The Liberal Bias of the New York Times

Pundits like my girl Ann Coulter are always going on about the liberal bias of the New York Times. To see for myself I decided to begin reading the New York times to see if I noticed any bias. For the most part, the paper does an average job of presenting fair coverage of stories. The only marked bias I've seen that's really gotten be going, aside from the opinions pages, is the strange pro-illegal immigrants bias. Here are two prime examples of what I'm talking about:

In Cancer, With A Side of Beaurocracy the author details the awful plight of a poor little 9-year-old girl with skin cancer. This wouldn't be news except for that 1. She has an extremely rare form of cancer not often found in children 2. Her condition is so advanced she needs a life-saving operation right away 3. She gets denied the operation by her health insurance and 4. Her insurance denies her because it's state-provided and she's an illegal immigrant. The issue here is not that New York's Child Health Plus wouldn't cover this girl- it actually covers all children of illegal immigrants with tax dollars from LEGAL citizens-, it's that somehow in the paper chase she got denied coverage. Her illegal immigrant mother even had the nerve to go on record saying the country she resides in illegally didn't provide a free operation to her child fast enough. I'm not saying the child doesn't deserve an operation- I have a heart, I'm glad she's getting the care she needs, and I don't think she deserves to die just because she's here illegally. But I do think the article had a very marked bias. It would have been nice if it discussed, even just for a minute, how legal citizens are not necessarily entitled to care, so it's silly for illegals to think they should be entitled to it.

And today, in Mexican's Death Bares a Town's Ethnic Tension, the whole premise of the article is biased. It tries to make the case that the beating and subsequent death of an illegal immigrant by four high school boys was somehow representative of how the entire town hates illegal immigrants. The problem is that the quotes in the article and the facts from the town prove it's just not true. The town's illegal immigrant community is trying to turn these kids into whipping boys for ever hate crime ever committed. This wasn't a hate crime. Three of the kids were underage. They don't deserve to be tried as adults for this. The immigrants are trying to say they'll get off easy because they're good kids and the person that died was just an illegal, not someone protected by US law, and I'm thinking... yes. Exactly. If you want to be protected by US laws you should try becoming a US citizen, and then you'll get all the protections you want. If Mexico wants to try these kids for the death of one of their own, that's up to Mexico. I'm not saying what the kids did was wrong- it was- but I don't think they deserve to have their lives ruined over some immigrants wanting a death avenged.

The problem with these articles is not with the stories themselves- poor immigrant children don't deserve to die, and it's not okay to kill someone (even if they are illegal)- it's with the way the articles are written. They both fail to tell the other side of the story, the story about how CHP is generous for even extending illegals care, and the part where illegal immigrants are not necessarily protected by the laws of a country they don't belong to.

Hold the phone, Iraq critics

I read Real Clear Politics first thing every day, since it generally does a good job of presenting one or two of the best articles out there on whatever the big topics for the day will be. RCP is generally un-biased, but the articles they link to aren't necessarily so. Here's an example of an excerpt from Politico:

John McCain, who once voiced concerns about Bush and Cheney’s handling of the war, is now unrestrained in his enthusiasm for the indefinite occupation of Iraq.

The article is trying to argue that McCain has become more conservative for a general election audience, which obviously he has (but not nearly to the degree Obama is veering to the center). But this is exactly the kind of backhanded little statement conservatives need to to a better job fighting against.

For those of us who have been following Iraq, we know that Bush/Cheney were botching the hell out of a war that should have been a cakewalk for US troops to win. Of *course* McCain spoke out against their mis-management, anyone who knew anything about the military was speaking out against it. But that doesn't mean his support for the war ever weakened. He was always one of the most vocal supporters of the Iraq war, regardless of calling Bush/Cheney out on their terrible mismanagement.

We also know "indefinite occupation" is misleading. Recall that US troops are technically still occupying Germany, Japan and Korea- countries we haven't been at war with for decades. We do this to offer support to nations still adjusting to post-war life and to help them out should they have any trouble. We also do it for strategic reasons- having troops in South Korea ready to go to battle at any moment is a good plan considering how things are going with North Korea lately. We will probably never need to engage these troops, but it's good to have them there.

Iraq is in the middle of the hotbed of the Middle East. Of COURSE we would keep troops there indefinitely. It doesn't make sense not to. Should anything happen with Iran 5, 10, 15 years from now our troops are right there waiting for it, and in the mean time they're helping the new Iraq security forces keep the newly democratic nation running. It would be stupid of us to spend billions of dollars in Iraq and then leave without having any way to ensure our investment is paying off. We didn't liberate them so they could go back to exactly how things were in 2001.

With a bit of critical thinking we conservatives know the above statement is misleading bullshit, but lots of people see this sort of thing as fact. We really need to do a better job of correcting each and every person who makes statements like this. If we can't call Obama a Muslim then liberals can't say things like this.