{"id":9064,"date":"2013-02-10T10:19:56","date_gmt":"2013-02-10T18:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=9064"},"modified":"2013-02-11T12:36:25","modified_gmt":"2013-02-11T20:36:25","slug":"memo-to-media-dont-cover-the-phony-tea-party-response-to-the-state-of-the-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=9064","title":{"rendered":"Memo To Media: Don’t Cover The Phony Tea Party Response To The State Of The Union"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was announced last week that GOP Sen. Rand Paul will be giving the “official”<\/em> Tea Party response to President Obama’s State of the Union address. In previous years it was Herman Cain and Michelle Bachmann (who CNN carried live).<\/p>\n

\"TeaThere hasn’t been any indication yet of whether the media will carry Paul’s response live, but it should be noted that to do so would be a total farce. There is no such thing as the Tea Party. It is simply a fringe wing of the Republican Party. Rand Paul is, of course, a Republican. He represents the views of the rest of his party, as well as those of the person giving the official GOP response to the President, Marco Rubio (who is also a Tea Partier).<\/p>\n

What this means is that the GOP is trying to get two bites of the post-SOTU apple. The media should not fall for this ruse. Paul was even quoted on CNN<\/a> as saying that his remarks would not be competing with Rubio’s and would just be “extra.”<\/em> Therefore, coverage of his comments would only serve to double up the opposition to Obama’s speech.<\/p>\n

The Tea Party has recently sunk to new lows<\/a> in support from the American people. Their caucus in congress is much smaller than that of the Democrats Progressive Caucus (Tea Party, 49; Progressive, 71), despite having more Republicans in the House.<\/p>\n

If the media is intent on giving undeserved attention to the Tea Party, fairness would require them to give equal time to a progressive response. Perhaps they could invite Bernie Sanders to respond to the President. He would surely articulate a message that differs from the administration in greater measure than Paul would differ from Rubio. Or maybe they could call on Carolyn Maloney, whose advocacy of reforms for gun safety would be a timely subject.<\/p>\n

In any case, it would be unethical for the media to grant an unpopular fringe group the opportunity to propagandize the nation when they already have an official spokesman in Rubio. And if they did so without balancing the coverage by presenting a progressive response it would affirm their right-wing bias. Will the media act unethically? Well, it aint like they haven’t before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was announced last week that GOP Sen. Rand Paul will be giving the “official” Tea Party response to President Obama’s State of the Union address. In previous years it was Herman Cain and Michelle Bachmann (who CNN carried live). There hasn’t been any indication yet of whether the media will carry Paul’s response live, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1,684],"tags":[1053,1052,534],"class_list":["post-9064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-media-bias","tag-marco-rubio","tag-rand-paul","tag-tea-party"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-2mc","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10620,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=10620","url_meta":{"origin":9064,"position":0},"title":"Fox News Admits Ted Cruz Isn’t Ready To Be President (Or Rand Paul, or Marco Rubio)","author":"Mark NC","date":"9\/26\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"The Fox News community web site and Fib Factory, Fox Nation, posted an item this morning that sought to discredit President Obama's qualifications to be president. In the process they not only disqualified several Tea-publican presidential hopefuls, but they demonstrated what a laughably unserious source for news Fox has become.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3749,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=3749","url_meta":{"origin":9064,"position":1},"title":"CNN Sinks Lower Into The Tea Party Swamp","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/25\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"After the State of the Union speech by President Obama, every network will broadcast the official Republican response that will be delivered by Wisconsin representative Paul Ryan. CNN, however, will also broadcast a response by the chair of the House Tea Party Caucus, Michelle Bachmann. So Democrats will have one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6257,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=6257","url_meta":{"origin":9064,"position":2},"title":"Will There Be Another Live Tea Party Response To The State Of The Union?","author":"Mark NC","date":"1\/22\/2012","format":false,"excerpt":"After last year's State of the Union address by President Obama, the Tea Party produced a response delivered by Michele Bachmann, the founder of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus. Astonishingly, this irrelevant and amateurish production was broadcast live by CNN immediately following the Republican response. It was one of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":27348,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=27348","url_meta":{"origin":9064,"position":3},"title":"Rand Paul Follows Ted Cruz To Sean Hannity’s Fox News\/GOP Welcoming Party","author":"Mark NC","date":"4\/8\/2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday marked the arrival of the second official candidate for the Republican Party's nomination for President of the United States. Kentucky senator, and former self-certified ophthalmologist, Rand Paul placed himself in contention for the nomination at the Galt House in Louisville. For those fortunate enough to have never slogged through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"Rand Paul 2016","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/cant-stand-rand-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/cant-stand-rand-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/cant-stand-rand-1.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/..\/Pix\/Trump\/cant-stand-rand-1.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9265,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=9265","url_meta":{"origin":9064,"position":4},"title":"Rand Paul’s Tea-publican Hero-Worship And The Vacancy Of The Stupid Party","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/9\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This past week saw an unusual amount of media attention focused on a singularly non-newsworthy event. 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Republican candidates across the nation have embraced the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Election"","block_context":{"text":"Election","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=152"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9064"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9078,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9064\/revisions\/9078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}