A.J. DiCintio
Liberals discover root of evil
By A.J. DiCintio
Pity the perverse loves.
Why?
Well, while most of us agree with our ancestors, who, for millennia, recognized them as roots of iniquity, liberals and other Democratic leaders have given them the boot, claiming to have discovered "the" root of all evil (and it's not money).
Before I reveal this singular, frightening reality the nation's self-anointed paragons of rationality profess to have uncovered, I'll list some other things it is not.
It is not the world's dictatorial, murderous Marxist heroes, madman Mao, for example, whom an Obama appointee praises as one of her favorite philosophers.
It is not the immorality of the generational theft that has characterized the federal government's budgets for 50 years.
It is not the danger of change agent Obama's program to double the national debt in the next eight years.
It is not the cowardice and duplicity exhibited by post-everything Obama as he refuses to say exactly what tax increases and entitlement decreases will be necessary to avoid the disastrous explosion just mentioned.
It is not the dangers to freedom and prosperity inherent in the liberal/Democratic love of centralized power.
It is not the tyrannically insulting unfairness of the "Louisiana Purchase," the "Cornhusker Kickback," the "Union Payoff," and the hundreds of other abominations stuffed into the two thousand "reform" pages of Obamacare.
It is not the democracy and Constitution scorning notion advanced by Nancy Pelosi and her gang that a piece of legislation can be "deemed" passed and sent on for the president's signature.
It is not the perversion of the reconciliation process to pass profoundly important legislation the Democratic majority has not even read.
It is not the federal government's de facto open borders policy, a proviso of which is that any person who illegally enters the U.S. becomes an "undocumented alien" entitled to all the protections of the Constitution, numerous privileges offered by statute law, and being put on a "path to citizenship."
It is not the tragedy of the disappearing American middle class and all that disappears with it.
It is not the ugly, human rights hating nature of the ethos promoted by Islamist psychopaths.
But it is .................... Fox News.
That's right, to deflect attention from ideology and policies that are increasingly being rejected by landslide majorities of the public, the liberal/Democratic propaganda machine is screaming that "the" root of all evil is a cable news organization.
How do those who never cease to drone on and on about their intellectual superiority know this assertion to be true? As best as I can figure it out, here's their "empirical" evidence.
They tell us that in '08 Democratic presidential contenders found FNC so repugnant that they refused to debate on the network (though the aspirants were delighted to erect their big top on MSNBC's "mainstream" terrain).
They point out that Frank Rich insists Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack was "bullied by Fox News" into firing Shirley Sherrod (even though Vilsack, with the concurrence of the White House to be sure, fired her before Fox could do any "bullying").
They quote from former DNC chair Howard Dean, who declared that FNC's coverage of the Sherrod firing "was absolutely racist" and then (in English perfectly worthy of a raving buffoon) went on to condemn the network for "pushing a theme of black racism with this phony [emphasis added] Black Panther crap and this business [sic] and this Sotomayor [sic] and all this other stuff."
Thus, to the question of why we ought to regard FNC as a contemptible propaganda machine in contrast to the beautifully objective news and enlightened opinion reported and delivered on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC, liberals in effect answer "because we say you should."
Of course, that response is deserving only of the bitter Swiftian sarcasm of, "And this they call the triumph of reason."
This supreme irrationality is further highlighted by the fact that in smearing FNC, liberals behave as if a "right-wing" (to use Rich's term) bias has permeated television news since the fifties.
However, the truth is this:
When fifties TV execs (who had honed their entertainment skills in vaudeville) created the character of Uncle News Anchor, they overwhelmingly chose left-wing actors to fill the roles, a reality that has persisted to this day.
Moreover, those execs packaged Uncle so cleverly and the actors did their job so well that by the seventies, one Uncle was deemed by a majority of the public to be "the most trusted man in America."
"The most trusted man in America" — Even though the viewers of Newton Minow's "wasteland" had absolutely no idea about how Uncle chose what news to report, what news to ignore, what news to repeat, what news to let die, which "newsmakers" to put on film (never live), which to ignore, which film to use (often ad nauseam), and which to leave on the cutting room floor.
Not to mention that in those days, the public, still in awe of the technology that brought us the "boob-tube," bought into television's feigned verisimilitude and therefore failed to perceive how Uncle and his identical-twin minions influenced "the news" in more subtle ways, for instance by their choice and intonation of words as well as by smiling, scowling, or even slightly raising an eyebrow.
That supremely dangerous, parochial, pretentious, and, irony of ironies, illiberal vision of news was, however, perfectly fine with liberals and the Democratic leadership because, as Huck Finn might have observed, "It's how they would have done it themselves."
Finally, for those who demand still more evidence in support of the notion that perversity underlies the liberal/Democratic demonization of FNC, I close with this:
Given the constancy of human nature, it is impossible that liberals have booted the perverse loves to the line of the unemployed (though liberal policies are certain to keep millions of humans on that line permanently).
That fact and a little common sense thinking about the ideology of the left will provide us with all the evidence we need to understand that liberal/Democratic denunciations of Fox News are, fundamentally, all about the Love of Power and the Love of Money — make that "other people's money. "
© A.J. DiCintio
July 31, 2010
Pity the perverse loves.
