says i have a problem, i have two brothers, one is in television news in the other was put to death in the electric chair for murder. my mother died from insanity when i was three years old. my sisters are prostitutes and my father sells narcotics to high school students. [laughter] recently i met a girl who was just released from a reformatory where she served time for smothering her illegitimate child to death and i want to marry her. my problem is of primary this girl, should i tell her about my brother who is in television news? [laughter] [applause] that's sort of sets the stage. by the way i have been thinking for the past our so whether i should read the second letter,

which i will tell you right now has nothing to do with what we're here for tonight but i'm going to take a chance. if this doesn't work, the speech is going to end in about two minutes. did you ever wonder why there are no men who write advice columns? they are all women, right? here's the reason -- this is a column, there is one that has been named robert. dear robert, i hope you can help me here go the other day i set off for work living has been in the house watching a tv as usual. i haven't gone more than a mile down the road when my car engine conked out and the car shudder to a halt. i walked back home to get my husband's help, when i got home i couldn't believe my eyes -- use of a bedroom with a neighbor lady. he was let go from his job and said he has been feeling incredibly depressed and worthless, i love him very much and he is becoming increasingly

distant. i don't feel like to get through to him anymore. can you please tell me? sincerely, sheila. this is why there are no men -- it says, dear sheila, is carl stalling after being driven a short distance and caused by a variety of faults with the engine. start by checking there is no debris in the fuel line. [laughter] hit it is clear, check the clips holding the vacuum pipes onto the in level. even on of these approaches solves the problem could be the fuel pump itself was faulty. causing a slow delivery pressure to the carburetor, float chamber, i hope this helps. [laughter] [applause] thank-you. now let's talk about the book about the media. just before i came here i found out from some of my sources in

washington that right after barack obama became president, i mean right after, he learned that in the economy wasn't even worse shape than he thought it in order to save money u.s. forced to lay off 17 journalists. [laughter] now, why is that a joke or? because like most jokes that work, there is an air of believability to aunt. how much believability? well, the pure research center which is one of those down the middle nonpartisan group took a poll at the end of the campaign right now the end of the campaign and they asked registered lotus is simple easy to understand question -- who do think most reporters want to win this election? 9 percent of republicans said that the media wants barack obama to win, 90%. we expect that. but 62 percent of democrats and

coincidentally another 62 percent of independents said the exact same thing so just about everybody gets it -- just about everybody out there understands that the media was in the tank over barack obama. this doesn't mean by the way that everybody cares that the media was in the tank for barack obama, the more you supported him and the more passionate you were in wanting him to be elected, the less you care about the fact that the media was corrupt this time around. and every now and then when i'm on a radio show and a liberal caller calls in an even if he or she acknowledges a bias, expresses a lack of interest and doesn't care, i come on up with this analogy that let's imagine we have to college football teams -- let's say usc and notre dame, and for whatever reason the refugees -- the referees

wanted another game to win. what ever reason noted game had higher academic standards, notre dame had more players who overcame the physical hardships, i don't care what the reasons are, but they decided that any time there was a close call ago on notre dame's favor. nobody would tolerate that. i don't even think the notre dame fans would tolerate that. and i use that analogy to make the point that in the media, reporters and their editors are supposed to be impartial referees and they're supposed to tell us what's going on unless decide and it doesn't matter if you are rooting for barack obama, you can't have a media that is in the tank for one candidate. it is bad for everybody and when i say everybody i don't just been is bad for republicans and conservatives, it's bad for democrats and liberals as well and i'm going to explain that in a bit.

i want to make free clear before i get into this too deeply but this is not an anti barack obama book. i don't blame him one bit for accepting all the slobbering and all the adulation that was aimed in his direction. i mean, most of us would take advantage of adulation of somebody keep it on --. but it very much is an anti mainstream media book. it this time interest to run from all the other times. this time i'm not even talking about media bias. this time they went to a new level from media bias to media activism which is sort of like judicial activism where judges know what is best for everybody and then decide to legislate from the bench. media activism is where reporters decided that they knew what was best for everyone and they were going to not only put a farm on the scale of the way they always do for a liberal

