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Fourth Estate Follies - (liberal media getting what it deserves....and has earned, for decades!)
AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE.COM ^ | MAY 23, 2005 | TAKI

Posted on 05/27/2005 6:17:20 PM PDT by CHARLITE

Dear, oh dear! Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist, laments, “the climate for freedom of the press in the United States feels more ominous than it has for decades.” He urges vociferous protest and a federal shield law for journalists—this because two journalists have been ordered to jail for refusing a judge’s order to reveal their sources. Both hacks are free pending appeals.

Although I was in Albania for a short visit 25 years ago, I was unaware that freedom of the press was about to be curtailed in the Land of the Free. Kristof admits that judges do not decide cases on public sentiment but that their decisions do reflect the values of their society. (Now you’re talking, Nicholas, old boy.) Journalists, whether they know it or not, do come under a nation’s laws, and when they place themselves above them—as the New York Times, Washington Post, and others of their ilk do—they must suffer the consequences.

Not that many of them have. In fact, only one hack from NBC got four months of house arrest for telling a judge to go and reproduce himself. They are a funny bunch these journalists. They’re arrogant, especially since Watergate, they’re untrustworthy, and they’re definitely out of touch. My favorite hysteric, Maureen Dowd, had kittens last week when the new pope was elected. She called him all sorts of names and brought up the Inquisition. Maureen baby, who was obviously traumatized when Gabby Hayes refused her advances (not to worry, sweetheart, there’s always Adolph Menjou) wants a modern and cool pope. The fact that a billion and more Catholics do not has not entered her Irish brain. Nor has it registered that busybodies who insult other peoples’ icons in order to appear sophisticated are loathed by most folks who still buy newspapers.

Mind you, I’m not saying that Ms. Dowd has no right to her opinions. She does and always will in this country. It is her outrage when others do not do it the Dowd way that bothers me. Talk about arrogance! Kristof reports that among 13 institutions the National Opinion Research Center investigated, all had retained a good measure of public respect except for the press.

Distrust is the order of the day, ergo the success of the blogs and of the Internet. As Rupert Murdoch, or the Dirty Digger as he’s known among us hacks in Blighty, said to the American Society of Newspaper Editors recently, “They don’t want to rely on a God-like figure from above to tell them what’s important.” Murdoch should know. He has done more to ruin what was once a respected estate by dumbing down to cartoon level all his newspapers, including the London Times, but that’s another story altogether.

The Dirty Digger is above all smart. He realizes that people like Dowd and Rather and the rest of the holier-than-thou buffoons who are taken seriously by the Beltway elite are on the way out. The New York Times leads the way. Trying to play God for much too long has left the paper of record believed by only 21 percent of its readers according to Pew research.

All I can say is it was about time. Just to illustrate the arrogance of the liberal mindset which the media has fawned over since Uncle Joe Stalin’s day, they are now crying foul and demanding that the Federal Election Commission restore the Fairness Doctrine because conservatism is finally getting a fair hearing by the American people.

That arch-phony Robert Kennedy Jr. is almost as hysterical as Maureen Dowd because our voices are being heard for a change. Kennedy’s rationale reminds me of that of Karagiozis, a Greek clown who tells his business partner, “All I have is mine, and all you have is mine also ...” Kennedy claims that conservatives rule the airwaves and the media. It’s as valid a claim as when he pleaded innocent to heroin possession while smacked out on his back during a commercial flight.

And speaking of Uncle Joe, while FDR was president there was a very significant infiltration of the government by Soviet agents. A vast propaganda campaign by journalists like I.F. Stone—an idol of that other arch-phony Christopher Hitchens—managed to discredit a great American like Sen. Joe McCarthy and turn him into a figure of ridicule and hate. As the recent Time magazine cover girl Ann Coulter said, McCarthy was not only a patriot, he was a man of total integrity and of high intelligence. Yet his name is mud because of Soviet agents like Stone and others of his ilk that libel laws do not permit me to name. The New York Times and the Washington Post praised Stone to the skies.

