I have the unique perspective here of growing up in Illinois and actually meeting Denny Hastert in my high school years as a wrestler, I have driven on the roads where his help with federal money is going to be used to build a road in question. I was just up in Yorkville area a few years ago on that road. I also live in Nevada where I have seen the norm for real-estate in the past 7 years more than double. In fact a friend had about 100k in equity down and sold it making a 150k profit in 4-5 years. Also know of a person who was recently offered 10 million for property that they paid less than 1 million for. That is a product of being the fastest growing city in the USA. It has stabilized in the last year.

Now we have two events that are in respect very similar in theory, a republican and a democrat have been accused of improper land dealings. The question is does the media treat these events the same. I believe these events are not close to the same, for one Reid did not have any dealing with federal money having an influence to his land holding. Whereas Speaker with a much higher and more powerful position did have a dealing with the appropriations of federal money that directly effected the value of his land. Also Reid made one third the money Hastert made.

Yet we have a “media source” that is considered by the right to be liberal that spent significantly more time lopsided on the event attacking the democrat. Also I am familiar with the local newspaper that broke the news story, the review journal. Which is owned by a partisan right person who was backing the stop the inheritance tax. This paper reporter has now lashed out at Reid with several attacks that proved to go no where but played well in the national media.

Also note that the Hastert event was months ago and the Reid is recent, we expect more coverage attacking Reid on this issue. The timeframe base is not the same it is to the advantage of Hastert. CNN spent as much as 50 times more on Reid than Hastert.

1, Is this a good as they get side by side (apples to apples) example of media bias? 2, Is it a media bias example against democrats, why or why not? 3, Or is just this network biased one time?


http://mediamatters.org/items/200610180011

1, Is this a good as they get side by side (apples to apples) example of media bias? 2, Is it a media bias example against democrats, why or why not? 3, Or is just this network biased one time?

One possible reason for the media's lack of interest in Hastert's dealings is simply that the Democrats haven't raised any trouble over it. I can only speculate as to the reason, but if I had to guess, I'd say that it's probably because they themselves aren't exactly squeaky clean in that department either. You see, there's "acceptable" corruption (obtaining earmarks for your home district that will benefit either you or your allied interests), and then there's the more "unacceptable" variety, which is what Reid is accused of. There are two things that set Reid's case apart from Hastert's: one is his failure to disclose his earnings (something apparently not chargeable to Hastert), and the other is the way it highlights his relationship with a certain unsavory character. As The Washington Post editorializes:

I think there is a better answer. Democrats are playing it smart. I don't know who said it first, but the maxim "never interfere while your opponent self-destructs" certainly applies here.

Pollster Dick Morris sees a jump recently for the Republicans. So, it's no slam dunk yet. There is plenty of time yet for things to change.

Nobody said it was a slam dunk, but would you please provide a link to the Morris info?

Wow so again so another supposed liberal media is attacking Reid even here.... Thanks for the support of my position....

Next let me summarize what I think you are saying here. That it is the democrats who go to the media and the media then goes and investigate at the democrats command. So even though the democrats have begged for investigations of vote fraud you would infer the media would cover it in depth and educate the public in depth how easy it is to steal votes electronically.

Now from your source the reporter later said in the article if Reid would have disclosed the transfer of the land too the LLC it still would not have any connection links to Brown. Seems you forgot to give the entire story, and makes it stupid for him the writer to even bring up anyway. And the most important part Reid DID disclosed he owned the land and never said he did not. what more does anyone want. whether it is in your name or in a LLC name he still had rights to the property and made or lost money from it, obviously. this is just so stupid, much ado about nothing from what has been reported. He was not hiding the property, he listed he owned it. He also listed he made money from it. He also did not make any decisions of federal funds to increase the value of it. Even in the boxing ticket one the media went after him for made a huge stench about, he had disclosed it and did what the law requires. He was a former boxer, and I said on the other thread I have no problem with Denny getting front row seats to wrestling matches even Olympic. I might have second thoughts if they had front row at the olympics swim event.

As a side note, when Atlanta had the Olympics I was front row finish line for the finals in swimming, i think US got 3-4 golds that night. My friend who got these tickets (a right winger who was involved in radio media) I told him how great of a friend he was. That the president, Clinton was sitting in nose bleed, vs me on the finish line front row.... Now that is a real friend... I was front row for several other Olympic events. My Uncle is a former Gold medalist and highly honored for his achievements, so was front row close to the finish line for those events.

To be fair, if Bush got front row tickets to the cheerleading competition I would be jealous...

It would appear that the Republicans have essentially given up on the house of representatives, and everyone on both sides is admitting that this is lost, and will go to the Democrats.

They have however decided to make a fight out of the Senate. The Republicans have a six seat advantage, and they have abandoned 3 of those to the Democrats completely. However they are pouring money into the three others hoping to keep one or two of them, and are also contesting two Democratic senate seats.

While most analysts are predicting Democratic control of both houses, they are also cautious in their prediction about the senate, as it is not a shoe-in for the Democrats at all.



