BY L. BRENT BOZELL AND TIM GRAHAM

The safest bet you can possibly make at the beginning of a presidential election cycle is that the “objective” national media will savage the Republican contenders with “investigative” journalism. Not just one Republican contender, but all the Republican contenders.
It’s a bit amazing to look back at 2012 and remember that every Republican candidate was punched in the kisser by “journalism” if and when he or she inched into the lead. Sarah Palin never declared, but she was slimed in 2011 by NBC star Savannah Guthrie, who casually tossed out author Joe McGinniss’s claims that she was a bad mother, that she and her husband used cocaine, and she had sex with an NBA star. Proof? Who needs it?
Then Michele Bachmann was investigated by ABC for charges her husband “prayed away the gay” as a therapist. The Washington Post was scandalized that Rick Perry painted over a rock with the N-word on a hunting property. Herman Cain faced nearly 100 network stories accusing him of sexual harassment before reporters offered a name of an accuser.
And the murder-go-round continued. ABC found the second Mrs. Newt Gingrich and asked her about his “skeletons” and mocked Newt for expounding on “family values.” Newsweek reported Mrs. Rick Santorum used to cohabitate with an abortionist before she met her husband. To conclude a perfect round of liberal bias, The Washington Post wrote an epic 5,400-word article alleging Mitt Romney pushed a kid down and gave him a haircut in 1965.
We’re barely into 2015 and it’s happening again. While apparently no one in the national media wants to notice the overstuffed baggage train that holds the Hillary Clinton scandals, those partisan sleuths are back on the case of discrediting the Republican challengers.
While they waited to slime Romney in 2012 until the primaries were over, the media are already ripping into Jeb Bush, who they believe is the front-runner. Politico ran with this headline: “Jeb ‘Put Me Through Hell’: Michael Schiavo knows as well as anyone what Jeb Bush can do with executive power. He thinks you ought to know too.” In other words, the villain of the Terri Schiavo story — who would rather pull the feeding tube out of his wife than let her parents have custody — thinks Jeb Bush is an evil man.
The Boston Globe dug into Jeb’s high school years, and it was summarized by The Hill newspaper: “Jeb Bush was a pot-smoking bully, say former classmates.” The Globe announced Jeb “bore little resemblance to his father, a star on many fronts at Andover, and might have been an even worse student than brother George. Classmates said he smoked a notable amount of pot — as many did — and sometimes bullied smaller students.”
The Globe didn’t do this to Obama — or their beloved John Kerry.
The other early front-runner in the polls is now Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Once again, The Washington Post was on the prowl, publishing a 2,200-word article wondering why Walker decided to walk away from Marquette University before graduating, and focusing on details like he didn’t perform well in French class and allegations of trashing a student newspaper in a student government election. Proof? Who needs it?
The Post never looked into Obama’s college years.
The New York Times made the Post look like deep thinkers. Columnist Gail Collins claimed Milwaukee teachers lost their jobs in 2010 due to Walker cutting state aid to education. Though he wasn’t sworn in as governor until 2011. The Times had to run a correction. The appetite for blood always remains.
But we ain’t seen nothing yet.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
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