Pew Study Says MSNBC Had More Negative Coverage Of Romney Than Fox News Did Of Obama

No shocker here, led by Chris Matthews MSNBC's bitter hatred for Mitt Romney has been pretty transparent for awhile now:

A new survey released by Pew examined the negative coverage both President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have received in the mainstream news as well as in social media. While MSNBC and Fox News are often seen as two sides of the same partisan coin, the survey found one network to be notably more negative toward a candidate.

Seventy-one percent of MSNBC’s coverage of Romney, from August 27 to October 21 of this year, was negative (with three percent being positive). By contrast, Fox News’ negative coverage of Obama during the same period came in at 46 percent (with six percent being positive).

Pew noted that the two networks’ “ideological programming” made them “stand out from other mainstream media outlets” — and that “MSNBC stands out the most.” The negative-to-positive ratio for MSNBC was about 23-to-1, while Fox’s was about 8-to-1.

Overall, the survey found, the candidates have received more negative than positive coverage during the previously mentioned period of time. For Obama, 19 percent of stories were favorable, 30 percent were unfavorable, and 51 percent were mixed. For Romney, 15 percent of stories were favorable, 38 percent were unfavorable, and 47 percent were mixed. Obama received more negative coverage after the first presidential debate, while Romney received more negative coverage after the release of the “47 percent” video.

However, those mainstream news outlets were less negative than social media, where ” the narrative about both men has been relentlessly negative and relatively unmoved by campaign events that have shifted the mainstream narrative.”

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Why A Good Person Can Vote Against Gay Marriage

It's the moral fabric of America that social liberals are looking to extinguish, just pay attention to the facts:

Next week voters in Maine, Maryland and Washington will vote on whether to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples. 

Given that there are good people on both sides of this issue, how are we to explain their opposing views? 

The primary explanation is this: Proponents and opponents ask two different questions. 

Proponents of same-sex marriage ask: Is keeping the definition of marriage as man-woman fair to gays?

Opponents of same-sex marriage ask: Is same-sex marriage good for society? 

Few on either side honestly address the question of the other side. Opponents of same-sex marriage rarely acknowledge how unfair the age-old man-woman definition is to gay couples. And proponents rarely, if ever, acknowledge that this unprecedented redefinition of marriage may not be good for society. 

That is why proponents have it much easier. All they need to do is to focus the public's attention on individual gay people, show wonderful gay individuals who love each other, and ask the American public: Is it fair to continue to deprive these people of the right to marry one another? 

When added to Americans' aversion to discrimination, to the elevation of compassion to perhaps the highest national value, and to the equating of opposition to same-sex marriage with opposition to interracial marriage, it is no wonder that many Americans have been persuaded that opposition to same-sex marriage is hateful, backwards and the moral equivalent of racism. 

Is there any argument that can compete with the emotionally compelling fairness argument? 

The answer is that one can -- namely, the answer to the second question, Is it good for society? 

Before answering that question, however, it is necessary to respond to the charge that opposition to same-sex marriage is morally equivalent to opposition to interracial marriage and, therefore, the moral equivalent of racism. 

There are two responses: 

First, this charge is predicated on the profoundly false premise that race and sex (or "gender" as it is now referred to) are analogous. 

They are not. 

While there are no differences between black and white human beings, there are enormous differences between male and female human beings. That is why sports events, clothing, public restrooms, and (often) schools are routinely divided by sex. But black sporting events and white sporting events, black restrooms and white restrooms, black schools and white schools, or black clothing stores and white clothing stores would be considered immoral. 

Because racial differences are insignificant and gender differences are hugely significant, there is no moral equivalence between opposition to interracial marriage and opposition to same-sex marriage. 

Second, if opposition to same-sex marriage is as immoral as racism, why did no great moral thinker, in all of history, ever advocate male-male or female-female marriage? Opposition to racism was advocated by every great moral thinker. Moses, for example, married a black woman, the very definition of Catholic is "universal" and therefore diverse and has always included every race, and the equality of human beings of every race was a central tenet of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and other world religions. But no one - not Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Aquinas, Gandhi, not the Bible or the Koran or any other sacred text, nor even a single anti-religious secular thinker of the Enlightenment -- ever advocated redefining marriage to include members of the same sex. 

