The media are famously accused of being liberally biased. Whether it’s the traditional network TV nightly newscasts on ABC-CBS-NBC, the few surviving major newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post, popular TV “infotainment” shows like Good Morning America, Today and The View, tax-funded NPR and PBS, cable shows like Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, late night venues like Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel, and cable outlets like CNN and MSNBC, the media tilt left.  (Yes, Fox News tilts right. They’re outnumbered, oh, 15 or 20-1.) Even social media powerhouses like Facebook and Instagram have been shown to be liberal-leaning, as has the supposedly neutral “fact checking” site Snopes.

The bias these media outlets display in favor of liberal/Democratic causes and politicians is long-standing and well-documented. Among others, the media watchdog group Media Research Center provides an on-going and accurate accounting of all the specific incidents, times and percentages of liberal reporting in the news and popular culture.

That the “mainstream media” is liberally-biased in matters of daily news reporting and the wildly uneven manner in which they handle parallel Republican-Democrat personal/political circumstances is not in question. When Republicans commit what the liberal media deem a nation-threatening transgression, it’s treated as a “Stop the Presses!” moment. Conversely, a mirror-imaged action by Democrats is dismissed as a temporary minor misstep, when it’s even reported at all. Even the liberal media seem to acknowledge that this is the case, complete with a “That’s just how it is -- get over it” attitude.

However, the day-to-day liberal reporting bias and inaccuracies are not as lasting and significant as the decades of legacy liberal reporting and documentation. The resulting permanent impression of American history that has come from years of uncorrected reporting is marked by a decidedly liberal slant, giving a structurally-inaccurate view of the country to students/analysts/researchers of our history.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the popular view of U.S. presidents since World War II. That era that can legitimately be considered the “modern era” of U.S. history, the era in which the press and reporting styles are most relevant to this discussion. Let’s look at the media-generated popular, general impressions of each president, by party, in ascending chronological order, then compare them and see if there are any common themes.

Democrats

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933-1945

The man who rescued America from the Great Depression. Astonishing personal courage and determination in the face of incredible individual hardship and pain. Brilliant war strategist and master negotiator with Stalin and Churchill, he assured America’s rightful place in a post-WWII world order. Unquestionably one of our greatest presidents.

Harry Truman, 1945-1953

The down-to-earth, tough, “Show me, I’m from Missouri” president. Finished the war effort in fine style, including the impossibly-difficult decision regarding the atomic bombs.

John F Kennedy, 1961-1963

The handsome, charismatic visionary America was counting on to lead us—and the world—into the next phase of life after WWII. He would’ve won the Cold War, having brilliantly thwarted the Russians in Cuba in 1962. His Moon Landing initiative had the country reaching for the stars. Anything was possible for America, with Kennedy and his beautiful family leading he way.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-1969

Our most compassionate president ever with regard to the plight of minorities caught in the destructive inner city cycle of poverty, crime and lack of rightful opportunity. He crafted the sweeping plan for a Great Society, including the establishment of Welfare and the War on Poverty. A cunning and brilliant politician who knew the ins and outs of DC maneuvering better than anyone, his ambitious plan for a utopian American culture was unfairly short-circuited by Communist aggressive expansionism in SE Asia, the American response to which proved more distracting, entangling and complicated than Johnson anticipated.

Jimmy Carter, 1977-1981

Intellectually brilliant and personally compassionate, but detail-oriented and schedule-controlling to a fault. He tried to do too much. He also had the misfortune of being victimized by outside events not of his making, like the Iranian revolution and their seizing of 52 American hostages, events that caused an energy crisis in this country and long lines at the gas stations. These developments tarnished his image and led to his loss to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 Presidential Election, but no one questions Carter’s intrinsic intelligence or laudable intentions.

