I don’t know whether the Georgia LP or Allen Buckley do have a preference about who wins the runoff election, but if they do, it does follow logically that they should endorse their preferred candidate, since it worked for the Libertarian candidate the last time this happened.

By the way, we have yet to determine who won Missouri…..Obama or McCain. McCain currently holds 49.4%,Obama 49.2% with several thousand ballots yet to be determined if eligible.

I can’t say if NPR has a political spectrum biaas. But I can certainly point to the KQED Forum show and demonstrate that it’s coverage of Nancy Polosi is highly suspect of being pro Polosi biased.

I conducted a search of the KQED Forum archives and found that Nancy made no appearance on the Forum program until just before this election and in her final appearance she was alloted a half hour segment by herself and her three opponents were given a combined half hour segment. A similar search for Cindy Sheehan revealed that she had never been a guest on the Forum Show.

From a letter I sent to the NPR Ombudsman

The One hour segment of the KQED Program Forum that we are discussing is
described on the KQED web site as.

———————————————————————————

Forum | Wed, October 29, 2008 — 10:00 AM
Nancy Pelosi / California’s 8th Congressional District

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was the target of criticism this week by John
McCain, who warned against one-party control of Washington. In the first
half hour, we talk with Speaker Pelosi about the presidential campaign,
the economy and the battle for control of Congress. In the second half
hour we talk with the Republican and Libertarian candidates who, along
with Independent Cindy Sheehan, are running against Pelosi for
Congress.

———————————————————————————

My point is very simple. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi has all the
advantages of being an incumbent of being the house speaker. Her
completion has enough challenges with out the local Public Radio Station
giving her three times the amount of free time on a prime well listened
to program then was given her opponents less then a week before the
election.

If this program had only an hour it could have been split into 4 fifteen
minute segments one for each candidate or the candidates could have
agreed to merge the blocks each willing.

Look I understand that Forum is considered a news program and Nancy is a
news maker, Forum covered her speech at the Democratic National
Convention, spoke with her about her book and on Oct 29th spoke with her
for a half hour about “potential one party control”. But between Nov
2006 and July of 2008 how many other times did Nancy appear on Forum it
looks like she didn’t exist until just before this election and then She
gets heavy coverage and her opponents are marginalized into a fraction of the time she was allotted.

Steve Meier

For reference a search on the KQED archives show the following results

Forum | Wed, October 29, 2008 — 10:00 AM
Nancy Pelosi / California’s 8th Congressional District

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was the target of criticism this week by John McCain, who warned against one-party control of Washington. In the first half hour, we talk with Speaker Pelosi about the presidential campaign, the economy and the battle for control of Congress. In the second half hour we talk with the Republican and Libertarian candidates who, along with Independent Cindy Sheehan, are running against Pelosi for Congress.

Forum | Tue, August 26, 2008 — 9:00 AM Women and the Democrats

Speeches by Michelle Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Caroline Kennedy kicked off the first day of the Democratic National Convention in Denver. Hillary Clinton will speak tonight. We discuss the role of women at the convention and check in with Clinton supporters about the call for party unity.

Forum | Thu, August 14, 2008 — 10:00 AM
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joins the show to discuss her new book, “Know
Your Power: A Message to America’s Daughters.”

Forum | Thu, April 17, 2008 — 10:00 AM
Marc Sandalow

Forum speaks with Marc Sandalow about his new book, “Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi’s Life, Times, and Rise to Power.” Sandalow is a political analyst and former Washington bureau chief for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Forum | Mon, November 13, 2006 — 9:00 AM Pelosi’s Rise

Forum discusses the ascension of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to the post of House speaker-elect.

NPR is probably the official “centrist” media outlet in America. Politically, they tend to appeal to socially liberal, but fiscally conservative listeners, although they do non-political features on films, food, travel, history, etc.

During the presidential primary they did several good stories on Ron Paul, especially when he raised all that money online. Some of the guest commentators have been Libertarians.

They are pretty good at bringing on opinions from a diverse range of people, including libertarians, and — at least in Minnesota — have made some effort to include more then two candidates in their election coverage.

Georgia’s runoff general election is a by-product of the 1966 election of Lester Maddox as governor. The Democrat Maddox finished second to the Republican Bo Callaway, but there were enough write-in votes for former Gov. Ellis Arnall to deny Callaway a majority. Georgia law then provided that, in that situation, the state House of Representatives made the choice, and the heavily Democratic House elected Maddox.

That is just idiotic. There is left-wing TV (Olberman & Maddisow, Bill Mahr) and left-wing radio too (air america & others), but NPR is not either one.

They avoid all of the partisan shit as much as is possible, given the issues under discussion. They have intelligent panelists from different expertise (not just RIGHT / LEFT arguments like most TV and Radio shows have on, which inevitably leave the listener/watcher no more informed than when he started). When I turn on NPR in the morning with Dianne Ream and some of the others, when listening to the panelists I enjoy not knowing where their ideology lies right off the bat, and have them able to really flush out their answers with nuance and detail.

To summarize, don’t assume because the substance of NPR goes against your right-wing views that it is therefore left-wing. There are of course left-wing TV and Radio shows, but NPR is not “Propaganda” and in fact is the exact opposite. Everything isn’t dichotomous, so quit acting like it is.

But those Libertarians, if they show up next month, are much more likely to support Chambliss than Martin. But being able to activate those roll-off voters may play a role and that’s how an Obama visit could be instrumental.

http://frontloading.blogspot.com/2008/11/more-on-georgia-senate-runoff.html