CBS News Pimping the Parliament of Whores (and Ignoring Ron Paul)

If you look at an image of the front page of the politics section of the CBS News website on 1/6/2012, you'll see that they have a box with the election results for the Iowa caucus: 25% for Romney, 25% for Santorum, and who the hell knows what percent for 3rd place winner Ron Paul because his name and picture are nowhere to be found (he was between 3 and 4 percent behind being tied for 1st by the the way). There are several other featured stories relevant to the election - Boston Globe endorses Huntsman -- not Romney, Mitt Romney's post-Iowa Momentum real?, Political Satire in Time for the New Hampshire Primary, and a story about how John Huntsman is upset with Ron Paul because some random schmuck on the internet uploaded a YouTube video that questions whether Huntsman is a true American and distastefully shows a photo of his Chinese daughter. Although we are told there is "no evidence" that connects this video to the Ron Paul campaign, we are still relayed a message from Cindy McCain on twitter for Ron Paul: "shame on you".

But I was mostly interested in coverage of the upcoming primary election in New Hampshire, so I clicked the story titled Is New Hampshire anyone's game? Anyone but Ron Paul is the answer, for in the entire 12 and half minute segment, the names dropped are Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, John Huntsman, Newt Gingrich, and even Rick Perry. Ron Paul's name is not mentioned one single time, even though he is polling second in New Hampshire at 24%, and even though John Dickerson, the man who CBS assigned to cover Ron Paul's Iowa campaign, is present in this 3 person discussion. The other 2 people are Jan Crawford, who CBS assigned to cover Mitt Romney's Iowa campaign, and Nancy Cordes, who said in the discussion that Mitt Romney is "completely inevitable" as the nominee. On a different segment that aired Jan 5., the day after the Iowa caucus, the usual suspects - Nancy Cordes and Jan Crawford, aired a segment on the results of the caucus. Again, you would never notice that Ron Paul came in 3rd place because CBS did not mention his name one single time.  Every other candidate was named - Romney, Santorum, Gingrich, Bachmann, Perry, and Huntsman. In a further show of bias, CBS showed the results of a Suffolk University Poll in which Ron Paul placed 2nd place at 14% in New Hampshire (he's up to 18% now by the way) but his name is completely blacked out in the broadcast - they show the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th place results from the poll but have nothing on second place winner Ron Paul.  The media pimps were paving the way for Romney and pretending that Ron Paul didn't even exist. But they knew full well who he was.

In the political satire segment I mentioned above, Nancy Cordes brought on a different guest - humor writer P.J. O'Rourke, author of Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government. O'Rourke, himself a libertarian, brought up how Ron Paul's libertarianism means no nanny state will get in your way if you want have a half-gallon of ice cream for lunch and a pack of Marlboros every day. Cordes then quipped "and doing drugs" (referencing Ron Paul's position that the Drug War is a failure and should be ended just like Prohibition). In the Romney momentum segment I mentioned above, Time's Joel Kline is brought on as a guest and even gives Paul a mention, saying that from South Carolina the race will be between Romney, Ron Paul, and a yet to be determined anti-Romney candidate. But then CBS's John Dickerson came back into the picture to say that perhaps Gingrich, Perry, and Santorum would split the anti-Romney vote, leaving no (he pauses to find the word...) "plausible" alternative to Romney.

As if the CBS website and Nancy Cordes' terribly and unethically biased reporting weren't bad enough, I had watched on TV earlier this morning a segment from CBS Up the Minute hosted by Betty Nguyen. On the segment on the upcoming New Hampshire primary, I got to see Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich. Guess whose name wasn't mentioned? That's right, Ron Paul. Santorum did get his very own segment a few minutes later though.  I haven't yet seen a link for the 1/6/2012 video yet, but noticed a video from 1/5 so I decided to see what Nguyen and CBS had to to say for that day - the day after the Iowa caucus. In the first 6 minutes all candidates - Romney, Santorum, Perry, Bachmann, Gingrich, and Huntsman were mentioned. With 51 seconds left in the video I was so sure Ron Paul was going to be ignored. But almost as an afterthought, Nguyen then asked "and very quickly, Ron Paul. He did pretty well in Iowa, came in 3rd. Does he have a shot at this?". The man from Politico replied "I don't think he has a shot at the Republican nomination".  There was more coverage of Bachmann dropping out than of Ron Paul and his 3rd place finish. But hey, at least she asked about Ron Paul. And at least the Politico guy threw Ron Paul a bone and said his delegates would have some influence in the nomination process. But the total blackout continued the next day - keep an eye out for the video - Betty Nguyen was wearing a pink shirt.

CBS has a really terrible history of blacking out Ron Paul.  I've been watching the CBS Evening News 3 to 5 times a week for about 3 years now and until the Dec. 5, 2012 broadcast, they NEVER mentioned Ron Paul, even though he had been campaigning since around spring of 2011. But they had plenty of time to cover other candidates such as Bachmann when she won the Iowa straw poll (barely ahead of Paul) or a Newt Gingrich "surge" or when Perry announced he would enter the race and CBS decided to show him topping the polls and did a segment of his life growing up. And as mentioned in 70 Minutes of CNN vs. the Invisible Ron Paul, in the CBS debate from November 2011, the CBS moderators felt free to ignore Ron Paul and gave him a mere 90 seconds of speaking time, which is less than all the other candidates and less than half the time given to Michelle Bachmann, who was second to last in speaking time. In contrast, Romney, Perry, Gingrich, and Cain were all given around 6 to 8 minutes each to express their views. From December 2011, Paul's polling numbers made it so that evidence of media bias would be too obvious if CBS continued to ignore him so they actually did give him some coverage.  Not consistently though. For instance, in  Dec. 20 segment covering their own CBS poll, Ron Paul placed 3rd at 10% behind Gingrich and Romney at 20% each (6 point margin of error), but Paul was completely blacked out from the coverage.

So if Mitt Romney goes on to become President of the Parliament of Whores, he'll owe a great deal of gratitude to the media pimps at CBS and elsewhere.  If the media spent anywhere near the time investigating Mitt Romney's record as they spent on investigating Herman Cain's sex scandal, it would be obvious that Mitt Romney is completely unelectable as a conservative and only Ron Paul deserves to win. Of course the voting public would deserve their share of blame as well.  It's funny how Republican voters like to think of themselves as tough on foreign policy, but they'll drop down on 2 knees at the first sign of surrender so they can compromise on the most "electable" candidate who deserves no valid claim on electability.  Even Hitler was elected.

Update: 1/10/2012. CBS Up to the Minute hosted by Betty Nguyen with coconspirator CBS Senior Political Reporter Brian Montopoli ignores Ron Paul coverage on the day of the NH Primary in a story titled “Primary Preview” even though he’s polling second at 18%. Which candidates are named? Romney, Santorum, Perry, Gingrich, Huntsman. No Ron Paul.