The usual left-wing tilt of the NYT's Tea Party coverage is not so egregious in this recent piece. But even when they try to be fair they can't seem to pull it off. The piece opens with the following sentence:
The Tea Party Movement is a diffuse American grass-roots group that taps into antigovernment sentiments.
"Diffuse American grass-roots group" is just right: accurate and ideologically neutral. But then, right on its heels, two pieces of blatant bias.
First, the movement is not fairly described as "antigovernment." To be opposed to an ever-expanding government, one that recognizes few or no limits, constitutional or otherwise, to the extension of its powers, is not to be opposed to government as such. To put it in simple terms that even a liberal can understand: to oppose BIG government is not to oppose government. Tea Party supporters are for the most part conservatives, with a sizable admixture of libertarians. Neither conservatives nor libertarians are opposed to government as such, though they disagree as to its legitimate size and scope. But neither want no government. (The only exception to this is the extreme fringe of the libertarian movement that shades off into anarchism. But these fringe folk are few in number and negligible in political clout.)
Second, it is not "sentiments," feelings, emotion, anger, that are at the source of the Tea Party protests but legitimate concerns based in fact and reason. It is precisely the Tea Partiers arguments that lefties will never address. Their tactic is to deflect attention from the arguments by psychologizing their proponents. And so they go on ad nauseam about voter anger and the like.
The piece I am quoting from is not on the OP-Ed page. It is supposed to be a piece of reportage. But we cannot get through even the first sentence without banging into leftist bias.
Recent Comments