Just for Fun
I thought I'd pay a little visit to the New York Times
archives search. Way back in the
first post on this blog, I checked the Times for the terms "moderate Republicans" and "moderate Democrats". Since then, the Howell Raines firing and the hiring of an ombudsman in the form of Dan Okrent have happened, so I thought it would be a good idea to look at how things have changed. I searched from 1/1/04 to the present. Results?
"Moderate Republican": 55 instances
"Moderate Democrat": 10 instances
The point, of course, is that Democrats don't require the "moderate" or "good doggy" label anywhere near as often as Republicans.
How about the old standbyes, "Liberal Democrat" and "Conservative Republican"?
"Liberal Democrat": 47 instances
"Conservative Republican": 63 instances
Actually that's a pretty good improvement over the bad old days. If we look from January 1, 2000-January 1, 2004 the bias is more obvious:
"Liberal Democrat": 191 instances
"Conservative Republican": 388 instances.