Copyright by John T. Reed

In past years, I laughed at accusations of liberal media bias. Then I concluded that the media were disproportionately liberal, but that they were still professional and wrote their stories straight.

Scratch that.

Bye to Newsweek

I recently cancelled my subscription to Newsweek. They put one Obama propaganda sentence too many in their new stories.

I had subscribed to Newsweek for as long as I could remember—probably since college which I attended in the late 60s. Maybe they don’t care about that. One possibility: they want the 18-34 demograptic and those folks like their news analysis laced with Democrat propaganda.

Did the same with Time a couple of weeks later fo the same reason.

I am not a Republican

I am not a McCain supporter. Indeed, I slammed him pretty good in my article about him. I voted absentee in 2008 for Bob Barr the Libertarian candidate. I only voted Republican for president once in 1980 and I only voted Democrat for president once in 1972. So I did not cancel Newsweek because they were doing propaganda against my guy. I canceled them because I am not interested in paying for partisan propaganda.

Associated Press

Are they the only ones? Not at all. Here are some excerpts from an Associated Press story that was in my local paper on 10/29/08.

Although the story calls him “Joe the plumber” in its first sentence, it thereafter refers to him only as “Samuel J. Wurzelbacher” or “Wurzelbacher.” It was my understanding that people could pick their own name and nick name. Former independent presidential candidate billionaire Ross Perot, for example, is really Henry Ross Perot. T. Boone Pickens likes to use his middle name and the media go along with it. Some people, like Barack Obama, avoid using their middle name. Others, like President John Fitzgerald Kennedy used all three.

Republicans get a load of crap from the media whenever they mention Obama’s middle name—Hussein. But it’s OK for the media to reject Joe’s guileless preference for his middle name and bury it behind an initial. If the media can call Joe the Plumber “Samuel J. Wurzelbacher,” seems like we can also call Barack Obama “B. Hussein Obama.”

Economy or taxes?

Then the AP anonymous coward who wrote the story says,

McCain points to Wurzelbacher as an example of the middle-class worker who would be hurt economically by an Obama presidency. However, Wurzelbacher likely would fare better under Obama’s tax plan because it calls for no tax increase for working couples earning less than $250,000 a year—Wurzelbacher himself earns far less—and provides for a middle-class tax cut.

That is misleading in several ways:

1. I do not know exactly what McCain said. I suspect the AP mischaracterizes it.

2. Note the word “economically.” Note also that they then change the subject to federal incomes taxes as if the economy consisted entirely of taxes. In fact, all Americans would be hurt economically by an Obama presidency because of his various liberal/socialist policies regarding taxation, foreign trade, punishment of business profits and innocent business executives, punishment of business success, subsidy of failure, and so on. As former Congressman and vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp likes to say, “When you tax something, you get less of it. When you subsidize something, you get more of it.” Obama wants to increase taxes on successful people and profits and give away free taxpayers’ money to the poor, the sick, the unemployed, etc.

3. As Joe made crystal clear when he asked his question about Obama’s plan to increase taxes on those making more than $250,000, Joe does not currently make that much, but he hopes to make that much in the future and does not like the fact that Obama would diminish that achievement by taxing it at a higher rate. So Joe’s current income is not the issue. His hoped-for future income is. The AP story makes no mention of the fact that Joe was asking with regard to his future hopes and plans.

‘Unlicensed’

The AP story ends with this paragraph:

Fame brought scrutiny to Wurzelbacher, who turned out to be an unlicensed plumber with unpaid back taxes.

Actually, fame did not bring scrutiny to Joe. Rather, Obama’s gaffe answering the question and the adverse effect on Obama’s poll numbers caused the Democrat smear machine, including their media allies like the AP, to look for dirt on Joe. When they failed to find much, they tried to make mountains out of the various molehills they did find.

Obama’s gaffe was to answer Joe’s question with,

I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody.

