A search of news items about Bush, Cheney, or Republicans bashing, ripping, attacking, berating, belittling, criticizing, or accusing Kerry, Edwards, or Democrats results in 421 hits.
Meanwhile an equal and opposite search of news items reporting on Kerry, Edwards, or Democrats bashing, ripping, attacking, berating, belittling, criticizing, or accusing Bush, Cheney, or Republicans results in 1320 stories.
It's a good thing that Kerry has delayed his decision to absolutely take his gloves off until just now. Otherwise we might have already been subjected to a endless cacophony of bitter leftist invective.
In all fairness there's much to be criticized about the administration in power, especially since their policies are the ones in practice right now, and can therefore be evaluated more effectively. It'd be easy to say that google is biased in the results it turns up for queries if the fact didn't remain that there is simply more criticism out there in regards to the Bush Administration.
Posted by: Horace | Monday, November 01, 2004 at 11:54 AM
Kerry was a virtual unknown to anyone outside of Massachusetts at the time Bush was inaugurated. So, yes, Bush has had at least 3.5 years of more intense scrutiny, to Kerry's 1.5 or so.
Google has some sort of time frame window on caching news items. I don't know the criteria, but it's much less than 3.5 years and probably more like 3 months.
One could also argue that Google News represents more a less-than-balanced slant (in either direction), but I'm not going to take that analysis on.
Either way, the post wasn't meant to be scientifically accurate. The point was the irony that criticism (and more of it) existed BEFORE Kerry announced the gloves were coming off.
Posted by: Jeff | Monday, November 01, 2004 at 05:23 PM