Political Point-CounterPoint: Media disregards ACORN, biased towards Obama

‘ ‘ ‘ Sean Hannity’s pronouncement that journalism died during this year’s presidential… ‘ ‘ ‘ Sean Hannity’s pronouncement that journalism died during this year’s presidential election might be the only bit of truth uttered on a major news network in the last 20 months. If you are not convinced that this is true, consider the blatantly unbalanced and petty coverage that has beset the McCain-Palin campaign this week, and contrast it with the media’s treatment of the alleged voter registration fraud perpetrated by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a group that Sen. Barack Obama has been connected with since the 1990s. ‘ ‘ ‘ A front page article in The New York Times on Oct. 11 reported that ‘Gov. Sarah Palin abused the powers of her office by pressuring subordinates to try to get her former brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired, an investigation by the Alaska Legislature has concluded.’ ‘ ‘ ‘ The controversy that precipitated this investigation centers on Palin’s firing of Alaska’s former public safety commissioner Walt Monegan. It was not the lawful dismissal of the public safety commissioner that was unethical, but rather the actions of Palin’s husband Todd and other subordinates who pressured state employees working under Monegan to lay down harsher punishments on the state trooper whose conduct was in question. However, the undue influence of her husband and staffers failed in extending the punishment of the state trooper, making the whole investigation seem frivolous to begin with. ‘ ‘ ‘ When considered alongside the attacks on Palin’s pregnant daughter and the left’s derision of Alaska, which apparently is not cosmopolitan enough of a state to produce a politician worthy to work in the White House, it is not surprising that a media outlet like the Times would exaggerate such flimsy charges regarding the mere suspension of a state trooper. ‘ ‘ ‘ Contrast the distorted coverage of a trivial investigation regarding Palin with the allegations of voter registration fraud that have been brought against ACORN in several key election states this past week. ACORN, a nongovernmental organization that targets low-income people to affect political outcomes, has supposedly turned in fraudulent voter registration cards by the thousands in counties across the United States. ‘ ‘ ‘ National Review’s Stanley Kurtz has unveiled troves of Obama’s links to ACORN that date back to when Obama was a so-called ‘community organizer’ in the South Side of Chicago. In his May 29 article ‘Inside Obama’s Acorn,’ Kurtz shows how Obama not only represented this radical association of community organizers in 1995 as a lawyer, but also trained ACORN staffers who went on to both enlist thousands of low-income voters for elections and lead political demonstrations in the Chicago area. ‘ ‘ ‘ Unfortunately, people are only now delving into this story, which broke in Kurtz’s May article, with less than three weeks left before the election. Just as Obama’s more than 20-year membership in a radical church congregation and his political partnership with Pentagon bomber and Weathermen terrorist Bill Ayers have receded to the background as the media continue to fawn over the Obama mystique, his connection to ACORN will likely fall to the wayside in a similar fashion. ‘ ‘ ‘ The disparity in coverage of these two recent stories illustrates the unreliability of the news media in the hyper-information age that we live in. Voters trying to get an honest interpretation of the news can only expect the hyperbolic coverage exemplified by the so-called Palin Troopergate scandal on the one hand, and the outright repression of the truth seen in the Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers and ACORN coverage of Obama on the other. ‘ ‘ ‘ Why have the media refused to elaborate on Obama’s sketchy work for a radical organization like ACORN while continuously blowing out of proportion stories about Palin’s record as governor? The answer is obvious: The fair and unbiased investigative journalism that might have existed in previous campaigns is most certainly dead in this election year, as commentator Hannity has reiterated in past weeks. It speaks for itself when the outrage portrayed on the front page of the Times over the five-day suspension of an Alaskan state trooper is placed on par with Obama’s ties to an organization like ACORN ‘mdash; an organization that espouses ideals that are diametrically opposed to those of the American Founders. E-mail Bart at bdw12@pitt.edu.