A rational "conservative"

[TexasTiger 13,053]

John Cole, in response to criticism from Rick Moran (http://rightwingnuthouse.com/about.php), ultra-conservative brother of ABC's Terry Moran.

http://www.balloon-juice.com/archives/005244.html

Rick's criticism of the media in no way will help create more IED's, and this is nothing more than hyperbole. What will cause more IED's and more trouble for our troops is not addressing rumors and allegations and just pretending they are beneath us and nothing more than a media creation. Right now, the world press is reporting that the Koran flushing is, in fact, nonsense. I rather like that, and believe it is better than having allegations flying around and given the appearance of credibility by our apparent unwillingness to address them.

I think I am right. Rick is free to disagree. Rick now goes for the jugular:

"And in his desire to do what he thinks is best for our military, it appears to me that Cole has unconsciously adopted some of the themes and talking points used by people who actually do hate the military, who lovingly dote on each and every casualty, who oppose the military’s efforts in recruiting and retention, and who by word, by thought, and by deed seek to have the United States military defeated on the field of battle.

We used to call this treason. In this day and age, these sentiments get you invited to the best cocktail parties, has the MSM hang on your every word, and procures the lickspittle a book contract. And these are the people espousing these sentiments who agree with Mr. Cole?"

As Rick has perceived insult where there was none intended, he no doubt would recognize that I probably view an implied accusation of treason to be pretty offensive, however ham-handed and dismissible it might be. I have in no way adopted the rhetoric of people who hate the military.

Follow the necessary logic to get to this laughable implication of treason. First, you must believe that the media is anti-military. Not just anti-military, but anti-American. Not just anti-American, but willing accomplices of the enemy, and thus, treasonous. Second, you must believe that defending the right of the those treasonous media types to report freely is also treasonous. It is, at its worst, an argument of treason by insinuation, and its absurdity is matched only by its offensiveness (Rick now states it was really just bad writing and not intended at all. Fair enough, and I shall take him at his word. I would delete this section and sink it down the memory hole, but that would make this post seem pointless).

I reject all of this. The media is not, as an institution, anti-military. The media is, however, suspicious of the military establishment, and for good reasons. The Pentagon routinely lies to them. See Tillman, Pat. Or the Pentagon Papers. Or any hundreds of other similar events. At any rate, even if the press is suspicious of the military establishment, Rick is somehow confusing criticism of the Pentagon with criticism of tthe actual soldiers as well as the goals of the United States.

Speaking of the Pentagon Papers, on to what Terry Moran (Rick's brother) had to say:

"There is, Hugh, I agree with you, a deep anti-military bias in the media. One that begins from the premise that the military must be lying, and that American projection of power around the world must be wrong. I think that that is a hangover from Vietnam, and I think it's very dangerous."

Is Terry Moran, a prominent member of the nebulous media, treasonous because he is a member of the media? Of course not. Neither are any other members of the media. They may be offensive, in cases biased, and in cases all out jackasses (Linda Foley, Ted Rall, Eason Jordan, and others come immediately to mind), but, as a whole, they are not anti-military, and certainly not treasonous. If the media suffers from some Vietnam syndrome, so too does the right-wing, and the main symptom is an all-out hositility to all things media.

In fact, many in the media are downright flagwavers and damned patriotic, and in the case of some, outright jingoists. I have no problem attacking, by name, slimeballs (again, Eason Jordan and Ted Rall come to mind), but we have got to stop this generic smearing of the media. Most of them are doing their best to get it right. Just because they are rightly suspicious of the military establishment does not make them anti-military or anti-American.

So let's stop these generic attacks on the media. Media Slander is up, and they will document the actual atrocities. And while we are at it, can we conservatives please stop this laughable cult of victimology? We have the Presidency (for the second time in a row and the fifth time in the last seven elections). We control the Senate by a ten seat margin. We control the House by a larger margin. We have dismissed or dismantled virtually every institutional check in order to limit opposition debate and increase institutional control, regardless how short-sighted that might be. We are ramming through just about every judge we wanted, and are about to reload the Supreme Court with Antonin Scalia at the helm.

We control dozens of governors offices and an equal number of state legislatures. We have hundreds of think tanks, hundreds of talk show hosts, hundreds of conservative columnists, millions of bloggers. We have dozens of partisan magazines and pundits, legions of 527's and grass-roots organizations, and dozens of think-tanks. We have, ostensibly, our own damned cable news channel and so many right leaning editorial boards of newspapers I can't even begin to count them. Memes that start in obscure blogs find their way onto the front page of allegedly liberal newspapers in the matter of two days.

We may be a lot of things, but persecuted victims we are not. To assert otherwise is to engage in a self-defeating flight of fancy that should be met with nothing short of outright ridicule.

Let's remember that, and remember that the media is not the enemy and their attempts to report abuses by this government are not the problem. We will all be a lot better off if we do, and we can better address our own shortcomings (which are myriad) if we have a critical appraisal of who and what we are and what we are doing. Sure, Chris Matthews may be a sneering jerk at times and has difficulty presenting conservative positions. Tune in to Bill O'Reilly if you need a pat on the back. So you don't like what the Washington Post wrote about Republicans. Pick up the Washington Times for that big wet kiss some apparently need. And so on and so forth.

Even if we do buy into the absurd supposition that the media is overtly hostile towards conservatives, I contend that their criticism would still be vital. An outside appraisal would be a good thing, particularly when you consider the self-referential and oft-delusional nature of our own manufactured media organs (National Review, for example) and the rest of the echo chamber that the right-wing blogosphere appears to be becoming. We are wasting out energy attacking what, in my mind, has been, overall, a pretty friendly media establishment as of late.

