The Voice of Reason: Without Media Slant, Romney Wins Hands Down

I remember reading about an education study that illustrated how we treat someone and the expectations we have for that person is patterned after what we hear about that person.  In the study, teachers were given erroneous information to trick them into thinking that the top-performing students in the class were the worst-performing students and vice versa.  As a result, the teachers treated the top-performing students poorly and their grades suffered, while the low-performers were treated well and actually ended up with the top grades in the class.

The mainstream news media have essentially tried the same type of social experiment on the American people, telling them for months what to believe about each of the Presidential candidates.  Television newscasts and newspaper coverage have hammered home the media's perceptions of each candidate's attributes.  For Republican nominee Mitt Romney, the news media have reiterated that he is an uncaring business person who is losing the election because he isn't forceful enough, he only wants to look out for millionaires and is an ineffective communicator. For President Barack Obama, the news media have delivered continuous messaging that he connects well with the American people, is a strong leader and effecive communicator who is focusing on programs for the poor and middle class and will win the election.

Last night during the debate, the American people were able to make their own judgments about the candidates without the media filters of lliberal news coverage or the slant of political advertisements. They were able to compare and contrast the Republican nominee and his Democratic opponent while they were standing together on one stage. 

What they saw wasn't pretty -- one of the worst beatings in American political debate history.  What they saw was a complete disconnect with the perceptions of the candidates they have been spoon fed by the news media for months on end.

Romney showed a level of compassion that was the complete opposite of what Americans have been led to believe.  He talked again and again about how Americans have been devastated by our current President's policies and that he would address these challenges as our President. Romney also showed that he was able to stand toe to toe with the President and forcefully make his points, even if it meant he had to essentially call the President a liar.  Romney also emphasized throughout the evening how he wants to cut the tax rates for everyone, especially the middle class, but wants to limit deductions so that millionaires will continue to contribute the same amount of revenue.  As for communication, Romney was able to present his case coherently and concisely, often using bullet-point-like descriptions of his plans that were easy for viewers to follow and understand.  His communication style fit the format of the debate to a T.

On the other hand, the President rarely used examples that allowed him to connect with the average American and spent more energy looking down at the stage than staring at Romney, the American people watching their televisions or the audience.  Every time the President attempted to tie Romney to promoting "tax cuts for the rich" with a flailing punch, the Republican would counter with a sharp jab that knocked the President back on his heels. The President's responses were often rambling, nearly incoherent phrases and sentences coupled together without any of the same clarity provided by his opponent.

At several points during the evening, moderator Jim Lehrer seemingly offered the President a lifeline, asking questions in a way that actually started to make the President's points for him. But the President continued to drown in his ocean of words -- separated by numerous uhs and ums -- that the American people could not follow and often could not fully comprehend. Although the moderator allowed the President to ramble on for minutes longer than his competitor, the more the President talked the less sense he made.  More was not better.

Unlike what Americans have been led to believe the past several months by the news media, Romney looked and sounded Presidential, while the President sounded and acted like a third-rate, unprepared candidate still developing his pitch in the primary season. And while Romney was able to show Americans through examples and data that he has proven experience growing jobs, improving education, cutting taxes and working with members of the opposition party to pass legislation, the President was only able to ask the American people for another chance because he would like to do those things in a second term.

When even the most left-leaning news organizations reported that Romney clearly won the debate, you know that it had to have been a complete rout.  NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw may have had the harshest criticism of the President of anyone, saying, "If it had been Romney performing like the President last night, it (the campaign) would have been over."  I happen to agree. Even MSNBC couldn't spin the President's clear ineptitude into some false explanation of brilliance. The debate was so lopsided that I fully expected Rosie O'Donnell to jump out of the audience onto the stage and begin singing from "La Boheme."

I strongly believe that what we witnessed yesterday evening was the beginning of the end of the Obama Presidency.  It can't  come quickly enough for the American people, who are clearly struggling under this President's failed policies.

The Voice of Reason: Don't Believe Everything You Read

My father, a construction worker, was a very smart man. 

