Wing Nuts and Alleged Media Bias

In an article for publication in tomorrow's Washington Post, the ombudsman of that newspaper, Deborah Howell, tries to explain the difference between the perception of the so-called liberalism of the media and the actual practice. You can read the whole thing here. There is one point, however, that I would like to bring up.

In the article, Ms. Howell mentions the persistent conservative claim that the media has a liberal bias. On certain issues, that may very well be the case, especially social issues. Journalism tends to attract those who are idealistic and want to change the world, for lack of a better description. This idealism does not necessarily mean that the average reporter will be willing to overlook transgressions by similar idealistic people. Corruption is corruption wherever you go, and the best reporters are the ones that follow the story, even if it means that the target of the story is another would-be world changer.

A couple of weeks ago, on my way home from work, I found myself stuck in traffic on the Garden State Parkway. Having nothing better to do at the moment and not being particularly enamored of the music then playing on any of the stations preset in my radio, I tuned into WABC-AM, the talk-radio station in New York. At that time, the Mark Levin show was on, and in the first fifteen or twenty seconds, the word "liberal" was mentioned in such a way that Mr. Levin practically sounded like it was a piece of bad food he had eaten and was in an awful hurry to spit it out.

My point is that those who often do the complaining about the media's alleged "liberal" bias are those who are quite biased themselves (and the same could be said for those on the far left of the media spectrum who think the media is too conservative), and unlike the print, television, and sometimes radio media they are in such a hurry to vilify, they have no obligation to present an opposing point of view. They are merely interested in preaching to the choir. Peering through such a narrow lens blinds them to their own narrow-minded point of view.

Thank A Vet

Today is Veteran's Day. No matter what you believe about our country's conduct in wars past and present, thank those who have given of themselves - some with their lives - in the service of our country.

All gave some. Some gave all.

With All the Power, etc., etc.

Now that the Democrats have achieved, at this writing, 33-seat and two-seat majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate respectively, it is time to put up or shut up.

It is well-documented - ad nauseum by the more conservative elements of the Republican Party - that Nancy Pelosi, potentially the first female Speaker of the House, is a liberal from the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. A prominent tactic of those in power in the Republican Party - read: Karl Rove or Dick Cheney - was to use the specter of the Lady from San Francisco as Speaker to scare conservatives into ignoring the more glaring faults of the GOP and vote the base. (One such target was Heath Shuler, the former NFL quarterback, who ran for and won a seat in North Carolina as a Democrat. Mr. Shuler is anything but liberal.) It clearly did not work.

In order for the Democrats to govern effectively - and preserve their majority in 2008 as well as attempt to have a Democrat elected to the Oval Office - they are going to have to do it from the middle. And that will require the Madame Speaker to rein in her more liberal philosophy.

Madame Speaker, however, is not stupid, nor will her newly elected caucus, which is made up of its share of conservatives and moderates, allow her to lead from the left. She isn't about to do anything to jeopardize the majority.

Still, it remains that now that the Democrats have attained the majority, they will have to govern and show the American people why they deserved to be elected.

The GOP's Tuesday Night Massacre

It took the Republicans almost six years to learn what should have been obvious: you can't govern from one extreme or the other.

Twelve years after assuming control of both houses of Congress, and five years and nearly 10 months after the inauguration of George W. Bush as President, the GOP decisively lost control of the House and the Senate. As of this writing, the Democrats have a 33-seat majority in the House of Representatives, and a two-seat majority in the Senate, pending official confirmation of James Webb's victory over George Allen in Virginia.

Although for 40-something years to 1994 the Democrats held both houses, there were relatively few times when they also controlled the Presidency. And even in those times when they did, they tended to govern from the center. Even after the "Reagan Revolution," the Dems still had the congress, and the country didn't seem to be all that bad for it. Americans, it seems, like their government to be split among the parties.

Newt Gingrich's "Contract with America" started a change, taking both houses in a historic election in 1994. But something happened on the way to conservatism. In 2000, with the election of Bush the Younger, Republicans suddenly controlled both the legislative and executive branches and had a shot at completely remaking the judicial. As we have seen in these last few years, the GOP is the governing equivalent of the Not Ready For Prime Time Players.

When a conscious effort is made to shut out the other party in legislation, as soon-t0-be ex-Speaker Hastert has done with his insistence on only allowing bills with the backing of the full Republican Caucus to make it to the floor, and blatantly accuse the minority party of near-treason and questioning their patriotism (Max Cleland 2002, John Kerry 2004, every Democrat in 2006), eventually people will be mad as hell and they aren't going to take it anymore. Democrats found this out to their peril in 1994 over issues of corruption.

Alas, some of the more erudite conservative pundits saw this coming, and it would do the GOP well to find out what they did wrong, should they ever have hope of controlling the legislature again.