Opinion: Assessment of media biases misses reality

This column by E.J. Dionne Jr. reminded me of the New York Times review of Winston Churchill's six volumes on World War II. The Times said that Churchill's six volumes were not about how the war was fought, but rather how Churchill would have liked it to have been fought. In essence I am saying that Dionne has lost touch with reality.

In his column, Dionne states that the right wing controls talk radio and cable TV. In reality it controls talk radio because the liberals have failed in all of their endeavors through this media. My problem with Dionne is in regard to cable TV. Some broadcasting is decidedly right wing. He isn't about to convince me that CNN is a part of the right wing. I would put cable TV as a 50-50 split. Since the liberals totally control the regular TV networks, the media are closer to an even split than being controlled by the right wing.

What is more dangerous is that the liberal left wing almost totally controls professors in our universities. It also totally controls the National Education Association. It is only when students can see through the liberal mush taught by our teachers and professors that they join the right wing.
-- Charles Farrell, St. Petersburg

Beyond the liberal propaganda

Re: Media's tilt is really toward the right.

E.J. Dionne Jr. presents a good example of the convoluted liberal logic that is driving people away from voting for Democrats. He cites three elements of the media: talk radio, cable TV, and traditional news sources as major factors in presenting political viewpoints. He then contends that cable TV and talk radio now tilt political discussion to the right. Compare the resources and coverage of traditional news sources, all the networks, almost all the newspapers, almost all cable TV, 90 percent of the journalists, who promote the Democrats' point of view. The opposition consists of Fox News on cable and Rush Limbaugh.

In spite of this overwhelming advantage of the Democrats, the conservative Republican viewpoint seems to be winning. The reason the Democrats are losing is not that they don't have their message broadcast but that people now realize their message is total nonsense. We've seen 40 years of their failed ideas and eight years of the Clinton administration promoted by the liberal press. Finally, with talk radio, the Internet and one cable channel the public is hearing something other than the standard liberal propaganda that we've been stuck with for all these years, and the Democrats can't deal with it.
-- Bob Luckman, Largo

Conservative whining

Re: Media's tilt is really toward the right, Dec. 6.

I agree, the media are not liberal.

I watched Katie Couric's interview with President Bush's EPA director. I thought Katie was handling it with kid gloves! If anything, I'd say the media are being dummied down.

It's not the liberals that are doing all the whining, it's the conservatives. Every time they do something deplorable, like gutting the EPA, letting the tax cheats operate offshore, striping World War II vets of their benefits, not extending unemployment benefits to thousands of out-of-work Americans just before Christmas, they cry "unfair liberal media."

Hogwash! It's calling it as you see it, a wholesale "grab and run" by greedy people who already have more money than average Americans will ever see in their lifetimes! There is nothing wrong with having money, but it does matter how you got it and what you do with it! We seem to have lost our sense of humanity and fair play.
-- Yvonne M. Osmond, Hudson

Democrats can only blame themselves

Re: Greens brought us dark grey, letter, Dec. 10.

Indeed, this is old news, as the letter writer suggests. It not only took a failed presidential campaign, but also an overwhelming failure in the recent elections for the Democrats to realize that the American people will not vote for a spineless party.

I'm sick and tired of Democrats blaming Florida Greens for a presidential election that they lost all on their own. After all, it was their inability to beat the bumbling, inarticulate, unqualified Texas governor, despite having an incumbent, articulate, overqualified life-time public servant on the ballot. I was just as surprised as everyone when Al Gore failed to win his home state.

If the discontented, finger-pointing Democrats really cared about their party they would realize their own failures. Of course that didn't happen, and two years after the presidential election, Democrats could barely manage a whisper, then a whimper.

If the members of the Democratic Party could find their backbone, they might indeed win back some or all of those 97,000 Green Party voters that left them in 2000. And the thousands of Democrats that left them in 2002.
-- Christopher Jenkins, Tampa

Republicans should stand by Lott

Re: Sen. Trent Lott.

It is difficult to understand the response of the Republican Party when it is attacked by the liberal press.

The latest episode concerns the so-called faux pas by Sen. Trent Lott where he expressed admiration for Sen. Strom Thurmond. The black pressure groups and the Democrat controlled media now call for his public castration and stoning.

