During Saturday’s 60-minute televised CBS debate, Ron Paul was provided a mere 89 seconds to defend his somewhat controversial positions on Iran and torture. As noted by Paul’s campaign manager John Tate, the decision to provide Paul such minimal time to speak on his positions made little sense, since he is the only candidate to express such views:
What a joke! It literally made me sick watching the mainstream media once again silence the one sane voice in this election. The one dissenter to a decade of unchecked war. The one candidate who stands for true defense and actual constitutional government. Ron Paul was silenced, in perhaps the most important debate of the cycle.
As virtually every other candidate espouses the same views on American foreign policy, it seems nonsensical to have allowed the other candidates to defend their positions when their answers virtually mimicked one another’s and permit the least amount of time to the single candidate who dissented from the rest.
But according to Sabrin, it makes perfect sense. Sabrin explained:
“[Ron Paul ] has been battling the Federal Reserve ever since 1976, because one of the hallmarks of a sound economy is to have a sound currency…if you want to know why you have high…costs, its because of the depreciation of the currency. With this modern technology called the printing press…we have an institution with a monopoly of printing money called the Federal Reserve. [Paul] is the only candidate on both sides of the aisle that has brought up the issue, and I will argue from now until my last breath, that that’s the reason he has been silenced by the mainstream media.”
Sabrin continued, “Because we are talking about trillions of dollars at stake that the financial political elite need to keep this big government running, the cheap money that the Federal Reserve creates. And Ron Paul is the only one who has blown the whistle on this scam that’s been in effect for 100 years now. And that’s the reason that Ron Paul has been blacked out by the mainstream media.”
According to Kurt Nimmo — writer, artist, and blogger — Sabrin’s explanation makes a great deal of sense as claims purported by the media that Paul is unelectable (media's stated reason for ignoring Paul) are clearly untrue:
For months now we have been told that the reason Paul is routinely sidelined by the media is because he can’t win the nomination and he is too far out of the “political mainstream” to be a serious contender. Despite this explanation, Paul continues to win straw polls and raise millions for his campaign. He consistently places in the top three, although the corporate media refuses to acknowledge this.
Even the so-called “conservative” media relegate Ron Paul to failure and would like to see him fade into the political wilderness.
For Nimmo and Sabrin, the reason behind this bias is that Paul is the “only one who has ‘blown the whistle’ on the Federal Reserve’s cheap money scam that is destroying the country.” As a result of Paul’s steadfast opposition to the unconstitutional Federal Reserve, the media, contends Sabrin, has fabricated the tale that Paul cannot win and is an unviable candidate.
But that may not be the whole story. Apparently CBS fancies itself somewhat of a kingmaker, and has not limited its manipulative tactics to just Paul. An e-mail was inadvertently sent to Michele Bachmann’s campaign that indicated that certain candidates were being provided less air time than others as part of a CBS policy.
Exeter Patch reports,
Michele Bachmann’s campaign made a similar claim [regarding minimal debate coverage], releasing an email it said was inadvertently sent to Communications Director Alice Stewart by a CBS employee that said Bachmann wasn’t going to get many questions, so they should try to get another candidate for a post-debate show.
"I was just speaking with Alice Stewart … about the Congresswoman or a senior member if [sic] her staff joining you for the webshow. She said she would be happy to arrange," said one CBS employee in an email sent Saturday afternoon, hours before the debate.
John Dickerson, a CBS News political analyst, then responded, "Okay let's keep it loose though since she's not going to get many questions and she's nearly off the charts in the hopes that we can get someone else."
The campaign said the email indicated "a planned effort to limit questions to Michele Bachmann at [the] … CBS/National Journal Debate."
This is not the first time a mainstream media outlet has exposed itself in this way. In August, while attempting to explain why Paul was entirely ignored in the coverage regarding the Ames Straw Poll, despite the fact that he came in a very close second, Politico’s Roger Simon admitted, “The media doesn’t believe he has a hoot in hells chance of winning the Iowa caucuses, the Republican nomination or winning the presidency, so we’re gonna ignore him.”
CNN host Howard Kurtz then admitted, “We are in the business of kicking candidates out of the race.”
Simon’s predictions may have been short-sighted, however, as recent polls show Paul is in a dead heat in the Iowa caucus with Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, and Newt Gingrich.
Regardless of Simon’s failure to foresee Paul’s success in the GOP presidential race, however, it's clear that the media plays a role in manipulating public opinion, and is brazen enough as to admit it on television.
If Sabrin's contention that the media’s treatment of Paul is influenced by Paul’s opinion of the Federal Reserve, it seems unlikely that Paul will be propped up by the media any time soon.
Photo of Ron Paul: AP Images
