A week ago on CNN’s Reliable Sources, Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas conceded how he and his journalist colleagues “launder our views through quote ‘objective critics.’” He elaborated: “I don’t think there’s any question that they, as a body, feel that Bush is wrong on the environment … the rank and file press is pretty green and they’re going to use the Europeans to take the Bushies to task.”
Over the past weekend Thomas reaffirmed his take, applying it to explain why a New York Times poll found most dissatisfied with Bush’s environmental positions. The poll determined that 71 percent believe producing energy is more important to Bush than protecting environment.
On Inside Washington, Thomas suggested media bias had influenced public perception, a bias he conceded that he shares: “They’re definitely seeing this through the prism that the press has provided here, which is that coverage has been overwhelmingly ‘Bush in the pocket of the oil companies harming the environment.’ Personally, I don’t totally disagree with that, but I think there’s no question that the press has framed it that way.”
Sunday morning on ABC’s This Week, Derek McGinty, who co-anchors the overnight ABC News show World News Now, reflected the slant perceived by Evans. On the June 24 program he opined about Bush’s public standing:
“He's got a much bigger problem than that, Cokie. I think it's, what we're seeing is sort of the unraveling of the public's belief in this whole idea of being a 'compassionate conservative.' What they're seeing now is the 'corporate conservative' that George W. Bush actually is. He's in favor of big business, and they see, and you see it over and over again in all but the most egregious cases.”
Sam Donaldson: “But do you think people didn't know that?”
McGinty: “Oh, certainly, they picked it up.”
Donaldson: “I mean, is that a surprise?”
McGinty: “Well, you know what? He definitely came across, during the campaign they thought compassionate conservative meant, 'I'm a pragmatist. There's not going to be any fighting.' Al Gore said 'I'll fight for you.' George W. Bush said, 'There won't be any fighting because I'm bringing a bipartisan spirit. I'm going to work with you. I'm on your side.'
They thought this meant that he was a pragmatist, sort of along the lines of a Bob Dole. No, he's not. He is a right-wing conservative, for the most part on many issues, and that's coming out now, especially on the issues of the environment and issues of this patients' bill of rights.”
As George Will pointed out, Bush has hardly been a conservative on issues like education, military spending and homosexuality.
(This article courtesy of Media Research Center.)