Open Season on The Left

The sound of the ax is heard now throughout the land, and depending on where you sit on the political continuum, you may perceive the sound as one of righteous sharpening or one of endless grinding. But there is no doubt as to the targeted necks: Bill and Hillary Clinton are first in line, followed closely by Big Media, political correctness and the '60s in general, or at least the revolutionary and self-indulgent portions.

In one of those strange alignments that happens every so often, three of the top 10 New York Times nonfiction best sellers are attacks on what the authors (Pat Buchanan, Barbara Olson and Bernard Goldberg) see as liberals run amok. A little further down the list are two more (by Bill O'Reilly and Peggy Noonan). Add to those two biographies of strong presidents (John Adams and Teddy Roosevelt) and three books honoring America's response to Sept. 11, and you've got a star-spangled hammerlock on what Americans are reading.

These are "books about American greatness, books that assault the Clinton legacy and the liberal elites who embody it, and above all, books about strong moral character and how to achieve it," Stanley Kurtz wrote in a recent National Review Online column. "Of course, none of this means that conservatives have won the culture war," he continued. "But it surely means that the culture war is far from over, and that the pendulum is swinging mightily in a conservative direction."

Swinging is certainly a good way to describe some of these books, not in a sexual sense but in the manner of a good fist fight. Pat Buchanan, whose 1992 Republican National Convention speech put "culture war" into the national lexicon, has always been a brawler for his beliefs, and his "Death of the West" continues (and in some cases recycles) his carpet-bombing approach. Likewise the late TV commentator Barbara Olson, who was a passenger on board the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, and whose book reaming the Clintons is as mellow as Mike Tyson with a toothache.

But the surprise has been Bernard Goldberg's "Bias," No. 1 on the Times list, and the odd duck in this lineup because it was written by an avowed Democrat. Goldberg was a correspondent for CBS News for 28 years and one of its stars, but he wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed piece in 1996 accusing his institution of liberal bias. It was brave, but not the brightest career move, and Goldberg writes that he paid dearly. Shunned by most of his colleagues, he resigned in 2000.

Goldberg settles some scores with anchor Dan Rather, portraying him as "the Dan," a Godfather-type character who rules CBS News like a Tony Soprano in a tailored suit, brooking no dissent from underlings. This is not even a new take, but Goldberg moves on to more worthy efforts. The TV networks, he believes, don't really favor one party or politician over another, as some conservative critics have charged. "Real media bias comes not so much from what party they attack," he writes. "Liberal bias comes as the result of how they see the world," especially through politically correct lenses.

The centerpiece of his argument is network coverage of the homeless and AIDS in the 1980s and '90s. In both cases, he contends, coverage focused on victims who appeared closer to the mainstream of viewers, which gave a skewed picture of the majority of people who were homeless or HIV-positive. TV news did this in part because it was listening too intently to advocacy groups, Goldberg writes. There is more, some of it padding, but much of it worth heeding.

Dan Rather also takes some lumps in O'Reilly's "The No Spin Zone," joining Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Sean Combs and of course, the Clintons and anyone near them. Largely a rehash of his popular Fox News show "The O'Reilly Factor," the book vibrates with O'Reilly's gruff Irish wit and elbows-on-the-bar social criticism. And although he's the conservatives' darling, he isn't afraid to call out Laura Schlessinger on day care or President Bush on capital punishment. Just one caveat about O'Reilly: He sometimes refers to himself as the Zone, which makes him sound like some sort of comic-book hero.

"He's running on equal parts patriotism and skepticism," novelist James Ellroy writes in a wonderful afterword about the author. "The book pinpoints the fatuous nature of liberal-conservative discourse . . . [and] shows us how much our society is ruled by blindly followed and reflexive political classification."

If O'Reilly evades easy classification, Ronald Reagan personifies classic conservatism. In "When Character Was King," former speechwriter Peggy Noonan ("What I Saw at the Revolution") offers a loving biography of the former president, whom she calls "the last great man." In Noonan's starry, starry eyes, Reagan has not done one single thing wrong in 90 years; "Character" is not as clear-headed and sharply observed as "Revolution" was. But when she visits him in his Alzheimer's twilight, there isn't a tear-jerker in Hollywood to compare to the overwhelming emotional wallop.

