Media Fails To Be Evenhanded

Palm Beach Post’s concept of “Balanced Views” (Huh!)

http://israel-commentary.org

The most conspicuous example of this deliberate  delusion is a daily page in the paper called Balanced Views consisting of two separate vertical columns – side by side. One is called, From the Left and the other is called, From the Right.

The reader is also given a list of contributing columnists appearing on both sides on different days of the week. Additional columnists do appear.

Listed on the Left are: Paul Krugman, Mary Sanchez, Maureen Dowd, Thomas Friedman, E.J. Dionne Jr., Gail Collins and Leonard Pitts. No-one with views on the Left would argue with any of these selections.

Those on the Right are a totally different story. Many of them are not on the Right at all or on the Right on rare occasions.  They then  proceed from that supposed position to  criticize rather than support the Right in most of their writings.

This is particularly the case when they write about President Trump — which is the greater part of their time. Listed as Right wing in the paper are Mona Charen, Ross Douthat, Michael Gerson, Kathleen Parker, David Brooks and George Will all of whom spend most of the time criticizing the Republican Party and President Trump. Chas Krauthammer has had an epiphany lately to modify his approach and even  reluctantly praise the President

The Post of  Wed. Jan. 10, 2018, is a perfect example of this ploy. The column on the Left is written by Catherine Rampell from the Washington Post,  a paper notorious for its Left point of view. Her column is titled “Rising stock prices are not evidence of Trump ‘genius’.” Need I say more?  Rampell goes on to explain why Trump should not be given obvious credit for turning the mind-set of virtually the entire nation around and many of the Europeans and Far East, as well. People and companies are now optimistic and confidently putting money back into the system. The stock market respects that opinion and is setting record high records every day.

Then we move over to the supposed Right column in the paper written by Michael Gerson who also happens to write for the Washington Post. By the way, in no way does anyone  present a genuinely Right view and still work for the Washington Post.

Gerson’s perverse opening paragraph tells it all and was predictably  embraced by his Washington Post editors. Gerson writes:
“ Because of President Donald Trump’s absence of downward loyalty, his elevation of the morally impaired and the encouragement of staff factionalism, his administration will produce any number of damaging memoirs and leak-filled exposes.”

Then Gerson goes on to praise Michael Wolff’s, ‘Fire and Fury’ as a true estimate of Donald Trump when any number of objective critics have described Wolff’s book as a work of complete fiction. Wolff admits that he is in the business of selling books and don’t let the facts get in the way.

Fortunately, we do have an objective point of view dealing with the facts of the case. It comes from Wm. McGurn, Wall Street Journal, Dec. 26, 2017, titled: The ‘Stupidity of Donald Trump.’

McGurn goes on to disclaim:

“This time, one year ago, the assumption dominating political coverage was the only people more stupid than Donald Trump were the ‘disposables’ that elected him.

Since then, of course President Trump has become President Trump and in his over 11 months in office he has:

Put Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court balancing the Left leaning

Appointed four time as many judges on the appellate courts as Barack Obama dis his first year.

Recognized Jerusalem as the capitol of Israel

Withdrawn from the anti-US Paris climate accord

Adopted a more resolute policy on Afghanistan,

Rolled back Catholic Nuns having to provide employees with the tools of contraception and abortion

Opened drilling for oil in Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,

Initiated a bold deregulation assault of the Deep State and ..

Topped if off with the first major overhaul of the tax code in more than 30 years.”

Who then do you think is giving the public more accurate information and reasoned opinion — Wm. McGurn or the carefully selected be-clouded columnists  of  the Left and Right  of the the Palm Beach Post?

Jerome S Kaufman, Publisher/Editor