Columnist.
The last year could be described as The Year of Transgender Propaganda. The Hollywood and news media push on the latest frontier of "gender fluidity" demonstrates the libertine left's absolute arrogance that the LGBT revolution is an unstoppable juggernaut. Time placed Laverne Cox on a "Transgender Tipping Point" cover last June, and the aggressive culture tipping took off. Amazon created a series around a retiree and father of three deciding he was a woman in "Transparent," and won Golden Globes. Fox's "Glee" had their female football coach grow a beard and be celebrated by a "historic" 200-member transgender choir. The cherry on this vomit is Bruce Jenner.
Liberals still glow when they talk about comedian Stephen Colbert ripping into President Bush at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2006. He told Bush they were alike. "We're not some brainiacs on the nerd patrol," Colbert announced. "I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the 'No Fact Zone.'" Nothing like that has happened to President Obama at these dinners. At this late date in Obama's tenure, the process seems entrenched: They giddily await his performance and when it's over, salivate over it. It's rather embarrassing, actually. This year's guest comedian, Cecily Strong (from "Saturday Night Live") announced ahead of time that she thought Obama was "an amazingly funny guy" and "maybe our funniest president." She adored Colbert's anti-Bush routine as "the coolest thing I have ever seen done." But she promised she'd say nothing "mean."
The North Korean email hack of Sony continues to haunt Hollywood. The leftist group WikiLeaks recently posted a searchable set of the documents and the London Daily Mail found a new scandal subject: Ben Affleck ... and PBS. Harvard black-studies professor Henry Louis Gates produces a show for New York PBS superstation WNET called "Finding Your Roots." Gates tells celebrities about their ancestors. A few years back, NBC had a show just like this called "Who Do You Think You Are?" It's now on cable, on TLC. Why PBS believes it's right to use taxpayer money to copycat commercial television is a mystery. Affleck was one of the celebrities (again: using taxpayer funds to study him?) and his family tree had a slave-holding ancestor. Affleck asked for that information to be scrubbed out of the broadcast. Gates asked Sony chairman Michael Lynton for advice. "Confidentially, for the first time, one of our guests has asked us to edit out something about one of his ancestors -- the fact that he owned slaves. Now, four or five of our guests this season descend from slave owners, including [liberal PBS legend] Ken Burns. We've never had anyone ever try to censor or edit what we found. He's a megastar. What do we do?"
While Hillary Clinton hates doing Sunday shows -- as we remember from the weekend after Benghazi -- she did allow her close friend Gov. Terry McAuliffe to appear on "Meet the Press" on April 19. Jaws dropped when NBC host Chuck Todd threw him a real Russert-like hardball, quoting from his 2007 memoir "What A Party!" "This is Hillary Clinton," said Todd. "This is you quoting her in your book. 'They had bankrupted us totally. We owned nothing. We didn't own a car. We didn't own a house. Here we were, 50 years old and we owned nothing. No-thing! All the money we had, which we had brought into the White House, was gone. I hadn't made any money for eight years, so it was really horrible.'" The journalistic fact-checkers could have had a field day with this outlandish whining. Hillary Clinton's Senate disclosure forms show that in 2001, they reported earning nearly $12 million. Todd noted that in 1999, McAuliffe offered to give them a personal loan (actually, a $1.3 million loan) to buy their house in Chappaqua, New York.
Radical activists in the gay community have put pedal to the metal to force gay acceptance from Christians — making not only their position but also their tactics anti-Christian. They are deliberately targeting the Christian wedding industry — the cakemakers, the caterers, the quaint bed-and-breakfast owners, and the like. They are headhunting Christians who refuse their business on moral grounds by slapping them with lawsuits or "human rights" complaints. Fascists would appreciate these tactics. Everyone witnessed the national shaming and death threats that came to Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Indiana, because the owners declined to cater a gay "wedding" — while stating effusively that they never had, nor would they ever consider turning away gay customers. It needs to be underscored that the owners never even received a catering request. They were simply asked their opinions and that's all the Thought Police needed. There are other less publicized examples of real trouble.
It is fair to say that Hillary Clinton is as liberal as Ted Cruz is conservative. This will explain why our so-called "objective" media are already treating Hillary as the Third Coming (Obama was No. 2) while Cruz merits hide-your-children alarms. Just the adjectives give it away. Hillary's Twitter launch on April 12 was received with words like "sleek," "savvy," "trending," "electrifying," and "approachable" She was packaged by the press exactly as she wanted it: a humble "champion of everyday Americans." Compare that to the Ted Cruz launch on March 23. These words framed the introduction: "scary," "dangerous," "slimy," "firebrand," "rigid," "uncompromising," "hardline," "extremist," "flamethrower."
