Reply #23: I watched CNN's Erin Burnett (sp ?) yesterday and she had a relatively long segment

[karynnj]

on the supercommittee - and her bias was beyond blatant.

She set the subject up by speaking of Europe - and especially Italy's problems. Her contention is that their problem is mostly that world lacks confidence. Her argument was then that the US having confidence in the future was key to solving both our and Europe's problems.

Then after that idealist bit of putting everything down to market psychology, ignoring that there might be anything real unpinning, she transitioned into the supercommittee - first putting up the oft used CNN 12panel photo of the Senators, darkened to make them almost silhouettes with the super imposed label Senate Eunuchs. She then spoke of how they could become Senate superheroes by agreeing to a plan that gave the markets confidence in the US economy.

Then she moved to speak of the Republican plan - and to discuss it enthusiastistically - she has Senator Toomey, (Club for Growth, PA). There were a few questions that solicited information, but no real push back on the fact that the numbers simply do not add up - especially as he wanted to make the Bush tax cuts permanent as part of this. (She even let him get away with saying that some of the wealthy people may pay more because of the loopholes removed - but ignores that this can not be true if they make the Bush tax cuts permanent - as that includes eliminating estate taxes.)

To counter this from the Democratic side, she had .... nobody. Not any of the Democrats on the committee or even off the committee. Not even a pretense of fairness by having Harold Ford. Also, no financial expert, no economist, no activist - no one, but Toomey and Erin, formerly of the right leaning CNBC, who started her career in investment banking at Goldman Saks.

It is more dangerous to have biased reporting on CNN than on Fox, where it is expected.