E!! The True Conservative Story™

It seems the New York Times decided to fill 2009’s quota for poignant, truthful reporting on the very first day of the year. Having published a surprisingly straightforward and touchingly personal account of the Cuban-American story, they can now return to their regularly scheduled brainwashing.

(The online piece is dated Dec. 31, but the article appeared in the NYT print edition yesterday.)

Far Right Democrat reminds us about George Orwell’s 1984ian government organization, the Ministry of Truth, and wonders how quickly KOS will do likewise in the way of rewriting history (i.e. change the official story) on mandated health care when Obama reverses himself and endorses it.

Of course, the modern day Ministry of Truth – the mainstream media – does this all the time.  As do nearly all politicians, especially during election cycles. 

Revisionist history:  it’s what’s for breakfast.

Duane Lester has a well-researched post on the so-called “Fairness Doctrine” up at All American Blogger.

Here’s an excerpt from his opening:

The Fairness Doctrine was enacted in 1949 and lasted until the Reagan Administration. In 1985, the FCC issued a report. According to the Museum of Broadcast Communication, the report said the Doctrine was stifling debate:

By 1985, the FCC issued its Fairness Report, asserting that the doctrine was no longer having its intended effect, might actually have a “chilling effect” and might be in violation of the First Amendment. In a 1987 case, Meredith Corp. v. FCC, the courts declared that the doctrine was not mandated by Congress and the FCC did not have to continue to enforce it. The FCC dissolved the doctrine in August of that year.

The Democrat Congress, in the face of a report saying they might be violating the First Amendment, voted the Fairness Doctrine into law in 1987. Reagan squashed it with a veto. Thus, Rush Limbaugh and talk radio was born.

[end excerpt]

Thank God for Reagan, ay?  Wtih NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, the NYT et al in the tank for the Dems and the hard left – 90% of the staff at these “mainstream” media orgs are registered Democrats and many are clearly unable or unwilling to hide their bias – conservative talk radio (and FNC) is really all we conservatives have for the airing of conservative/Republican platforms and ideas.

It is truly amazing that even with a multitude of network media and AM and FM radio channels, the Democratic leadership wants to force conservative talk radio to give equal airtime to liberal/left views.  Apparently they really cannot stand to let conservative broadcasters and citizens talk freely.

On a personal note, I listen to Laura Ingraham every morning on my drive to work.  If half her show had to be devoted to the voicing of liberal, leftist, George Soros and Bill Moyers type ranting, I wouldn’t listen.

For your information, here are the names of people who have either come out in favor of The Fairness Doctrone or have said they think conservative talk radio needs to be shut down:  John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, and Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM).

An open letter to the newspapers of America by Orson Scott Card.  A little long but full of facts and well worth the read.

Here’s the opening:

I remember reading All the President’s Men and thinking: That’s journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.

This housing crisis didn’t come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

What is a risky loan? It’s a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can’t repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can’t make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It’s as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)

Isn’t there a story here? Doesn’t journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren’t you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefitting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

Read the rest when you have the time.

Hat Tip:  The Venerable Mr. Crum (thanks, honey!)

Here’s some more unbiased journalism from the national press:

(The premis is a joke. Didn’t anyone see Obama’s eyes darken and veins swell during the debate? At one point I thought he was going to pop his jaw out of joint while waiting for McCain to finish. And what he lacks in temper-mental-ness, Michelle MORE than makes up for.)

(Plus: I kind of like McCain’s grumpy old man routine when he’s had his fill of the crap on The Hill. The man’s got some fire; so what?)

Hat Tip:  All American Blogger

Days after the cessation of the Conservative Leadership Conference 2008, remembrances float up…

…Seton Motley’s talk on Media Bias and the unFairness Doctrine (sponsored by the Media Research Center)…clip after clip of such biased “reporting” (commentary and emoting) that one is heartily laughing and throughly appalled all at once…

…Chris Matthews (MSNBC), Keith Olbermann (ditto), Brian Williams (NBC), Ann Curry (ditto), John Roberts (CNN), Campbell Brown (ditto), Charlie Gibson (ABC), Terry Moran (ditto) and more…

…the observation that some so-called journalists and major media outlets are now eschewing ratings and “sacrificing the bottom line to ideology”…sacrificing viewers (do they say “good riddance”?) in order to push their increasingly obvious agenda…

…the concept of Bias by Omission (what is not reported that should be)…

…the three upcoming vacancies on the FCC (February) and who will seat them (McCain or Obama) and do the vetting…

…the new “code words” for the Fairness Doctrine that are springing up in activist organizations posing as non-partisan groups:  “localism,” “media democracy,” “media reform,” “universal access”…which you can see in action here…

…the effect the Fairness Doctrine (and other limits on media) would likely have:  the mass migration of conservative talk radio personalities to satellite radio, increased internet podcasting, vlogging (blogging via video clips), and other New Media forums/outlets…