That phraseology struck a nerve with voters and threatened Obama’s cruise to victory. So the Democrats and their media friends decided to pretend that Joe’s life had something to do with how voters should react to Obama’s revealing statement. Then they tried to destroy Joe’s life like they previously did the lives of Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter and fiancee.

Joe’s life is irrelevant. Even Joe’s question is irrelevant. All that matters is that talking to a guy who was playing catch with his son on his own front lawn caused Obama to reveal his true approach to “economic justice” in a rare unguarded, unscripted moment.

AP’s statement that Joe “turned out to be an unlicensed plumber” clearly implies that Joe is breaking the Ohio license law. He is doing no such thing. Most Ohio plumbers are unlicensed. Why? Because only the owner of an Ohio pluming company has to be licensed.

Accusing Joe of being an unlicensed plumber is like accusing your doctor’s receptionist of not having graduated from medical school. Joe has been working as a plumber for 15 years. He is studying for his master plumber’s license so he will be allowed to buy a plumbing company in the future. His lack of a license is a blatant, dishonest attempt to make him look like a criminal. AP made no mention of the fact that Joe is not required to have a plumber’s license.

The unpaid back taxes are property taxes on his home. Many people deliberately do not pay those on time because the penalty interest rate is so low that it is a better rate than one can get on other loans. Municipalities generally do not dun property tax delinquents because they have a lien on the property and know they will eventually get paid with interest when the homeowner refinances or sells.

Joe said he was not aware that he owed taxes. That’s lame, although it is true that they typically only send one notice before the due date. He also said he was going to pay the delinquent taxes—$1,100 or so—in installments. AP made no mention of the type of taxes in question or that the taxing authority never sent Joe or anyone else a late notice.

But again, Joe’s license and property tax status have nothing to do with anything. I cite them only to prove the bias and dishonesty of AP.

‘The wealth?’

I would like to focus on Obama’s phrase “the wealth.”

I understand the use of the word “the” in phrases like “the nation” or “the country” or “the public.” Those are things or abstract concepts or generic groups of people.

Wealth, however, is the savings and equity of each individual. There is no “the wealth.” There is only my wealth and your wealth and Joe the plumber’s wealth and so on. You can spread the SARS virus around or you can spread “the love” around, but when you starting talking about spreading “the wealth” around what you are really talking about is spreading my life savings or someone else’s life savings around.

Like hell, buddy!

And let’s call “spreading around” what it really is. Democrat Barack Obama wants to use federal government taxing and law enforcement power to confiscate a substantial part of my life savings and/or income and the savings and/or income of other people not likely to vote for Obama and use it to buy the votes of the majority of Americans who have been less successful financially and are therefore more inclined to vote for Obama. What Obama wants to do with the savings and/or income of successful people to steal it from them legally then use it to bribe people to vote for him.

Then there’s the issue of what was going to happen to my wealth if Obama did not take it to “spread around.” What the hell did Obama think I was going to do with my savings and income? I’m spreading it around, Baby. On October 27, 2008 (this past Monday), I bought $50,000 worth of 5-year TIPS (U.S. Treasury Inflation Protected Securities) from the semi-annual U.S. government auction so they could “spread” my savings “around” before they give it back to me at maturity with interest and with a principal amount that has been adjusted for inflation but not deflation. Yesterday, I ordered a Coast Guard G-1 leather bomber jacket from U.S. Wings. I also bought some pretzel stix and a small Coke from Auntie Anne’s. Today my wife and son and I had breakfast at McDonald’s and I plan to buy the book Talent is Overrated at Barnes & Noble. If and when Joe the plumber makes it to $250,000 a year income I am sure he plans to spread it around on his own favorite things and savings vehicles.

So Barack, the issue is not whether “the wealth” is going to be “spread around.” It will be spread around just as it has always been spread around. It’s whose wealth it is and who gets to do the spreading?

