Wrong When Right 2: Santorum and the Press
Rick Santorum was interviewed by Diane Rehm today and for a few moments I felt sympathetic to him on one point at least. Santorum was complaining that many newspaper reports were unfairly critical of him due to a misquote when "gay" was added to a statement he made when he denies he used the word. He argued that the misquotation made him appear more hostile to gay rights.
Not knowing the specifics of this particular article I am prepared to give Santorum the benefit of the doubt here. After seeing John Kerry misquoted on a virtually daily basis I felt a bit of sympathy. There’s certainly enough in Rick Santorum’s record to criticize without needing to criticize him for something he didn’t say. I wish that political debates on both sides were limited to the actual statements and records of politicians. Similarly there is no need for the attacks out this week, which do not appear valid, that John Roberts condoned violence against abortion providers.
My sympathies with Santorum decreased when I considered the differences between the criticisms of Santorum and Kerry for statements they did not make. The episode described by Santorum sounds like an honest journalistic mistake based upon Santorum’s overall anti-gay rights stance even if he did not intend to include this in the possibly misquoted statement. Nobody would argue that journalists are perfect.
In contrast, the misquotations of John Kerry were rarly honest journalistic errors. They were part of a regular strategy of the Bush campaign to distort Kerry’s statements and then attack him for opinions he did not hold. If Santorum is concerned with politicians being the subject of unfair attacks for views they did not express he might first work to clean up the practices of his own party.
Santorum also had a one-sided view of media bias. Santorum complained that conservatives are routinely singled out as bad, ignoring how the mainstream media has repeated the demonization of liberals started by the conservative media.
Santorum did acknowledge that there is a conservative media, but when asked to identify the conservative media he could only name talk radio and conservative blogs. There was no mention of Fox News, the many right wing newspapers, and the attempts by NBC and CNN to imitate Fox in conservative slant. He spoke as if the entire mainstream media was liberal with talk radio beating out other talk shows due to the need for an alternative. This theory falls apart in the markets where Air America is beating long established conservative talk radio stars. He also ignores how the supposedly liberal media reported every accusation made against Bill Clinton and John Kerry made by the right, and reported every false claim of the Bush Administration leading up to the war without serious attempts at fact checking.
Not knowing the specifics of this particular article I am prepared to give Santorum the benefit of the doubt here. After seeing John Kerry misquoted on a virtually daily basis I felt a bit of sympathy. There’s certainly enough in Rick Santorum’s record to criticize without needing to criticize him for something he didn’t say. I wish that political debates on both sides were limited to the actual statements and records of politicians. Similarly there is no need for the attacks out this week, which do not appear valid, that John Roberts condoned violence against abortion providers.
My sympathies with Santorum decreased when I considered the differences between the criticisms of Santorum and Kerry for statements they did not make. The episode described by Santorum sounds like an honest journalistic mistake based upon Santorum’s overall anti-gay rights stance even if he did not intend to include this in the possibly misquoted statement. Nobody would argue that journalists are perfect.
In contrast, the misquotations of John Kerry were rarly honest journalistic errors. They were part of a regular strategy of the Bush campaign to distort Kerry’s statements and then attack him for opinions he did not hold. If Santorum is concerned with politicians being the subject of unfair attacks for views they did not express he might first work to clean up the practices of his own party.
Santorum also had a one-sided view of media bias. Santorum complained that conservatives are routinely singled out as bad, ignoring how the mainstream media has repeated the demonization of liberals started by the conservative media.
Santorum did acknowledge that there is a conservative media, but when asked to identify the conservative media he could only name talk radio and conservative blogs. There was no mention of Fox News, the many right wing newspapers, and the attempts by NBC and CNN to imitate Fox in conservative slant. He spoke as if the entire mainstream media was liberal with talk radio beating out other talk shows due to the need for an alternative. This theory falls apart in the markets where Air America is beating long established conservative talk radio stars. He also ignores how the supposedly liberal media reported every accusation made against Bill Clinton and John Kerry made by the right, and reported every false claim of the Bush Administration leading up to the war without serious attempts at fact checking.
posted by Ron Chusid at 10:15 AM
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