What media bias?

unixronin takes the media to task in an interesting comparison between MSNBC and CNN. A brief exerpt:

Q:? How do you know when your news media is blowing smoke up your ass?

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Barack Obama, reported by CNN:

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) — Reviving a ban on assault weapons and more strictly enforcing existing gun laws could help tamp down drug violence that has run rampant on the U.S.-Mexican border, President Obama said Thursday.
Speaking alongside Mexican President Felipe Calder?n, Obama said he has ?not backed off at all? on a campaign pledge to try to restore the ban.? It was instituted under President Clinton and allowed to lapse by President George W. Bush.
?I continue to believe that we can respect and honor the Second Amendment right in our Constitution — the rights of sportsmen and hunters and homeowners that want to keep their families safe — to lawfully bear arms, while dealing with assault weapons that, as we know here in Mexico, are used to fuel violence,? Obama said.

No, those dates are not typos.? These are two diametrically opposite spins from two different news organizations, on the same day, about the same event.

…A:? Their lips move.

Sorry for any weird formatting. The LJ–>WordPress transition is interesting, to say the least.
He also discusses Obama’s discussion of the Tiahrt Amendment and ballistic fingerprinting:

The last point I would make is that there are going to be some opportunities where I think we can build some strong consensus.? I?ll give you one example, and that is the issue of gun tracing.? The tracing of bullets and ballistics and gun information that have been used in major crimes — that?s information that we are still not giving to law enforcement, as a consequence of provisions that have been blocked in the United States Congress, and those are the areas where I think that we can make some significant progress early.

It?s pretty clear here, if you?re familiar with the issues in question, that this is apparently referring to two things ? the Tiahrt Amendment, and ballistic fingerprinting.? Let?s look at those a moment separately.
First, the Tiahrt Amendment.? The Obama/Brady/Schumer/Feinstein/VPC/Bloomberg/etc position is that the Tiahrt Amendment prevents law enforcement from getting access to BATFE firearm trace information.? And this, bluntly, is a bald-faced lie.? Existing law, including Tiahrt, allows full access to firearm trace information to any law enforcement agency conducting any investigation for which it is relevant. If you have a legitimate need for the information, you can get it.
What the Tiahrt Amendment prohibits is non-law-enforcement organizations or individuals getting access to trace data in order to trawl it and use it for purposes for which it wasn?t ever intended and for which it isn?t meaningful. And that?s the part Feinstein, Bloomberg, Schumer, the Violence Policy Center and their ilk hate ? because that?s what they want to be able to do.? It?s irrelevant to them whether the data actually means anything when used as they want to use it.? For example, they take it as a given that the existence of BATFE trace data on a firearm means that firearm has been used in a gun crime.? But that?s not so.? Just as a single example ? how do you think police find the legal owners of stolen weapons?? …Exactly.? They request a BATFE trace.? Police bust a fence and find 20 or 30 guns in his stash?? How did he get them?? Trace time, baby.

I suspect that the next attacks on gun rights might come, not in the form of an outright ban, but perhaps in a “compromise” (( There is no “compromise” here. It’s an infringement of rights, period. )) on certain types of guns, or by attacking the Tiahrt Amendment. These attacks on our rights are subtle and often misundertsood. Keep alert.