The bare crass fact is that you want to confiscate my savings and/or income just so you can do the “spreading,” so you can buy votes and play the role of hero. If I spread it around, I’m the one who gets thanked by the order takers at U.S. Wings or Auntie Annes or McDonalds or Barnes & Noble. You want those people to be grateful to you, Barack Obama, for the spending of my money, not to me, because you are a sick, twisted, megalomaniac, selfish, cynical, sociopathic son of a bitch. You couldn’t care less about something being “good for everybody.” You only care about using my money to bribe the majority into being good to you in the voting booth so you can get and keep more power than anyone on earth.

New York Times

One reader asked me why I left out the New York Times. I live in Northern Califarnia and do not subscribe to it. We subscribe to three other daily papers. The Times once offered us a deal too cheap to refuse and we tried it. Didn’t care for it. Too much New York area news and sports; too much snobby, only-a-New-Yorker-could-love stuff; and too much leftist propaganda.

When I was in college, we students were all required to subscribe to the New York Times—one subscription per room of three cadets. That was at West Point which is about 45 miles north of New York City. Furthermore, as freshmen, we had to read it so we could answer questions about major stories from the upperclassmen.

Even then it was biased. During my senior year, I got the idea to do a school paper on NY Times bias. I had occasion to drive from DC back to West Point. In each major city, I bought the Sunday paper. There happened to have been a major, successful military operation in the Vietnam war that day. It was big front-page news in all the papers I bought. When I got back to my room at West Point, sure enough, the story was on page 37 or some such of our New York Times and it was tiny and tried hard not to reveal the success of the operation. I turned in a paper with those newspapers as exhibits and got an excellent grade. That was in 1968—40 years ago.

What should you read henceforth?

If you stop reading Newsweek and AP and the rest of them, where should you get your news and analysis?

I still like business media like the Wall Street Journal, Businessweek, Fortune, and Forbes. I also find no problem with most of what’s in conservative publications like the Weekly Standard.

Many readers would say, “Ha! They are obviously biased in favor of conservatism!”

Actually, I do not find such bias in business publications. I assume their editorials are biased that way, but I generally do not read editorials. I find their articles professional and well-informed. If you do not read business publications, I can see why you would expect them to be biased. But remember who reads them. Businesspeople. Businesspeople are famous for a bottom-line orientation. They are not interested in bullshit of any variety because it makes them no money. Before you dismiss such periodicals out of hand, try reading them.

In a sense, the lack of bias in business publications is akin to the lack of a word for “weather” in the Hawaiian language. Since the weather there hardly ever changes, it was not a topic of conversation among the natives before Westerners arrived.

Similarly, within the business world, there is no need or audience for propaganda in favor of any political candidate. Business journalism is not about partisan propaganda any more than Hawaii is about weather variations. In my experience, business journalists are still professional. Main stream general purpose media outlets have gone partisan to an appalling degree.

Even conservative periodicals like the Weekly Standard are nevertheless professional. And they tend not to emphasize the religious segment of the conservative voting block. Even Rush Limbaugh generally does not, and Ronald Reagan did not, emphasize religious issues like abortion or gay marriage. I sense they are and were uncomfortable with both those issues and the voters who are passionate about them. When Limbaugh talks about such issues it is usually to complain about liberal bias surrounding them. Reagan tended to say what the religious right wanted to hear but not act on those issues.

I am not a conservative. I think they are absolutely nuts on social issues like religion, faith-based initiatives, stem-cell research (which appears to be oversold by the left and over religionized by the right), abortion (which is truly an extremely complicated ethical matter), and so on.

I am greatly saddened by the death of Newsweek, Time, AP, and the rest of the mainstream media. I thought they were crucial to our nation when they were honest and professional. Now, good riddance. I am very concerned about who or what will replace them. A replacement honest journalism profession must be recreated for the good of the nation.

John T. Reed

Professional journalist since 1976, member: National Association of Real Estate Editors, Football Writers Association of America, Investigative Reporters and Editors Association.