FAIR.org: media's track record of ignoring & mocking impeachment movement

Extra! July/August 2007

Media and Impeachment
Not for discussion, only for derision

By Cynthia Cooper

Ocean Beach in San Francisco was abuzz with 1,500 people who showed up to spell out a giant “Impeach Now” with their bodies on April 28, all in the home district of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi made a splash prior to the November 2006 election by saying that a Bush impeachment was “off the table” (Washington Post, 5/12/06). Several scandals later—the Libby conviction, failing Iraq “surge,” U.S. Attorneys’ purge and missing White House e-mails—people across the nation served up their own impeachment proposals.

But “impeach” is barely in the lexicon of major national media; on the rare occasion it’s deployed, it’s generally accompanied by derision, dismissal and denial.

Commentators expressed shock when Rosie O’Donnell dared to mention impeachment on the View (3/29/07), asking: “What do you have to do to get impeached in this country? What do you have to do?” She might have added: What do you have to do to get impeachment discussed by the news media?

FULL TEXT:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3149