democratic candidate, whether it was dukakis or mondale or john kerry, this was different. this time they did and put a farm on the scale, this time they sat on the dam scale and in care of any of you noticed or what she thought about it. because this time it was different. they weren't happy simply been even part -- partisan eye witnesses to history. this time they wanted to help shape history because of this time they were on a noble mission. in their mind they were on a noble mission. it this time there was historical importance to the election so they threw out their impartiality and as i say they didn't care who knew it. now, it's not enough to simply make accusations like this without giving specifics so let me tell you what i wrote in the book then i'll give you some specifics. this is a line from the book --

if you didn't notice of the pro obama by s during the campaign you're either dead or in a coma. if he were dead and there is no reason to continue reading. [laughter] assuming most of you here tonight are alive, let me give you a few examples. and you know, you really can make this up is so -- there's a commentator on msnbc who said that when he heard it barack obama speak he got a thrill running up his leg. [laughter] commentators are allowed to comment, but this is an commentary, this is a man crashed. [laughter] [applause] the same commentator when on "the tonight show" and said, if you are actually in the room when obama gives one of his speeches and you don't cry, you are not american.

now, while we're on the subject of msnbc, when sarah palin was announced as a republican vice-presidential nominee, this was on msnbc during the day, not on one of the nighttime commentary shows, a graphic way up on the screen as she was being announced as the candidate and is said -- breaking news: how many houses will sarah palin add to the republican ticket price this is when it john mccain was asked. this was in on the jon stewart make believe, the news show. , this was on msnbc of division of nbc news. during the day. again, not during one of the commentary shows. then there was a article in newsweek in which they said barack obama was quote, a tall and handsome and blessed with a weighty baryton. this gets a little creepy for my

taste. [laughter] there was "the new york times" story that compared to barack obama to both jfk and martin luther king in the same paragraph. there was the nbc news correspondent who was assigned to cover barack obama who said that it is almost time to maintain your abjective it a wallcovering obama because of the excitement that he engendered was so infectious. there was a story that was on christmas morning on page one of the washington post about barack obama's exercise regimen -- here is one sentence from the story. the sun glinted off chiseled pectorals. [laughter] this code could during for weightlifting sessions each week. and a body toned by regular treadmill runs and basketball

games. this is the kind of stuff you'd expect to read in a romance novel with fabio on the cover. [laughter] [applause] not page one of the most important newspaper in the nation's capital and one of the two or three in the country. now, if you think i am cherry picking these two examples to make a point, i am not. the book -- i won't bore you with statistics -- but the book has a number of impartial studies again nonpartisan groups that make very clear that the media coverage was way more positive toward barack obama and then john mccain and at the same time we more -- of john mccain and then of barack obama. i should point out though in fairness that one of the offers of one of the study said that yes and the media did tilt in in

barack obama's favor, but it wasn't for ideological reasons, it was using his words, because obama was leading the polls and winning begets winning coverage. really? winning didn't get winning coverage when ronald reagan carried 49 states. he was called amiable dunce. weddington be get winning coverage when newt gingrich led the conservative revolution in 1994, he was on the cover of news magazine that said that the gingrich who stole christmas, so i'm not buying this winning begets winning coverage nonsense for one second. and even that was the reason, even if to be generous say, well, maybe winning does begin winning coverage let's assume a congressional race once upon a time between david duke and martin luther king, it's not hard to imagine in some places at a certain time and david duke leading in the polls. does any decent person and think

that if david duke were leading martin luther king, david duke should get favorable coverage in the media because of winning begets winning coverage? is just nonsense argument that we shouldn't take seriously and am only mentioning it to get it off the table. because when you get down to it, it really comes down to a simple understanding of what the press is there for. is there to give us the facts, it is there to tell us what's going on, it really is there to be the impartial referee, and let us decide. the american people are not that stupid. just give us the facts and let us decide. i don't think it's that complicated. part way to the campaign to show you how crazy it got, when a mysterious mental disorder broke out in some places in america

including the media and it happened interestingly right after sarah palin was put on the republican ticket, it was a mental disorder that came to be known as pds -- palin derangements syndrome. whether you like sarah palin or not and i understand there are some people who think she's great and some people who aren't too hot of her, whether you like her are not there is nothing that she did and that deserved the viciousness with which she was attacked. i want to give some examples -- a female professor at the university of chicago wrote on the washington post website that's their opinions greatest hypocrisy is her pretense that she is a woman. you see, just as liberals, not all but many believe the liberals, just as they don't see black conservatives as black

