Columnist.
No parent wants to consider the travesty that when he sends his 18-year-old daughter to college, she could be vulnerable to sexual assault. But in the increasingly punitive atmosphere surrounding sexual-assault allegations, he should also fear sending his 18-year-old son to campus, where he may be falsely accused of rape. The national media are deeply feminist. Their default position is the presumption that "the victim" is the female accuser. Some pundits have even argued in national newspapers that the accuser should be "automatically believed."
The actor and comedian Russell Brand has certainly tried brand himself. "Messiah Complex" was the name of his last tour. His new book is titled "Revolution." On "The Tonight Show," he told Jimmy Fallon he's inspired by Jesus, Gandhi, Malcolm X and Che Guevara. He thinks he's like them. In Tinseltown, they're the Fab Four revolutionaries for the downtrodden. So it's shocking to him -- and no surprise to us -- when he gets exposed by the British press as a fraud. He's just another champagne socialist playacting. On Dec. 1, he led an angry march to No. 10 Downing Street in London to take a petition to the prime minister's residence protesting skyrocketing rents in the city. In particular, he was protesting for tenants of the New Era apartments, recently bought by an American investment company. The demand for downtown real estate has caused prices to soar, leaving the middle class in dire straits.
It's an obvious rule: Never pick on a president's family. Elizabeth Lauten, the formerly unknown "communications director" for two-term GOP congressman Stephen Fincher resigned after a national-media feeding frenzy over some stupid words about the president's daughters on her personal Facebook page. No one came to her defense for this idiocy, and correctly so. Republican Party spokesman Sean Spicer decried her remarks, and then attacked the media for its hypocrisy, for launching into an obscure Republican staffer's social-media statements, something it has never done for Democrats. Again, he was absolutely correct.
Last year, Philadelphia abortionist Dr. Kermit Gosnell stood trial in Philadelphia for the deaths of one woman and seven babies who had their throats slit, but national reporters didn't want to cover it. It's a "local crime story," they said. Washington Post media blogger Erik Wemple said that when he asked national reporters about avoiding the Gosnell story, the typical response was "Get out of my face with this agenda-driven stuff, and come back when you have a real story." Ferguson, Missouri, is merely the latest proof that a "local crime story" can be elevated to national news -- when it's the liberal media's favorite kind of "agenda-driven stuff." A local story about a white cop fatally shooting an unarmed young black man in one St. Louis suburb has dominated the national news, to the point that the networks interrupted primetime TV for an announcement on whether the policeman would be indicted.
On an interview tour for his new book on President Obama, NBC's Chuck Todd told Larry King that his conversations with Obama are "very nourishing." Even after six or seven years of adoration, reporters still sound like then-NBC reporter Lee Cowan admitting in 2008 that being assigned to the Obama campaign made his "knees quake." He wondered if "he could do the campaign justice," since it was "truly historic." With conservatism on the ascent again and Obama's legacy in tatters, it doesn't take psychic powers to guess the 2016 presidential cycle is going to be another brutal campaign for GOP presidential contenders. Not only will the media transparently wish for Democrats to retain the power to protect Obama's "historic" policies, Republicans will inevitably be tagged as sexist for daring to run against the "truly historic campaign" of Hillary Clinton.
The liberal myth surrounding the hypercompetent Barack Obama faded long ago, but the liberal myth of "cultural icon" Jon Stewart is only getting stronger. Stewart's tour of interviews for the new movie he directed, "Rosewater," has created a parade of flatterers, sycophants, and every other synonym in the thesaurus for obsequious. Roy Sekoff at The Huffington Post stands out by insisting the movie only polishes this walking statue: "In finding this format, in this form, you have become obviously a cultural icon, maybe one of the dominant figures in the political discourse."
After the 2012 campaign, liberal journalists swarmed around Republican Party chair Reince Priebus offering what was called an "autopsy" on every way Republicans failed, with a special emphasis on more outreach to minority voters. Democrats and their media enablers painted a picture of demographic doom for an aging white Republican base. Two years later, Republicans made dramatic gains among minority voters. In House races across America, Republicans won 50 percent of the Asian vote to 49 percent for Democrats. Republicans won 38 percent of the Hispanic vote in House races. Gov. Sam Brownback drew 47 percent of Hispanics in Kansas, and Gov-elect Greg Abbott pulled in 44 percent of Hispanics in Texas. Support for Obama among Hispanics has been cut in half.
