Compare And Contrast

by tristero

Here’s how the NY Times covered Biden’s speech:

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware accepted the Democratic vice-presidential nomination on Wednesday night with an ode to his middle-class upbringing and a blistering attack on Senator John McCain.

“Again and again,” he said, “on the most important national security issues of our time, John McCain was wrong, and Barack Obama was proven right.”

He said Mr. McCain had supported President Bush’s policies that Mr. Biden said had driven the American economy into a ditch and backed Mr. Bush on a war that is costing American taxpayers $12 billion a month.

As Democrats often do, he paid tribute to Mr. McCain’s military service and his more than five years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. That is not sufficient qualification for the presidency, Mr. Biden said in as direct a way as any Democrat this year has.

Hello? Anyone awake? Well with prose like that – stately, plump, and boring – I wouldn’t blame you if you nodded off.

Now, here’s how they covered Palin’s:

Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska introduced herself to America before a roaring crowd at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night as “just your average hockey mom” who was as qualified as the Democratic nominee, Senator Barack Obama, to be president of the United States.

An hour later Senator John McCain, a scrappy, rebellious former prisoner of war in Vietnam whose campaign was resurrected from near-death a year ago, was nominated by the Republican Party to be the 44th president of the United States after asking the cheering delegates, “Do you think we made the right choice” in picking Ms. Palin as the vice-presidential nominee.

Questions, boys and girls? Ok. Let’s merely list the emotion-laden adjectives:

The Biden article – first four paragraphs:

Middle-class
Blistering

The Palin article – first two paragraphs:

roaring
scrappy
rebellious
cheering

Still don’t get it? Then let me give you the straight talk. In his opening paragraphs, John Broder wrote a nearly completely objective report of Biden’s speech. Bumiller and Cooper used almost every possible rhetorical device they could pack in to two grafs to signal their support not only for Palin but also for the “scrappy, rebellious former prisoner of war in Vietnam whose campaign was resurrected from near-death a year ago.”

Liberal media, my patooties.