people at all but simply as conservatives, they don't see women conservatives as women. they didn't see sarah pillar and as a woman, i saw her only as a conservative, at least that writer did. in other professor from the university of michigan running peace force on which is the liberal online magazine, very influential in some liberal circles. the writer asked, was the difference between it palin and a moslem fundamentalist? lipstick. be all that the job, except if you think about that muslim fundamentalists to bury bad things to you if they don't like new. jazeera palin would into any of those things so that is another thing. and also on salon another woman writer said that sarah perron is such a power mad backwater beauty pageant casualty is easy to write her off and make fun of

her but in reality glad to sitting down for this, in reality i feel as horrified as they get a jew watching the rise of national socialism. so the rise of sarah palin was akin to the rise of nazism in germany, some of a please call jerry lewis, we needed telethon to raise money to fight this disease. one of the more corrupt examples -- before i get to solutions and want to give another example of how the media went way beyond what normally does and how it corrected itself. late in the campaign in october "the new york times" ran to page one profiles of it the potential first lady's. this is michelle obama and cindy mccain, and as i write in the

book in late october as in the campaign was nearing the finish line, "the new york times" ran profiles of the candidates' wives. one had all the pathos of a great tragedy and the other was a sunday as "happy days". i guess which was which? in the profile of it misses mccain here is what we discovered -- we discover that way back in 1982 when she first came to washington some congressional wives did not like her coming we learn that's a mccain didn't like washington, we learn that she worried about my opinion, we learn that from time to time for parents bought her guests on behalf of john mccain because he was too busy or too uncaring to buy them himself, we were reminded of her long ago in addition to painkillers, we were told that she doesn't always tell the truth, and as a buyer and york put it in the national review, in what sense are these revelations if true newsworthy? and when are you -- and when you

are doing a story about the wife of a candidate to those big scoops justify the intrusiveness required to discover them? i think that's a good question. what about the profile of michelle obama? well, we get a quote from david axelrod a list of political campaigning through and a longtime family friend and that mrs. obama is quote, very very smart and sensitive. we're told that when she speaks at a rally, the audience roars with delight and that her primary role is imam in chief. mark helprin, time magazine who was absolutely a mainstream journalist, not some right wing anybody, he said at the profile of a michelle obama was a front-page endorsement of what a great person michelle obama is. here is why this is important -- just a few weeks earlier executive editor of the new york times bill keller was that the

conference and media conference in new york city and he was asks about what did you do when it mccain protest to "the new york times" about your coverage? and the questionnaire was referring to the page one story in the new york times earlier in the campaign about mccain hinting, i want to be fair, alleging, hinting in suggesting is the best word, suggesting that john mccain might have been having an affair with a female of bids. this was story -- this was based on to unnamed sources. so bill keller, the guy who runs "the new york times" was asked about this and wanted to listen carefully to his answer -- he said my first candidacy when they do that is to run the toughest mccain story we have gone and put on the front page, just to show them that they can get away with it. now, i am not saying that is why

"the new york times" ran a dark and gloomy and depressing story of michelle obama on page one, but you know what, it might be. it might be. so what can we do about this? to try to make things better. first we have to know is that there's no conspiracy at work here. i worked as cbs news for 20 years, i know what i'm talking about. katie couric, ryan williams, charlie gibson, in my day dan rather, peter jennings, tom brokaw, they never came in the morning and some of their top lieutenants went into a room, turned the lights down, pull the ship is, give the secret handshake and the sacred salute. [laughter] and send you their however going to screw those conservatives or

more recently, what can we do today to help get barack obama elected? it doesn't happen that way. i wish it did because that is so on a acceptable that nobody would tolerate it once they found that about it. what happens is worse because it is institutional bias damage is built into the fabric of what they do so that you have a news room filled with like-minded people and if you have too many like minded people in one room, then you have a group thing festered to take over. and these people believe that everything to the right of center is conservative which it is and everything to the left of center it is middle of the road. [laughter] really. everything to the left of center is reasonable.

