The editors at National Review online ask a fair question of journalists covering the Democratic National Convention this week:
Journalists gave close attention to the silence of the Republican platform on what exceptions an abortion ban should contain. Will they comment on the Democratic platform’s silence on the limits the abortion license should respect? Will they note its coded endorsement of taxpayer funding of abortion, and the extremism of that policy?
Will journalists give the same attention to the Democratic platform on abortion that they gave to the Republican platform? Let’s just say that I won’t be holding my breath for that. The extreme irony and unfairness of this situation is this. The Romney campaign wished to downplay the issue during the Republican convention, yet the media put it front and center in their coverage and facilitated the canard that Republicans are extreme on the issue of abortion. The Obama campaign would also like to downplay the issue, and the media is likely to facilitate the Obama campaign’s subterfuge. The Obama campaign doesn’t want the country discussing the fact that the DNC supports tax-payer funded abortions all the way through the ninth month of pregnancy. Even so, I predict that the journalists will ask no probing questions about that plank this week, even though the DNC is fostering a narrative about the Republican “war on women.”
The coverage isn’t fair, but it is what it is. And viewers need to recognize that.
(HT: @DrJimHamilton)
One Comment
James Stanton
Well, you could argue that it’s entirely fair that the focus of the abortion debate is on the Republicans. You can’t deny that since the midterms of 2010 that Republican legislatures in many states have backed and passed numerous measures to restrict and/or make it more difficult to obtain or perform an abortion. The media perceives them as the more radical party.
Democrats mostly point to abortion being the established law of the land for the last 40 years. The only thing they have done on the issue in the last 4 years is the abortion mandate which likely gained them zero votes.
My guess is that Obama pushed that through knowing full well how social conservatives would react. They wanted the war on women political angle.