Conservatives know what to expect when the networks create shows about lawyers. From "L.A. Law" to "Ally McBeal," we've observed countless crusading liberal protagonists confront and defeat conniving corporate executives and other corrupt establishment villains. This seemed to describe "The Good Wife" on CBS over the past five years. But something interesting has happened over the past few weeks. Producers have introduced a wealthy conservative character named Reese Dipple, who engages seasoned liberal lawyer Diane Lockhart on the hot-button social issues of the day. As they say on cable TV, you won't believe what happens next.
The Old Media loathes the New Media as unreliable, but have no right to pass judgment. Increasingly, they are prone to leap into news stories based on their own liberal social media networks. Look no further than the new Indiana religious freedom law. They could not get enough of those angry tweets from Hillary Clinton and public-policy geniuses like Miley Cyrus. Based on Twitter, they touted a "growing outrage" from coast to coast and obsessed over Indiana's "bigotry" for days. Conservative social media also reacted forcefully to the Hoosier contretemps, but apparently it's too much to expect "objective" journalists to notice much of that. Take Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Ind., a town a few miles southwest of South Bend. Alyssa Marino, a pushy TV reporter from ABC 57, showed up to ask how they would treat a couple seeking catering for a same-sex wedding.
Comedy Central hosted another one of its vicious and disgusting celebrity "roasts" on March 30, with Justin Bieber as the target. During the "pre-show" before the roast, unfunny comedian Jeff Ross arrived wearing a pope costume and accompanied by sexy "nuns" in black habits and fishnet stockings. Red-carpet host Sarah Tiana introduced him as the "popemaster general" and gushed,"You look amazing. You're going to be hilarious." Ross replied, "Bless you, Sarah. Congratulations on all of your abortions." The slaughter of innocent babies is hilarious, apparently. During the roast, rapper Snoop Dogg lashed out at Bieber. "Now when your mama was 17 years old and got pregnant, everybody told her to get an abortion, right? ... And they still trying to convince her right now." Comedian Natasha Leggero cracked that Bieber has "moves" because "he was in the womb dodging a coat hanger."
Imagine an eighth grader, presented with a portrayal of Sen. Edward Kennedy, the late patriarch of the "royal family" of American politics. The student would learn nothing but legends about "the greatest senator of all time," as Sen. Ed Markey proclaimed. On the occasion of the opening of an "Edward M. Kennedy Institute" in Boston, "CBS Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley oozed, "Another New England superstar was honored today. Politics was his game, and we'll have his story next." There was not one discouraging word -- not even the word "liberal" -- applied to arguably the single most leftwing senator of all time. This is not a bipartisan practice. When President George W. Bush dedicated his library on April 25, 2013, CBS reporter Jim Axelrod insisted that "this library is an intellectual fortress defending one of the most controversial modern presidents, whose time in office saw the (9/11) attack on the U.S., two wars and the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression."
TED Talks are a hot liberal video series. The 20-minute talks, usually taped in Vancouver, have become such a viral force on the Internet that NPR now has a weekly "TED Radio Hour." TED's mission statement proclaims a passionate belief in "the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world." TED offers "a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers." Or they're seeking the most Internet clicks. Because their most recent "most inspired thinker" was ... Monica Lewinsky. Seventeen years after the Year of Our Intern, Lewinsky should be doing something different. To quote the liberal lingo during that time, "move on." Yet it is Lewinsky who keeps returning to the scene of her obscene behavior, and now insists we feel her pain, that she is the "Patient Zero" of "slut shaming."
It's as if they were waiting, breathlessly. The moment Ted Cruz announced his presidential campaign, the national media proclaimed their horror. He was "brash," a "hardliner," an "uncompromising conservative," they warned. ABC anchor David Muir announced his agenda was the usual No list: "Promising no abortion, no gay marriage, no gun control, no IRS." Apparently, there's no room for hope and change -- if you're a conservative. Barack Obama owned the most left-wing voting record during his short tenure in the Senate. But when he announced his presidential campaign in Springfield, Illinois, on Feb. 10, 2007 -- arrogantly comparing himself to Abe Lincoln -- the networks warmly repeated that he pledged to be a "uniter" that was "promising a more hopeful America." They said he declared it was "time for his generation to end the cynical partisan politics of the baby boomers."
Sound the trumpets. The New York Times announced on March 18 that is bringing in 20 new online-focused writers as contributors for its op-ed and Sunday Review sections. In an interview, Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal claimed, "We were looking for a broad range of viewpoints and subjects and backgrounds and geographical locations and every kind of form of diversity that you can think of." Lower the trumpets. Bring in the fact checker. It seems viewpoint-diverse Times can't seem to locate a conservative acceptable to executives prowling the halls in the snooty Times offices in midtown Manhattan. Some names on the list are easily identified as radical-left. Start with Michael Eric Dyson, MSNBC contributor known for comparing Obama to God and suggesting Rush Limbaugh "is trying to foment a universe of bigotocracy."
