A very intelligent professor of mine in college taught me about the perceptual screen, which is something we all have. We take news stories and commentary in through our own perceptual screen, no matter how fair we believe we are being, and we skew it to our point of view. This is one of the reasons there is no winning a political arguement. No matter how good a point you may make, the other side will not hear it the way you stated it, through no fault of their own. And you will not properly hear their rebutal, for the same reason.

I strongly believe this is why conservatives consider Fox to be straightforward and liberals consider MSNBC to be straightforward when they are both skewed.

That being said, I also believe that since World War II, neither party has been a friend to the railroads - the question is really which one has been less of an enemy.