Pettiness and Visciousness Over Tony Snow’s Passing: The Left Should Be Ashamed

The Associated Press’ “eulogy” of Tony Snow contained the following comments:

With a quick-from-the-lip repartee, broadcaster’s good looks and a relentlessly bright outlook — if not always a command of the facts — he became a popular figure around the country to the delight of his White House bosses.

In that year and a half at the White House, Snow brought partisan zeal and the skills of a seasoned performer to the task of explaining and defending the president’s policies. During daily briefings, he challenged reporters, scolded them and questioned their motives as if he were starring in a TV show broadcast live from the West Wing.

Critics suggested that Snow was turning the traditionally informational daily briefing into a personality-driven media event short on facts and long on confrontation. He was the first press secretary, by his own accounting, to travel the country raising money for Republican candidates.

Bill O’Reilly clearly wasn’t touched by the Associate Press‘ treatment of Snow. He had this to say yesterday:

Over the weekend, we eulogized Tony Snow in a personal way. I hope you saw our broadcast because I believe we painted a very accurate picture of a great man. Tonight we’ll get into policy — the things that Tony believed in and the challenges he faced going public with those beliefs.

Hours after Tony died early Saturday morning, the Associated Press published an obituary of him. Written by Douglass Daniel, the obit listed Tony’s bio and some of his achievements, but it also injected a left-wing partisan viewpoint, which was insulting to the Snow family and completely inappropriate.

Just a few weeks ago, the AP ran a terrific obituary for Tim Russert, avoiding any cheap shots. But Daniel could not do that for Tony Snow as he wrote: “With a quick-from-the-lip repartee, broadcaster’s good looks and a relentlessly bright outlook — if not always a command of the facts — he became a popular figure around the country to the delight of his White House bosses. Critics suggested that Snow was turning the traditionally informational daily briefing into a personality-driven media event short on facts and long on confrontation.”

Now, if you want to criticize Tony’s White House career, do it after he’s buried, OK, Associated Press? Your opinion of his job performance doesn’t belong in an obituary. It was an insult to Tony’s family and demonstrates once and for all the AP is no longer a news service. It has become a liberal clearing house.

Now, I myself just wrote a eulogy remembering both Tim Russert and Tony Snow. Tim Russert came from the Democratic ranks; and more than occasionally I believed that he was grilling Republicans in a way that he did not grill Democrats on his program. But I was writing a eulogy, and so I focused on the very best of these two men.

That’s what you do when you eulogize, unless you are overly partisan. You look at the best of someone, and pointedly ignore the negative. The AP gave a magnificent, criticism-free sendoff to Tim Russert. It just couldn’t find the same graciousness for a conservative.

Shame on them for allowing their thinly veiled political ideology to intrude on good taste.

Rush Limbaugh, commenting on the AP‘s lack of journalistic balance, said this:

A month ago I went on a riff about the lone remaining monopoly in the Drive-By Media, that being the Associated Press and I pointed out how dangerous they are. They still have a monopoly in the sense that every newspaper in the country subscribes to their service and prints their BS. Yesterday, Politico.com ran a story about the new Washington — or the editor, bureau chief, whatever; Washington bureau chief; I forget what title he has, Ron Fournier, the former White House reporter. He has decided — and I don’t know how long ago they decided this, but it probably coincides pretty much with my noticing it, but they decided, he decided — from now on the AP is going to start putting opinion in the news, that people are just too stupid to figure out what the news is without an opinion being thrown in there. Honestly this is what they said. I had the story in the stack yesterday. I think I have it anywhere near here, but I’m summarizing it pretty closely.

Limbaugh was referring to a Politico.com story titled, “Is Fournier saving or destroying the AP?” in which Ron Fournier, the head of the Associated Press’ Washington bureau, is revealed to encourage first-person writing and the use of emotive language in news stories. Part of the Politico piece points out the clear pitfall of Fournier’s new approach to journalism:

Fournier and other critics of the conventional press model, especially those on the left, have said that being released from the tired conventions of news writing is exactly what journalism needs.

By these lights, the mentality that presumes both sides of an argument are entitled to equal weight is what prevented the media from challenging the Bush administration more aggressively on the Iraq war and other issues.

Others warn that what Fournier and other proponents see as truth-telling can easily bleed into opinionizing — exactly the opposite of the AP’s mission of “delivering fast, unbiased news.”

“The problem,” says James Taranto, the Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Web columnist and a frequent critic of what he sees as the AP’s liberal bias, “is that while you can do opinion journalism and incorporate reporting into it, you can’t say you’re doing straight reporting, and then add opinion to that.”

A dispatch Fournier filed in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina began: “The Iraqi insurgency is in its last throes. The economy is booming. Anybody who leaks a CIA agent’s identity will be fired. Add another piece of White House rhetoric that doesn’t match the public’s view of reality: Help is on the way, Gulf Coast.”

Fournier cited the article in an essay titled “Accountability Journalism: Liberating reporters and the truth” he wrote for the June 1 issue of the AP’s internal newsletter, The Essentials, as an example of how to be “provocative without being partisan … truth-tellers without being editorial writers.”

