Bustem' Down said:
When Clinton was in office, you heard more from the Republican party so the stories might have come out looking a little right. Opposition to the sitting president is always better news than support, so it always looks biased one way or the other.
Two things - it's always true that a sitting President is fair game for the press. I remember in Clinton's early days, there was a certain amount of incredulity right after he took office, because it was patently obvious that he was their *darling* since the early days of the primaries. I mean, they called him the "comeback kid" when he came in *SECOND*. He was regarded as the "frontrunner" without winning a single caucus or primary, early in the campaign. They loved him. His staff - the F.O.B - were just alarmed at the behavior afterwards.
I've heard Sam Donaldson make the same remarks - sorry, we do like you, but you are the President now.
But it doesn't follow that it's just a matter of perspective regarding just, who's in office at the time. Liberal bias in the major networks goes far beyond just who's in power at the time. Even when Clinton was IN the White House, it was pretty normal to depict Newt and Bob and Trent as petty vindictive little morons. During the budget crisis - when the government was shut down (by *Clinton* - the Republican's BIGGEST political mistake was to claim credit for something Clinton could have ended with a single stroke of a pen) - the Israeli prime minister Rabin was assassinated, and most of the countries' leadership left to attend his funeral. Newt wanted to take this opportunity to discuss the budget situation with Clinton, who basically told him to buzz off and continued to play "Hearts" on the plane with his staff. Further, Newt was asked to depart the plane from the rear, along with Bob Dole (this stunt was repeated in a recent episode of "Commander-in-Chief", to another Republican Speaker of the House).
Now, this was just first place rude. The press SHOULD have made Clinton look like the jerk he was being. (Newt went on record as saying, if Clinton really was sincere about wanting to resolve the crisis, he would have taken time on the plane to talk. Clinton played it down because he thought the occasion was far too solemn to sully it by dealing politics - playing *cards*, however, is more important).
Nope. *Newt* was parodied in the press as a whiny crybaby. He later wrote a book called "Lessons Learned the Hard Way", where, among other things, he observed that you can no longer just say what you think in front of the press. You have to learn to parse your words, or they'll eat you alive.
During the Monica thing - if your position were true - the press *should* have been all over the President like flies to a carcass - but they weren't. Henry Hyde was made out to be some kind of Inquisitor, the most hated man in America was Ken Starr and the most hated *woman* in America was Linda Tripp. It really doesn't matter if you supported Clinton or not - the press treated him VASTLY differently than they are treating Bush, now, with stories of much less significance.
It's fascinating to watch liberals cannibalize.
