A double standard takes the form of an instance in which certain practices are perceived as conventional when applied by one group, but are considered forbidden when applied by another group making them morally unfair applications of the principle that all are equal. Republicans have never considered that all are equal whether it is their practice of giving corporations the ability to avoid paying taxes and raising tax on the poor, or stealing Americans’ pensions and giving them to the wealthy as tax cuts, their disparate treatment of Americans they are supposed to serve is abominable. However, the people should not feel too set upon, because the contradictory standards the GOP applies to the occupant of the White House are just as despicable as their treatment of the American people and the media is as pathetic as Republicans.
One can understand the sentiments of rubes in conservative ranks with mental recall rivaling an amoeba, but the media and Republicans in Congress, who were both part and parcel of enabling Bush practices they condoned and often promoted, certainly are aware that the so-called outrages of the Obama Administration were commonplace and never questioned, much less assailed as scandalous, when a Republican sat in the Oval Office. It is accepted by any thinking human being that Republicans are hurling fallacious allegations at the Obama White House in spite of irrefutable evidence their attacks are nothing more than witch hunts to cover their incompetence and denial over the results of the last election, but the media is woefully complicit in withholding criticism of Republican double standards and have inexorably joined the likes of Fox News, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh and lost all credibility as responsible journalists.
On Thursday, the New York Times joined Fox News in maligning the President by claiming he had lost all credibility because of “breaking news” the NSA “is secretly collecting the telephone records of millions of U.S. customers of Verizon since 2006,” and one cannot help but wonder where the NYT’s outrage was during the Bush Administration when the practice was initiated. Perhaps the NYT was still basking in the afterglow of promoting the illegal invasion of Iraq, but there is little doubt the paper has at least one employee on staff now that ignored the practice seven years ago and is suddenly outraged because there is a Black man sitting where Bush once sat. It is also suspect that the NYT is ignorant of corporate “data mining” and tracking millions of Americans’ daily routines through social media, GPS data, and bank transactions, but maybe they lack access to reports that banks and corporations regularly monitor American citizens, or perhaps it is that it is acceptable to the media because “corporations are people, and those people aren’t…black” that drives them to give a free pass corporate snooping.
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That the media is outraged now with a Black President over the “revelation” the NSA collects data when Americans have been monitored since the Bush administration without a freak-out is the media practice of covering up Republicans’ double standards in assailing President Obama. For example; why is the media not reporting that during the Bush Administration the IRS targeted the NAACP, Greenpeace, and a liberal church, or that one third of the groups recently facing extra scrutiny by the IRS were progressive groups; the same percentage as teabagger and patriot organizations? It is not like that information is secret, or only given to liberal media unencumbered by corporate masters withholding advertising dollars.
Why too, has the media been remiss to report that while Republicans are wasting taxpayer time and money investigating the so-called scandal surrounding the Benghazi attack that killed 4 diplomats, they and Republicans were silent when 13 attacks resulting in countless American deaths occurred without one investigation, hearing, or inquisition of the Bush White House? The media has also spent the past four years coddling Republicans and failing to report their rank hypocrisy in obstructing economic recovery by reporting Republicans were outraged over the President’s inadequately small stimulus that saved the economy, while forgetting that Paul Ryan made an impassioned plea on the floor of the House for stimulus Bush requested for the war the NYT promoted in 2002, and gave Bush a second stimulus in 2008. During the 2011 debt ceiling crisis, Republican mainstream media never reminded Americans that Bush requested, and was graciously given, 19 debt limit increases to the tune of $4 trillion including one the day Republicans gave another tax cut to the wealthiest Americans, and throughout the healthcare reform debate, while covering teabagger outrage and Republican claims of government taking over healthcare, they never reported to the public the ACA was Republican’s belief tank American Heritage Foundation’s idea.
The list of media cover-ups of Republicans’ applying a different standard to President Obama, an African American man, than a white George Bush is endless, and they are both responsible for the populations’ ignorance of Republican attempts to keep this nation from progressing much beyond the devastation of the last Republican administration. For the New York Times to claim President Obama has lost credibility for a seven year practice their favorite son George W. Bush began informs that the only credibility gap in this country exists in main stream media and not the Obama Administration. It is important to remember that this is the same New York Times that promoted the rush to war with Iraq when they knew Bush was lying and didn’t call for impeachment when Bush outed an active CIA operative to silence a man who reported Iraq was not developing a nuclear weapon. As guilty as Republicans are for applying a different standard to President Obama than they did Bush, the main stream media is worse because their job is supposed to be reporting truth, but truth requires applying the same standard for all; something media and Republicans are incapable of.
Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