“I call ’em as I see ’em” has little validity if you are in the tank for one side. You probably wouldn’ t want a die-hard Lakers fan like me refereeing a Laker game in the playoffs if you are rooting for the other team – or even if you simply want an objectively-called game. It’s not that I would deliberately cheat; it’s just that my “pro-Laker” mentality and desire to see the Lakers win would alter my perception and affect my judgment.  Limbaugh used the media’s outrage over the NBA referee scandal as an example of their own innate hypocrisy. It’s too bad they refuse to apply the same standard and rationale about genuine objectivity for themselves that they reserve for everybody else.

Here is a collection of pieces I’ve writing discussing about the media’s ideological biases:

NBC’s Deceptive Editing Reveals Why Bush Right and Obama Wrong

How to Demagogue the Economy

Hillary’s Pennsylvania Win Has Media Snivelling

Media Frenzy over ABC Democratic Debate Reveals Leftist Bias

I chuckled over a July 14, 2008 Mallard Fillmore cartoon that read: “This just in!… The mainstream media now say they felt the need to cover the “Countrywide” loan scandal involving Democratic Senators Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad just as aggressively as they cover Republican scandals… then quickly sat down until the feeling went away.” It’s absolutely true. They covered the story, and then let it slide into obscurity. Had it been a pair of Republicans, there would have been a daily drumbeat of coverage until the two resigned.

When the media becomes ideologically biased – which they have – they undermine the role our founding fathers intended for them in the Bill of Rights, and leave us vulnerable to the ramifications of a people with a distorted view of the world.

When they even feel the need to editorialize and present their biases in a eulogy, it is beyond petty.

But the obvious bias of the left-tilted media – which is revealed even in coverage eulogizing political journalists who have just passed away – is only part of the story. We also must recognize that there is a rabid left wing in this country that are absolutely vicious.

That viciousness was revealed following the announcement of the death of Tony Snow.

The LA Times has a moderated blog which had the following remarks allowed about Tony Snow:

I hope the rest of these criminals die too. Good riddance to a person who contributed to making this world a worse place. – Posted by: Max | July 12, 2008 at 05:58 AM

Its unfortunate he won’t be able to see the damage he helped inflict on this country and the world. I wonder how he likes hell. – Posted by: tedson | July 12, 2008 at 06:27 AM

Was anyone more perfectly named for their job? Tony’s Snow-jobs about Bushian idiocy only helped sink the nation into the hole where we are now. – Posted by: Johnsy | July 12, 2008 at 06:58 AM

Good riddance , we still have a white house full of liars
and American soldiers being slaughtered. if Cheney strokes
then change will begin , as for Bush he is just to stupid
to die and when he dies bury him at home in IRAQ.
– Posted by: slimjim66 | July 12, 2008 at 07:30 AM

This outrage indicates why new legislation should be put in place to require a regular colonoscopy for Snow’s cohorts in propaganda. (Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck etc) Only a careful inspection of their alimentary tracts will prevent their insolent, hatefilled cancer from developing and spreading. – Posted by: Passing LostAnglos | July 12, 2008 at 07:38 AM

The question begs to be asked, is it possible to die when you don’t have a soul.
– Posted by: Chad | July 12, 2008 at 09:38 AM

Oh YES HE WAS A WONDERFUL MAN AND A …..
PUUULLLEEEASE
THIS PERSON HAD A MAJOR PART IN THE MOST EVIL ADMINISTRATION THIS COUNTRY HAS EVER SEEN.
DEATH AND TORTURE, ILLEGAL WARS, WAR CRIMINAL SOLDIERS, GOOD RIDDANCE
CANCER WAS TOO GOOD FOR HIM
HOPE IT WAS PAINFUL.
NOW FOR THE REST OF THIS SCUMMY ADMINISTRATION. COME ON CANCER, DO YOUR GOOD WORK…………
– Posted by: perry | July 12, 2008 at 02:26 PM

I have frequently heard liberals talk about how hateful the concept of “hell” is and that condemning biblically-forbidden behaviors and warning about the judgment of hell is hateful. But now I see that liberals don’t mind talking about hell at all; they merely wish to reserve it for conservatives and those who actually believe in the Bible.

The Daily Kos, by all accounts, was even worse.

The hatred of the left must be pointed out. People need to see these people as they actually are. The people who talk about “tolerance” routinely shout down conservative speakers and broadcast outright visceral hatred for those with whom they disagree.

One of the posters to the LA Times blog had this to say:

All you right wingers would be saying much worse things if the same had happened to Ted Kennedy or Obama – you are nothing but trash and liars just like Snow job was. good riddance to bad rubbish. – Posted by: Alan | July 12, 2008 at 04:52 PM

Nope. When Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, I wrote a piece asking for prayer for the man. I don’t have the hatred for even Osama bin Laden that so many on the left publicly harbored for Tony Snow. I just don’t have that kind of hate and meanness in me.

Nor have I ever come across a “right wing hate site” that was even close to the outright viciousness that is routinely contained in major liberal blogs such as Media Matters and the Daily Kos (and now the LA Times!!!).

The liberal media is not only overtly ideologically biased, but is now actually providing a forum for the worst kind of hatred (one LA Times blog comment allowed by the moderator asked whether Tony Snow would be buried in his Nazi uniform), has sunk to levels that are downright despicable. It is no wonder that they are losing their readership and viewership in droves.

Liberals ought to be ashamed.

Tags: Associated Press, bias, Bill O'Reilly, conservatives, eulogy, hate, ideology, LA Times blog, liberal, partisan, Ron Fournier, Rush Limbaugh, Ted Kennedy, Tim Russert, Tony Snow, viciousness