Top ten most left-biased American journalists - #9: Liz Sidoti, Associated Press

By Warner Todd Huston

As we continue our list of the top ten most left-biased journalists working in America today (See part one here), we have to nominate Liz Sidoti of the Associated Press for spot number nine on the countdown.

The Associated Press has been increasingly disappointing at least since Ron Fournier, one of its former bureau chiefs, decided in 2008 to change the APs editorial policy and allow more emotive language and opinion to become an official part of its newswire copy. Not every AP reporter has taken Fournier's challenge, but boy has Liz Sidoti claimed that policy as her own.

Liz isn't the only AP reporter to indulge her inner Olbermann, of course, as there are many AP writers that have been caught using emotive wording, hyperbole, and straight out opinion to damn conservatives and Republicans. But Liz is particularly good at the off-handed sleight and the surreptitious slam.

Let's take Sidoti's explosive fawning over The One after his first four months in office as an example of her wonderfully understated style of "reporting," shall we? Liz was so overawed by her Obamamessiah's ascension to godhood that she couldn't help herself from gushing like a schoolgirl. The following are some of the notable quotes from her April 26, 2009 piece.

• It didn't take long for Barack Obama — for all his youth and inexperience — to get acclimated to his new role as the calming leader of a country in crisis.
  
  
• "I feel surprisingly comfortable in the job," the nation's 44th president said a mere two weeks after taking the helm.
  
  
• Obama has applied the same "no drama" leadership
  
  
• As a fledgling president, he similarly has mapped out a big-risk agenda that he's methodically begun to execute, keeping to the discipline that has been a hallmark of his life.
  
  
• Rookie jitters? Far from it.
  
  
• Confident almost to a fault
  
  
• exhibiting few flashes of any off-putting, self-important tone
  
  
• he's reached the pinnacle
  
  
• Obama has seemed extraordinarily at ease
  
  
• (And here's that "expect")"He became presidential almost immediately. Physically as well as rhetorically he transformed himself," said American University professor James Thurber, an expert on the presidency. He said Obama had little choice but to dive in and start governing, given the full plate of issues. But, Thurber added, "He also did it with real skill and confidence that you wouldn't necessarily expect from someone who just walked in the door."
  
  
• Obama has spoken in firm, yet soothing tones
  
  
• Sometimes he has used a just-folks approach
  
  
• He also has steamed with anger
  
  
• He has shown contriteness
  
  
• He also has let it be known he hasn't forgotten how politics works
  
  
• Stylistically, this is a careful president who uses a teleprompter even during news conferences and presides over a White House that scripts his public appearances
  
  
• a strong, ethical leader
  
  
• Mindful of Obama's high popularity and, thus, the media's hunger for any details about him and his family, the White House has gone to great lengths to make sure he's visible.
  
  
• People don't seem to mind all that exposure
  
  
• Overall, Obama seems unflappable
  
  
• He made a string of comments that were, to some extent, joking and self deprecating, almost as if he didn't take the hubbub around his candidacy too seriously
  
  

Sickening, isn't it? And remember that was all in just one piece!

Amusingly, the December before the piece mentioned above, Sidoti penned an AP piece to help lower expectations for Obama in order to better ease his then upcoming term. One wonders how Obama's crushing unemployment numbers, continuously dismal economic news, and major failure with the BP oil spill is affecting her sycophantic outlook for The One, though.

But effusive Obamaluv isn't Liz' only rhetorical vice. She also has a tendency to help pass the left-wing meme as "news."

Only a few months ago, Sidoti helped the left set the tone of scorn for Democrats that wouldn't toe the line on the administration's Obamacare policies. After almost a year of public outrage over Obamacare, it was only in March that Sidoti perceived that Obamacare was in "jeopardy."

"A dozen or so anti-abortion House Democrats are opposing Obama's health care overhaul plan — and putting its passage in jeopardy — because it includes a provision they don't like," Sidoti gravely intoned. Nowhere in the article did Sidoti mention the year-long battle that millions of Americans at townhall meetings waged to stop Obama's take over of healthcare. It was but a few recalcitrant Democrats putting Obama's grand plan into "jeopardy" as far as Liz was concerned.

And Governor Palin is also a favorite Sidoti whipping... er, girl. In February Sidoti insisted that a speech that Palin gave to the National Tea Party convention held in Nashville, Tennessee was "short on ideas."

Sarah Palin, in a speech that was short on ideas but big on enthusiasm, took aim at President Barack Obama and the Democrats, telling a gathering of "tea party" activists that America is ripe for another revolution.

I've been to one of Palin's barnstorming speeches and she is hardly "short on ideas." In fact, her speeches are all about ideas. The big ideas of small government, low taxes, strong national defense, freedom, liberty, adherence to the Constitution, the vision of the founders... in short all the big ideas that this country was founded upon, those ideas that have made us great. I guess those ideas aren't really of interest to our friendly AP writer.

Of course, I could go on and on detailing Liz Sidoti's attempt to color the news a deep Democrat blue, but you get the point. Unfortunately, she isn't the only AP reporter doing it, but she stands as a perfect example of the practice so woefully prevalent there. So, congratulations to Liz Sidoti for ringing in at number nine on our most left-biased list.

Please check back tomorrow for number eight, won't you? (Originally posted at BigJournalism.com)

© Warner Todd Huston