Define Conservatives vs. Liberals

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Power Line is Fair and Balanced? 

Paul Mirengoff of Powerline Blog mentions on Bill O'Reilly (see video at link below) that "it was years ago and no one was reading us at the time, but we were highly critical of Trent Lott when that story broke in responct to Senator Thurmond and his comments."

I know I wasn't reading Powerline Blog at the time, but I know how to use Google to look things up. Here's a link to a Google Search for the terms "Lott" and "Thurmond" on powerlineblog.com.

Here was their take at the time:

John Hinderaker: "Still, it is incomprehensible how Lott could have such a deaf ear as not to realize how bizarre it would sound to express regret that Thurmond lost the 1948 election."

Sounds to me like Hinderaker's main complaint about Lott is that he said something out loud that's supposed to be kept on the down-low.

John Hinderaker: "Lott and the other participants in the Thurmond event were guilty of a massive, collective failure of judgment in the way they handled the event."

So, the problem isn't the racist comments, but the PR problems caused by those comments?

John Hinderaker: "For Republicans to give up this moral high ground by failing to take the opportunity to distinguish between Thurmond's inglorious past as a Democrat and his mainstream present as a Republican was unforgivably stupid."


Hinderaker's attempt to claim the Republican party isn't the party of the bigoted South is hilarious. Has he forgotten why the South shifted from Democratic to Republican dominance? Hinderaker is a member of the same party of Trent Lott and former Dixiecrat, Strom Thurmond.

Paul Mirengoff: "Lott's error was not his praise of Thurmond. Thurmond is praiseworthy in some respects and, even if he were not, no one could reasonably take major offense at a general offer of praise to the 100-year-old Senator. The problem was Lott's claim that the nation would have been better off if Thurmond had been elected in 1948, a statement that seems to state a preference for Thurmond's segregationist views."

So Deacon agrees with Hindrocket that the problem isn't what Lott said, but that he said it out loud? He "seems to state a preference for Thurmond's segregationist views?" Of course he does. To suggest otherwise is laughable.

That's it. That's Paul Mirengoff's definition of being highly critical of Trent Lott. To me, it sounds a lot more like the analysis of a tactical error by a man they support. As Hindrocket puts it, their biggest concern is Lott's and other's "collective failure of judgment in the way they handled the event."

If that's Powerline Blog's go to example proving that "they don't shield anybody" and will be "highly critical" of other conservatives, I think we get the point.

Power Line is Fair and Balanced

So sez The Factor. According to Paul Mirengoff, they don't attack liberals including Dan Rather. They just promote conservative ideas. lol