The Sunshine Empire

I’ve heard it said and I agree that people do not want unbiased news. They want a news media source that reconfirms their own deeply held beliefs. To that end it’s interesting how to partisan news outlets are treating the recent controversy with regards to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates at his home and the comments at the end of a health care reform press conference that President Barack Obama made. Republicans with auditory comprehension problems heard the President’s comments and took that he had said that all police everywhere were stupid, when he said no such thing. The President smartly spoke to reporters on Friday and said not only that he had made a mistake in commenting on it, but also has now set up a meeting over beers with Sgt. Crowley and Professor Gates to calm things down.

Now a look at Huffington Post would seem to reflect that the situation is resolved. Their story about the President’s subsequent comments and Sgt. Crowley and Professor Gates agreeing to meet with the President is below the fold news. They lead with Sarah Palin’s last full day of being Alaska Governor, and the Tour de France. A look at the Drudge Report tells a completely different story. The President’s follow up comments practically didn’t happen if you read the conservative news bible. Drudge has a story link that says Crowley’s lawyer was open to suing Gates, but the connected ABC story has one line out of three pages dealing with that chance. Drudge’s headline “HOT MESS” is connected to a Fox News story which focuses on the fact that President Obama did not specifically apologize to Sgt. Crowley. This whole thing is a manufactured outrage by the right and they can’t let it go while the Health Care debate is raging. This whole thing makes conservatives and republicans seem like the girlfriend in every comedian’s stand up routine that will be angry not for what you said, but what she assumes you must have been thinking. I don’t think Gates and Crowley making out in the East Room of the White House would convince conservatives that this issue is over, because they haven’t produced enough political distraction for their tastes.