Right Overstates Liberal Media's Power, Determination

by Dan Ehrlich


Fair and Balanced = Effete and Boring
I can’t help being a bit amazed every time I hear the right wing criticize what it calls the liberal mainstream media. This is the same media that couldn’t produce enough stories about Bill Clinton’ sexual encounters, an action that fuelled the Republican attempts to disgrace and impeach the President.

I have go back to the best vox pop quote of that time, “I don’t care who the President is screwing as long as he’s not screwing the country.” I bring this up, because that’s exactly what the next White House occupant did and virtually without an elongated liberal media word against him.

Where was the liberal mainstream media in 2000 when GW Bush was given an election by a packed Supreme Court…an election that was so tainted, it should have been re run in several states? Why didn’t the press stay with this story…the voting irregularities, thousands being denied the right to vote, the popular vs. the electoral vote, and the overall excuse that the Constitution had no provision for such an occurrence… instead of just letting it fade away like yesterday’s news?

But, even worse, where was the liberal mainstream media during the eight years reign of the Bush regime? How come we were blindly lead into two wars that had no valid reason to begin with and when the fallacies of these conflicts were exposed, there was no major media pressure to extricate ourselves and hold the guilty parties to answer for their actions.

We lost more than 4,000 Americans and killed up to a quarter of a million Iraqis on the false claim that weapons of mass destruction were being readied to fire at NATO nations.

We invaded Afghanistan on the dubious claim that the Taliban regime had worked with and was shielding Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Now we think he's being hidden by our ally Pakistan.

During the GW years, thanks to these unnecessary wars, we went from being the world’s biggest creditor nation to the biggest debtor nation, something that has continued under the current liberal Obama White House.
Halluburton Relocates to Dubai
Where was the liberal media when it was revealed how much money Vice President Cheney’s old firm Halliburton made from the war and how it relocated to Dubai…to be closer to the oil and/or to avoid paying taxes?

And after the Democrats gained control of Congress, where was the mainstream liberal media when Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Co. did nothing to hold the Bush-Cheney Cabal to book for running one of the most infamous, self serving and morally corrupt administrations we have ever had?

Two years into the Obama admin. and we have yet to see any member of the previous regime charged for crimes against the American people or any other people, for that matter. Sure, every so often the NY Times will run a story about the death and hardship in Kabul or can Iraq survive without US troops there, but there has been no campaign to pressure Congress to gain justice for the American people.

More and more what is supposed to be a democracy is morphing into a dictatorship of implied consent. Now our wishes mean very little, our brainpower being numbed by the computer age, and our political leaders doing what they feel is right for them, not for us. That’s partly because they have an agenda and we don’t. We have reality television, an oxymoron for anything but reality, which overshadows dull fair and balanced televised news shows that rarely take a stand on anything. Why don't we have the Chet Huntleys and Erik Sevareids anymore? Would they destroy a fair and balanced show profile?

It’s no wonder right-wing talk radio and Fox TV is so popular. It has tapped into a vein of popular discontent among thinking people (irregardless of what they think) who are unhappy the way things are running. This is something the left hasn’t been able to handle, even unable to keep their national station Air America on the air.
Conservatives Carp on about the Liberal Media
Yet, the conservatives constantly carp on about the power of the liberal media, which is about as invalid as Rick Sanchez implying the Jews control the media. Today the news media, right and left, is largely in the hands of industry conglomerates…Wall Street listed firms, mainly Republican owned firms. But, Democrat or Republican, all privately run media operations have one prime goal...making money…lots and lots it.

Conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch created the Fox News Talk channel because he knew there was a market for it. He became a tycoon by being a populist, giving people what they wanted. It doesn’t matter if its right or left, only if there’s money in it.

Do you think he and his news chief Roger Ailes wouldn’t have on liberal commentators if they thought they would be ratings winners? You just have to look how far behind MSNBC’s liberal talker Keith Olbermann is in the ratings battle to know why they don’t.

So, the answer to all these questions about where the so called liberal mainstream media has been: It's been all over the place and yet no place. Unlike the right, which has Wall Street as its hidden vested interest, the left has always been the people’s champion…especially women and minorities.

When a noted female politician such as Pelosi is remiss in her duties to defend the interests of Americans, the mainstream press will report a story and leave it. There was no major media criticism of their feminist poster girl. After President Obama blamed BP for the Gulf oil disaster, it was learned that Cheney’s Halliburton pals bore much of the blame. Far be it from the liberal media to jump on a Black president for making such an error.

The sad fact is only the right wing media has the balls to grab hold and hang onto an issue because it doesn’t have the baggage of the so-called mainstream media…it’s main concern is the international financial system not personalities in it.

The final crime of the Bush presidency was that neither the Democrat Congress or the media tried very hard to prove any crimes too place. The population will have to wonder what pork barrel deals or trade off congress made to allow Bush and Cheney to walk without a whimper.

And, adding insult to injury, Republican lawmakers now say they, not the Democrats, are launching an investigation into the Bush years.

But there is one topic apparently off limits to both sides of the media…9/11…the endless conspiracy theories surrounding it. The point here is these theories, the most notable being that it was an inside job, won’t go away. In fact, the story, as with the JFK assassination, has grown with the passing years...with more experts claiming more than just two airplanes were involved. Why hasn’t there been much media interest in, if nothing else, the interest this story generates?

Whether right or left, our free fair and balanced media seems to have it limitations...most of which are based on money and patronage.