However, that being said, the polls I have seen show things continuing to get worse for the Republicans. I could not find any Dick Morris poll on the web, but I did find column by Dick Morris printed yesterday, and he doesn't seem to share your optimism, in fact he addresses it directly:

"With only two weeks left 'til Election Day, Republicans won't save themselves with phony optimism - pathetic claims that, somehow, they're mounting a comeback.

http://www.vote.com/magazine/columns/dickm...n60420670.phtml

It isn't any evidence of bias. Why would the media make a big deal out of Hastert's unethical dealings when they've been covering his involvment in the Mark Foley mess for the last two weeks? The media picks its shots, this is just a simple case of Hastert doing two things wrong at once and the media choosing to cover the worse of the two acts and what they deem as the more important of the two. OJ Simpson could've been charged with reckless driving as well as first degree murder, which one do you think the media would cover? So again to reiterate, this is no evidence of bias, it's evidence of the media covering what they think people will want to watch.

CP

No, it's more like that the media, even if they're not biased to the left, will still be less likely to consider a political controversy newsworthy if, well, there's no actual controversy.


I presume what you meant to say is that if he disclosed the transfer, it wouldn't have exposed his connection to Brown. Actually, what the editorial said is that it wouldn't "by itself" have exposed his relationship with him. It still doesn't completely exculpate Reid of attempting to cover all tracks that might lead to him, so in that regard, it still raises questions that need to be answered.

Nice try, the first hastert one came out in June. that is plenty of time to run more than 65 words. Foley came out in September. Reid one came out in the middle of several major ones like Foley and a day or so later a 911 call stating rep Gibbons of Nevada assaulting a waitress he was drinking with. The RJ of Nevada that broke the Reid one was withholding the Gibbons one.

Yet they all chose to go after Reid which he disclosed he owned it, had no legislation that impacted the sale in it, a town with the highest growth in the USA during that time and possibly even right now. Not one article I read pointed out that this was normal return on real estate in many areas of Vegas for that time period. You would think the righty owned and slanted paper would know this. But again they held back on the Gibbons one at the same time, why?

And if you do not think a hot 5'4inch 114 lb cocktail waitress, cancer survivor, going to college, working at a top casino (this is not an easy job to get, you are at the top of the field to work as a cocktail waitress there) with a congressman running for Governor would not sell tons of papers and is not worthy of discussing pertaining to electing a potential assaulter...

Here is another contradiction in Gibbons story that the national media could just devour.

Here he is now trying to defend if his story is correct that he was being a good samaritan walking a girl to her car. Again he is defending now that people are saying he was irresponsible for trying to put a drunk on the road, if we take his words as fact. so now he is saying she was not drunk, yet his police interview he said she could not even walk in a straight line. Also note that the police report noted when they interviewed her that she appeared drunk after the incident.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/.../102410007.html


Now again this one could have been national news a day or so after the RJ broke the Reid one, but it took them a week to actually put it front page.

Also the media went hog wild over a thing called abuse of stamps for weeks before, if you want to set a threshhold. Boy there is just nothing there. Whereas Hastert and his land dealing with legislation he was involved with and 2 million involved. and they had several months of time before the Foley issue surfaced.

I misunderstood, I thought you were asking why there is not coverage of his misdealings NOW, my bad. Still though, we have to remember that during that time the nation was fascinated by the Duke Lacrosse rape scandal, again, I think this is just a case of the media choosing what they think would be better received by their viewers. People were up in arms about the lacrosse scandal and Hastert's midealings were simply not "hot" enough to take time away from the lax sexcapades. I still don't see this as conservative bias.

CP

Ok, but your point of the hot one. Thanks for making my point for the Gibbons one going on right now, yet they went after Reid instead.... We have a really hot cocktail waitress(works at Wynns one of the top top places to make the big bucks). We have a representative being accused of sexual assault, he is running for governor. We have a sheriff who called the accused before he was interviewed by the police and the sheriff told the accused the cameras in the parking lot were not working. The normal is you are interviewed right away, he was not. Then they ask the accused to take a lie detector test. He was not asked to do so. The accuser is willing to take a lie detector test. We have attempted payoff by the Gibson contacts of the victim, we have a reported death threat to the Vitim. We have the gibbons representatives contacting the victim falsely one saying they worked for the newspaper, and one a PI saying he is a layer asking her to change her police statement.

We have the police that apparently broke the law and released her name. In sexual assault cases it is illegal to do so. The police are now trying to say it was not sexual, just assault. Yep he was in a garage several blocks from the restaurant and his hotel to mugg her. too stupid of the police. Of course as she said she received the scratches on her neck and back from the event. Just because she does not know how she got them daaaaaaa, I have never been a 114 lb girl being pushed against the wall, but it does not seem she had those scratches while at the restaurant. We have statement by the server of the group that contradicts all at the table and confirms the victims story. We have Gibbons waiting outside the restaurant for 15 minutes waiting for her. His testimony is she left when he did. Server remembers her leaving 15-30 minutes later like victim said. we have her calling 911 3 times, as she moved from one place to another because she thought he was still after her. By his testimony he was walking her to her car and she was way drunk... then as a public servent who has fought for tough drunk driving laws or anyone you do not put a drunk on the road. You call a taxi.

Today it broke his former house keeper is blowing the whistle on him for hiring a illegal worker to work in his home he is saying she is lying. She has said he paid her full time, he said only a little. I am curious if he paid the required federal employment taxes... Again his character is being questioned here as he is saying the other party is lying. Now he is saying she was shaking him down is his excuse.

This one is just too good. If the media was liberal they would skewer him.........

this one has everything sex, illegal immigration, hot chick, hypocritical politician, crooked sheriff, police breaking laws, police tipping off the accused... what more do you want..... Has it hit national yet???????????????? this was about a day after the Reid one got headlines and major national play...