moment that replicates across the Web, that seeks to wound prospects by defining the GOP field as outside the mainstream.

They will do so even as the panel glides over the issues of national security of the United States and the woeful economic conditions in the land that ought to dominate. Imagine FDR participating in debates in 1931 and being asked about anything but the Depression and the adequacy of Hoover’s response to it.

I often disagree with Hugh Hewitt, especially on his backing of Mitt Romney and Harriet Miers, but he’s right about this.
News

Is the media accurate in reporting on left-wing and right-wing violence?

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Here’s an post from Newsbusters dated March 2010 that talks about whether the left or right is more violent.

Excerpt:

Before letting the media continue to perpetuate a stereotype that may not actually exist at all, let me give you the facts that U.S. journalists refuse to cite. Let me show you where real violence comes from, and I don’t even need to mention the millions of babies killed every year by progressives or even the tens of millions of people murdered by their communist heroes.

But of course, you would never have this view if all you watched was the mainstream news media. Isn’t it funny how the pattern of leftist violence has been obscured by the way that the media presents the stories? Is it intentional?

Is the media biased to the left?

Here’s a UCLA study on media bias.

Excerpt:

Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS’ “Evening News,” The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.

Only Fox News’ “Special Report With Brit Hume” and The Washington Times scored right of the average U.S. voter.

The most centrist outlet proved to be the “NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.” CNN’s “NewsNight With Aaron Brown” and ABC’s “Good Morning America” were a close second and third.

“Our estimates for these outlets, we feel, give particular credibility to our efforts, as three of the four moderators for the 2004 presidential and vice-presidential debates came from these three news outlets — Jim Lehrer, Charlie Gibson and Gwen Ifill,” Groseclose said. “If these newscasters weren’t centrist, staffers for one of the campaign teams would have objected and insisted on other moderators.”

The fourth most centrist outlet was “Special Report With Brit Hume” on Fox News, which often is cited by liberals as an egregious example of a right-wing outlet. While this news program proved to be right of center, the study found ABC’s “World News Tonight” and NBC’s “Nightly News” to be left of center. All three outlets were approximately equidistant from the center, the report found.

“If viewers spent an equal amount of time watching Fox’s ‘Special Report’ as ABC’s ‘World News’ and NBC’s ‘Nightly News,’ then they would receive a nearly perfectly balanced version of the news,” said Milyo, an associate professor of economics and public affairs at the University of Missouri at Columbia.”

Here’s a Harvard University study on media bias.

Excerpt:

The programming studied on Fox News offered a somewhat more positive picture… of Republicans and more negative one of Democrats compared with other media outlets. Fox News stories about a Republican candidate were most likely to be neutral (47%), with the remainder more positive than negative (32% vs. 21% negative). The bulk of that positive coverage went to Giuliani (44% positive), while McCain still suffered from unflattering coverage (20% positive vs. 35% negative).

When it came to Democratic candidates, the picture was more negative. Again, neutral stories had a slight edge (39%), followed by 37% negative and 24% positive. And, in marked contrast from the rest of the media, coverage of Obama was twice as negative as positive: 32% negative vs. 16% positive and 52% neutral.

But any sense here that the news channel was uniformly positive about Republicans or negative about Democrats is not manifest in the data.”

And of course in the related links you will find surveys of journalists, records of political contributions made by journalists, and glaring examples of left-wing media bias. The Democrat party as a whole is more to the right than mainstream journalism as a whole.

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