He dropped out of high school in the eighth grade in order to support his family during the Great Depression.  Later, he was drafted into the Army during World War II.  He was seriously injured in a battle protecting the Remagen Bridge for transporting American troops and equipment as the Germans retreated back across the Rhine.  What he lacked in book knowledge, he made up in good, old American common sense.  I still remember one of the best pieces of advice he ever gave me:

They can put anything on paper.

I didn't understand what he was trying to tell me when I was a kid, but it started to make sense to me when I began studying journalism in college. When I started work as a public relations professional and saw how the news media would often lie or slant the news to sell newspapers, I began to fully comprehend what this man was trying to tell me.   My father was letting me know that once something is printed on paper, people tend to believe it, and what is printed may not be true.  While watching recent news coverage of Republican nominee Mitt Romney, I began to recall my father's words.

If you have taken the time to read, view and listen to the coverage of Romney published and broadcast by various mainstream news sources as I do every day, you may begin to think that he has lost the race. You watch as liberal commentators and liberal reporters slant the news in a way that makes it appear that President Barack Obama is pulling ahead. You read and watch the coverage of Romney's comment about how 47% of Americans are depending on entitlements, with the pundits predicting that this one comment has killed Romney's chances for a victory. You also watch as these same pundits cite polls showing President Obama leading in the battleground states, almost as if it's a foregone conclusion that he will win this election.

In short, they aren't reporting the news; they are projecting the news through coverage that includes their opinions and biases.

And despite their best efforts, the most respected polls show that this race is a dead heat.  The fact is that Republicans are much more likely and motivated to vote than their Democratic counterparts. Although there may be slightly more registered Democrats, Republicans will turn out in record numbers while Democrats will likely stay home in droves. Polls also show Romney winning over independent voters by as much as 14 points.

An astute observer can spot the shenanigans of the mainstream news media very easily. While most of the news media has focused on Romney's comments and polls taken immediately following the Democratic National Convention, we have also seen significant negative coverage that is chipping away at the approval ratings of the President, driving low numbers even lower.

Look at what's happened in the past week.

We've seen embassies all around the world being attacked.  We've also learned that our Libyan ambassador was killed, along with three other Americans.  For those of us who watch and read more than just NBC News, we've learned that while our ambassador was missing, our President was asleep, and the day after our ambassador was killed, our President attended a fundraiser in Las Vegas.  We've seen coverage of a scathing report about serious mistakes at our Justice Department that resulted in a border control agent being killed, and coverage about how our State Department and other agencies received warnings of the impending attacks at our embassies, but apparently did nothing to protect the Americans who were killed by those terrorists.  We've also seen coverage of the Administration apologizing for the video that supposedly initiated the violence, before backtracking and admitting that these were planned, coordinated attacks by terrorists. We've seen reports of increased weekly unemployment claims, with nearly 400,000 people applying for benefits for the first time this past week alone. We've also learned that President Obama could not find time to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but found time to meet with JayZ and Beyonce, and also to appear on the David Letterman show, where he couldn't even tell us how much debt this country had incurred when he took office. Just today, we learned that President Obama was grilled on Univision for deporting so many illegal immigrants, but not proposing a comprehensive immigration policy in four years. We learned from the same interview that the President doesn't believe that Washington can be changed from the inside.  Think about it. If he doesn't believe it can be changed from the inside, why the heck did America elect him on a platform of Hope and Change and why should they give him a second chance?

And in a development that received sparse national coverage but may hit the pocketbooks of Americans harder than all of the other news put together, the prestigious firm of Egan-Jones downgraded the rating on the world's largest economy to AA-, which is three steps below the coveted AAA rating America once enjoyed.     

And the news media report that Romney had a bad week?

Americans aren't stupid.  They read their newspapers and watch their evening news. Although the Romney story may have been the lead on the evening news for a couple of days, coverage of the other, more important issues that chip away at the President's approval ratings have also been on the same newscasts. The mainstream news media do their best to avoid linking this negative coverage to the President, but the American people know who is leading this country. They also know that our economy hasn't recovered and our foreign policy is falling apart.  All of this has occurred on his watch.

