Adam Carolla, Dr. Drew Weigh In On Media Bias

Adam Carolla thinks you are insane if you dispute the existence of media bias. Dr. Drew seems to agree.

In this context, Carolla and Dr. Drew Pinsky have expressed strong opinions on how the mainstream media plays favorites in their view.

Carolla and Pinsky were long-term colleagues on Loveline and have now reunited on a podcast called The Adam and Dr. Drew Show where they recently discussed among other things presidential golf outings and presidential partying with celebrities during a time of national fiscal austerity.

Expanding his entertainment portfolio, Carolla is making the transition to sometimes controversial political opinonmaking, but Dr. Drew to this point has focused on primarily on medical and mental health issues. Carolla’s view expressed in the podcast is that President Obama should be more low-profile and private with how and with whom he spends his downtime, while Pinsky seems to believes that the media is giving the president a free ride about his lavish lifestyle.

Carolla initially said that he doesn’t understand how President Obama has time for 130 rounds of golf. Dr. Drew, who is not known for political commentary, then asked his partner “Do you think if it was George Bush doing that, we’d hear about it every day?”

The comedian insisted, however, that in his opinion all presidents take too much vacation time, and that each and every president should be giving his undivided attention to the job for the entire four-year term — in the same way soldiers do during their hitch in the military –and should be fully engaged in the job of commander-in chief.

Adam Carolla’s primary focus seemed to be how all this looks to the public: “I don’t understand it from a PR standpoint, meaning when you’re telling everyone to tighten their belts … pitch in … and pay your fair share,” when the president is playing so much golf.

He continued on this theme: “I’m not f***ing Rush Limbaugh here, I’ve always been this way in terms of what message are you sending, and what are you asking? You’re saying sequestration, White House tours closed — sorry kids, go home — but then you’re throwing parties with Beyonce the following weekend at the White House.” Carolla called this approach “dumfounding” and “brazen.”

Dr. Drew, in turn, “drew” a parallel with his claim that journalists have published misleading or distorted information about him, and that “some people just get a full pass,” while the media demonizes others. “I just don’t get it,” he admitted.

In response, Carolla had this to say about how the media approaches certain stories: “Well, there’s obviously a media bias. They will pick and choose who gets a pass and who doesn’t get a pass … it obviously leans towards the left quiet heavily,” Carolla said. “People who disagree with that are insane.”

He then described a typical interaction with a reporter: “I know it very well, because it’s happened many times, where people have said to me doing an interview, ‘they go, what about your association with Bill O’Reilly … Glenn Beck called you a hero … what’s that like … how are you coping?’ … ‘I said, ‘Alec Baldwin is a friend of mine, how come no one wants to know how I’m dealing with that?’ ”

Carolla, whose political leanings would likely fall into the populist category, noted that Baldwin also says a lot of controversial things and gets into a lot of trouble, but he is a well-known political liberal like most of the journalists. “I’m not left or right, but the point is [the reporter] is telling me what [his] bias is by asking me that question,” Carolla declared.

Do you agree or disagree with Carolla and Dr. Drew about liberal media bias and how it manifests itself in coverage of various public figures?

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