William Clinton, 1993-2001

Oxford scholar, Southern charm, worldly sophistication, everyman touch. The ideal blend of complete mastery of complicated economic/domestic policy/foreign policy issues, articulate and emotional speechmaking and sharp-elbowed politicking. A politician above politicians, able to reach across the isle and work with the opposition party to get important things accomplished for the good of the country. Set the standard for job creation. Unfairly tarred by a baseless, desperate, Republican-fabricated “moral” scandal, but completely vindicated by the perspective of history.

Barack Obama, 2009-2017

Equally as brilliant as Clinton and even cooler, if that’s possible. Sets the all-time high bar for articulate, inspiring speeches and is revered globally even more than Kennedy and Clinton. Singlehandedly reversed America’s unsophisticated “cowboy” image. Dealt the worst economic, social justice, environmental and foreign policy hands ever handed off from one president to another, but he calmly handled everything with understated grace and expertise, leaving America an immeasurably better place than he found it—perhaps better than it’s ever been.

That is how the popular mainstream media see these Democratic presidents. That’s the overall impression that is given to the masses about these presidents. It varies a bit from source to source, plus or minus of course, but this is essentially an accurate representation of the prevailing popular media historical opinion of these Democratic presidents.

Now for the Republicans

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953-1961

A retired 4-star WWII General who commanded Allied forces in Europe through the D-Day invasion to the final victory over Germany, Eisenhower was a trusted, authoritative, fatherly figure with whom Americans felt comfortable and secure. America in the 1950’s was on autopilot, headed straight into the realm of world economic dominance, backed by the world’s strongest military. The challenges and requirements for a president were not as demanding and extreme as they’d been during the Depression/WWII years. All we really needed was someone with some military understanding to keep the Soviets in check, and after that, you could go play golf. That’s pretty much everything Eisenhower is remembered for.

Richard Nixon, 1969-1974

His reasonably high level of intelligence was undermined by an overwhelmingly debilitating insecurity, which led to his masterminding the senseless, unnecessary Watergate break-in of Democratic headquarters during the 1972 Presidential Election campaign, a race where he was so far ahead, he ended up winning 49 of 50 states. He was evil and insecure and fully deserving of his nickname “Tricky Dick.  Few remember anything he actually did as president, other than opening relations with China. But the dominant memory of Nixon is his having to resign in disgrace.

Gerald Ford, 1974-1977

A little-known, undistinguished Congressman from Michigan, Ford was appointed to the vice-presidency following the resignation of Republican V.P. Spiro Agnew on corruption charges in 1973. When Nixon (also a Republican) resigned in August 1974, Ford became president, completing his highly unlikely, unelected and undeserved path to the Oval Office. He quickly established a reputation for bumbling clumsiness, to the point that Chevy Chase of Saturday Night Live became famous for his imitation of Ford falling down the stairs. In his Presidential debate against Jimmy Carter in the fall of 1976, Ford revealed his ignorance of the USSR’s dominance of Eastern Europe. Carter and the press quickly pounced and Ford was rightfully tagged with an asterisk and relegated to history’s dustbin with his loss to Carter in the 1976 election.

Ronald Reagan, 1981-1989

An unqualified actor-turned-politician who was the beneficiary of random outside circumstances (the Arab oil embargo and Iranian hostage situation) that unfairly hamstrung the Carter administration. Reagan was able to parlay his glib actor’s presentation skills advantage over Carter into a 1980 election win. But he quickly showed an indifference to women and minorities, a favoritism to big business to the detriment of the average working person (he fired all the Air Traffic Controllers, who were exercising their right to strike), a frustrating inattention to detail and he confirmed his critics’ suspicions of his trigger-happy proclivities with his pointless adventurisms in Granada and Libya. His second term was dominated by the Iran-Contra scandal and his ever-increasing senility, rendering him totally ineffectual his last two years in office. Of all our presidents, Reagan is unquestionably the most over-rated.