My advice to you is the same as what my father told me years ago:  They can put anything on paper.  In other words, don't buy what the biased mainstream news media are trying to sell you.  The Obama Administration is imploding, even if the news media won't report it.

The Voice of Reason: Questions I'd Like the Lamestream News Media to Ask Our President

As a trained journalist, I am amazed at the "free pass" that the vast majority of our lamestream news media have given the President over the past three and one-half years.

To be clear, I don't claim to have the high-brow intellect of Brian Williams of NBC News, Diane Sawyer of ABC News or Anderson Cooper of CNN, but I am bright enough to ask a few tough questions of our President.  Brian, Diane and Anderson, if you have the opportunity to interview the President, please feel free to steal these questions, unless you feel that asking tough questions will somehow diminish your journalistic "integrity."  You might want to take notes:

• Mr. President, your administration did not approve the upper part of the Keystone Pipeline despite years of review but are now supporting the lower half of the pipeline and pledging to speed the approval process for only this part of the pipeline.  Without supporting the upper half, essentially aren't you essentially supporting a pipeline to nowhere?
• Mr. President, when you were elected, you said that you would have the most transparent administration in history.  Since that time, Democratic leaders in Congress passed your health care legislation without even giving members of Congress or the public time to read it.  You also have recently claimed Executive Privilege for documents that pertain to the Fast and Furious investigation.  What do you say to the American citizens who remember what you said about transparency and now see what you have done and are doing?
• Mr. President, in your autobiography, you talked about listening to Marxist professors and attending socialist conferences, in addition to using drugs "enthusiastically" while you were in college and high school.  How have these experiences shaped your views as President?  What did you learn from these Marxist professors and socialist conferences?
• Mr. President, you have continued to blame your predecessor, George Bush, for the economy.  At what point will you begin to accept blame for this economy?
• Mr. President, if you aren't reelected as President, how long should Americans blame you for the economy in the next Administration?
• Mr. President, you have provided a birth certificate indicating you were born in Hawaii, but why did your publisher tout the fact that you were "Kenyan born" for over 15 years?  Did you provide this information to your publisher as is the case with almost all authors?  If you didn't provide this bio, why wasn't this mistake corrected until the months before you ran for President?
• Mr. President, while running for President and when you were first elected, you were vehemently opposed to housing prisoners at Gitmo, using enhanced interrogation techniques to obtain information and other practices that you deemed to be inhumane and not in line with American values.  As President, you now have a "kill list" of people who are suspected of being terrorists. How can killing suspected terrorists be more humane or more in line with American values than housing or interrogating a live known terrorist?
• Mr. President, on two different occasions in 2011, while talking with Unvision, you discussed how the separation of powers outlined by the Constitution would prevent you from ignoring laws passed by Congress in order to allow illegal immigrants stay in this country. Earlier this month, you announced that you were going to do just that -- allow certain illegal immigrants to stay in this country.  What changed in the past year in the Constitution or in laws passed by Congress to make you change your mind?
• Mr. President, when you issued your Executive Order allowing certain immigrants to stay in this country, weren't you essentially creating new law?  What part of the U.S. Constitution allows you to issue new laws through Executive Order superceding those laws already passed by Congress and signed by a previous President? Did you not take an oath to uphold the laws of the United States?
• Mr. President, now that through an Executive Order you have allowed an estimated one million illegal immigrants to stay in this country and work, what would you say to millions of Americans who are unemployed or underemployed and desperately need those jobs currently being taken by those who are in this country illegally? What would you say to the thousands of American students who have applied to colleges and universities, only to be turned down because of space limitations, while illegal immigrants have been accepted?
• Mr. President, you have attended more fundraisers than your past three predecessors combined at this same point in their administrations. What do you say to those out-of-work Americans who wonder if you are spending more time trying to be reelected than working to help them put food on their tables by improving this economy?
• Mr. President, ads produced by your campaign have attacked Mitt Romney for his work at Bain Capital, a venture capital firm.  While Bain risked the dollars of private investors, did your administration essentially do the same thing -- except with taxpayer dollars -- in loans and investments to firms such as Solyndra?  How many of these firms failed and how much in taxpayer dollars have been lost?
• Mr. President, since the Supreme Court ruled yesterday that the State of Arizona has the right to check immigration status during traffic stops, your Administration has ended programs of cooperation with this state in enforcing immigration laws.  Isn't this vindictive, and don't these changes signal to those living illegally in Arizona that the federal government is not going to enforce immigration laws vigorously?   
• Mr. President, what leading economic indicators have improved since you were inaugurated in January 2009?

