Election 2010: Media Keeps Burning the "Witch"

Attention Newsbusters!

I would like to drop a nickel on what might be the most insidious liberal news outlet on the web, AOL’s Politics Daily. You should consider posting a correspondent to monitor their news feeds on a full-time basis as the tone of the political articles penned by their writers is blatantly belligerent towards conservatives with a bias that is comparable to MSNBC.

Because it’s directed primarily at their 5,000,000 domestic subscribers- a number that has tumbled greatly since 2001, most people are unaware of the liberal propaganda AOL’s Politics Daily has been slinging as “news”.

But as a longtime AOL user, I see it pop up before my e-mail every day. I only peruse it to see what “spin” they attempt to lay on a story. What I’ve consistently noticed is that if it’s news that is bad for Republicans, they tend to leap on to the dog-pile yet if the news is unfavorable for liberals, they go through great lengths to find the silver lining.

AOL’s Politics Daily is a virtual “how to” on penning political propaganda.

Their most recent obnoxiously hostile piece directed at a Republican appeared yesterday, a story headlined “O’Donnell’s Constitution Question Floors Audience”.

You’d think the most vilified Republican US Senatorial nominee EVER would have quipped something along the lines of the gems regularly cast by New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino.

No such crassness was found upon inspection of the facts, no matter how the writer (whose name is not given!) twists them.

The smug article starts off “”where better to learn about the US Constitution than at a law school”? and then chronicles how Ms. O’Donnell was laughed at by the audience for asking the question “Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?”.

The joke’s on the jackals disrespectfully guffawing at debate and the unknown author of the article as the words “separation of church and state” are nowhere to be found in the Constitution. Not even in the First Amendment, which is often cited as the location of the invisible clause.

Here’s the First Amendment in its full splendor: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceable to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”.

And you’re not going to find “separation of church and state” in the other 26 amendments or in the Constitution’s original seven articles.

I’d be willing to bet most of those clucking at the debate have never read the Constitution pamphlet cover to pamphlet cover (which is 32 pages in miniature form). Because the words are used, or rather, misused so often everyone assumes they’re there. Instead, “separation of church and state” come from a letter Declaration of Independence author and then-President Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptists Association in 1802.

Though not contained in a governing document, those words have found themselves in the minds and opinions of federal judges, the media and ACLU rhetoric.

So Ms. O’Donnell, who has been accused of being a witch, a crook, a tramp, a puritan and a political radical, was spot on in the debate yet mocked by a “journalist” who appears to be already in a pissy mood about the tidal wave of Republican victories that are expected across the fruited plain, save Delaware.

The story centered on the audience deriding Ms. O’Donnell through snickering her correct response rather than the facts that were relevant to that part of the debate.

Not leaving it at biased reporting, whoever was responsible for the article decided to kick it up another notch working in two snarky twitter cracks at Ms. O’Donnell.

Tim F. of, get ready, Dublin, Ireland- who has about as much standing to be consulted on a national race as Meghan McCain, tweeted that “It’s beyond hideous. My jaw has carpet burn. But I get it. Christine O’Donnell is doing some Joaquin Phoenix-like ‘I’m Still Here’ satire.” I’m sure that wit must win the hearts of all the lasses in the Temple Bar area.

And there’s self-proclaimed chocoholic Daniel K. of Riverside, California who tweeted “Yeah, the audience is laughing at you, not with you”.

Why these tweets were incorporated into an article is beyond whatever the comprehension of this writer who took a few courses in journalism at LSU’s Manship School except to convey what the AOL mystery political writer “secretly” thinks of Ms. O’Donnell.

The story should have been titled “Crowd That Failed H.S. Civics Rude to Candidate That Knows Better”. But I’ll see Arlen Specter delivering the keynote address at the next Republican National Convention before I ever read that far more accurate headline.

The media has done to Ms. O’Donnell what modern day school-age cyber-bullies have done to the socially awkward. Except they’ve largely gotten away with it.

Blatantly piling on top of a candidate who isn’t going to win isn’t going to retain for Nancy Pelosi her gavel or Harry Reid his job, as either majority leader or US Senator.

Even MSNBC is going to have a challenge making a Democratic victory in Delaware the story of the night as Republicans take back the US House of Representatives and reverse two election cycles in the US Senate in a single swoop.

But I’m sure the folks at AOL’s Politics Daily and their fellow travelers will give it their best.

Expect to hear the conjunction “but” a lot on the evening of November 2nd.