As much as Noonan loves Reagan, Barbara Olson hated the Clintons. "The Final Days," which she completed just before her untimely death, is as vituperative as any book ever written about the couple. She certainly had plenty of raw material to work with, especially the 140 pardons Clinton issued on his last day in office, and she works it relentlessly.

After these four books, it comes as a shock to read Pat Buchanan's assertion that "conservatives have lost the moral certitude they had when they were young and theirs was a fighting faith." Whether you agree or disagree with O'Reilly, Noonan and Olson, moral certitude seems in abundant supply.

But Buchanan's vision is much darker than the others, built on population statistics that show birthrates declining in Western industrial countries and increasing in Third World countries. The only way to save ourselves is by American women having more children, he writes. But one wonders how badly he even wants to save the country since it is, he states, "a cultural wasteland and a moral sewer . . . not worth living in."

Buchanan makes even some fellow conservatives uncomfortable, and his attacks on immigrants here, especially Mexicans, probably won't win him any Rose Garden invitations in the near future.

All we have to do is remove the labels warning to cook pork and chicken before eating. In no time at all, sidewalks will be filled with sick and dying liberals puking up pieces of raw meat.

If that doesn't work, you yourself have my explicit permission, being that I created the phrase, to carry a sign afront any liberal gathering saying A sacred cow is worth but one thing...steak!

One could always market extract of Oleander as a new very in spice to be put in food and drink. I am cetain that the leftists who thought it trendy would use it with abandon despite its fatal consequences. Hey, I am fair i would evwen put a poison abel on it.

Stay well - Stay safe - stay armed - Yorktown

Open Season on The Left

In all seriousness, speed the Day. This war won't - can't - be won by polite argument. Men of reaosn and good will may differ, but at teend of the day, we are free to shrug and walk away with reality as the final arbiter. You can only employ reason, logic and facts with those who respect them. It's the price of admission to any civilised debate. Trouble is, the Left will never let us just shrug and walk away. They have and will continue to settle their disagreements with you at the barrel of a gun.

We're not that far away from all out civil war in this country, GW notwithstanding. The marriage of the Left's desperation and arrogance will breed unthinking violence and brutality. I won't fire the first shot. But I will do everything in my power to finish the fight. No quarter asked, and none given...

The People are hearing, and they are reading, and they are awake. They don't like what they have been shoveled for these long years. There's a slow, dynamic process coming from our brothers and sisters. The roar of freedom is starting in thier throats. The media will be the first socialist entity to fall, they are the most visible, they are the most perverse.

When Americans seek the truth and they find lies in the media that they trust....God help the people behind that. The time has come to change the propaganda machine that promotes socialist ideology. The time has come to take back our country for the good of the People. I want a press that watches over a Republic. I want a press that gives equal coverage of political situations. I want a press that respects the laws, and the integrety, of the constitiution of the United States. I want a press free of politcal influence. I want to read better prose on a news artical than I get now. I want a factual report of the event, I'll decide what the polical out lay on that is. I don't need some idiot telling me what to think.

Trouble is, the Left will never let us just shrug and walk away.

That my friend is the crux of the problem. The left is unwilling to not get its way 100%. They not only demand that they win at all times but demand that you celebrate their victory.

They have and will continue to settle their disagreements with you at the barrel of a gun.

Unfortunately it is very seldom that those demanding the violent settlement actually put themselves into harms way. If they were forced to do the dirty work themselves then perhaps there would be a better understanding of just what is involved. It is to make the left aware of what the stakes will be that I am as graphic as I sometimes am. I do not wish to see the USA descend into a Civil War. I saw Vietnam in a state of war and it is not something to be desired. I would much prefer civil discussion based on facts and logic I can live with the results. Yet there is a continued push for emotional gratification of the left that trashes logic and results in violence. When the war comes I shall not celebrate I shall celebrate when peace once more is the state of this nation but I recognize that the leftists will push until the war is open. When that has happened the posts above are merely some of the attrocities that we shall all see. Is it inevitable I used to think no it could be avoided perhaps itcould be postponed but given the Left and their dogged determination to pursue policies that kill I am believing it will come and come soon.

Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown

Conservatives are in no way out of danger from the liberal mindset. They are so ingrained in government employment in Washington DC that they scorn the elected conservative administrations.

Some of these liberal swine, who can't be fired, have been in government employ for decades, and they view any conservative administration as temporary and to be stymied at every turn.

D.C. needs a through cleaning, this law that Federal employees can't be fired needs to be overthrown and I hope the Bush administration goes down in history as the ones that cleaned house.

"All of this beats having Norman Mailer and books worshipping the Kennedy's dominating the best seller lists, that's for sure."

Agreed, but even there, the Leftist media hurts its own cause by lionizing JFK.

I mean really, how were Bobby and John so "liberal" by the standards of today? Let's see, they took on the mob and segregation, staired down Castro and Kruschev, and lowered the tax rates for the richest 1% of Americans. About the only thing "liberal" in regards to those two Kennedys was that they were womanizers. But even there, by the standards of the "real man", that's a macho, non-limp-wristed value to hold.

So the best examples that Leftists can find which glorifies Democrats are really fairly Conservative sons of a bootlegger.

"But gosh", says the typical Left-wing reporter, "Clinton sure could play the sax, speak, and attract girls."

Now there's a legacy for you...

"All of this beats having Norman Mailer and books worshipping the Kennedy's dominating the best seller lists, that's for sure."

Agreed, but even there, the Leftist media hurts its own cause by lionizing JFK.

So the best examples that Leftists can find which glorifies Democrats are really fairly Conservative sons of a bootlegger.

"But gosh", says the typical Left-wing reporter, "Clinton sure could play the sax, speak, and attract girls."

Now there's a legacy for you...

Conservatives are in no way out of danger from the liberal mindset. They are so ingrained in government employment in Washington DC that they scorn the elected conservative administrations.

Right you are, my friend. Just look at what's happening with that goofy Civil Rights Commission (don't you just love the high-sounding names Washington gives its make-work programs?). The Chair-thing, Marion Francis Berry (sp?), is thumbing her nose at President Bush's appointee. What a farce. Bush should just disband the whole stupid committee.

So the best examples that Leftists can find which glorifies Democrats are really fairly Conservative sons of a bootlegger.

Generally agree on JFK, though he certainly had Clintonite leanings in the sphere of personal morality. Bobby was good when working for Joe McCarthy's committee, and not too bad until he got to be Attorney General and was coopted by the liberal Democrats appointed to the Justice Department.

I recently heard the results of a political poll taken among college freshmen across the country. I wish I could remember the numbers, but the result was that this group contained the greatest number of liberals ever in the history of the poll.

So stock up and dig in -- it sounds like the worst is yet to come.

At least until those freshmen have to earn a living....nothing like the real world to rock yer mind. Paying taxes definitely changed my world view....

"Real media bias comes not so much from what party they attack," he writes. "Liberal bias comes as the result of how they see the world," especially through politically correct lenses....Goldberg makes some telling points about leftwing bias, but his book reads too often more like a get-even hit piece against The Dan and others who dissed him after his op-ed piece than one dedicated to really exploring the depths of liberal hypocrisy and deceit in the press. From a self-avowed liberal, his claim that the bias that exists is not deliberate but only the result of pressies hanging out together and thus seeing the world through the same "lenses" seems particularly disingenuous. More than truth, honor, or anything else in life, the left craves power, and putting their heads together in order to distort/fabricate the facts to help maintain whatever power they have would not be at all beyond them. Still, Goldberg's book has them squirming. It and another newly released book, Coloring the News by William McGowen, which evidently goes after the same story with a wider net including looks at the NY Times and the philosophical underpinnings of the bias, make for a good one-two punch upside the leftwingers' heads....

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