Why?
Well, while most of us agree with our ancestors, who, for millennia, recognized them as roots of iniquity, liberals and other Democratic leaders have given them the boot, claiming to have discovered "the" root of all evil (and it's not money).
Before I reveal this singular, frightening reality the nation's self-anointed paragons of rationality profess to have uncovered, I'll list some other things it is not.
It is not the world's dictatorial, murderous Marxist heroes, madman Mao, for example, whom an Obama appointee praises as one of her favorite philosophers.
It is not the immorality of the generational theft that has characterized the federal government's budgets for 50 years.
It is not the danger of change agent Obama's program to double the national debt in the next eight years.
It is not the cowardice and duplicity exhibited by post-everything Obama as he refuses to say exactly what tax increases and entitlement decreases will be necessary to avoid the disastrous explosion just mentioned.
It is not the dangers to freedom and prosperity inherent in the liberal/Democratic love of centralized power.
It is not the tyrannically insulting unfairness of the "Louisiana Purchase," the "Cornhusker Kickback," the "Union Payoff," and the hundreds of other abominations stuffed into the two thousand "reform" pages of Obamacare.
It is not the democracy and Constitution scorning notion advanced by Nancy Pelosi and her gang that a piece of legislation can be "deemed" passed and sent on for the president's signature.
It is not the perversion of the reconciliation process to pass profoundly important legislation the Democratic majority has not even read.
It is not the federal government's de facto open borders policy, a proviso of which is that any person who illegally enters the U.S. becomes an "undocumented alien" entitled to all the protections of the Constitution, numerous privileges offered by statute law, and being put on a "path to citizenship."
It is not the tragedy of the disappearing American middle class and all that disappears with it.
It is not the ugly, human rights hating nature of the ethos promoted by Islamist psychopaths.
But it is .................... Fox News.
That's right, to deflect attention from ideology and policies that are increasingly being rejected by landslide majorities of the public, the liberal/Democratic propaganda machine is screaming that "the" root of all evil is a cable news organization.
How do those who never cease to drone on and on about their intellectual superiority know this assertion to be true? As best as I can figure it out, here's their "empirical" evidence.
They tell us that in '08 Democratic presidential contenders found FNC so repugnant that they refused to debate on the network (though the aspirants were delighted to erect their big top on MSNBC's "mainstream" terrain).
They point out that Frank Rich insists Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack was "bullied by Fox News" into firing Shirley Sherrod (even though Vilsack, with the concurrence of the White House to be sure, fired her before Fox could do any "bullying").
They quote from former DNC chair Howard Dean, who declared that FNC's coverage of the Sherrod firing "was absolutely racist" and then (in English perfectly worthy of a raving buffoon) went on to condemn the network for "pushing a theme of black racism with this phony [emphasis added] Black Panther crap and this business [sic] and this Sotomayor [sic] and all this other stuff."
Thus, to the question of why we ought to regard FNC as a contemptible propaganda machine in contrast to the beautifully objective news and enlightened opinion reported and delivered on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC, liberals in effect answer "because we say you should."
Of course, that response is deserving only of the bitter Swiftian sarcasm of, "And this they call the triumph of reason."
This supreme irrationality is further highlighted by the fact that in smearing FNC, liberals behave as if a "right-wing" (to use Rich's term) bias has permeated television news since the fifties.
However, the truth is this:
When fifties TV execs (who had honed their entertainment skills in vaudeville) created the character of Uncle News Anchor, they overwhelmingly chose left-wing actors to fill the roles, a reality that has persisted to this day.
Moreover, those execs packaged Uncle so cleverly and the actors did their job so well that by the seventies, one Uncle was deemed by a majority of the public to be "the most trusted man in America."
"The most trusted man in America" — Even though the viewers of Newton Minow's "wasteland" had absolutely no idea about how Uncle chose what news to report, what news to ignore, what news to repeat, what news to let die, which "newsmakers" to put on film (never live), which to ignore, which film to use (often ad nauseam), and which to leave on the cutting room floor.
Not to mention that in those days, the public, still in awe of the technology that brought us the "boob-tube," bought into television's feigned verisimilitude and therefore failed to perceive how Uncle and his identical-twin minions influenced "the news" in more subtle ways, for instance by their choice and intonation of words as well as by smiling, scowling, or even slightly raising an eyebrow.
That supremely dangerous, parochial, pretentious, and, irony of ironies, illiberal vision of news was, however, perfectly fine with liberals and the Democratic leadership because, as Huck Finn might have observed, "It's how they would have done it themselves."
Finally, for those who demand still more evidence in support of the notion that perversity underlies the liberal/Democratic demonization of FNC, I close with this:
Given the constancy of human nature, it is impossible that liberals have booted the perverse loves to the line of the unemployed (though liberal policies are certain to keep millions of humans on that line permanently).
That fact and a little common sense thinking about the ideology of the left will provide us with all the evidence we need to understand that liberal/Democratic denunciations of Fox News are, fundamentally, all about the Love of Power and the Love of Money — make that "other people's money. "
© A.J. DiCintio
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
