The Media Elite

A reader writes in last week's mail that, according to yours truly, "patriotism means defending America when a Republican is in office." He reminds me that I was frothing at the mouth a couple of years ago during the bombing of Serbia. Well, yes, I sure frothed, but then I don't exactly remember when the Serbs hijacked four airplanes and attacked the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. As far as I'm concerned, Clinton and Albright went to war against a small country because it was convenient. Serbia was not only weak, but also very unpopular with the media elite and Europe's bureaucrats. Now that's what I call acting like a bully, except I didn't hear the grotesque Joe Biden use that word back then.

Like MUGGER last week, I wonder who briefs that silly old cow Maureen Dowd. Perhaps a big-time asshole like Adam Clymer. Never have I read such pathetic drivel as those short-waisted, Concorde-nosed and shapeless types at the Times are turning out. Boy, do they sound bitter that the American people are rallying behind George W. Bush, and that two months after the outrage they still back their President. The media elite in general, and the Times in particular, does not like the people deciding. The people will know what to think when the media tells them what the mindset is.

Here's my take on these blow-dried catamites who once were regarded as just one step above child molesters: As its status increases, the media takes on many of the characteristics of traditional elites. Like the nobility of old, it is concentrated in a few hands, and its responsibilities are minute in proportion to its power. It respects no superiors. Its stance toward proper authority, Congress, is as cavalier as its attitude toward the rights of individuals and their privacy. It does not accept restrictions?witness the Afghanistan campaign, where most of the media would rather give aid to the Taliban than not run a story?and tends to see itself as above the law. Governments quail before the media, for when the media joins together in opposition, presidents are doomed (LBJ, Nixon, even Carter). George W. has the right perspective toward the new elite. He ignores it. The media, needless to say, is convinced that it speaks in the name of the people, most of the time without going through the formality of ascertaining what the people think.

As Jonah Goldberg wrote late last year, journalists tend to reduce political conflicts to good guys and bad guys. This is bad news for conservatives, as 90 percent of journalists voted for the Draft Dodger in 1996, which means Republicans are stuck with the villain's role. Here are two examples taken at random that prove beyond doubt that the media is biased against Republicans:

During the Clarence Thomas hearings, the media was holding up its skirt in horror at the idea that a man in power should make crude jokes in front of a mature woman. Yet when it came to Monica Lewinsky, this was not a case of sexual harassment, just Republican prurience. And when convicted murderer and confessed rapist Gary Graham was about to be executed in Texas last year, the media ran numerous stories suggesting George W. was about to kill an innocent man. Back in 1992, however, a mentally incompetent man was put to death in Arkansas?a state where, unlike Texas, the governor, a certain draft dodger, could halt the execution?yet only two stories emerged. Ditto with the Bush Sr. checkout scanner brouhaha in 1992, as opposed to the silence last year when Al Gore was exposed as a slum landlord.

And so it goes. On issue after issue journalists set the agenda. Their prejudices, their arrogant, insolent views of the world determine the news coverage and therefore determine what people see and hear of the world. To the media elite, Americans are a hopelessly retrograde lot. They are racist, sexist, homophobic, have no understanding or appreciation of art. They also hold unenlightened views on religion, morality and the nation. It is the self-ordained task of the hacks to educate Americans as to what's what. The New York Times, The Washington Post and tv networks all see themselves as being in the education business. After the Sept. 11 outrage, with Americans overseas trying to eliminate the terrorists, I hear that old blowhards like Daniel Schorr and Peter Arnett (the North Vietnamese's and Iraqis' best friends and propagandists) are busy condemning CNN's chairman Walter Isaacson for not giving enough air time to the Taliban.

Just think of it. It is as if during WWII Joe Alsop and Edward Murrow were criticizing their chairmen for not allowing them to give equal time to Goebbels' propaganda machine. Just as the war in Vietnam was lost right here at home because of the lies spread by the Fourth Estate against Uncle Sam, so will the present effort be undermined by those nice people I've been describing to you.

This is a just war, approved by 90 percent of Americans, but the media elite (Brit Hume excluded) sees it differently. The next time you read or watch some self-appointed pundit going on about American criminal acts abroad committed by our armed forces, make sure you don't use any product advertised by his or her employer's organ. It is the only way, really.