What is the Republicans' response to this outcry? They agree and cannot separate themselves from their former comrade fast enough. That is precisely why the Republicans will lose in the end. They do not stand by and defend their people. They accept the premises raised by their foes that what Sen. Lott said was bad. In the same case the Democrats would have circled the wagons and proclaimed their undying devotion to the man. (See film of White House ceremony celebrating the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.) Republicans must learn not to run when they are called names by their enemies. Sen. Lott is a great man who deserves unquestioned support.

As to the ravings of his critics, tell them to get over it.
-- Richard Driscoll, Clearwater

Senator knew what he was saying

Your editorial Dec. 11, A Lott to apologize for and Paul Krugman's column (Lott's meaning of "all these problems") may have addressed Sen. Trent Lott's ingrained racisms in his laudation of Strom Thurmond's corrosive years in the Senate and his 1948 nation-dividing run for president, but this was Trent Lott at his best.

He can apologize with all the sincerity of a saint, but the words got out. He knew exactly what he was saying. He was talking to his kind, and they need to hear this message occasionally. "I apologize to anyone who was offended by my statements." Those self-absorbed, defiant Southerners, whoever they may be, were not offended.

Trent Lott and Strom Thurmond represent this family of dedicated leaders of the South who embrace the old Southern culture and preserve this voting base. I have met both Southerners, the tolerant and intolerant.

While having lunch at a friend's 90th birthday party, I sat next to a sharp, impressive, articulate old gentleman who I discovered was a retired Florida judge. When our stimulating conversation came to politics I revealed that I was a loyal liberal Democrat. He said he was once a dedicated Southern Democrat. I asked why he left the party. In a tone of contempt and hatred he replied the party deserted him.

When President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the 1965 Civil Rights Bill he is quoted as saying, "Well, there goes the South for 50 years or more." The rest is history.
-- Frank J. Koskosky, Bayonet Point

Leave Lott where he is

Re: Trent Lott's offensive remarks.

As a Democrat, I would love nothing better than to see Good Ole Boy Trent Lott remain the Republicans' chosen leader.
-- John E. Stross, St. Petersburg

Tricare helps veterans with health care

Re: A broken health care promise, by Jonathan Turley, Dec. 3.

It seems that Jonathan Turley does not know about Tricare for Life, a program for service retirees and their dependents that began in 2001. This far-reaching program does not fulfill the earlier promise by the government that, in Turley's words, "If military personnel would serve at least 20 years, they would receive free lifetime medical care for themselves and their dependents," because to qualify one must pay the Part B cost of Medicare. But it does go a long way toward relieving the burden of paying for medications and it covers the costs of care over and above what Medicare covers.

When this program began last year, retirees could cancel their supplemental policies that Turley says "could cost hundreds of dollars a month."

I am the widow of a retired career naval aviator and therefore qualify for Tricare for Life (as long as I don't remarry, and there could be another story). I can order medications from a mail-order pharmacy: A three-month prescription for a generic drug is $3, for a nongeneric $9. I can receive a one-month supply of a generic drug from a local pharmacy for $3, a nongeneric one-month supply for $9. As before, prescriptions can be filled at MacDill at no charge.

Turley's column is an odd mix and gives an unclear picture. He is making a case against the government but not giving it any credit for a recent large step that improves the situation enormously. (Fortunately for military retirees the legislation passed while there was a budget surplus.) Turley does not distinguish clearly between veterans who were career military and veterans who served for a limited time. Another column could be devoted to the lack of care the veterans of our "wars" have received and are receiving.

For more information go to the Web site: www.tricare.osd.mil/tfl/
-- Mary Berglund, St. Petersburg

Disappointed with WMNF

Re: At WMNF, change is slow in coming, Dec. 9.

Thank you for your article about WMNF-FM 88.5. I moved to the Tampa Bay area in 1979, the year of the station's first broadcast. When I was working my way through graduate school and trying to support my wife and daughter on my $8,300 a year salary, my paltry contributions of $25 or $35 a year represented a significant portion of my entertainment budget.

It was money well spent. Last year I was happy to pledge $1,000, on a three-year payment plan that would require a monthly deduction equal to my previous annual contribution.

When I learned that my favorite program and host had been dropped from the Sunday morning schedule, I was shocked and bewildered. Your article explains the reasoning behind the decision. In response to program director Randy Wynne's actions, I have withdrawn my financial support from WMNF, and I urge all other fans of the station, and particularly the Sunday morning folk program, to do so as well.
-- James W. Payne, Temple Terrace

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