Edward Kennedy, the Media and Republican complaining about Coverage of Edward Kennedy [View All]

[erpowers]

What news media are the Republicans watching? Yesterday, I bought a copy of the weekend edition of the USA Today newspaper. I turned to the opinion page and saw an opinion that claimed the media was failing to discuss Edward Kennedy’s Chappaquiddick incident. The opinion piece actually stated, “Let the stain stand out on Kennedy’s legacy.” My first thought was the sentence I started this post with, what media are the Republicans watching. My second thought was about Reagan and his past that the media actually fails mention. During the coverage of Reagan’s death the media either rarely or never mentioned the fact that Reagan cheated on his first wife and got Nancy Reagan pregnant before he married her. I stated rarely mentioned in the previous sentence, but I myself never heard the media mention those facts about Reagan. However, since the death of Edward Kennedy NBC’s Today Show and ABC’s Good Morning America mentioned the Chappaquiddick incident every time they talked about Kennedy’s legacy.

Complaining about a false lack of media coverage is not just contained to stories about Edward Kennedy. Last year a number of Republican, especially the guy behind the documentary that claimed the media helped Barack Obama get elected, claimed the media was not discussing the topics of Obama’s connection to William Ayers and Joe Biden’s supposed plagiarism. However, in each of those cases, as with the Edward Kennedy case, the media took advantage of every opportunity to discuss both of those issues. I did a little research on both of those issues last years and found a great deal of news stories discussing each story. Like with the coverage of Kennedy, in the last few days, the media mentioned Biden alleged plagiarism every time a story was written about Biden. In addition, these stories were written in major newspapers like the Chicago Tribune. That is why I asked what media are the Republicans watching. However, after thinking about things for a few minutes I came to the conclusion that Republicans are not upset about the fact that the media is not reporting these incidents, the media is reporting these incidents at an high rate, they are angry that the media when reporting the failures or mistakes of Democrats refuse to claim that these Democrats are horrible people who should not be able to live in America. What republicans want is for the media to claim that these Democrats, beyond being flawed individuals are communists who should have been kicked out of the country.

On other occasions while watching the coverage of Edward Kennedy members of the media have mentioned that some have complained about the treatment Kennedy has received. One instance of this was when Kennedy’s procession stopped in front of the Senate steps. During that time Tom Brokaw stated that some were angered by the attention Kennedy had received in the last few days. At that point I once again compared Kennedy to Reagan. From what I have heard in the last few days Kennedy was at least 100 times the father Reagan was. Questioning Reagan parenting skills is not a liberal thing. Reagan’s own kids say he was a horrible father. For some reason all the Reagan supporters did not have a problem with all the attention Reagan was given.

In the end, despite Republican claims that the supposed liberal media fails to report the faults of Democrats, it is actually the opposite. It is the Democrats who have to live with their pasts and have their pasts reexamined at every possible opportunity. On the other hand it is the Republicans who get the free passes on their faults and past mistakes.