Well, seeing that we have heard about 1,000 hours of the Foley scandal on TV, I thought the elite media (yes, I know they voted for Harry Reid) would have at least given an hour to a guy that makes several $100,000 on land deals and pays his employees Christmas bonuses with campaign contributions. Isn't it news when the Leader of the Democratic Senate doesn't follow obvious rules? Especially since he was on the ethic committee? Who better would know the rules? Our media is like the Kim Jong-il regime's media, controlled yet calculated.

Look no further than Reid himself. Associated Press reporters John Solomon and Kathleen Hennessy reported that Reid scored a windfall of $700,000, turning a $400,000 real-estate investment in Las Vegas in 1998 to a $1.1 million land deal in 2004 -- even though he apparently had sold the property to a casino lobbyist buddy in 2001. He did not report the facts on his Senate financial disclosure forms -- while he served on the Senate Ethics Committee.

When the AP called Reid for comment, he hung up on them. You would think that an aggressive, fair and balanced media would have been incensed and activated. But we don't have a fair and balanced national media.

It should be said that major newspaper editorial pages were not impressed with Reid's defense. The Washington Post suggested that "Mr. Reid's professions of transparency and full disclosure are transparently wrong."

But the network distaste for saying anything critical of the Democratic leader was obvious. ABC aired nothing. CBS aired nothing. NBC's Chip Reid offered a few words on "Nightly News" -- after the latest full story on "Foley fallout." There was no "Harry fallout."

CNN stood out as especially pathetic. On CNN's "American Morning" the day after the Reid story broke (and nearly two weeks after Foley resigned), they aired 18 minutes of Foley stories and 35 seconds on Harry Reid. On "The Situation Room," Wolf Blitzer quarantined the Reid story to little dribs and drabs heavy on Reid protesting his innocence. Meanwhile, CNN was devoting minutes to more substantial stories, like Arnold Schwarzenegger joking on "The Tonight Show" that connecting him to Bush was like connecting him to an Oscar. Toxic Bush -- now that's Blitzer-tickling news.

But the networks were not alone in displaying fall-campaign favoritism. The New York Times put its Harry Reid story the next day on page A-19. The headline? "Senator to Amend Financial Forms." Could the Times have possibly come up with a better "please don't bother to read this, no real scandal here" headline?

In case you're wondering if the Times favors Democrats on scandal stories, this was the Page One headline on the very same day: "Foley Case Snags Incumbent In Ohio Race for House Seat." Reporter Adam Nagourney found Republican House leader Deborah Pryce in deep trouble in Columbus. On that day, the Foley news spilled over into 74 column inches of text and pictures. By contrast, the Reid story was merely 18 column inches. Clearly, the Times doesn't hide its partisan priorities.

How about the news magazines? Last week, their covers taunted and jeered at Republicans. Time's cover showed the back of an elephant's behind, signaling a goodbye to Republican corruption. Newsweek had a big picture of Mark Foley with the words "Off Message." This week, Time has a cover hailing the greatness of liberal Democrat Sen. Barack Obama. Neither one even mentioned Harry Reid. U.S. News mentioned Reid, but not his disclosure forms. They merely warned "Republican leaders trying to outrun their own scandals" would attack Reid and Pelosi.

This week, another little story erupted, again featuring Reid. He was paying a few thousand dollars in Christmas bonuses to employees of his condominium at the Ritz-Carlton in Washington out of his campaign funds, not his own wallet. That's a clear violation of campaign laws. And besides, isn't this a juicy story by today's TV standards? The Senate Democratic leader, living at the Ritz-Carlton? And tipping the hired help with someone else's money at Christmas time?

Predictably, NBC gave it a few seconds. The other networks did nothing. The papers buried it inside. And they wonder why there are bumper stickers saying, "Don't Trust the Liberal Media."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/uc/20061018/...ll_iii20061018

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Don't believe the media is bias?

I did a simple search using "Foley Scandal" and "Reid Scandal". Care to see the results?

"Foley Scandal" = 27,400 returns
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ne...=foley+scandal

"Reid Scandal" = 1,520 returns
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ne...q=reid+scandal

Yep, the media has no bias!

A chat room with a 17 year old gets 27,000+ returns, but a land deal worth $700,000 in profit that was not reported and using campaign funds to pay Christmas bonuses gets 1/26 the coverage?

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