To argue that opposition to same-sex marriage is immoral is to argue that every moral thinker, and every religion and social movement in the history of mankind prior to the last 20 years in America and Europe was immoral. About no other issue could this be said. Every moral advance has been rooted in prior moral thinking. The anti-slavery movement was based on the Bible. Martin Luther King, Jr. was first and foremost the "Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr." and he regularly appealed to the moral authority of the scriptures when making his appeals on behalf of racial equality. Same-sex marriage is the only social movement to break entirely with the past, to create a moral ideal never before conceived. It might be right, but it might also be an example of the moral hubris of the present generation, the generation that created the self-esteem movement: After all, you need a lot of self-esteem to hold yourself morally superior to all those who preceded you. 

We now return to our two primary questions. 

Is the man-woman definition of marriage fair to gays who wish to marry? No, it isn't. And those of us opposed to same-sex marriage need to be honest about this, to confront the human price paid by some people through no fault of their own and figure out ways to offer gay couples basic rights associated with marriage. 

But whether a policy is fair to every individual can never be the only question society asks in establishing social policy. Eyesight standards for pilots are unfair to some terrifically capable individuals. Orchestra standards are unfair to many talented musicians. A mandatory retirement age is unfair to many people. Wherever there are standards, there will be unfairness to individuals. 

So, the question is whether redefining in the most radical way ever conceived -- indeed completely changing its intended meaning -- is good for society. 

It isn't. 

The major reason is this: Gender increasingly no longer matters. There is a fierce battle taking place to render meaningless the man-woman distinction, the most important distinction regarding human beings' personal identity. Nothing would accomplish this as much as same-sex marriage. 

The whole premise of same-sex marriage is that gender is insignificant: It doesn't matter whether you marry a man or a woman. Love, not gender, matters. 

Some examples of this war on gender: 

--This year Harvard University appointed its first permanent director of bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, and queer student life. The individual, Vanidy Bailey, has asked that he/she never be referred to as he or she, male or female. Harvard has agreed. 

--In 2010 eHarmony, for years the country's largest online dating service, was sued for only matching men and women. Its lack of same-sex matchmaking meant that it violated anti-discrimination laws in some states. As a result, eHarmony was forced to begin a same-sex online service. 

--Each year more and more American high schools elect girls as homecoming kings and boys as homecoming queens. Students have been taught to regard restricting kings to males or queens to females as (gender-based) discrimination. 

--When you sign up for the new social networking site, Google Plus, you are asked to identify your gender. Three choices are offered: Male, Female, Other. 

--Catholic Charities, which operates the oldest ongoing adoption services in America, has had to end its adoption work in Illinois, Massachusetts and Washington, DC because the governments there regard placing children with married man-woman couples before same-sex couples as discriminatory. 

Increasingly, even the mother-father ideal is being shattered in this battle to render male-female distinction insignificant. 

--The socialist French government has just announced that in the future no government issued document will be allowed to use the words "mother" or "father." Only the gender-neutral term "parent" will be acceptable in France. 

--And in Rhode Island this year, one school district cancelled its father-daughter dance after the ACLU threatened to sue the district for gender discrimination. Only parent-child events, not father-daughter dances or mother-son ballgames, will be allowed. 

And all this is happening before same-sex marriage is allowed. Imagine what will happen should same-sex marriage become the law of the land. 

It will hasten the end of the male-female distinction and of any significance to mothers or fathers as distinctive entities. 

It will mean that those who, for religious or other reasons, wish to retain the man-woman definition of marriage will be legally and morally as isolated as racists are today. 

And it will mean that teachers and other adults who ask little boys and girls who they would like to marry, will, in order to be in sync with the morality of our times, have to make it clear that it might be a someone of the same sex. "Will you marry a boy or a girl?" will be the only non-bigoted way to ask a young person about their marital plans. 