George H.W, Bush, 1989-1993

While not an unintelligent man, Bush the Elder is regarded as a bland, uninspiring, milquetoast personality, someone who famously checked his watch during the debate with Governor Clinton (giving the impression that he wanted to get the heck out of there), who was admonished by Margaret Thatcher before the 1991 Gulf War (“George, don’t go wobbly on me now!”), and is remembered as the president who gave up four runs in the bottom of the 9^th against Saddam Hussein by not chasing him from power when he had the easy chance, thus turning a beautiful 6-0 American gem into a 6-4 stinker of a win. He would say vaguely positive things like, “A thousand points of light,” but no one knew exactly what he meant, so its inspirational value was nil. His most memorable phrase -- “Read my lips” -- lives on as ignominious testimony to a broken promise, the result of his being suckered by the Democrats, like Charlie Brown was always suckered by Lucy. He’s not thought of as evil, senile, lazy or unqualified. He’s thought of more like a Mister Rogers: unremarkable and nondescript.

George W. Bush, 2001-2008

“Dubbya” is the quintessential liberal target-rich environment. A solid man who restored the values of honesty and personal morality to the office following Clinton, the younger Bush is remembered not for his job-expanding tax cuts, not for his steady leadership after 9/11, nor for the vanishingly low unemployment through the first 6 years of his presidency. Instead, “W” is unfairly linked with Hurricane Katrina (despite the abject failures of local Democratic politicians to act promptly, which was easily within their grasp), unfairly tarred with the Abu Ghriab prison torture scandal, which was not his doing in the slightest, and he is blamed for the financial/housing crisis of 2007/2008, when thousands of sub-prime home loans defaulted, sending the U.S. economy crashing into what has become known as the Great Recession.  In fact, the “fault” for that crash was years -- if not decades -- in the making, with Democratic-sponsored programs that eliminated time-proven loan requirements in favor of social engineering and politically-correct outcomes being at least as responsible, if not more so, than anything President Bush did.

But with his “unsophisticated” Southern drawl (hated by the oh-so-erudite liberal media intelligentsia), his propensity for mispronunciation (“nucular” and “strategery”), and his hard-edged America-first foreign policy (leading to his derogatory “cowboy” label), President Bush has been the most liberally-vilified President in the last 80 years, responsible for an incredible array of ills and damage to the country.

Donald Trump, 2017-

The jury is obviously still out on the actual accomplishments or actual failures of his 4- (or 8-) year tenure, but the verdict of the liberal media was delivered well before his inauguration. Keeping in lockstep tradition of the liberal mainstream media to cast every Republican president as unintelligent, incapable of interpreting or acting upon subtle details, inarticulate, embarrassing to the country on the world stage and uncaring about the plights—real or imagined—of women and minorities, their book on Trump is already written, the story already mailed.

Beyond these individual Republican presidents’ summaries, another concrete piece of evidence revealing the liberal media’s distain for Republican intelligence is the fact that only Republican presidents are said to have had a “real” president behind the scenes. Dick Cheney was the so-called real president behind George W. Bush, as Steve Bannon is the real president behind Donald Trump. It’s obvious that Republicans lack the intelligence or qualifications to be president and when a Republican does somehow manage to win the Presidency, it’s under highly questionable circumstances that understandably cast serious doubt on their legitimacy.

Conclusion

The preceding is a reasonably accurate summation of how the popular mainstream media regard American presidents since Roosevelt. The common thread is that Democrats are intelligent, articulate, compassionate and visionary. Republicans are uniformly far less intelligent (certainly, none are thought to be brilliant), less articulate, somewhat lazy, clumsy or sloppy, less sophisticated and “worldly,” more apt to embarrass America on the world stage and less compassionate and concerned for the “little guy.”

People can argue all they want about media bias with regard to current events coverage. Few on either side of that dispute will ever be persuaded to see the opposing viewpoint, regardless of what “evidence” is presented. But the fact that only former Democratic presidents are seen as truly brilliant, compassionate and visionary and the only lazy, evil, dimwitted or senile former presidents are all Republicans tells us everything we need to know about how deeply-entrenched liberal media bias still is.