When JFK betrayed the brave Cubans at the Bay of Pigs, all he had to do was call in his buddy Ben Bradlee, and the latter did the rest. Alger Hiss, traitor and Soviet agent to his fingertips, got a free ride from what Paul Johnson calls the Seven Deadly Sinners: Time, Newsweek, CBS, NBC, ABC, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. For the deadly seven, it remains psychologically impossible to accept that America is ever anything but malevolent. The greatest mass murderer (as a ratio of population) of all time, Pol Pot, was offered excuses by the leftists in the media as the American press endlessly magnified American faults while ignoring enemy atrocities.

Now the chickens are starting to come home to roost


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: algerhiss; anncoulter; benbradlee; cbs; danrather; dirtydigger; doctrine; fairness; fdr; josephmccarthy; journalists; kristof; liberal; londontimes; maureendowd; media; nbc; newyork; nicholas; post; rupertmurdoch; times; washington
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1 posted on 05/27/2005 6:17:22 PM PDT by CHARLITE
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To: CHARLITE

Interesting...BTTT


2 posted on 05/27/2005 6:28:19 PM PDT by Mama Shawna
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To: CHARLITE

Down with the Seven Deadly Sinners!


3 posted on 05/27/2005 6:34:40 PM PDT by Texas_Jarhead
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To: CHARLITE
It is the great misfortune of today's MSM that they were raised on examples of Walter Cronkite/Robert Woodward/Bob Herbert's left-wing abilities to lie and get away with it, but now they're stuck in a new media world.

It's not supposed to be like that, they're supposed to the good guys, and, like, somehow the script got really screwed up.

4 posted on 05/27/2005 6:41:50 PM PDT by xJones
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To: CHARLITE

They need to go to jail. There is nothing in the Constitution that says a reporter is above the law.


5 posted on 05/27/2005 6:43:02 PM PDT by YOUGOTIT
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To: CHARLITE

Great read! You all know what I think of the Seven Deadly Sinners.

The one's we don't tar, feather and run outta town on a rail, should all be put in jail.


6 posted on 05/27/2005 6:51:09 PM PDT by GloriaJane (http://music.download.com/gloriajane "Seems Like Our Press Has Turned Against Our Country")
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To: CHARLITE

I doubt if one in a hundred people even know who Adolphe Menjou was.


7 posted on 05/27/2005 6:54:03 PM PDT by gcruse (http://gcruse.typepad.com/)
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To: GloriaJane; ThreePuttinDude; Beth528; SMARTY; Ghost of Philip Marlowe; CyberAnt; ...
"... run outta town on a rail, should all be put in jail."

For the life of me, I don't understand why Dan Rather, Mary Mapes, CBS, Bill Burkett and the actual "designer" of the fake "memos" weren't all prosecuted! George W. Bush himself could probably have sued the pants off of the bunch of them for libel.

I don't know about what the grounds would be for criminal charges, but these liberal media types are getting away with acts of sedition at the very least. If conservative news organizations had done what these liberals have done, you can be sure that liberals would raise the roof. We would never hear the end of it!

Char

8 posted on 05/27/2005 6:58:33 PM PDT by CHARLITE (I'd like to see Hillary and Bill Clinton GET REAL JOBS for once!)
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To: gcruse

Adolphe Menjou was the rich man's Don Ameche. Everybody knows that.


9 posted on 05/27/2005 7:11:37 PM PDT by RedRover (Generally, a happy camper.)
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To: CHARLITE

Thanks for the ping!


10 posted on 05/27/2005 9:29:41 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: CHARLITE

Dear, oh dear! Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist, laments, “the climate for freedom of the press in the United States feels more ominous than it has for decades.”

Satements like this this just make me sick! Freedom of the press in America has never been stronger! (or freer)


11 posted on 05/27/2005 9:56:59 PM PDT by mozarky2 (Ya never stand so tall as when ya stoop to stomp a statist.)
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To: gcruse
I doubt if one in a hundred people even know who Adolphe Menjou was.

