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Friday, October 19, 2007

Katie Couric/CBS News Blunder

This week's series of posts on the blunders of the news commentators focuses today on Katie Couric and CBS News.

A hot tip to Katie and the producers at CBS: when you are doing a segment on the mindset of evangelical Christians you don't turn to the publisher of one of the most liberal Christian publications in the nation as an example of the typical conservative religious voter.

As an example of the modern evangelical voter, the CBS piece cited the publisher of Sojourners' Magazine, historically one of the leftwing's most vocal proponents for 'Christian socialism.'

Sojourners has a long history of advocating for positions that conservative evangelicals and conservative voters in general have deplored. For historical perspective one only has to note that the magazine has long admired the philosophy of Jimmy Carter and deplored that of Ronald Reagan.

It is no wonder, then, that one listens to Sojourners' editor Jim Wallis' words to the effect that, 'God is neither Republican nor Democrat,' with a certain incredulity given the fact that his magazine has always supported the position of Democrats.

The very fact that the CBS News piece would interview Wallis about evangelical Christians makes the entire segment suspect. For example, CBS rolled out some poll figures that suggest conservative, evangelical Christians are not concerned anymore with abortion or traditional family issues.

One can safely assume that the numbers are highly suspect and are indicative of CBS' practice of slanting the manner in which poll numbers are reported in order to get a certain result.

Supposedly the conservative Christians cite 'healthcare' and 'Social Security' as their top concerns in the 2008 Presidential race. Abortion and family issues are not even in the top five.

Do I believe it? Not one bit. And if you believe it, as the saying goes, I have some swampland to sell you...

It is difficult to determine who, exactly, CBS picked for its poll of evangelical Christians. More than likely they included the likes of those who read Sojourners. If this is the case, you can count on those poll numbers being skewed.

It is also safe to assume that CBS did not include in the survey James Dobson's army of radio listeners. It is highly naive of CBS to assume that these persons will not vote their conscience on social issues related to abortion, the family, gun rights, and other issues related to personal liberty.

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