Well now, isn’t this interesting? Here I am, slurpin’ on my Timmy’s and munchin’ on a Boston creme with not a care in the world, ’cause it’s almost payday. Yeah, the weather’s kind of crappy, but I grew up in Huron County and I have to admit, I still like a good snowstorm. Watching snow fall and cover trees in a soft white blanket is just so… just so damned Canadian, you know? I start thinking that I just might get through the day with nothing to piss me off.
Boy, was I an idiot.

I like to bitch about media bias. Hey, I’m conservative; it’s one of the things we do. 😛 A lot of people will tell me that I’m just making it up, persecution complex, paranoia, not enough beer, whatever. 🙄 It would probably be better if that were true. But it’s kind of hard to ignore, especially when I see stuff like I saw in my Freeps this morning. It’s a story about, among other things, how the PMO has changed the formula for calculating flight costs on the CAF‘s fleet of Challenger jets:

Neither the original formula nor the reduced charges came anywhere close to what Harper himself in Opposition had called “$11,000 per hour Challenger jet flights” by the previous Liberal government.

The invoices, obtained by CP under the Access to Information Act, show three Challenger flights by Harper in 2006 for which the military billed the Prime Minister’s Office.

The first flight was Feb. 10, shortly after the minority Conservatives won power. Harper’s return trip to Halifax from Ottawa for the retirement party of Nova Scotia premier John Hamm was deemed a partisan exercise and the Conservative party paid the freight.

The invoice from National Defence, which lists Harper and six staff on board, calculated the trip cost “3.1 flying hours X $2,139.00/hour.”

It also points out an interesting difference between the current government’s attitude of accountability and the Librano$’ Culture Of Entitlement®…

“Following up on our telephone conversation, it is the wish of the Prime Minister’s Office that the Conservative Party of Canada compensates the Crown for the use of the Challenger on July 26,” wrote a PMO official on Aug. 10.

[…]

“There was no previous protocol, as the former Liberal government never reimbursed Canadian taxpayers when they used the Challenger for non-government business,” she said in an e-mail. “Aside from the first instance, Canada’s new government has been consistent in its protocol for reimbursing the cost of an economy return trip ticket.”

I know, I know. You’re sitting there saying to yourself, “Damn, Dennis; what the hell are you bellyachin’ about? That doesn’t sound bad at all. Whiner.”

I do sound kind of thin-skinned today, don’t I? Well, it’s not the story that I have a problem with. After all, it shows pretty clearly that, with the Tories in charge, the flight costs have dropped from $11,000/hr to $2,139/hr (a drop of more than 80 per cent!). Hell, it even shows that the Tories actually pay their way, whereas the Grits just latched onto the public teat and sucked for all they were worth; so it’s not exactly like they’re smearing the PM now, is it?

No, it isn’t. But what’s got a burr under my saddle isn’t the body of the story; it’s how it’s spun. You see, that’s what the MSM does. They tell the truth but always seem to slant it to make liberals look good and conservatives look bad. Take this story for example. What kind of headline would you expect for that? How about something like…

Harper Slashes PMO Jet Costs 80%

Wouldn’t sound too unreasonable, would it? Or, how about this one…

Tories Pay Own Way

That would be okay, too, wouldn’t it? Either headline would be honest, accurate, even a little eye-catching. Ah, but that wouldn’t fit in with the Lefty-loving media’s little agenda now, would it? Hell, no. So, instead of a headline that hints at how the Conservative government has a) cut flight costs and b) actually pays their own way where the Grits just mooched a ride, we get this bullshit…

Taxpayers on hook for PM jet

Yup, that’s it. No bias there, is there?