…a comment by a young mother in attendance that Nickolodeon attempts political indoctrination of children via their “kid reporters” (who covered the DNC, but not the RNC)…

Jack Fowler @ NRO posted this:

MSNBC reports thousands are cancelling their subscriptions to Jan Wenner’s weekly celeb rag over its “Babies, Lies & Scandals” cover slamming Sarah Palin. From the story:

“I’m hearing it’s 5,000, maybe more,” says one well-placed source in the industry. Another source claimed that as many as 10,000 readers have already cancelled their subscriptions. A spokesperson for Wenner Media, which publishes Us, says “it is completely false that we are losing 10,000 subscribers.” As for the 5,000 estimate, the spokesperson only said “that is false, too,” but wouldn’t comment further.

Five thousand might not seem like a large number at first glance, but it’s significant in the context of Us’ printing schedule. The magazine goes to press Monday night, which means subscribers don’t receive their issues until Friday or Saturday. In other words, the cancellations are coming from subscribers who, in many cases, haven’t even gotten their hands on the actual issue.

“When Us went to print Monday night, it looked like the ticket was falling apart,” says one magazine editor. “They went to print thinking Palin was dead in the water, and their mistake was thinking everyone who reads Us is a Democrat, when they’re not. Readers are loyal, but the base of a political party is more loyal. They don’t need to read the magazine when there’s so much press around it to know to be upset.”

Two pictures are worth two thousand words.

This post by Yuval Levin is well worth reading.

Some excerpts if you choose not to click through:

I have never seen, and I admit that I could never have imagined, such shameful, out-of-control, frenzied, angry, condescending, and pathetic journalistic malpractice. The ignorant assault on Palin’s accomplishments and experience, the breathless careless airing of deranged rumors about her private life, the staggeringly indecent mistreatment of her teenage daughter in a difficult time, the ill-informed piling on about the vetting process, the self-intensifying circle of tisking nodding heads utterly detached from a straightforward political event, have been amazing and eye-opening…

The spectacle reveals a deep rot at the heart of the political press, and has been among the most shameful chapters in the history of modern American journalism. Not everyone has joined in, of course, but essentially all of the important institutions of our political press have played their part in one way or another…

…the treatment she has received is not what just any VP candidate would get, and the attitude and assumptions underlying this week’s amazing assault raise very troubling questions about the cream of the crop of political reporters. They have shown themselves to be too insulated and too solipsistic to help the public better understand our politics, and too self-important to report on events as they happen. This is far more than media bias. Let us hope it is a passing episode.

We live in strange times.  The term “Tabloid Media” used to mean publications like the National Enquirer and The Star.  Now it means the New York Times and all the major news networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) as well as cable news stations MSNBC and CNN. 

Just to be clear, I rarely read/watch any of these.  And when I do, it is with a critical eye and ear.  These newspapers and media channels have become positively smarmy in their coverage (eg what we’ve seen this week with coverage of the pregnancy of Palin’s teenage daughter).  They are overtly biased and downright rabid in pursuit of the political agendas of their editorial staff and/or respective publishers. 

In short, they are not to be trusted.  Primarily because they claim to HAVE no bias, which is so laughable it ends the whole debate right there.  I’d rather read/watch a biased account from a publication/station that makes no attempt to hide the political views of its editors/producers than read/watch a biased account from a publication that claims to be neutral. 

In the first case, I know what I’m getting and can more easily separate the wheat from the chaff.  In the second case, well…  I can’t even take them seriously enough to read/listen to their sensational, fundamentally dishonest headlines and story lead-ins.

This Eric O’Keefe blog/op-ed is for my Michigan readers (of whom there are a few).  It’s also worthy of note for anyone concerned with combatting massive tax hikes, the freedom of citizens in recall processes/petitions, and blatant media bias. 

The Free Press’s position is passing strange considering it’s been 25 years since the last legislative recall in Michigan.  And I agree with O’Keefe’s closing:

The Free Press is good at covering the Tigers and Red Wings. It should stick to covering sports, the weather, and the continuing decline of Michigan’s over-taxed economy.

Tip o’ the hat to Jay Nordlinger for referencing this piece at Slate.com entitled:  “If Obama Loses” and subtitled “Racism is the only reason McCain might beat him.”

We’ve heard it before; we’re sure to hear it again.  If McCain wins, racism is the only explanation and the Decline of America is confirmed.

What a nasty Lie.

If the black nominee this year were a Republican, we wouldn’t be hearing a peep about Racism-As-Reason.  The liberal media would blithely loathe the Republican nominee, notwithstanding his blackness.  As Nordlinger points out:

The nominee would be just another Republican who needed to be defeated, like Lynn Swann, Michael Steele, or Ken Blackwell.  When Doug Wilder ran for governor of Virginia, everyone said, for months, “He would be the first black governor since Reconstruction.” It was also asserted, constantly, that the election was a test of Virginians’ racial maturity.