in a civil, it just makes sense, because these media elites live in a comfy liberal bible. where they can go for a day coming month, a year, they can go a lifetime and practically never run into anybody who has a different point of view on any of the major subjects, the major hot issues of our time. so in their own crazy way they sort of thing fact, everybody decent, everybody who has any brains any way things the way they do. that is how pious and eventually activism, media activism come about. there was a george clinton song, nobody knows who george clinton is here, but he was called the king of funkadelic music back in the '70s. well, he had a line in a song

that said, fish don't know he's wet. well, if you think about it makes sense -- pound fish know he is what? the fish has no frame of reference. well, it is sort of like that with liberal journalists and news rooms, they don't have a free reference. they don't know that their views -- i know you will believe this but i'm telling you you i work for these people for 20 years -- they don't other views are liberal. as i say, but they think they are reasonable and this really think they are middle-of-the-road. sell by the way, this is important, on the rare occasions when they and knowledge their bias and they do sometimes, they will tell you that they don't care. three days after the election to heavyweight journalists, political journalists inside the beltway, you won't other names because they are on television a

lot but they're very well respected political journalists -- sterling took in store rosburg -- or at a seminar in washington three days after the election and they were talking about the press coverage and cook said it i think a lot of people in the news media were too young to cover camelot and john kennedy, they were too young and most cases to cover bobby kennedy and so i think they were starstruck by this obama phenomenon. then he said, let's face it, is there a democratic and liberal bias in the media? of course, there is. and then rothenberg said, i am sure journalists pervert obama, they liked him, they are democrats. obama got better treatment. so there are acknowledging their bias, right? what i call their activism, but it gets worse than that. rothenberg and says, but you know, it is what it is coming it is the nature of the political environment.

republicans ought to know that and then his friend charlie cook said, is what it is. now, is what it is, is just a few words and i couldn't figure out why i've been so unsettled by these keywords. it does bother me in a way i could not define why i was so troubled by it and then a few days later hit me -- i couldn't think of any other kind of bias, any other kind of bias where any decent person would write it off so cavalierly with the phrase, it is what it is. no decent person would ever say, we're not going to hire her, she is a woman, but is what it is. or i know that black guy is hungry but he can't eat at the lunch counter, it is what it is. now i understand the analogy goes just so far -- nothing, for example is the same as a race in america but i trust of the to get the point. that they just went out and a

concern and knowledge and their biases or at least the media as biases and then simply said, it is what it is. you know what, it is just -- in is what a distance is a good enough anymore. we need a journalist or two has the guts to stand up and say it is what it is will not cut it anymore. [applause] that's how i feel about it, but since i am not holding my breath, i came up with my own solutions. ready? affirmative-action -- i used to joke about this, i used to say just a tweak my friends on the left. i am not joking anymore. we need affirmative action program for the smallest group, the smallest minority in the

american newsroom -- conservatives. [applause] because after decades of diversity here is what we wound up breath, we have wound up with male conservatives and female -- i'm sorry, we have one up with mail liberals and female liberals, black liberals and white liberals, gay liberals and saint liberals, latino liberals and asia and liberals. that is all fine as far as it goes, but we need newsrooms that not only look like america but that i think a little more like america. [applause] now, i should tell you that i would tell these people these conservatives that we brought in, keep your conservative opinions duracell because i don't want to hear about it and i would tell the liberals the

same thing, but at least you'd have a different perspective. and that is why we went out and found women in black people and other minorities, not because we had evidence of rampant racism among white males but because you can't get news from simply white males, that's not a healthy thing. they know just so much. i say they -- we know just some much. you need other perspectives. welcoming unit conservatives in the newsroom even if they are never giving their opinion to have that perspective represented in the newsroom. now, despite what i have been telling you about how hard it the media tried to collect barack obama because of his historical significance, i want to make something very clear and i know i'm speaking truth to power in this group. it the media did not defeat john mccain.

they tried it but they didn't defeat john mccain, john mccain and defeated john mccain. [applause] if you put up the two candidates on a split television screen, one of them was yesterday and the other one was tomorrow in the american people really vote for yesterday. george bush defeated john mccain immensely unpopular, got us into a very long war and, however, it turns out and we all pray that it turns out well, the american people not like long wars. the republican party defeated john mccain -- they took power in the year 2000, they have the white house in both houses of congress and they were the grown ups, they were the fiscally responsible ones and they spent money like imelda marcos in a shoe store. [applause] and president bush