Mike Huckabee and Media Bias

If you Google Mike Huckabee and Kenya, you will find that one of today's big stories is how Mike Huckabee said that our President grew up in Kenya. Now the reality is that this story is a non-story, which I will explain in a moment. But it does illustrate that the Old/Liberal Media is as biased as any media. It demonstrates the arrogance of the Old Media's portrayal of itself as being unbiased.

I have become convinced over the years that the Framers of the Constitution's First Amendment never meant the idea that only one group of unbiased news paper reporters were somehow the Republic's protectors of democracy. Instead, the First Amendment was meant to protect a freedom of the press in order that all biases may be reported. So the idea that CNN or MSNBC are unbiased and the Guardians of our system is simply nothing short of arrogance.

Now for this illustration I am going to use the UK's Telegraph article simply because it is such a good example. The story quotes Huckabee as saying,

One thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, (is) very different than the average American

This is turn is used to discredit Huckabee's explanation of "Mr Obama's decision in 2009 to return a bust of former Prime Minister Winston Churchill." The story then goes on to say another negative about Huckabee by planting doubt in your mind about Huckabee's true motivation.

He failed to note that the bust was on loan from former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who offered it to President George W. Bush in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a symbol of trans-Atlantic solidarity.

The very next sentence goes on to plant another doubt about Huckabee's motivation.

Mr Huckabee also did not mention that Mr Obama replaced the Oval Office fixture with a bust of one of his American heroes, President Abraham Lincoln.

So twice, Huckabee fails to note facts which the author of the story believes to be relevant.

Let's deal with the problems of hidden biases that really come from the Press, not Huckabee.

1) Please notice that the argument by Huckabee that President Obama has a dislike of the Brits is never refuted, but is in fact supported by the story itself.

...his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather. He probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather."

Mr Obama's grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was detained in a 1952 uprising against British colonial rule in Kenya. Mr Huckabee said childhood stories of the Mau Mau rebellion would lead President Obama to want to return the bust of Churchill, who ordered a crackdown against that uprising.

So the real basis for Huckabee's assertion is sound. But after reading the story as a whole, the impression one gets is the opposite. That President Obama was not influenced by his father's or grandfather's stories of the Brits is completely passed over.

2) President Obama did send back that bust of Churchill because of the situation of his grandfather. No alternative explanation is offered in the story. The author tries to sound as if this was just done with no motivation by the President at all other than Obama wanting to have a bust of Lincoln in its place. But President Obama has snubbed the Brits in more ways than this.

Also, by what logic or sound reason links replacing the bust with one of President Lincoln? What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

3) The story makes Huckabee a bad guy by insinuating that Huckabee was purposely being deceptive by stating, "he failed to note". Well, in this very story the reporter does exactly that! The writer attempts to link Huckabee with "birthers" while admitting that Huckabee denies the accusation Obama was born in Kenya by stating,

Many conservative activists believe – and some have unsuccessfully filed lawsuits to prove – that Mr Obama is a Kenyan who does not meet the U.S. Constitution's citizenship requirement.

What this stories fails to point out that the first people to file a lawsuit on this was a Hillary Clinton supporter and lawyer! Yes, I dare say it. Hillary lawyer friends did this very thing. Yet even though the story mentions Hillary Clinton's campaign war machine, it never mentions or "fails to mention" Democrats doing this very thing.

4) The story does explain that President Obama lived in Indonesia from ages 5-10. What it fails to note is the ease of which a person could accidentally conflate President Obama's location from residing in Indonesia to Kenya. Think about it. How many stories have you heard that say Obama was born in Kenya. Now how many stories have spoken about Obama having lived in Indonesia.

Isn't it likely that Mike Huckabee simply conflated the locations? In fact, I have done the same thing in personal conversations. I was not trying to be deceptive, but those parts of world are not exactly familiar to most Americans, including me. Some of us are either geographically challenged or our memories just get old. So when the location of Kenya is mentioned over and over again, isn't Huckabee's mistake obvious?

In conclusion, what is this story all about? Why do we need an entire non-story about someone's memory and conflation of two locations in a distant part of the world? I'll leave that conclusion to you. But if times are tough on the guy you love and will do anything for, surely a good non-story turned story might just help.