Maybe I'm just a dreamer, but it seems to me that someone in the mainstream news media should be willing to ask tough questions.  After all, these are the types of questions that millions of Americans, including this one, want answered.

News Media Selectively Report the News

Earlier this week, news media coverage of a major issue appeared in almost every newspaper and on nearly every television and radio broadcast.  The extensive  coverage pointed out the unbridled arrogance of former President George W. Bush when he was in office, providing readers, viewers and listeners with a number of stunning examples.

One example cited was Bush's recess appointments to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the National Labor Relations Board.  Although permitted by the Constitution to make appointments while the Senate is in recess to allow key positions to be filled, the President made these appointments while the Senate was in pro-forma sessions.  Bush clearly stretched the limits of the President's Constitutional power, pushing it further than the framers of the Constitution ever intended.

Another example revealed by the news media was Bush's "kill list," a list of suspected terrorists selected for execution by drones.  Without any trial by jury or evidence presented to a judge, the President and his team determined who would die and who would live.  If family members or other community members were found with suspected terrorists, Bush and his group of advisors often decided that they were up to no good, too, and ordered a drone strike, killing both the potentially innocent and those strongly suspected of guilt.  Dead men, women and children tell no tales.

Did you happen to see any of this coverage?  You didn't?   

The fact is that there has been little coverage about these issues because the President who has displayed this unequaled disregard for the Constitution, as well as American and international laws, has been Barack Obama, not George W. Bush.

Yes, it was Obama who made the recess appointments while the Senate was still convening.  Yes, it was Obama who has developed an ever-expanding list of suspected terrorists to kill, justifying the killing of potentially innocent people who just happen to be near the suspected terrorists.  It was also the Obama Administration who closed the gap between Church and State, telling Catholic institutions that they must provide birth control converage as part of the new health care law.

It was the Obama Administration that stretched the limits of the Commerce Clause in the Constitution, telling Americans that they must buy health insurance and would be penalized if they didn't.  For the first time in American history, the Commerce Clause is going to be used to penalize Americans for not participating in commerce?

This President and his administration also selectively decided who would be the winners and the losers in the bailout of General Motors, protecting the United Auto Workers and the dealerships of those who supported his election, while distributing pennies on the dollar to shareholders and bondholders and closing GM dealerships for most of those who strongly supported John McCain in the 2008 election.  Even in its selection of the "green" companies to support with stimulus dollars, the Obama Administration just happened to pick those who supported his candidacy the strongest.  What a coincidence.

But you haven't heard much about any of these issues because the mainstream news media wanted Obama to be elected, and wants him to serve another four years. 

But if it had been Bush who had done even half of these shenanigans, you would have seen extensive coverage on the front page of every major newspaper and news magazine, the lead story on every major television station's broadcast, and the main topic of every major radio station's news coverage. The mainstream news media, as well as the Internet, would have been abuzz with coverage and comments about how Bush was acting more like a dictator than a President. 

Sadly, the same Americans and members of the news media who vehemently condemned Bush for approving enhanced interrogation techniques on live prisioners are applauding Obama for having the courage to kill suspected terrorists and innocent people who may be near suspected terrorists.  The same voters and reporters who vehemently opposed the ability of the Bush Administration to obtain a wiretap quickly from a single federal judge in order to listen in on the phone conversations of suspected terrorists now undoubtedly support the Obama Adminitration's selection of who will be killed, without any legislative or judicial oversight.

To me, this is the height of hypocricy. It's past time for the news media and the electorate to quit giving this President a free pass in terms of accountability and to begin holding him to the same  standard as his predecessors.