Murtha vs. Lieberman

Democrat John Murtha makes comments about the pulling out of Iraq immediately (thus losing the war) and how our military is "broken" and "living hand-to-mouth" and what happens? Media frenzy! He's in every major newspaper and a headliner on all the major TV news shows.

Democrat Joseph Lieberman writes a great op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal backing the Bush Administration including this statement:

"I have just returned from my fourth trip to Iraq in the past 17 months and can report real progress there. More work needs to be done, of course, but the Iraqi people are in reach of a watershed transformation from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood—unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.”

What happens? Media silence. According to the Media Research Center both the ABC and CBS evening news failed to “utter a syllable” about Lieberman’s Iraq assessment while NBC simply ran a brief Lieberman clip. This after all three networks made the news of Murtha’s call for withdrawal a leading story only some two weeks ago.

As for the print media, here’s a run down:

• The Washington Post did not acknowledge Lieberman’s comments in its Nov. 29 and Nov. 30 editions. This despite running a front-page story on Nov. 30 headlined, “U.S. Debate on Pullout Resonates As Troops Engage Sunnis in Talks.”

• The New York Times had no space for Lieberman, either. They did find room, however, to run a Nov. 30 story headlined, “Senator Clinton Calls for Withdrawal from Iraq to Begin in 2006.” This “call” took place in a letter Clinton wrote to constituents.

• The Boston Globe carried a 479-word Associated Press story on Nov. 28 that perverted Lieberman’s comments, focusing on the potential of a “significant” withdrawal in ’06 rather than the progress in Iraq that Lieberman hoped to report.

What MSM bias?