Two Words

That whirring sound you here are the rotor blades of the black helicopters in Mark Hyman’s head.

Ignoring all evidence to the contrary (not least of which is the existence of Sinclair Broadcasting itself), Hyman continues to participate in the ritual excoriation of the corporate media as allegedly liberally biased.

This time around, his “evidence” is that the Mark Foley scandal was the subject of 235 articles and editorials in leading national newspapers in the week after the story broke, while “similar” scandals involving Democratic politicians Mel Reynolds and Barney Frank only got a fraction of the attention.

One could spend quite a bit of time pointing out in detail how the scandals were not “similar”: how neither the Reynolds or Frank affairs involved the outing of a closeted gay man, that neither the Reynolds or Frank were the chairs of a congressional subcommittee on exploited children who then had inappropriate contact with an underage congressional page, that neither Franks or Reynolds supported party positions that were homophobic while being homosexual themselves, that in neither the Franks or Reynolds case did party leadership tell wildly varying versions of who knew what and when, that in neither the Franks or Reynolds case did it come to light that congressional leaders knew about inappropriate action and looked the other way for political purposes, etc.

One could say all that and much, much more. But there’s actually a simple two-word rebuttal to Hyman’s point, one that not only explains why so many column inches were devoted to a sex scandal in 2006 when other scandals that happened more than twelve years ago received less attention, but also puts the lie to any contention that the allegedly “liberal” press looks the other way at Democratic scandal.

Here it is:

Bill Clinton

And that’s The Counterpoint.


Hyman Index: 4.55