Blatant Media Bias

Well this is just sad, pathetic really. And from The Christian Science Monitor which used to be so good.

Arizona illegal immigration, 'birther' bills show rightward shift

Now you can't really quibble with a headline like that. It appears reasonable. And I am not a supporter of the "birther" movement - fully-paid-up member of the Show-Us-Your-College-Records movement but not the "birther" one.

Anyhow, as you read the article you realize that every "expert" they pulled for this article is a liberal conjecturing that Arizona is developing into a neo-Nazi state. The ick doesn't start until a couple of paragraphs down...

"The truth is that Arizona has been a state with far-right politics going back many years, but in [the] last weeks and months is an even more remarkable lurch to right," says Mark Potok, Director of the intelligence project for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups. "You've got a lot of whites moving into the state who are not from there, and who seem to feel this is a white man's state, and who don't like it when they find more diversity than they expected."

What? Where are you getting that information because it sounds like it came from the Library of Your Ass.

Then there's this "unbiased" tidbit...

Immigrant activist Kat Rodriguez moved to Arizona in 2000 and says even she, a Texan, is stunned by Arizona's shift to the right.

"For the last five to seven years, this state seems to have been attracting the xenophobic and evenly openly racist groups of people,"says the Tucson-based coordinator for Derechos Humanos.

"Seems to have been attracting" and in the last 5-7 years so during the majority of the Bush Administration this immigration activist broad (who isn't even a born Arizonian which contradicts the SPLC guy's quote above) has open-mindedly decided that people who don't want illegal immigrants coming into the country are xenophobic rather than simply people who like to live in a country where the rule of law is preserved.

And this, this makes no sense...

The deeper problem, say some, is that the drawing of state legislative districts empowers the extremes of the political right.

"The biggest driver of this from my perspective is that Arizona districts are currently drawn so that they are not competitive," says Farrell Quinlan, spokesman for the National Federation of Independent Business, which represents small business owners. Only 20 percent of both parties show up for primaries, so candidates have to appeal to the most faithful and ideologically pure, he says. "The districts are set up in ways that push politicians to the most irreconcilable positions – that filters down to the kinds of laws that you have coming out of here right now," says Quinlan.

Mr. Quinlan seems to be complete ignorant of fundamental politics, the political history of gerrymandering, and unless Arizona bars them, the usefulness of referendums.

This was a sloppy and biased article with no law and order champion quoted, no opportunity of defense. The quotes not listed were milquetoast blandness or from someone who's agenda openly supports calling people racist.

Shame on the Christian Science Monitor for publishing such name-calling dreck.