Seeing the world through the WaPo's eyes

An interesting case study on how a newspaper's political agenda can influence the presentation of the news can be found today in reference to the French election. Reuters is reporting that Nicolas Sarkozy, the conservative candidate managed to enlarge his lead over Socialist rival Segolene Royal in next Sunday's election after their televised debate.

It appears that the majority of the French population believes that Sarkozy's plans to bring about at least some free market reforms to the economy and pursue at least a moderately more pro-American foreign policy stand the best chance of its seemingly permanent condition of double digit unemployment and glacial economic growth.

Of course it is highly unlikely that a population so addicted to the handout as the French will tolerate any reform which goes far enough to actually have the desired effect. But at least there is some awareness on their part that things are bad and need to be fixed, and that the fix isn't more socialism.

However The Washington Post isn't content to simply report the fact that a pro-US economic conservative (and a man to boot) is about to defeat a venomously anti-American socialist woman in France of all places. The Post has to seek some angle which will allow them to frame Sarkozy's expected win as a victory for racism:

LA COURNEUVE, France, May 3 -- After an 11-year-old boy was killed here two years ago in crossfire between rival gangs, Nicolas Sarkozy, then France's interior minister, came to the underclass neighborhood of immigrant families outside Paris and promised to clean it up with an industrial power hose.

That image of France's top cop spraying away "scum," as he later described violent youths in Paris's minority-heavy suburbs, has dogged Sarkozy ever since, fueling fears of divisiveness that remain his greatest liability going into Sunday's presidential election.

"All the people were shocked when he talked about cleaning us out with a hose," said Ousmane Calina, 18, who voted for Socialist Segolene Royal in the first-round balloting April 22; he said he would vote for her again in round two. Calina, the son of immigrants from Senegal, voiced the concern of many here: "There are going to be riots if Sarkozy is elected."

First of all it should be remembered that these "underclass neighborhoods" are islands of Islamic militancy where even the police fear to venture. The residents of these neighborhoods have imposed sharia law within their borders and enforce it with the kind of ruthlessness usually only seen in Iran or Afghanistan under mullah Omar.

The great majority of the residents of these "suburbs" live on the public dole which their imams teach them to regard as a form of the jizra (the poll tax which infidels owe to Muslims for the privilege of living in a Muslim country - the Islamic world regards France as a Muslim country).

It is these areas which periodically riot and which have become famous worldwide in recent years for the hundred of automobiles set on fire each night. You know the areas which police say are "waging an undeclared "intifada" against the police".

Yes, those are the people who don't like Nicolas Sarkozy.

Could it be that this kind of reporting is one of the reasons why the WaPo is losing readers?