How to find a Democrat – still

By Bruce Walker
web posted July 21, 2003

On June 30, 2003 Enter Stage Right posted my article "How to find a Democrat and how to spot a liberal" which describes how the establishment Leftist media completely omits the party label of those elected Democrats who find themselves mired in scandal.

I referenced a July 23, 2001 article in Enter Stage Right entitled "Put a 'liberal' in front of Gary Condit's name" which that noted that the Leftist establish media first ignored the Gary Condit story, then mentioned Condit without a party label, then identified Condit as a Democrat, but always prefaced with the adjective "conservative."

The article went on to observe than even a cursory review of the voting scorecards of liberal and conserative organizations showed that Condit was a liberal by any standard and that is lifetime voting record put him to the left of any Republican congressman in California.

Now, thanks to the breathtaking intellectual mendacity of the Leftist establishment media, a must compose an addendum to my article "How to find a Democrat and how to spot a liberal." CNN posted a story at 2:55 on July 9, 2003 entitled "Kentucky governor's former lover indicted on fraud charges."

Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton

The article provided some juicy details about Governor Patton's former mistress, Tina Conner. CNN even provided us with a nice photo of this attractive woman. There was only one journalistic sin in the article: it never once mentioned or even hinted that "Governor Paul Patton" was a Democrat.

On March 25th CNN posted a story entitled "Kentucky governor hit with ethics charges," which the follow up to an earlier March 4, CNN story "Investigation: Kentucky governor influenced promotion." Neither story mentions the political party of Governor Patton. What makes this extraordinarily odd is that these are part of the brilliant CNN Inside Politics section.

I traveled back in the logs of CNN stories to see when this particular item began to receive the eagle eye of CNN's crack political investigators. At 10:00 in the evening on September 18, 2002, CNN noted that Tina Conner had filed a lawsuit against Governor Patton (who is incorrectly identified at one point in the transcript as "Paul Patton, Governor of Alabama") but this also says nothing at all about his political party.

Two days later, at 4:00 on September 20th, the transcript of CNN Inside Politics has ace political analyst Candy Crowley ask a local reporter, identified as "Bob Herbert" about Governor Patton's apparent response to these charges. He responds:

"Well, Candy, first of all, it's Mark Hebert...But what we can tell you is that within the hour here Governor Paul Patton, of the state of Kentucky, Democrat in his second term..." Stop the presses (or microphones)! Paul Patton - Governor of Kentucky (or Alabama or one of those flyover states) is a Democrat!

Herbert...or Hebert, then goes on to volunteer "Does it hurt other candidates, other Democratic candidates, here in Kentucky? Paul Patton's been out stumping for them. Does it hurt them? Certainly it'll hurt them in the election coming up."

Whoa! Not only is Patton a Democrat, but he has been stumping for other Democrats and there is an election coming up. Some yahoo reporter from Kentucky (or Alabama or wherever) actually considered that this scandal-ridden Democrat who had been out campaigning for other Democrats might hurt their chances.

Pointedly, the devastatingly cerebral Ms. Crowley never mentions in her questions or acknowledges in her follow up questions that Patton is a Democrat or that he has been out campaigning for other Democrats. Still, the point has been made - right? Well, not exactly. The CNN Inside Politics transcript warns us at the beginning "THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED."

Two hours later, at 8:00 on September 20th CNN Anchor Anderson Cooper, CNN Senior Political Analyst Bill Schneider and the delightful Ms. Connie Chung revisited the story. These folks blathered on through two pages of transcripts about Paul Patton without anyone mentioning that he was a Democrat.

The earlier story, which included candid observations by an unsophisticated local reporter from Kentucky (or Alabama or some other state in flyover country) had not been processed through the Ministry of Truth. Chung and Schneider - who knew what was important and what was unimportant for a story for CNN Inside Politics - scrupulously purged all information about the partisan affiliation of a scandal-ridden Democrat.

Was this exceptional behavior for the Leftist establishment media? On July 9, 2003, the very day that CNN Inside Politics ran an article on indictment of the ex-lover of Paul Patton, without mentioning once that this governor was a Democrat, the ace reporter Scott Mooneyham posted a story in the Associated Press wires under Elections.

This particular part of the Associated Press online wire was not exactly crackling with activity. The next earliest posting was on July 3, 2003 - six days before - with the breathtaking scoop "Teachers Union sets sight on Bush in 04" (this is, indeed, a stunning political development) and the next scoop posted by the Associated Press was "Democrats Announce Televised Debates."

When these amazing stories are piling up at the Associated Press at the rate of one every week or two, it is only natural that some details get lost. So when Associated Press posted the story "Former N.C. Agriculture Head Arrested" it must simply have been the torrent of news that kept the story from mentioning that Meg Phipps, the very person arrested, was a Democrat.

The story did get some facts to the readers. Meg, for example, was not only the "Former N.C. Agriculture Head" but also the daughter of former North Carolina Governor Bob Scott. She was the granddaughter of former North Carolina Governor and United States Senator Kerr Scott.

My June 30, 2003 article in Enter Stage Right shows that the Associated Press was not the only news organization that seemed incapable of determining that Phipps was a Democrat; MSNBC suffered from an identical malady.

What is even more interesting is that the true crooked Democrats were not trifling figures. Paul Patton is not just a Democrat governor, he is also the Chair of the National Governors Association, the spokesman for all the governors of the fifty states. Meg Phipps is not just a statewide elected Democrat, but she is the daughter of one North Carolina governor and the granddaughter of another North Carolina governor and United States senator.

So, is the lesson that the party affiliation of statewide elected officials in the South is simply not very important? There is more support in my June 30th article. Louisiana Insurance Commissioner Jim Brown, for example, went to prison without CBS News ever gleaning that he, too, was an elected Democrat politician.

Are there any exceptions to this rule? Well, only one pops immediately to mind. When Republican Katherine Harris, who served in the administration of Republican Governor Jeb Bush certified the election results for Republican Presidential nominee George W. Bush giving Republicans the White House.

And - as if to hammer home the significance of this exception, CNN Inside Politics on July 16 2003 - the day after I had submitted this to my illustrious editor, Steve Martinovich, at Enter Stage Right - posted at 12:04 the story "N.C. Supreme Court rejects legislative redistricting maps again."

North Carolina is the state in which Meg Phipps, an elected official who won a close partisan election in November 2000 and who is the daughter and granddaughter of former governors and senators apparently has no partisan affiliation at all.

The story notes that the North Carolina Supreme Court rejected a redistricting plan submitted by the North Carolina Legislature, and in the second paragraph of this article, notes: "The four majority justices in the 4-1 opinion are Republicans and the lone dissenter is a Democrat. Two other Republican justices did not participate in the ruling."

Apparently sometimes the partisan affiliation is so important for the reader or viewer than it must be repeated twice in the same paragraph at the beginning of the story, other times it is not worth ever mentioning. How odd.

For every guiding principle of Leftist establishment media, there seem to be some exceptions. So, the next time you read a story from AP, CBS, CNN, MSNBC or any of these "competitors" for news and if there is muck and criminality involved and if nothing at all is stated or hinted about the political party of the corrupt official, then you have sniffed out a Democrat.

Bruce Walker is a senior writer with Enter Stage Right. He is also a frequent contributor to The Pragmatist and The Common Conservative.

Other related stories: (open in a new window)

• How to find a Democrat and how to spot a liberal by Bruce Walker (June 30, 2003)
  When it comes to the media's reporting, argues Bruce Walker, it's pretty easy to see who is a liberal or a Democrat by how the media describes them
  

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