While Obama's Federal Communications Commission obsesses over liberal concerns like the under-regulation of the Internet and whether "Redskins" is a profanity, broadcast television is sleazier than ever. As The Hollywood Reporter recently noted, "Nearly two months into the fall, it's clear that explicit jokes and boundary-pushing storylines are changing the definition of what sexual content is acceptable in primetime." For example, the Sept. 16 season premiere of the Fox sitcom "New Girl" featured star Zooey Deschanel repeatedly muttering "sex fist" as a motto for five friends all succeeding at casual sex after the last wedding of the summer. "Multiple fisting jokes followed," they reported.
Sharyl Attkisson worked for CBS News for more than 20 years, and now she has turned her spotlight on her network in a new book called "Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington." It's a sad chronicle of how the press corps has largely walked away from investigative journalism about their beloved president. Obama's approval rating may be dangerously low in the general public, but not in the newsrooms. Attkisson pressed to get out of her contract with CBS after they smothered her reporting on Obama scandals, from Fast and Furious to Benghazi. Months would go by with her journalism only surfacing on the CBS News website.
While so much of reality television dwells on catty "Real Housewives" and Snooki-style party-hearty debauchery, it's interesting to note that a small fraction of this ever-expanding genre is celebrating evangelical Christianity and values like chastity. This drives the libertines crazy. Washington Post TV critic Hank Stuever recently raged on the Internet against the Duggar family of TLC's "19 Kids & Counting" and how they are no more worthy of attention than the Kardashians. Their children are denied "freedom of choice." "My thoughts on the Duggars are few and far between because I think the show treats its viewers like they're learning-disabled," he wrote. Then he doubled down. "The viewers, not the Duggars. Although ... "
On the Sunday before the election, CBS "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer unloaded one of those pompously "progressive" end-of-show commentaries about how our democracy is being ruined by money. "The right to vote is our proudest possession, but the way it has become debased by money shames us all." He claimed "Congress hasn't done anything in years, yet these midterm elections will be the most expensive in history, just like the last one -- $4 billion this time around. That's billion with a B," he lamented. On one level, he is correct. Special interests are purchasing candidates right and left and spending money at a dizzying pace. Consider: the North Carolina Senate campaign this year will cost more than all candidate spending in the presidential campaign of 1980.
The "No More" TV advertisement blitz against domestic violence by professional athletes is obnoxious and reeks of political correctness. Exactly why does the public need to be indoctrinated about this, as if the audience for "Monday Night Football" is to blame? It's another reason to stop watching this sport. But there is another reason to be opposed to this clearly political pressure campaign. In the current atmosphere, where even accusations of abuse are toxic public relations, what happens when a pro is falsely accused? Consider the story of Dante Cunningham. Six months ago, the Minnesota Timberwolves basketball player drove into his driveway in Minneapolis at 4 in the morning. Waiting for him were the police, who immediately put him in handcuffs. He was accused of beating the girlfriend he'd been living with for eight months, Miryah Herron.
Liberals have this terrible and annoying habit of congratulating themselves for their intellectual heft merely because they hold liberal views. Once this arrogant notion reigns, it's tough for liberals to acknowledge when one of their own says something so remarkably untrue and stupid that it makes you wonder just how ignorant is the liberal really. At an event for Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley in Boston on Oct. 24, Hillary Clinton told the assembled Democratic faithful: "Don't let anybody tell you that, you know, it's corporations and businesses that create jobs."
The Metropolitan Opera in New York City is hardly a site for hundreds of angry protesters. But they have erupted over their current selection, an opera called "The Death of Klinghoffer." Leon Klinghoffer was the 69-year-old paralyzed New Yorker who in 1985 was aboard the hijacked cruise ship Achille Lauro, then executed by Islamic terrorists because he was a Jew. The terrorists forced the ship's barber and a waiter to throw his body and his wheelchair overboard off the coast of Egypt. Klinghoffer's daughters, Lisa and Ilsa, have objected to this opera for decades. In the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, they recently proclaimed, "Terrorism is irrational. It should never be explained away or justified. Nor should the death of innocent civilians be misunderstood as an acceptable means for drawing attention to perceived political grievances. Unfortunately, 'The Death of Klinghoffer' does all of this and sullies the memory of our father in the process."
