The new favorite pastime for disgruntled members of Congress is the condemning of political talk-radio and the predominately conservative views that many of the most listened-to radio hosts in America happen to hold.Got a problem passing unpopular legislation? Blame Rush Limbaugh. Worried about your own sinking Opinion Poll numbers (according to Gallup, congressional Democrats are now less popular than recently convicted, former-aide to Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby)? Point the finger at Sean Hannity. Need a boost in fund-raising for a fledgling campaign (John Edwards)? Promise to “bring down” Ann Coulter and Fox News if elected.
Senators Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and Dianne Feinstein (all Liberal Democrats) each voiced concerns this week about the “fringe” commentators (Limbaugh’s “fringe” group consists of 30 million weekly listeners) who helped defeat Amnesty legislation this week.
These commentators are supposedly misinforming the public and lowering political debate down to the gutter. In light of the dialogue regularly featured on Hardball with Chris Matthews, it’s hard to believe there is actually a “gutter” we haven’t found as of yet.
I’m not sure who the “kettle” is and who the “pot” would be in the good Senators’ ridiculous, accusatory scenario.
On the floor of the House of Representatives Thursday, two different Democratic Congressmen claimed that Limbaugh, Hannity, and “extremists on the Right” had each personally ruined the chance for Immigration Reform. Yet in the next breath both said none of the conservative pundits mentioned “mattered one bit” and were in fact as “inconsequential as Paris Hilton.”
Using their logic and those statements as pretext, one could conclude that perhaps Paris Hilton is the only one capable of getting Social Security Reform through Congress. I’d love to be that inconsequential.
Presidential hopeful, Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), has attempted to attract attention toward something other than his profound inability to register numbers outside the margin of error in polling data by offering an ill-fated plan for re-instituting the Fairness Doctrine (legislation requiring equal air-time for Right and Left on all radio and television stations under the “discretion” of the government).
Who would be the judge of what is “fair and balanced” if not the actual consumers? Let us devoutly pray not the same chaps running PBS and NPR.
Want to make a Liberal really mad? Find success in what you do, and make sure the government had no hand in it.
Conservatives have flocked to the mediums of talk-radio and the internet only because their voices continued to be stymied in Hollywood, the print media, academia, and major network news shows. The Conservatives have created arenas in which the free exchange of ideas is most readily possible. Anyone can call in to the radio station and argue with the host if they don’t like what they are hearing. Anyone can log-on to a computer and blog to their heart’s content.
Isn’t that the essence of fairness?
Yet on the other side of the aisle Liberals can largely control what is said on programs like the CBS Evening News because there is no real debate encouraged there. Just ask former CBS News
correspondent, Bernard Goldberg. A veteran reporter and Peabody Award winner for more than three decades until he made the fateful mistake of writing a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed critiquing the mainstream media.He admitted that too much of the news is slanted toward the reporter’s and anchor’s own liberal ideology. He realized that he was letting personal politics get in the way of his objective reporting, acknowledging he was hopelessly liberal and sometimes even subconsciously could not keep it from flowing out of him.
But don’t merely take Goldberg’s word for it. This past week saw the release of an investigation in the campaign contribution habits of journalists in America. MSNBC reported that of the reporters who gave money to Congressional and Presidential candidates since 2004, more than 90% gave to Democrats ("public" stations like PBS and NPR employees gave 100%). Factor in as well a 2005 survey which found more than 80% of journalists and reporters (and public school teachers/professors) voted for Gore in 2000 and Kerry in 2004, and you’ve got a wicked recipe for bias.
Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are open and honest about their conservative views. Anderson Cooper and Katie Couric are not.
So why are Conservatives succeeding? They are well informed, allow oppositional viewpoints to be heard, and most importantly, they’re entertaining. People like to listen to Rush because he is good at what he does. The message one has to share can only take them so far. Talent, on loan from God, is a prerequisite for success in any forum.
CNN’s ratings are tanking, and Air America failed, because no one wants to hear Wolf Blitzer or Al Franken ramble on for hours about how stupid President Bush is. That type of base fodder is suited for Conan or Letterman, not alleged “objective” reporting.
This brings me to the next reason behind recent Conservative success in the media: the Free Market. Did Nancy Pelosi ever stop to think that part of the reason millions of Americans are canceling their San Francisco Chronicle and New York Times subscriptions in favor of a new setting on their AM dials to whichever station carries the “Doctor of Democracy” (Rush’s nickname for himself) isn’t because rich Republicans have brain-washed the public, but because the masses might actually agree with what is being said?
In this free market environment no one is forced to listen or read or agree with anything in any media they don’t want to. You want to make an obnoxious television show go away? Stop watching. Sick of wildly popular conservative-talk on the radio? Spin that dial to Adult Contemporary, easy-listening tunes instead.
Why is it that you never hear Conservative Republican Senators or Congressmen calling for mandated equal airtime for their ideological brethren on NBC Nightly News or the Today Show? We (the Right) are fighting with one hand tied behind our backs (in a manner of speaking), yet still are managing to inundate the American consciousness with traditional, conservative, republican (small “r”) ideals. Conservatives aren’t afraid of debate because we know we’re Right. We just want Uncle Sam (Ted Kennedy more specifically) to leave us alone and to let the people pick what they listen to.
The funny thing is Liberals never let any of us forget just how much they love the First
Amendment and that they have the right to say whatever it is they want. Is the First Amendment for Liberals only or should Conservatives be included? Liberals demand equal rights for enemy combatants and known terrorists in Guantanomo Bay (something forbidden by even the sacred Geneva Convention), but are attempting to take away those most basic of rights (free speech) simply because conservatives are successfully countering the institutional liberalism of the established media and entertainment industries. What gives?CBS and NBC should be allowed to hire whoever it is they think can bring in ratings, but so to should Fox News and any radio station in the country. It appears the Left’s motto is steadily becoming: If you can’t beat ‘em, legislate ‘em.
How about neither?
Posts