But earlier, the Republicans had a black nominee in my home state, Michigan – his name was Bill Lucas. No one said he would be the first black governor since Reconstruction. No one talked about the racial maturity of Michigan voters. Lucas was just another conservative politician who needed to be defeated.

And he was, by a garden-variety white liberal (Jim Blanchard).

I am sick of watching re-runs of the Whitey Hates The Black Man mini-series.  I am sick of accusations of Racism in America every time some person of color does not get what they want when they want it.  And I am sick to death of the over-simplification of issues and pseudo-polarization of our population via all Identity Politics.

If Obama loses this fall, it will be because he didn’t convince enough Americans that his governing skills and policies were better than McCain’s.  Period.

I’m glad Chuck Muth keeps talking about Yucca Mountain.  Harry Reid says the debate is “over” and that the Yucca Repository will “never happen.”  The thing is, Yucca never enjoyed the benefit of a full, open debate.  It was quashed by Reid and Friends as “bad for Nevada” and that was That.

Here’s a flashback to some of my thoughts in early June:

“The United States Department of Energy submitted its license application for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission on June 3,” wrote Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez-Masto in an op/ed in the Nevada Appeal. “Nevada’s experts reviewed the application and quickly concluded that it is neither viable nor complete.”

I’m wondering who these “Nevada experts” were. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my short stint on NV’s political airwaves and especially in re: to Yucca Mountain, it’s that the word “expert” gets bandied around like nobody’s business and due diligence and follow-up questions are key to uncovering the truth.  Very often, the so-called “expert” is some underqualified PR hack who is being paid to have the opinion he has.

I’d be willing to bet that some of these “Nevada experts” are people who have already come down against Yucca in the past.  And shall we ask how they managed to sift through the 8,600 page application in less than a week in order to render their “expert” verdict…?

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expected to take three to four years to evaluate all the information before reaching its decision on whether or not to license the Repository…so who were these speed-reading geniuses that managed to do it in 4 days???

We keep seeing what looks an awful lot like co-ordinated, biased knee-jerk opposition over Yucca Mountain.

Well, it seems we are obsessed with Obama here at E!! today - so let us finish it out in grand style.  See this Corner post by Victor Davis Hanson for his thoughts on the Obama Phenomena.  Says Hanson: 

What is fascinating about the tingly-leg press is that they are exhibiting the very symptoms of arrested development and star-struck immaturity that they always accuse American in tot of suffering.  The usual critique of the elite media is that we are a nation of mindless followers, who go from one fad to another, and value looks, youth, and pizzazz over substance.

But the current spectacle suggests something worse – that the press who claims they know better and are more sophisticated are, in fact, far more infantile than most Americans, and essentially Access Hollywood, People Magazine, and the National Enquirer dressed up with network logos and NY-DC bylines. 

Hanson’s post is called “A Somewhat Embarrassing Spectacle” and as I was reading it another title crossed my mind:  “The Society of the Spectacle” by Marxist theorist Guy Debord.  A philosophy and critical theory text that provides a reading and reinterpretation of Marx’s work including examination of the commodity of fetishism and its application to modern mass media, Debord’s book reminds me of this whole Obama phenom in this way:

Commodity fetishism is the belief that commodities (like gold, or private property) have inherent value rather than value added to them by and through labor.  The concept is at the root of Marx’s criticisms of capitalism because (Marx thought) a society that values commodities in and of themselves, absent the effects of labor, is bound to separate the “use-value” from the “exchange-value” of things such that it finds itself over-valuing essentially useless commodities while vastly under-valuing the commodity of human work.

Whatever you think of this theory, it occurs to me that Marx would find the commoditization of Obama himself unique in both society and history.  Here we have not gold or land but a man who possesses great “exchange value” (he may replace our President) because the starry-eyed admirers of his sparkly personage have deemed him precious despite his lack of discernable labor-value (i.e. measurable or tangible achievements upon which we could base his merit).  Obama vacuity matters not a whit; at present he is a national treasure.

I just love good old fashioned journalism (i.e. patiently researched stories that include sources and/or back-up info so readers don’t have to fact check).  Here’s a great example over at American Thinker.

The upshot?  As stated in the article:  “An analysis of federal election records shows that the amount of money journalists contributed so far this election cycle favors Democrats by a 15:1 margin over Republicans, with $225,563 going to Democrats, only $16,298 to Republicans.”

American Thinker goes on to list the exact amount of the political contributions by journalists at every main stream media outlet in America.  If you have any doubt about the existence of Media Bias, you need to read the whole article.  (Surprise:  note the numbers @ Fox News Channel – ?!)