With the recent sad news of the passing of Jack Kemp, Brent Baker of Newsbusters blog remembered the following 1996 quote from Bill Schneider of CNN.
“He is a rare combination -- a nice conservative. These days conservatives are supposed to be mean. They're supposed to be haters.”
Baker cited that as one example of how some in the news media used the selection of Kemp as Bob Dole’s presidential running mate to “deliver backhanded insults about the ‘haters’ who comprised the rest of the Republican Party.”
It often seems, especially if you watch much television, that the words “Republican” and “conservative” are associated, if not synonymous, with rich, mean, white people. I resemble the white part, except in the summer when I sometimes turn a reddish brown thanks to my native American ancestors. But I’ve never been rich, unless measured in blessings, and the only people who have told me I am mean are liberals who don’t think much of my conservative beliefs (and my soon-to-be thirteen year old when she doesn’t get her way). Most of the Republicans I know are pretty much like me.
So how is it that Republicans and conservatives have such a bad image?
How is it that Miss California, Carrie Prejean, recently answered a pageant question about gay marriage honestly, and respectfully, by echoing the same position as that of President Barack Obama and the voters of California, yet she was cast by the media as a villain?
Carrie Prejean was labeled as a dumb b*#*h (and worse) for saying, “"I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised.” MSNBC fake journalist, Keith Olbermann not only called Prejean a “nazi,” but made fun of her appearance, joking about cosmetic surgery she reportedly had.
President Barack Obama said of gay marriage, “I'm a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue, I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman.….” Rather than being called a nazi or a dumb bunny he is hailed as a uniter and a healer – that is, when he is not being called an enchanting savior.
Not su