Media liberally recasts jobs speech scheduling conflict

I’ve spent almost two decades in the field of journalism. Imagine for a second that I submitted the following story to an editor for publication:

A scheduled beer summit in the Rose Garden was billed as the beginning of political détente between the president and conservative republicans as, on Tuesday, President Barack Obama appeared to accept the olive branch of peace extended by Speaker of the House John Boehner. However, on Wednesday, Obama’s press secretary announced that Obama would prefer to spend that time shooting 18 holes of golf.

In what light does that portray the president? Does it suggest that he really isn’t interested in détente? In fact, does it come across as something of a golf-glove wielded slap in the face for Boehner and conservatives?

How would liberals react to such a story if, later, they discovered that the story was written by a rare conservative reporter and that, in fact, Obama politely bowed out of the meeting with Boehner because of a national-security crisis that suddenly developed in the Middle East? That is the equivalent of what I overheard on Chicago’s ABC evening news the other day.

Channel 7 was presenting a story about the scheduling conflicts that arose when Obama unilaterally announced he would address the nation on jobs from a joint session of Congress next Wednesday. The address was changed to Thursday after Boehner sent a letter to Obama recommending that he reschedule.  

I heard no mention of any reasonable scheduling issues. I heard no mention of the conflicts that may have precipitated those issues. Instead, what I heard was a story suggesting an unspoken continuation of Republican intransigence.

After listening to the story on Channel 7, the uninformed viewers of that program’s tripe, would have no idea that Obama had scheduled his address during the same time as a previously announced debate between Republican presidential primary candidates. Those viewers wouldn’t stop to consider that presidential addresses are given from the podium in the front of the House of Representatives and, therefore, it’s beholding on the president to work with the Speaker of the House to schedule a time for such an address.

But, Obama didn’t do that. He didn’t call Boehner and say, “Hello John. I was wondering, how does Wednesday evening look for my jobs speech from your House?”

It would be the same as my telling a friend I want to meet with them tomorrow evening in another friend’s house but not bothering to tell the homeowner about the meeting in advance. “By the way, Bill, Tom and I are coming by to meet in your kitchen tomorrow.”

I’ve assumed Bill will be home and that our arrival won’t constitute an uninvited intrusion. Now consider the meeting at Bill’s house in the light of his prior announcement that he had a parent-teacher conference scheduled for the same night.

In the case of the coverage by Channel 7 the other night, it wasn’t that they spoke any actual lies. Instead, the lie was in the omissions. For a viewership that has long learned Pavlovian lessons about the evils of conservatism, lessons that are drilled into them on a nightly basis, whether in subtle little spoonfuls, such as the dose administered the other night, or in great big smorgasbords of anti-conservative rhetoric, the unspoken message was merely reinforcement for what they already know – Republicans are racist radicals who are out to get the president anyway they can.

Of course, the rest of us, while acknowledging greed and corruption on both sides of the political aisle, realize that Republicans have actually stood up to the president for reasons having nothing to do with the color of his skin. They have stood up to the president because he has shown a marked disregard for the constitution, has sought to drag the country further into an entitlement nightmare and has tried to legislate from the White House by circumventing Congress through the actions of czars and regulators.

The truth is, whether liberals agree or not, any intransigence demonstrated by conservatives these last two-and-a-half years was an outgrowth of legitimate concerns and beliefs about the appropriate course for the country. And, the truth is we can’t count on the truth from the lamestream media, whether the liberal mouthpiece is Channel 7 in Chicago, an AP reporter at a townhall meeting in a small suburb of Des Moines or from an anchor at CNN.

Note: I did not hear the entire broadcast but asked someone who did if he heard mention of any of the issues I raised here. He indicated that he did not. Even if Channel 7 did mention the real scheduling conflicts, I can say with certainty from the time I was listening that they played the truth down sufficiently in the story to essentially legitimize my characterization of their coverage either way.