The MSM’s relationship to the Democrats reminds me of that bad kid I hung out with in school who kept egging me on to make the wrong choices: “hey man, everything’s ok, everybody’s doin it, its cool”. Things always felt so good and so right at the time, and hey, my buddy wouldn’t lead me astray. It was usually the next day or so when reality came crashing down on me.

While liberal bias in the media may be frustrating to us conservatives, at least we know it when we see it. Liberals want so bad to believe what they hear in the media that they take it as gospel. Just look where the liberals’ friends in the MSM have taken the Democrats in the last couple of years.

Buoyed by the MSM’s endless cycle of Iraqi quagmire stories and self fulfilling polls the Dems took a cut and run position. Countless success stories abounded in the alternate media as well as legitimate polls which predicted that Iraqis were ready for democracy, but the Dems couldn’t or wouldn’t see reality. Instead they chose the MSM version and ended up on the wrong side of history when Iraqis overwhelmingly embraced democracy.

Before that, the MSM lead the Dems down the garden path of embracing the U.N. as the answer to all of our international problems. Again the blogosphere was abuzz with stories of U.N. corruption long before the Oil For Food scandal became too big to be avoided by the mainstream press. How ridiculous does Kerry’s “international test” look now?

More recently the MSM has spun the Schiavo story as a Republican albatross, but again, the facts were largely ignored, bogus memos were relied on, and the polls were spun to reify the story, not to ascertain true public sentiment. Zogby had the kahunas to conduct a fair poll and, sure enough, most would have favored keeping Terri Schiavo alive.

Finally, take a look at the public sentiment on the issue of same sex marriage referred to by Jayson at PoliPundit. Judging from press accounts in the MSM over the last year or so, one would have thought that Republicans were radical religious freaks based on their position on this issue. Not so at all. But the Dems took it hook, line and sinker.

With friends like the MSM…

Both Ankle Biting Pundits and Powerline have the latest on the memo scandal reported by the Washington Times. Apparently not a single Republican knew anything about the source of the talking points memo. In fact, all of the Senators were interviewed with no results. All but two that is. Democrat Senators Jack Reed and Harry Reid refused to respond. That’s funny, isn’t Harry Reid the one who’s been claiming Republican foul play the loudest.

Just think of all of the facts that have surfaced since the original story was reported. How hard was it to get these facts? Most of them just came from a common sense review of the document itself. Let’s say that review took a couple of hours to digest and think about. Probably less, but lets err on the side of caution. Then there was the exercise that the Times did of interviewing the Senators. Ok that takes a bit more time, probably a couple of days to track everybody down and get ahold of them. Not a lot of effort I’d say.

Now imagine if those facts were (ok hold your hats here, I’m going to suggest something that sounds a little nuts) actually reported. It seems pretty obvious that the story would infer the opposite of what the original story did. But I guess that’s the point isn’t it. Fact checking and journalistic integrity wouldn’t give them the story they wanted to tell. So instead they excitedly rushed out with the baloney memo story.

The Times and blogs report (the others stonewall), you decide.

Holy smokes is my wife looking beautiful. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always thought that she was a knockout, but she’s almost at her fifth month of pregnancy and she’s just radiant. I’m not just talking skin deep beauty either. It’s like her soul is shining more brightly. And it seems to keep getting brighter and brighter by the day.

I guess that’s the beauty of two souls.

AARP has a Social Security Blog! What’s next?

AARP’s recent commercial compares tearing down the whole house because the sink is broken with reforming Social Security reform suggesting that reform would destroy Social Security and they also suggest that with a few small changes, Social Security can be guaranteed.

• Social Security is NOT guaranteed, Congress can change it any time, even eliminiate it completely.
• Their few small changes include raising the cap on “contributions” and would entail reducing benefits after 2041.
• The AARP membership consists of people aged 50 and older.
• President Bush has already stated that those 55 and older will not be affected by any changes to Social Security.
• Even if changes are voted in this session (109th Congress), effective dates will be sometime in the future.
• Most probably any current member of AARP will not be affected by changes to Social Security.

Tell me, please, why do they oppose private accounts so vehemently and why should we listen to them?

A Flash from Patrick Ruffini via Blogs for Bush:

This communicates the poll results and the current state of the Social Security Debate:

Have you ever heard of “Freedom of Transportation”? How about “Freedom of Education”? How about “Freedom of Healthcare”? No? How about “Freedom of the Press”. Ahhh there we go, you’ve heard of that one. It’s a biggie actually – the First Amendment to the Constitution. Transportation and healthcare are important societal institutions, but freedom of the press is particularly special and deserving of constitutional protection. It’s not so much that the press per se is important as is our right to be informed. A functioning democracy requires the populace to be in the know, rather than in the dark. So we bestow upon the press a special status, with special rights.

Constitutionally they are entrusted to inform us. In turn, major news organizations specifically hold themselves out to be purveyors of “news”. Not only is our trust in the media implied, they explicitly ask us to trust them. “News you can trust”, “the most trusted name is news”, “reliable sources” are all phrases we have heard.

So when we see biased reporting that appears more to advocate a political position rather than inform us of important facts, it is more than just annoying or even unfair, it’s a serious breach of trust. It’s also an abuse of power. Under the guise of informing, they’re actually advocating. The practical effect is to undermine democracy by taking the public out of the decision making equation. You can’t make a meaningful decision without all of the facts. Worse, because the bias is not disclosed the public is made to believe it has all of the facts and the citizenry become mere pawns in a political game.

So excuse me and my fellow bloggers for being p***ed off when we see the media doing such things as feeding the public grossly skewed polling results on matters of grave importance as if those polls represent “the truth.”

Funny how doctors and lawyers go to jail for breaches of trust, but the media seems to get a free pass.

Welcome Polipundit Readers! Please look around.

Do you hear that? (crickets chirping) Things must be going well in Iraq. Our friends at OpiniPundit dug a little deeper and found this report of more insurgents getting a good ol’ fashioned southern butt kicking.

On the other hand, news from Afghanistan???? After ignoring one of the greatest democratic success stories in history occurring over the past year, they turned their cameras on for the Taliban.

I’ve had a couple of days to reflect on Terri Schiavo’s death. Below you’ll find pages and pages of our views on this matter. I wish to add my two cents on what I feel is the bigger picture, which seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle.

To those who sought comfort in the fact that Terri’s death came as a result of what appeared to be an extensive legal process, we must never lose sight of the fact that those processes are merely the means by which our society strives to achieve justice. Far too many appeared to be content with the fact that the process was fully played out according to the prescribed rules and procedures as if this was an end unto itself.

Pundits scoffed at the fact that morality and religion entered into the equation implying that these concepts have no place on our legal system. Yet our laws were founded on Judeo-Christian ethic. Murder is against the law because our society says murder is wrong. Stealing is a crime because stealing is wrong. These are not rules arbitrarily assigned to give meaning to our legal processes. Rather it is the processes that are created to give effect to our notions of right and wrong.

It seems that to some, right and wrong doesn’t really matter any more.

At 2:00 a.m. local time, Sunday, April 3rd, it’s time to set the clocks ahead one hour unless you are in Hawaii, Arizona or parts of Indiana.
Update: Reader newton notes: Or Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, BTW
This is a good time to test your smoke detectors and change the batteries in them.
This post will stay on top until after the time change.

He was a great spiritual leader for untold millions. Kim has some prayers below. The Anchoress is the site to be at today.

Also check out Powerline covering the NY Times showing more of its true colors.