Tuesday, January 31, 2006
What A Difference Five Hours Make
ABC's Elizabeth Vargas pimps the President's speech.
ABC News may well be a house divided. In its "World News Tonight" broadcast, anchored for the time being by right-leaning Elizabeth Vargas, the network labeled the upcoming State of the Union Address as "America's Agenda." Obviously, to everyone except the crew running WNT, the speech is only one man's agenda. It may be an agenda that America eventually adopts, but until that time, it's only the President's agenda. In fact, that's why Presidents deliver the speech--they're laying out their agenda.
Five hours later, the crew at ABC's "Nightline" took a different course. Instead of glorifying the speech, "Nightline" anchor Terry Moran introduced a report questioning the speech's value in today's political dialogue. The report reminded viewers of several big ticked requests made by President Bush over the last few SOTUs (remember Social Security reform and two billion in debt reduction?), all of which have yet to happen. It also illustrated the use of the President's gallery guests as political pawns.
In the same broadcast, the folks at "Nightline" delivered another blow to the Bush administration: a new Government Accounting Office report says payroll errors affecting soldiers being treated for war wounds are bankrupting many of those soldiers.
