As a conservative, I am accustomed to living with the media double standard; a media which endorses any campaign tactic of a Democrat as “tough politics” with “sharp elbows,” yet decries any action by a Republican, beyond the usual near-comatose blathering, as unfair, dangerous, and probably illegal.  That said, the 2016 Presidential campaign coverage, as well as the campaign itself, has been strange, to say the least.  In the past, we got political news on TV from the three networks, once a day, every evening.  Today, we are afflicted with 24 hour a day constant news, and on whatever news channel you select, in addition to the constant verbal barrage of “news,” you also get the news crawl at the bottom of the screen.  In the 24 hour news-cycle,  practically anything that happens is branded as “Breaking News.”  And so it was on Monday with the news coverage of the Iowa Caucuses.  Now, no offense to Iowa, but I find it a bit foolish to put so much emphasis on one State’s contest.  Moreover, what kind of a contest?  Certainly not an election.  In an election, when the voter goes to vote, he or she goes behind a curtain to cast his or her vote in privacy.  Moreover, police and poll watchers are present to make sure that there is no politicking going on within 100 feet of the polling place.  In Iowa, people meet at numerous caucus sites.  Each candidate sends representatives to speak to, and attempt to influence the attendees.  It’s not an election, but the media reports it as though it is an election.  And the media reports politics the same way it reports everything else, through the liberal template.  The media buys into the liberal notion that the news revolves around the complaints of victims. A racial or gender victim is always a good story.  In politics, victims allege “dirty tricks” and cry foul.  And it makes no difference if the media created the story and the alleged “victim.”

And so to the Iowa Caucuses coverage.  You may have heard that Ted Cruz is being criticized for allegedly trying to convince Ben Carson supporters to support Cruz by spreading the false rumor that Carson was about to end his campaign.  As with most media coverage, that’s not exactly the truth.  Here are the facts.  On Monday night, CNN reported that its correspondent Chris Moody had “breaking news” that Ben Carson was going from Iowa home to Florida, and not to New Hampshire or South Carolina.  CNN reported that Carson would go instead to Washington, D.C., to the National Prayer Breakfast.  The CNN commentator said, “If you want to be President of the United States, you don’t go home to Florida.”  The implication was that Carson’s action was highly unusual, and that he wasn’t going home simply to change his clothes, but for some other reason.  In response to the CNN report, the Cruz campaign emailed Cruz supporters who were to speak at the caucuses that Ben Carson was taking time off from the campaign trail and making a big announcement next week.  The Cruz people were encouraged to use this as a reason for caucus attendees to support Cruz.  That is all that was said in the email.  (As an aside, as I write these words on February 4, 2016, the Prayer Breakfast has just concluded, and Ben Carson did attend, but did not speak).  When this became an issue, Ted Cruz apologized to Ben Carson.  I think the apology was just, because the Cruz campaign email did get one thing wrong – the notion that Carson would make a “big announcement” this week, which CNN may have implied, but did not report.

The Cruz campaign email provoked Ben Carson to cry foul.  Now a victim, Carson was given more media coverage than he has gotten in months.  Not to be outdone, Donald Trump used the occasion to accuse Ted Cruz of fraud, demanding a new election.  The fact that no election had been held in the first place apparently escaped Trump’s notice.  Moreover, the fact that Trump’s hands are not exactly clean apparently didn’t matter either.  Trump, you may recall, is the fellow who called Ben Carson “a pathological damaged” person, making the comparison to a child molester.  Trump went on to claim that “Ted Cruz gave us Obamacare.”  (Cruz was elected 2 years after it was passed), and that Cruz claimed that Trump supported Obamacare “because he was born in Canada.” (Huh?)   How can Trump get away with things like that as merely tough politics?  He recently was a Democrat, so he gets a pass.  Don’t forget, Trump once promised that “I will apologize sometime in the hopefully distant future if I’m ever wrong.”  We won’t hold our breath.