Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Doubling Down

The hits just keep on coming, courtesy of the double-standards jukebox:

1. "President-elect" Barack Obama, fresh on the heels of inventing his own nifty new pre-presidential title, is glorified in the media for his intense dedication to fitness and exercise. The description of his "Pecs" belongs in a titillation novel - and yet, George Bush was villified for his similarly focused efforts, which were dubbed "Creepy". What could the difference be?

2. Sarah Palin was roundly denounced as insufficiently sophisticated for the Vice-Presidency, while Joe Biden was given a pass for the outrageously incorrect statement that "President Roosevelt went on the television". And yet, Caroline Kennedy is now taken seriously as a contender for the Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton, with commentators tying themselves into knots attempting to spin Ms. Kennedy's total lack of experience and qualifications into its exact opposite. Her family name is offered up as a perfectly sufficient reason to give her the job, while Ms. Palin continues to be denounced as a lightweight.

3. Civilian neighborhoods in Israel are bombed, and yet when Israel returns fire, it is denounced as the aggressor by worldwide media and the Arab world. While the international elites pay lip service to Israel's right to exist, they completely ignore the Hamas charter, which declares the exact opposite, even going so far as to cite the phony "Protocols of the Elders of Zion". So Israel is portrayed as the instigator, while Hamas, which fired first, has world leaders lining up to defend it.

4. An Iraqi journalist throws his shoes at George Bush, and is instantly proclaimed a heroic dissenter. Never mind that he couldn't have gotten away with doing so in any other country in the region without being ruthlessly tortured and then killed, and the irony was apparently lost on him and all his admirers.

Is there still any wonder why the oldstream media is heading down the toilet?