FOXNews.com Makes Bush Looks Like He Won The Debate, Even Though He Didn't
Reported by Ellen - October 15, 2004 -
Even the title of the FOXNews.com report is a spin: Bush Blooms Late in Face-Off. The first three paragraphs wax rhapsodically about Bush's performance. "President Bush came with his A-game and showed he is a strong finisher." "The president was smashing." Not until the fourth and fifth paragraph does reporter Sharon Kehnemui Liss get around to mentioning the very important facts (SOME would say most crucial) that Kerry won all the snap polls.
The only criticism of last night's performance is reserved, of course, for John Kerry. First, GOP pollster Ed Goeas, who conducted a focus group of 20 undecided voters, said Kerry's remark about Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter was "a huge turnoff." Interestingly, though, FOX never says whether Bush or Kerry won Goeas' poll about the debate, as a whole, an omission that makes me suspect Kerry did.
Apparently reporter Bliss reserved all her research for the purpose of discrediting Kerry. After she reports Kerry's response to accusations about his "do-nothing" Senate record, Bliss adds that the bills the Kerry campaign claimed he either wrote or co-sponsored included bills that "had not been signed into law. In legislative parlance, being a co-sponsor does not mean being a principal in authoring it, but has joined onto it."
Incidentally, Bliss ignored all of Kerry's accusations against Bush on jobs loss, health insurance loss, corporate giveaways or any other substantive matters brought up by Kerry, leaving a reader who may not have seen the actual debate with the impression that the only issue Kerry brought up at all was Cheney's lesbian daughter.
Nevertheless, Bliss turned somewhat meticulous on the matter of the bills Kerry may have co-sponsored or were identical to those he did. She reports a detailed, but trivial-sounding list: a posthumous congressional gold medal to baseball legend Jackie Robinson, legislation crating a women's business center program in the Small Business Administration, legislation naming the Murphy Federal Building in Waltham, Mass, and two resolutions identifying World Population Week.
It's puzzling, then, how she managed not to discover Kerry's strong record on the environment and his key role in the investigation of the BCCI scandal. Even more strange is the fact that there is absolutely no reporting on Bush's record. After another bash at Kerry's record (White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett saying that, "Kerry's record is the only reliable information people can rely on, since he changes his mind from day to day"), Bliss ends the report with a couple of upbeat-for-Bush paragraphs.
According to pundits (unidentified as FOX analysts), "Bush had a 'smashing victory' on Wednesday night." "Clearly it was President Bush's best debate... John Kerry was on the defensive."
"'I think it was a very strong showing for President Bush.' (FOX pundit William) Kristol said."
It wouldn't be a FOX report with any other kind of showing.