The history of left-wing policies has largely consisted of doing what feels good and compassionate without asking what the long-term consequences will be; what Professor Thomas Sowell calls "Stage One Thinking." That explains, for example, the entitlement state. It sounds noble and seems noble. But the long-term consequences are terrible: economic ruin, a demoralized population, increasing selfishness as people look to the state to take care of their fellow citizens, and more. 

By redefining marriage to include same sex couples we are playing with sexual and societal fire. Just as the entitlement state passes on the cost of our good intentions to our children and grandchildren - unsustainable dependency and debt -- so, too, same-sex marriage will pass along the consequences of our good intentions to our children and grandchildren - gender confusion and the loss of motherhood and fatherhood as values, just to cite two obvious consequences. 

It is not enough to mean well in life. One must also do well. And the two are frequently not the same thing.
There are reasons no moral thinker in history ever advocated same-sex marriage.

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Karl Rove’s Prediction: Romney 51, Obama 48

Hotair.com:

A shot of optimism after a day of eeyorish state polls. How does Rove arrive at this result when eight of the last nine Ohio surveys have O ahead? In two steps: (1) He clearly trusts the national data over the state data, and (2) he cites historical numbers showing that incumbents recently have tended to overperform their national polling on election day by only one percent or so. Obama’s tied with Romney in the RCP national average tonight at 47.4. If, per the historical data, O’s ceiling is therefore at 48 percent, then it follows that most everyone else will break for Romney and that his national advantage will carry him to narrow wins in the states he needs.
As for Ohio:

Adrian Gray, who oversaw the Bush 2004 voter-contact operation and is now a policy analyst for a New York investment firm, makes the point that as of Tuesday, 530,813 Ohio Democrats had voted early or had requested or cast an absentee ballot. That’s down 181,275 from four years ago. But 448,357 Ohio Republicans had voted early or had requested or cast an absentee ballot, up 75,858 from the last presidential election.

That 257,133-vote swing almost wipes out Mr. Obama’s 2008 Ohio victory margin of 262,224. Since most observers expect Republicans to win Election Day turnout, these early vote numbers point toward a Romney victory in Ohio. They are also evidence that Scott Jennings, my former White House colleague and now Romney Ohio campaign director, was accurate when he told me that the Buckeye GOP effort is larger than the massive Bush 2004 get-out-the-vote operation.

Democrats explain away those numbers by saying that they are turning out new young Ohio voters. But I asked Kelly Nallen, the America Crossroads data maven, about this. She points out that there are 12,612 GOP “millennials” (voters aged 18-29) who’ve voted early compared with 9,501 Democratic millennials.

Are Democrats bringing out episodic voters who might not otherwise turn out? Not according to Ms. Nallen. She says that about 90% of each party’s early voters so far had also voted in three of the past four Ohio elections.

In other words, the dam that O’s built among early voters simply isn’t tall enough to hold back the red tide next Tuesday. One caveat to Rove’s point about the national numbers, though: According to RCP, Obama’s either tied or ahead in seven of the last 10 national polls taken. Romney still leads in Rasmussen and Gallup, and in only three of those 10 does Obama reach 49 percent or higher, but things have evened out a bit after Romney’s post-Denver debate surge. Case in point is the new Fox News poll tonight, which has the race dead even at 46 after Romney led by a point in early October. The topline number is not so good for Mitt, but the fundamentals are:

Independents give the edge to Romney by seven percentage points (46-39 percent). That’s down from a 12-point advantage in early October…

Among the subgroup of most interested voters, those who are “extremely” interested in the election, Romney leads Obama by 53-42 percent…

Romney’s supporters continue to be more enthusiastic: 69 percent say it’s extremely important he win, while 59 percent of those backing Obama feel that way.

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CBS Reporter Jan Crawford Encourages Obama to Politicize Hurricane Sandy

Newsbusters.org:

On Wednesday's CBS This Morning, Jan Crawford hyped the cleanup from Hurricane Sandy as a "huge opportunity" for President Obama to display his leadership skills, as opponent Mitt Romney currently hold the advantage in that area in the latest CBS News poll of key battleground states, particularly in Florida.

