AP Headline Asserts VP is ‘Unpopular Cheney’

August 7, 2008 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Energy, GOP, Government, Corruption, Media Bias, News, President, Publius Contributor, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston |

-By Warner Todd Huston

Well, the Associated Press is certainly living up to its new rules of being opinion editorialists instead of reporters if the following headline is any indication: “Obama links energy troubles to unpopular Cheney.” This was unleashed on the world by the AP on August 5. So, I ask you, does “unpopular Cheney” sound more like opinion than it does simple news reporting?

In fact, the Cheney comment was not even the crux of Obama’s comments, but a throw away line meant to give red meat to the far left. Obama did not center his energy discussion on Cheney. Yet here we have the AP deciding to make that the focal point of the discussion by making it the headline? Even more ridiculously, the AP twice reported that throw away line in the same 10 paragraph story. This seems to reveal that it is the AP, rather than Obama, that wanted to focus on Cheney the most here.

Certainly we can face facts that the liberal press has succeeded in pillorying Vice President Cheney since almost the minute he stepped into the VP Mansion at the United States Naval Observatory. It is, therefore, a fact that Cheney has a low approval rating. But it seems to me that the headline branding Cheney “unpopular” is somewhat unseemly and opinionated as opposed to newsworthy.

There is something far more insidious that Obama said in his speech that the AP could have focused on, but didn’t because it reveals Obama’s anti-business, anti-capitalist, socialism.

Among other things, Obama has proposed a $1,000-per family energy rebate to be paid for by a tax on excessive energy-company profits. He called for ending U.S. reliance on oil from the Middle East and Venezuela over the next 10 years, a project he said would cost the U.S. $150 billion.

Obama just asserted that the Federal government should confiscate money from private businesses and redistribute that money, giving it away like welfare! That is theft. Period. It is also as anti-American as you can get.

Yet the new opinionated AP leaves that alone and goes after Dick Cheney who will be retiring from public service in a matter of months? The AP decides attacking a man who soon won’t be relevant to the issues is of far more importance than exploring Obama’s anti-capitalist positions?

A far more relevant headline would have been “Obama Says Take Oil Profits Away,” or perhaps “Obama Demands Oil Companies Refund Profits,” or the like. But, Cheney is practically irrelevant to the future at this point. Still, Cheney is what the AP focused on.

Yes, we can sure see how the “new” AP is situated, eh?

(Photo credit: latimes.com)

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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston