Leftist and Media Double-Standards on Socialist 'One Nation' Rally Reporting

It's nothing new, of course, but the media's campaign to downplay the left's communist-dominated "One Nation" protest yesterday needs to be highlighted nevertheless.

The first thing to notice is this photograph on crowd size comparisons from "Restoring Honor" and "One Nation" (via Old Retired Petty Officer).

Crowd estimates have an "outsized" importance when the press and leftist blogs seek to minimize and ridicule the tea parties. But as soon as Democrat-Socialists march on D.C., wild claims of "double" the size of the Glenn Beck rally get wide play. Tom Maguire reports on the widely divergent crowd-size estimates, as well as systematic efforts to withhold on-the-ground reports (MSNBC edited out AP's first-hand report indicating that "Saturday's crowds were less dense and didn't reach as far to the edges as they did during Beck's rally"). And while some lefty blogs continue to pump up bogus "larger" crowd numbers, some have scaled back their claims as the facts have become available. The Political Carnival, which posted two entries yesterday boasting bigger numbers for "One Nation," has now issued a hilarious retraction, asking "Does Size Matter?" Well obviously it did yesterday, but now we have this: "While it is a visual indicator of enthusiasm and support, the size of a crowd isn’t as important as the content, message, and tone of the event."

Even more disturbing are the reports from the major newspapers. Under the guise of "objectivity," the main outlets have played up the "challenge to the tea parties" and the enthusiasm of "liberal" constituencies of the Democrat Party. At the New York Times, for example, the headline reads: "Liberal Groups Rally, Challenging Tea Party." The notion that today's Democrat Party is a "liberal" party is one of the biggest lies the press perpetuates in contemporary political reporting. As so many bloggers have reported, yesterday's event marked a major collaborative effort by the left's neo-communist institutions and the mainstream elements of Democrat organizations. For example, check Marooned in Marin's first-hand report, "'One Nation' (Of Commies, Unions, & Other Leftist Extremists)...Trashing The Mall." And see especially, Looking at the Left, "Democrats, Union Workers, and Communists Rally Together in Washington":

The lines between the Democratic Party, labor unions, socialist and communist organizations, were blurred at the One Nation Working Together rally at the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday. It was organized by One Nation Working Together, which is headed by the cream of the Democratic Party.

National Campaign Manager of One Nation Working Together, Leah Daughtry, was CEO and top organizer of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver Colorado where Barack Obama was nominated to be the parties candidate for president. Many of the top organizers have been Democratic candidates for office, or work for Obama for America.

The page on the National Education Association’s website inviting its members to travel to the rally quotes its president: “NEA is proud to be standing with our brothers and sisters in the labor and social justice movement …”

And some pictures of communist groups from the post:

Across the web, since yesterday morning, bloggers have been posting untold numbers of images of every kind of "progressive" activist group under the sun. The event was a union-astroturfed neo-communist protest-a-palooza.

But readers opening the old dead-tree newspapers this morning weren't getting the full picture. A particularly egregious example is from my own Los Angeles Times, which is still delivered to my driveway each morning (for nostalgia purposes nowadays, more than anything else). Looking at the front page of the paper readers will notice the picture at bottom of flag-waving protesters, with a caption that reads: "IN WASHINGTON: Participants in the 'One Nation' march gather at the Lincoln Memorial." The apple pie imagery continues at Page A10, where we see the second photograph below with the two women holding Barack Obama signs. The caption reads: "ON A MISSION: Thousands, including labor and civil rights activists, gathered for the 'One Nation Working Together' rally." The Times' article is here. Reading the report there is no mention of the deep bench of neo-communist organizations that organized and attended the rally. The discussion is on the event's goal of energizing "liberal" voters for the November elections. Toward the end we hear from some of the "progressives" who were appalled at the tea parties and the people "riding the anti-Obama train." Even more interesting to me is that not only does the Los Angeles Times completely whitewash any signs of the event's neo-communist penetration, but when it comes to discussing the upcoming congressional races, the "extremists" in the tea party movement get front-page treatment. Notice at the picture below, on the left of the newspaper, where we see the article, "Making An Issue of GOP Words." The heading at the Times' website puts it more bluntly: "Democrats Use Oddball Remarks Against GOP Rivals." And here's this from the report:

An odd assortment of issues, including witchcraft and the president's religion, have proved distracting as candidates head into the heated final stretch of the general election campaign.

But it's not merely a case of media nitpicking or YouTube moments. In some cases, the side issues have begun to affect races.

The situation is in large part a result of a Democratic strategy aimed at changing the conversation from voters' frustration with Democratic leaders in Washington to a portrayal of tea party Republicans as extremist. The tactic was one of the few available to Democrats saddled with a national political climate decidedly turned against them and a stubbornly slow economic recovery.

The remainder of the article cherry-picks obscure statements by candidates, some over a decade old, in a clear effort to bolster the desperate last-gasp campaign ploy of Democrat hopefuls. It's all pretty pathetic. But as I've reported at this blog many times, Americans are denied genuine news from today's MFM establishment. The savior of the republic is found in the legions of citizen-journalists who work hard to get the facts out there.