Crawford also touted that Obama could " build his lead on the question of which candidate better understands people's needs and problems. Voters here [in Florida] give him the edge on empathy."
The CBS correspondent made this assertion at the end of her report on the former Massachusetts governor's "pretty low profile over the past couple of days, as he's been trying to walk this fine line between maintaining a public presence while the East Coast was getting battered by Hurricane Sandy."

Prior to Crawford's report, anchors Charlie Rose and Norah O'Donnell spotlighted how " Obama leads Governor Mitt Romney by five points in Ohio. That's the same as last week. In Virginia, the President holds a two-point lead. However, his Republican challenger has an edge with independent voters."

The CBS journalist did point out during the segment that Romney "picked up a lot of ground here" in Florida in her network's latest poll. She also noted that the Republican was "in a dead heat with the President, after trailing by nine points just over a month ago."

Later, Crawford outlined that " Romney is now edging out the President among seniors, and has cut his lead with women voter in half....Our polls shows voters here believe he will do a better job working with Democrats and Republicans. More Florida voters also say Romney has stronger leadership qualities than the President."

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Liberal Director Oliver Stone Rips President Obama: ‘Took A Bad Situation And … Made It Worse’

It's no secret that Hollywood is 90% liberal, a cesspool of actors, directors, agents, etc. that bow down to the lily-white, unGodly, far-Left agenda. So when a noted director, well-known for his liberal views and contempt for anything conservative, comes out swinging against a Democrat president...well you know you're in some trouble:

In his new book, outspoken liberal filmmaker Oliver Stone offers some harsh criticism for President Barack Obama.

The forthcoming book titled The Untold History of the United States airs Stone and historian Peter Kuznick‘s scorn for the president acting too much like his Republican predecessor George W. Bush.
Politico published several excerpts from the book which express disgust with the Republican Party and disappointment with the Democratic president and his party.

“The country Obama inherited was indeed in shambles, but Obama took a bad situation and, in certain ways, made it worse,” the authors continue, according to Politico. “Rather than repudiating the policies of Bush and his predecessors, Obama has perpetuated them.”

Stone and Kuznick lament that the president’s attempts at reforming and regulating Wall Street have largely failed in their progressive aims: “The biggest winner under Obama was Wall Street.”

According to Politico, the authors find little to celebrate in the president’s health care reforms: “Obama’s failure to articulate a progressive vision was also apparent in the fight over health reform, which was to have been his signature initiative…Obama’s health care reform effort, marked by the inability to even refute Republican charges of death panels, was so unpopular that it became an albatross around the necks of Democrats in the 2010 election.”

The authors also criticize the president’s handling of the war in Afghanistan: “When it finally came down to decision time, Obama didn’t have the courage or integrity of a post-Cuban Missile Crisis John F. Kennedy. He settled on a 30,000-troop increase, giving the military leaders almost everything they wanted and more than they expected.”

Stone also echoes something we’ve documented several times here and here — that President Obama and the Democrats have seemingly turned their backs on their promises to reverse Bush’s civil liberties encroachments: “Among the greatest disappointments to his followers was Obama’s refusal to roll back the expanding national security state that so egregiously encroached on American civil liberties.”

The authors quip: “Obama asserted presidential power in ways that must have made Dick Cheney jealous.”

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Politiks As Usual: In The News 10/29/12

National Polls vs. Ohio Polls: They Can’t Both Be Right

Why Is Obama So Nasty and Vulgar?

Creepy: Children Sing Obama's Negative Messaging in New Ad

High Court Weighs New Look at Voting Rights Law

The 'New Normal' Christianity?

Gallup: Obama's Job Approval Drops 7 Points in 3 Days

USA Today Surprised Chick-Fil-A Didn’t Suffer from ‘PR Nightmare’

AP Writers Claim Their 'Poll' Shows 'Majority Harbor Prejudice Against Blacks'

Hume: Mainstream Media ‘Remarkably Reticent’ to Pursue Benghazi Cover-Up, Burden Has ‘Fallen’ Onto Fox News

President Obama Leads Romney in Early Voting, Axelrod Says

Letter to Obama: Stop Attack on Ministries to Ex-‘Gays’

Clinton Asked for More Security in Benghazi, Obama Said No

Anti-Lena Dunham Ad

Speaking truth to power.

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