Contrast 2 newspapers reporting on local tea party: one is a Scaife rag

[PA Democrat]

The "Tea Party Express" was in the Pittsburgh area yesterday and the town's 2 major newspapers covered the event. One is owned by Richard Mellon Scaife. Can you guess which one?

Excerpts from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette:

Dancing over the heads of the crowd were signs with messages that included, "Think Green Recycle Congress," "No to Public Option No to Trigger Option," and "Impeach the Marxist Muslim."

One of the frequent targets for the crowd's and the speakers' antagonism was the widespread notion that a health care measure would impose "death panels," arbitrating whether the elderly would be allowed to receive health care. This oft-repeated and widely rebutted accusation is rooted in the languages in one version of the legislation that would allow Medicare to pay for voluntary end-of-life planning.

Protesting the culture of government irresponsibility, Ms. Johns charged that this administration bailed out the Bank of America and AIG. The decision to pour billions of government dollars into those and other institutions were actually taken during the previous administration, although the current one has followed in implementing those and other financial rescues. Speaking afterwards, Ms. Johns acknowledged that those policies were initiated in the Bush administration, and said she had lost faith in the Republican president

Ms. Johns also repeated a widespread Internet-reinforced accusation in claiming that the American Civil Liberties Union had filed suit to have crosses removed from military cemeteries. According to Factcheck.org, there is no basis to that rumor, which may have started with reports of a since-settled suit in which the ACLU sued the Defense Department to allow the use of a Wiccan symbol of the graves of service members who practiced witchcraft.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09253/996934-54.stm#ixzz0QhhKOATQ



Excerpts from the Pittsburgh Tribune Review:

"I think people are finally getting it," said Slivensky, 69, of Marshall as she surveyed the growing crowd in North Boundary Park. Police said the crowd was the largest for any event held at the park.

Patrick Kotten and his wife, Kathryn, drove four hours from Davis, W.Va., to attend the rally, one of almost three dozen across the country to protest the health care overhaul, government spending and higher taxes.

The series of rallies, or tea parties -- 34 over 16 days -- will culminate Saturday in Washington with a Taxpayer March. More than 500,000 are expected to attend, organizers said.

"This is not Democrats. This is not Republicans. This is Americans exercising democracy to bring our government back under control," said Mark Williams, vice chairman of the Tea Party Express.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_642351.html

Not too difficult is it?

[sinkingfeeling]

1. No, it's not. Do you have any idea of true numbers of the crowd?