I didn't. But I do now, now that Google lead me here.

12 posted on 05/27/2005 10:01:46 PM PDT by upchuck (If our nation be destroyed, it would be from the judiciary." ~ Thomas Jefferson)
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To: YOUGOTIT
They need to go to jail. There is nothing in the Constitution that says a reporter is above the law.

Oh, I don't know. There's something tremendoulsly satisfying about seeing an aging narcissistic beauty queen spurned with ever greater frequency by the suitors she formerly held in contempt.

13 posted on 05/27/2005 10:17:44 PM PDT by papertyger
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To: CHARLITE
And speaking of Uncle Joe, while FDR was president there was a very significant infiltration of the government by Soviet agents. A vast propaganda campaign by journalists like I.F. Stone—an idol of that other arch-phony Christopher Hitchens—managed to discredit a great American like Sen. Joe McCarthy and turn him into a figure of ridicule and hate.

That arch-phony Robert Kennedy Jr. is almost as hysterical as Maureen Dowd because our voices are being heard for a change. Kennedy’s rationale reminds me of that of Karagiozis, a Greek clown who tells his business partner, “All I have is mine, and all you have is mine also ...” Kennedy claims that conservatives rule the airwaves and the media. It’s as valid a claim as when he pleaded innocent to heroin possession while smacked out on his back during a commercial flight.


Excellent, he nails both of these clowns to the wall. I knew RFK Jr. had a mental problem, heroin explains it.
14 posted on 05/27/2005 10:26:49 PM PDT by John Lenin (There is no such thing as a church approved abortion)
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To: CHARLITE
"...conservatism is finally getting a fair hearing by the American people."

It had to happen...and if journalists are SOOO smart, if they are so sure of their innocence then why are they not prepared to defend themselves properly against charges of bias?

They are less and less credible all the time, (including TV news which has become all but unwatchable) and it continues to escape their notice that US public officials are freely and fairly elected persons whose selection reflects the will and sentiment of the majority. If this basic observation would ever gain a place in their reckoning of things, it would be a giant step in the direction towards unbiased journalism. I am not optimistic.
15 posted on 05/31/2005 6:30:33 AM PDT by SMARTY
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To: CHARLITE
"...conservatism is finally getting a fair hearing by the American people."

It had to happen...and if journalists are SOOO smart, if they are so sure of their innocence then why are they not prepared to defend themselves properly against charges of bias?

They are less and less credible all the time, (including TV news which has become all but unwatchable) and it continues to escape their notice that US public officials are freely and fairly elected persons whose selection reflects the will and sentiment of the majority. If this basic observation would ever gain a place in their reckoning of things, it would be a giant step in the direction towards unbiased journalism. I am not optimistic.
16 posted on 05/31/2005 6:31:28 AM PDT by SMARTY
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The New York Times leads the way. Trying to play God for much too long has left the paper of record believed by only 21 percent of its readers according to Pew research.

Can this be true? Not only is their audience shrinking, but the overwhelming majority of those that do bother to buy the rag don't believe what they read. Why buy the paper then? It's all old news by the time it's come off the press.

17 posted on 05/31/2005 6:43:23 AM PDT by whd23
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To: CHARLITE; SierraWasp; Grampa Dave
RIGHT ON!!!...
18 posted on 05/31/2005 6:53:01 AM PDT by tubebender (Growing old is mandatory...Growing up is optional)
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To: tubebender
"according to Pew research"

In order to be consistent... I must say, their polling and "research" is indeed quite smelly, to say the least!!!

Usually, if it smells all liberally leftist, they publish it! If not, they usually don't!!!

19 posted on 05/31/2005 7:13:39 AM PDT by SierraWasp (The "Heritage Oaks" in the Sierra-Nevada Conservancy are full of parasitic GovernMental mistletoe!!!)
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To: CHARLITE

20 posted on 05/31/2005 7:14:49 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (The MSM has been a WMD, Weapon of Mass Disinformation for the Rats for at least 5 decades.)
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