Dual Standards

From National Review Online:

  But recall that the public cannot get access to paperwork related to grants to distributed by then-state-legislator Barack Obama (records from 1997 to 2000 aren’t available); his state legislative office records (which he says may have been thrown out); he refuses to release a specific list of law clients, instead giving a list of all of his firm’s clients, numbering several hundred each year; he won’t release his application to the state bar (where critics wonder if he lied in responding to questions about parking tickets and past drug use); he’s never released any legal or billing records to verify that he only did a few hours of work for a nonprofit tied to convicted donor Rezko; and he’s never released any medical records, just a one-page letter from his doctor. Then there was the effort against Stanley Kurtz for his effort to examine documents relating to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, where William Ayers hired Obama to be board chairman. Oh, and Biden has released his earmark requests for one year out of his 36 in the Senate.

The double standard in the coverage of Republicans and Democrats on the part of mainstream media just boggles the mind. 

I am reminded of 2004. Bush had authorized the independent release of his military records in 1996. For the next 8 years, reporters poured over the records tracking down literally every still-living person who signed anything in the records. The number of man hours spent vetting Bush must have run into the high thousands. Kerry by contrast never authorized the independent release of his records (and still hasn’t to this day despite promises to do so) but merely allowed reporters to look at, but not copy, under close supervision by his campaign, select records that Kerry provided. The media raised not a peep. 

Later in the campaign 22 of the 26 surviving peer officers and all 5 members of his chain of command in Kerry’s Swiftboat squadron issued a statement saying he had lied about and exaggerated his military service in his autobiography. Three of the officers had previously defended Kerry from Republican accusations he committed war crimes. The media completely ignored the story for 40 days until finally they had to pay attention after Kerry held a news conference admitting that the Swiftboaters were correct in saying he had not been in Cambodia during Christmas of 1967. 

The event is especially damning given that just the fact that 81% of his fellow officers (87% surviving) found him lacking was major news regardless of the details they offered. 

Can you imagine what would have happened if 22 of the 26 surviving fellow pilots in Bush’s Fighter Squadron plus his entire chain of command had issued a statement saying Bush lied and exaggerated about his service? How many seconds do you think would have elapsed between the statement and its widespread publication and incessant repeating? 

Paradoxically, Democrats should be the ones to worry about the media refusing to do its supposed “4th Estate” function in the case of Democrats running against Republicans, because it greatly raises the possibility of a tremendous scandal either late in the campaign or even after a fatally flawed candidate has assumed office. Think about it. How can any Democrat, right now, be certain that some devastating secret does not lie in Obama’s extensive and unexamined paper trail? 

No one will know until it’s too late. 

[More double standards in coverage via Instapundit]

3 thoughts on “Dual Standards”

  1. What else is there to say, really, as if pointing out the obvious is going to change things. People tend to self-select (to the extent conditions allow) themselves into professions/careers most congenial to their personality types. We conservatives will just have to grind our teeth and realize that it will always be an uphill slog as the conservative mind-set/personality-type does not easily lend itself to the news profession.

  2. I’m in a bubble, I know – because I know these things. I spend way too much time pondering how it is that Democrats apparently don’t know these things. How could they not know these things? How? Hoooowww??? When the media do eventually cover the stories, how do they nevertheless end up down that rabbit hole?

    I don’t get how the Democrat side claims that it is the victim of unfair treatment in the public sphere. How?!

    Rhetorical question. Sigh.

  3. Why should the Democrats worry? The same media that has ignored Obama’s ties to Rezko, Ayers, et al. will ignore any other scandals that arise. They count on it.

    Unfortunately for the Dems and the media, the MSM can no longer control the narrative. Here’s an illustration: Search Google News for ‘Obama Rezko’ (with no quotes) and you’ll get 2531 hits. Querry all of the intertubes and you get 1,530,000 hits.

    Like a cat hiding under a thin bedspread they’re not fooling anyone but themselves.

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