And just for fun, you might ask Move-On or Media Matters how liberal they think the media is. The answer might surprise you. So, some perspective, please.

[AURaptor 1,128]

And just for fun, you might ask Move-On or Media Matters how liberal they think the media is. The answer might surprise you. So, some perspective, please.

Yeah, that's a laugh. The media isn't biased, huh? Try this on for size....

OH .. THAT EVIL RIGHT-WING MEDIA BIAS.

If you really want to be all-but guaranteed to pick up on a bit of leftist Bush bashing on television, there's no better place to turn than to NBC's "Law & Order" TV series.  The season finale of the show featured a storyline on judicial security.  Detectives think a white supremacist is involved in the shootings of a judge's family.  Here's part of the dialogue from that show:

    ADA RON CARVER:    An African American judge, an appellate court judge, no less.

    MAN:    Chief of DS is setting up a task force. People are talking about multiple assassination teams.

    DET. ALEX EAMES:    Looks like the same shooters.  CSU found the slug in a post, matched it to the one that killed Judge Barton.  Maybe we should put out an APB for somebody in a Tom DeLay T-Shirt.

Neal Boortz

I really don't give a rat's tail about what the nut jobs as Moveon or DemocratUnderground think. They think Bush lied, but not Clinton, even though both said virtually the exact same thing in regards to Iraq.

[DKW 86 7,450]

Link Tex, what was the point of this ridiculous article? The author says over and over that the media are not "anti-military." Then in the next sentence says they are suspicious of everything the miltary says. Tex, that sounds biased to me. I am openly biased against anyone named Clinton. We have been lied to repeatedly by them. So many times it is laughable. Yet, those in the press, and on the Left, turn a blind eye to it all.

Anyone remember the "Right Wing Kabal" making up the story about Clinton and his affair with Lewinsky? Mrs. "I have never accomplished a thing on my own" Clinton goes on NBC's "Toady," ooops, I meant "Today," and accuses the Right of some paranoid schizophrenic's organized campaign to smear her husband. Not one person in the press questioned it. Nor did they ever rectify the situation after it was proven ad nauseum to be a lie.

The answer is NO!

Dan Rather lied thru his teeth about the FORGED DOCUMENTS that were so bad any 14 year old that had ever used Word would know they were forged. Did the press come out and prove they were forged?????? Did they ????

The answer is NO!

When John Kerry lied FOR 35 YEARS ABOUT BEING IN CAMBODIA CHRISTMAS OF 1968, and then was proven beyond any doubt to be wrong (Nixon wasnt even in office until Jan 69), even his band of brothers said it was untrue, was he called on it by the press?

The answer is NO!

As far as "the right-wing blogosphere," in the Dan Rather case, they were the ones who got it right, The media did not find out the truth, "the right-wing blogosphere' did the hard work. The media did not even want to consider that they were wrong even after it was proven they were wrong. ABC finally saw blood in the water and started to do a hatchet job on Rather. My God there are now whole websites that do nothing but debunk the news media in this country.

Mapes Still Says Documents Were Authentic

What about the totallty fictitious gassing of American deserters in Vietnam. LInk First off, they were deserters so who really cared? But even CNN's attorneys could not find anything but proof that the story was false. They found the story to be almost "anti-fact" if you will. The lead witness had just published a book in which he drew the opposite conclusion to that which he testified to on the air.

In these last two stories, was anyone even reprimanded? The producers at CNN got huge $$$ to leave and everyone has heard how at last word no one but Mapes has left CBS. She left for a Golden Parachute job with the Left.

So please spare us the "MSM arent that bad" crap.

[Auburn85 432]

FAUX is the only media outlet that's biased in TT'S mind

[TexasTiger 13,053]

So please spare us the "MSM arent that bad" crap

Oh, they're bad, all right. They are down right atrocious, in fact. I don't trust their competence at all. But its not because of any supposed political agenda.

[Piglet 0]

Seems to me bias is inherent in journalism. It's the ones who fall all over themselves to tell you they're objective and just giving you facts--those are the ones you should trust the least.

I like to get my news from the admittedly right and left biased sources. Read both the American Spectator and The Nation, Molly Ivins and Tony Snow, and you'll probably find the truth in there between them.

[DKW 86 7,450]

Seems to me bias is inherent in journalism.  It's the ones who fall all over themselves to tell you they're objective and just giving you facts--those are the ones you should trust the least.

I like to get my news from the admittedly right and left biased sources.  Read both the American Spectator and The Nation, Molly Ivins and Tony Snow, and you'll probably find the truth in there between them.

161490[/snapback]

Piglet, that is likely the best way to gather it. I find myself listening and gathering more now too. The MSM have made MANY mistakes since 1997. In doing the searches for the link above, many articles referenced 1997 as the turning point toward bad journalism. I dont have a clue as to why that year, maybe just competition from 24 hour cable news and other news oputlets caused it. Who knows.

I have shared with several of you my epiphanies with the right and the Left. Not long agao I found two Rush stories from several years ago to be complete hogwash. Hannity had one maybe one to two months ago. In researching some of the articloes linked here on AUN, I found that the Left is not all armed locked, goose stepping, James Carvilles as they often sound like in the MSM.

The bottom line is that you must see all sides of the issues, and from several different news sources. I dont trust Fox or CNN. but you cant get a SENSE of the real story from the two.