Friday, August 19, 2011

Dr. Tim Groseclose – Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts the American Mind

You have to love the Liberals “do as I say, not as I do” approach to life.


When it comes to global warming, the “science is settled”; man made global warming exists and if you don’t believe it, then you are at best a denier, but more likely you are a flat-Earther, or have a room temperature IQ. We are talking science here!

If you don’t buy into Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, then clearly you are a mind-numbed dolt or worse some sort of Bible-thumping moron! We are talking science here!

Clearly you are George W. Bush stupid if you don’t think that stem cell research will help solve all of the world’s medical issues; Michael J. Fox will be cured of Parkinson’s, Christopher Reeve would have walked and heck we might have even been able to thaw out Walt Disney. We are talking science here!

Liberals wrap themselves in the cloak of science; adopting a look down my nose, I’m smarter than you world view, if you are too stupid to grasp the importance of what only they can understand.
That is until now. Dr. Tim Groseclose, an economics and political science guru at UCLA, has developed a methodology for measuring the political quotient (PQ) of news outlets and the impact it has on voters and even politicians. Methodology…yes we’re talking SCIENCE here!



Naturally Professor Groseclose’s book, Left Turn: How Liberal Media Bias Distorts The American Mind, has liberals sputtering mad. They denigrate Groseclose and his research making the usual claims that Groseclose has been bought and paid for by the right, that clearly he is a conservative wing nut and his research/book is biased and yada yada on the personal attack front. When it comes to Liberal, if you can’t respond with a valid argument, then a personal attack will do.

Groseclose based Left Turn on a journal article the he co-authored, and in the book he offers a snapshot of the reactions he encountered to the article from his colleagues in another liberal bastion, academia. The reaction was predictable, ranging from outrage to calls for him to be fired! Surprisingly, Groseclose actually earned a bump up to a full professorship and received offers for endowment positions along the way.

He also managed to at least convince a few of his academic skeptics that the science he used to develop the results; which show a strong left lean to much of the media and a more even handed fairness on the part of outlets like Fox News which are accused of a conservative bias, was scientifically sound.

While I didn’t find Left Turn to be as entertaining a read as say Freakanomics, fans of that book, and those who thought the media was liberally biased will enjoy this book. Liberals will likely hate it, attack it, and label it pseudo-science!

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