On March 10, eight days after The New York Times began the scandal over her private email server, Hillary Clinton assembled the press at the United Nations in New York to offer a typically legalistic and crabby press conference lasting only 21 minutes. The first-blush reaction from the pundits? That wasn't good enough. She can't expect the story to go away just from that mess. But within 48 hours, that's exactly what began to happen, with the networks suddenly finding other shiny news objects to explore. So here's the question that needs to be asked: With the networks dumping investigators Lisa Myers, Michael Isikoff and Sharyl Attkisson, is there anyone on broadcast television interested in an investigation of Hillary's decidedly opaque email practices?
TV and movie producers rarely focus on Catholic priests in their plots, let alone use them as central characters, as in "The Father Dowling Mysteries" or "Father Murphy" in the 1980s. Maybe that's a good thing, because when Catholic priests are part of the plot these days, there is an unmistakable odor of aggression -- mocking, vilifying, and disparaging not just Catholic priests, but the priesthood itself. On March 4, on the nation's most religion-mocking channel, Comedy Central, the late-night game show "@Midnight" featured the comedian Neal Brennan. Host Chris Hardwick asked a question about confession, to which Brennan responded, "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned, I went to Catholic school growing up. While I was never molested, I did f---- a few priests."
The media have developed a predictable and equally annoying habit every presidential election cycle. We hear the Republicans are going to be crushed by pandering too much to conservatives. The Democrats are firmly moderate and need a push from the left so they don't forget their "compassion." So it was with Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter 35 years ago. So will it be in 2016, no matter who is nominated. Republican primary voters have nominated moderates in every election cycle since Reagan '88, but not because they are moderates. Instead, the moderates survive the usual conservative circular firing squad exercise; or, as was the case with both father and son Bush, the moderates ran as conservatives. How did the moderates who ran as moderates fare? Ask Presidents Dole, McCain and Romney.
Elizabeth Harrington at the Washington Free Beacon offers a familiar old slice of sleaze funded by the federal government. An "investigative theatre" company in New York, The Civilians, has been granted almost $950,000 by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and believe it or not, the National Science Foundation. Why should the American taxpayer -- you -- be forced to pay for the garbage that follows? Because you, and everyone else, would never pay for it if it weren't mandated by this radical administration which will be gone in 22 months, thank God. Their most recent work of "art" was a musical called "Pretty Filthy," exploring the "human side of the porn industry." While the porno piece wasn't directly funded by the NEA, federal funds keep this propaganda wagon on the road.
On Inauguration Day 2009, the White House website declared President Obama's administration would become "the most open and transparent in history." By the end of the next day, Obama had issued high-profile orders pledging "a new era" and "an unprecedented level of openness" across the massive federal bureaucracy. This has become a cosmic joke. The entirety of the Obama era is marked by secrecy, obfuscation and, if all else fails, sheer dishonesty. Even allies in the network news acknowledged on Tuesday it was a damaging story that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had never used a public email account during her four-year tenure at Foggy Bottom.
The media noticed that this year's Oscars ceremony contained a lot of political tub-thumping, but they didn't notice that these speeches were predictable and obnoxious left-wing screeds. They were just "passionate pleas for equality," according to the Associated Press. Actress Patricia Arquette unleashed a tirade on wage inequality for women. Singer John Legend said more black men were trapped in prison than America had black men trapped in slavery in 1850. There's apparently no difference between Kunta Kinte and Willie Horton. On CNN, Entertainment Weekly writer Anthony Breznican represented the media fog on this one: "I can't really think of anything last night that was actually liberal." He wanted to pretend these were just compassion issues, not ideological issues. When anchor Don Lemon retorted that "conservatives often complain about the issues and about these types of shows being issue-oriented," Breznican responded, "that's because they don't like to be bothered by these issues. They ... would rather not be confronted by them."
Some might insist Barack Obama is a lame duck, but our national media elite still think of him as a very graceful swan. When this man comes under criticism, journalists are incapable of any sense of objectivity, balance or fairness. The accuser must be forced to withdraw the criticism, or be punished. First, Rudy Giuliani said at an event for Gov. Scott Walker that the president doesn't love America like previous presidents did. That might be a little unfair. Jimmy Carter also loved to get up in front of a podium and lecture about all of America's flaws. The media erupted. Outraged that anyone dared to question Obama's love of country, they pounded the table and demanded that Walker denounce Giuliani. The New York Times ran a defensive story headlined "President Obama Has, in Fact, Expressed Love for His Country."
