How'd the Mainstream Media do this weekend?

© 2000

Snip #1 The Florida Supreme Court is packed with moderates and conservatives, with just one liberal, ABC’s Peter Jennings assured World News Tonight viewers on Friday night: "We, by the way, tried to avoid labeling people this week but here’s a quick take up on the make up of the Florida Supreme Court. There are seven justices. Six were appointed by Democratic Governors. Our legal analyst in Florida tells us that only one of the judges is considered to be a liberal, the rest are regarded as moderate to conservative. The court has been engaged in a running battle with the Florida legislature, which has a Republican majority, over separation of powers, judicial versus legislative."

Snip #2 NBC and CBS ruled the Bush team fouled in claiming any mischief in the Palm Beach County recount. On Saturday night, Jim Avila contended: "Individual counters, interviewed before the GOP made those high-profile charges, told NBC News the system, while slow, is working." Avila’s expert witnesses: A Democrat and a Green Party member. The next night, CBS reporter Jim Axelrod assured viewers: "Bob Lemon is a 71-year-old Texas lawyer who paid his own way here to be a Democratic observer. If there’s truly bad blood or intentional bad counting, he hasn’t seen it."

Snip #3 Katherine Harris came under some fire from pundits on the weekend talk shows. Time’s Jack White declared her more relevant and partisan than the guy who leaked the Bush drunk driving story and Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift made herself more partisan than even a Democratic political operative in dismissing her motives as purely partisan.

Snip #4 Things got pretty heated on CNN’s special hour-long Capital Gang on Saturday night when Mark Shields and Al Hunt took umbrage at guest Bill Bennett’s contention that Al Gore’s operatives are "stealing" the election and are employing "thuggish tactics." Hunt pretended to criticize both sides equally, but his emotional reaction to Bennett’s conservative views betrayed which side his heart truly favors.

Snip #5 "Re-vote! Re-vote!" Friday night the CBS Evening News delivered a one-sided story sympathetic to a few Palm Beach County voters who were unable to vote or were too stupid to figure out how to vote. CBS, of course, withheld any negative judgment about them or allowed any time for anyone to point out that voter registration list errors or ballot confusion is no reason to void an election.

Snip #6 "The Woodstein Myth Is Dead: Corruption is king." In a piece for National Review Online posted on Friday, the MRC’s Tim Graham suggested: "Those who insist on following the letter of the law are presented as arbitrary and partisan. Those who insist on changing the rules arbitrarily to match their advantage are presented as the forces of fairness and deliberation."

Snip #7 Saturday Night Live comedy writers more perceptive than journalists? Here’s the opening joke from Saturday Night Live’s "Weekend Update" news show, as announced by Jimmy Fallon: "In Florida tonight the hand count continues and Republicans are accusing Democrats of changing the rules. Among the types of ballots that will now be counted for Gore: indented ballots, ballots left completely blank and ballots marked ‘Bush.’"

-- Uncle Bob (unclb0b@aol.com), November 20, 2000