Knowing the way our political press works, it's easy to predict that Barack Obama's presidency is just about over. Journalists will soon treat him as the lamest of lame ducks, and suggest nothing consequential will happen in the last two years of his presidency. Instead, they'll obsess over who will come next. So the timing is perfect for Rolling Stone magazine to reassert itself as Obama's most shameless house organ. They've published a 4,000-word tribute by liberal New York Times columnist Paul Krugman insisting that "Obama has emerged as one of the most consequential and, yes, successful presidents in American history."
While the cultural commissars keep throwing praise and awards at raunchy shows on trendy Internet streaming channels, CBS has a series of highly-rated traditional police or military shows that get no attention or respect. "NCIS" keeps spinning off shows -- this year in New Orleans -- and "Blue Bloods" is a consistent Top 20 performer despite airing on Friday night. You won't see its star Tom Selleck at Emmy awards time. "Blue Bloods" deals with an Irish-Catholic family of cops, headed by New York police commissioner Frank Reagan, played by Selleck. Some Catholics became fans of the show as a rare portrayal of a church-attending Catholic family dealing with today's thorny issues.
On Oct. 12, the Sunday edition of The Washington Post reported their "Election Lab" estimate that the Republicans will win six more seats in the House and eight more Senate seats, and projected it was 95 percent certain that Democrats will lose the Senate. But on NBC's "Meet the Press" that morning, newly installed host Chuck Todd stubbornly persisted in the usual Republicans-in-deep-trouble narrative. Based on the judicial failure to take up gay marriage cases, Todd previewed the program by asking, "Is it time for conservatives to surrender in the culture wars?" Later, Todd underlined his point: "Whether it's on abortion, whether it's on same-sex marriage, whether it's on marijuana legalization, the culture wars have shifted to the left. Many Republicans are trying to acknowledge that general public shift. And yet, it's going to cause some heartburn."
That left-wing group called Rock the Vote has released its latest silly new video urging the youth of America to vote. But vote for what? As usual, they featured celebrities and young people urging a turnout for marriage equality, for global warming awareness and against deforestation. It comes with visual aids for their pet issues. There's a globe with an old-fashioned ice bag on it, a gun with a padlock on the trigger, and a ball-and-chain representing student loans. There are those edgy figures, like the rapper whose "song" drones throughout the video: "My name is Lil Jon and I'm turning out for the legalization or marijuana." HBO star Lena Dunham doesn't get naked (as she usually does), but she does proclaim, "My name is Lil Lena, and I'm turning out for reproductive rights."
Bill Maher is no one's idea of a disinterested scholar on religion. He's long been the loudest, most obnoxious barroom brawler for atheism. What makes his argument toxic is that it isn't an intellectual defense of atheism. It is a sophomoric, boorish attack on religion, wholly dependent on yuk-yuk lines. These attacks have drawn little attention of late, perhaps because he's so predictable, but in the last few weeks, Maher has drawn new attention for singling out Islam as the worst of all them all. He almost sounded pro-Christian (by comparison) in a surprisingly contentious PBS interview with Charlie Rose wherein he slammed militant Islam. Then he fought with Ben Affleck on his HBO show on Oct. 3. Suddenly the liberal media discovered Maher's argument ... and rushed to side with Affleck.
The London Daily Mail reports Amazon.com now issues a content warning to viewers before they live-stream the second volume of classic "Tom and Jerry" cartoons. Viewers are lectured the cartoons "may depict some ethnic and racial prejudices that were once commonplace in American society. Such depictions were wrong then and are wrong today." If you think this makes sense, dear reader, you, too, have lost your mind. The same Amazon.com is also releasing a new 10-part Web series called "Transparent," about a 70-year-old father of three who decides he's a woman named Maura. There are no content warnings for this. There is only progressive euphoria. TV critics and the wider media are falling all over themselves expressing glory and praise for this cultural landmark.
