Blaming the Media Is a Bipartisan Affair
The true uniters -- the media
By ROBERT A. GEORGE
Updated 11:20 PM EST, Wed, Jul 8, 2009
No sooner had she given her shocking resignation speech than Sarah Palin and her allies spread out to defend her decision -- and to lash out at those she deems responsible for making governing Alaska untenable. Shocking as it may be to believe, it's the media that bears some responsibility:
On Facebook, it was:
The response in the main stream media has been most predictable, ironic, and as always, detached from the lives of ordinary Americans who are sick of the “politics of personal destruction”. How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it’s about country. And though it's honorable for countless others to leave their positions for a higher calling and without finishing a term, of course we know by now, for some reason a different standard applies for the decisions I make. But every American understands what it takes to make a decision because it’s right for all, including your family.
Of course, other politicians who quit their current jobs usually have officially launched a campaign for higher office -- and then won that campaign -- before dropping out of the first position. The puzzlement of the media actually comes from holding Palin to the same standards as other politicians -- not a different one.
Meanwhile, her lawyer declared in a letter that any news organization that printed stories suggesting Palin was under federal investigation was risking a slander suit. Part of the problem with this letter was that it made broadly manifest charges that most of the public -- including many of the mainstream media that was supposedly tearing Palin down -- had never heard about.
Bet they've heard about it now.
But, the standard that Palin has chosen is a familiar one -- going after the Big Bad Boogey Man Media. In doing that, she shows she's taking exactly the same path as other politicians. Conservatives have -- often rightly -- complained about liberal media bias for decades. But often, fair-minded partisans have admitted that complaining about the media is often like "working the refs" in sports -- bother them enough and they may "give" you a "call" in the future.
However, conservatives have created organizations like the Media Research Center, designed to showcase the bias, hypocrisies and omissions of traditional media. More recently, the Left has decided that it has to get into the media-bashing work. Consider it the Revenge of Hillary Clinton. It's been more than a decade since then-first lady Clinton pointed to a "vast right-wing conspiracy" -- part of which was supposedly conservative press outlets -- that was trying to "get" Bill Clinton. The Left now has Media Matters For America, designed to do the same on the left that MRC has done on the Right. Each side rails against the excesses -- or, again -- deficiencies of the media.
In any event, this pattern of blaming the press for one's misfortunesgoes back years, if not decades. It may not have been invented with "You won't have Nixon to kick around any more," but that was one of the first.
The only difference is that the distrust of the media to act as a fair arbiter is now bipartisan. Each side's base thinks that the media isn't giving their side a fair shot. Republicans are convinced that most of the mainstream media (MSM) is in the tank for Obama, his agenda and -- by extension -- the Democratic Party.
Democrats, meanwhile, think that the so-called MSM gets most of its talking points from Fox News.
And, thus the above-mentioned media watchdogs try to play "gotcha" with the media, doing the job of the political opposition.
Despite the disdain that many have for the media, in politics it is actually something of a unifying force! Everyone hates them, which is to say, "us." So much easier to point to alleged bias in the media than dealing with the inconvenient facts often discovered by the media.
Well, media brethren, be you on the Left, Right, or Middle, bask in the scorn you receive from politicians. If everybody hates you, you must be doing something right.
New York writer Robert A. George blogs at Ragged Thots. Follow him on Twitter.
Copyright NBC Local Media
First Published: Jul 7, 2009 2:53 AM EST
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