The Media's Unofficial Endorsement of the Republican Party

This kind of speaks for itself:

The Pew Research Center completes its Top Story Index on a weekly basis to "compare and contrast - on an ongoing basis -- the news agenda of the media with the news agenda of the public." In its most recent comparison (for the week of June 11), the Pew Research Center found that while 33% of Americans followed the Iraq War closely, only 7% of the overall news coverage was devoted to this issue.

Apparently, the media determined that immigration and the fighting over in Palestine warranted more attention, because both subject received more coverage than things involving Iraq.

What does this have to do with the GOP?

If any one issue would sink this party's chances of controlling the executive and legislative branches, it's Iraq. The place is an undisputed mess, and every time anyone from either party says something along the lines of "change" the response is always the same: "give us more time" and "please, support the troops."

Many tried-&-true issues have pretty much run it's course for the upcoming election. Talking about gays (whether marriage or joining the military) isn't going to get any more GOP votes than it already has. Aside from immigration, race issues (as the nearly invisible coverage of Katrina has shown) have been ignored. Michael Moore, who's trying to get the issue of health care on the table, was dropped for Paris Hilton. For Pete's Sake, the CIA is trotting out documents from the "No Shit, Sherlock" Files in order to grab headlines.

And the media is sucking it all up like a hooker on a slow Wednesday night.

I can understand the whole "people don't want to see violence and death" excuse. I mean, that's why we're getting treated to a new "Die Hard" movie, right? Because we can't stand to see people and cars and other things explode, right?

Seriously; just how stupid do they think we are?

Any story right now not related to Iraq is good for the GOP. Even the "Cheney is a megalomaniac" story currently running in the WashPost is good because people are actually arguing that this brings up a good topic: "what are the constitutional limits of a Vice President?" Never mind that most of the people who think this question needs debating have yet to get past the Preamble. It's great for debate! Who cares about Iraq when you can argue whether the words in the Constitution should be taken literally?

Support for the war is around 30%, which is higher than the President's approval rating. As long as Iraq is Page One or the Leading Story the foreign policies failures of this Administration is laid bare to the public. And any politician supporting Bush looks like a complete idiot. Why else would every Republican running in 2008 choose to invoke Ronald Reagan over Bush? The guy's got a serious case of political cooties. And considering that Republicans have always been for "Big Business" and that "Big Business" either owns or operates many popular media outlets, why would Joe American expect the networks, the cable stations and the newspapers to not bite the hand that's feeding them?

Now, one might say, "Well, this is only about Iraq. It's not like the media is short-changing the viewers on any other issues." One would think, but as the link (and the Pew data) says, even election coverage is so vague that over 50% of the people polled are asking for more information (including the candidates' positions and backgrounds, information regarding "candidates who are not front runners," and of course, information on the presidential debates themselves).

So tell me who benefits more from vague coverage of the presidential elections and the Iraq war/occupation: the Democrats, who have been labeled "terrorist sympathizers" who hype environmental and domestic issues; and are seemingly always playing the "wait, let me explain" game, or Republicans, who have all but mastered the "two-word" culture, can substitute image for substance, and can get pundits to ask questions about their manliness and musk?

I think we all know the answer.