Columnist.
On September 14 at Andrews Air Force Base just outside the Washington Beltway, President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton welcomed home the remains of four Americans killed at our consulate in Benghazi, Libya. It was a moment of national mourning. The president was presidential, Mrs. Clinton, dignified. But for some journalists, it was, quite strangely and inappropriately something to view only through the tacky lens of politics. On "Hardball," Chris Matthews was tingling away. It was an "amazing ceremony," he insisted. After an Obama clip, he said, "There was a moment in American history right there. Last week, when Obama spoke at the Democratic National Committee down in Charlotte, he said, 'I am the president.' Well, this week, he showed what it means to be president." This was a moment for pride?
Veteran reporter Sharon Waxman knew she'd found a new low. Reporting from the Toronto Film Festival, she revealed the viewpoint of director Nick Cassavetes, which she summarized in a headline: "Who Gives a Damn? Love Who You Want." The topic was incest. Hollywood's march to tear down -- to obliterate, really -- every boundary of sexual decency should compel even the harshest accusers of social conservatives like Rick Santorum to apologize profusely. They were wrong to mock conservatives for warning of the extremes, as we're lurching so quickly and easily into the darkest "love who you want" extremes of the Lifestyle Left.
The conventions have come and gone, but as always, the TV network "news" coverage of Tampa and Charlotte demonstrated once again that these people have no intention of trying to be equally positive or equally aggressive with the two major parties. Their obvious, but unstated, agenda is to drag Obama over the finish line to re-election. Always on pins and needles for his man Obama, NBC anchor Brian Williams told top Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett at the convention season's end that they will need the "tall order" of "nothing but positive coverage" over the next 60 days.
Some hateful stereotypes never die in Hollywood. The cover of the Sept. 7 edition of Entertainment Weekly featured the 63-year-old actress Jessica Lange, smirking in a nun's black habit, holding a big, punishing cane in her hands. Lange is returning for a second season on the FX series "American Horror Story," but this time with an entirely new plot and characters. Nuns are now a thing of horror. "Jessica Lange returns, this time as a terrifying nun," promised the magazine's cover. They eagerly hyped a new storyline that's "a macabre mash-up of nuns, Nazis, aliens, a serial killer named Bloody Face and the lead singer of Maroon 5." Set in Massachusetts in 1964, this nun dominates the inmates of a mental asylum named Briarcliff.
Within minutes of Paul Ryan concluding his convention speech in Tampa, Fla., the media attacks were launched. Why, the man is loose with the facts! He only spews vitriol and nonsense. Democratic National Convention Political Director Patrick Gaspard quickly sent out a fundraising appeal: "Paul Ryan's speech to the Republican Convention tonight wasn't grounded in reality." It was impossible to tell where the Democratic Party ended and the "news" media began. Liberal arrogance often reveals itself in the smug certitude that its globe-encompassing enlightenment trumps all. For decades, the liberal media have ripped conservatives as hopelessly ignorant. From Dan Quayle to Sarah Palin to Rick Perry to yes, Ronald Reagan, the exercise has always been the same: Find a gaffe, even just a perceived gaffe -- and pounce mercilessly. They attempt to ruin careers by shredding any sense that these conservative leaders could form a coherent sentence in English. *"That's how dumb he/she really is."*
I watch some commercials on television and am amazed that the corporate sponsor really signed off on the product. Think about the expressions on the faces of the dark suits in the executive boardroom when they were presented with some of the commercials running on TV right now. Take Jack in the Box. "Jack Box," the fast-food chain's mascot -- a man wearing what looks like a Ping-Pong-ball head or a snowman getup with a clown hat -- is sitting playing a game much like Scrabble with a beautiful blonde. He lays out the nonword "swavory," selling a waffle breakfast sandwich for having savory sausage and sweet maple waffles. The blonde then lays on the board letters reading "No Nookie." Jack says, "What's that supposed to ... ? Oh." Is sexual slang really necessary to sell breakfast sandwiches during prime time? Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn had this reaction to Jack's misfortune: "The resulting image in my mind's eye is cricky -- a combination of creepy and icky."
The Republican convention was delayed by a day on Monday. It's not a problem: The national media's preconvention spin was timed perfectly, almost as if it was on automatic pilot. In Monday's New York Times, longtime political writer Adam Nagourney regurgitated the same old, tired political spin that the Republican Party is too conservative and exclusionary on "social issues" and that their divisive stands will hurt them with "mainstream" voters. 1976. 1980. 1984. 1988. 1992. 1996. 2000. 2004. 2008. Will they *ever* stop saying this?
As easy as it might be to forget them in the cobwebs of the AM radio dial, the liberal pretenders to the Rush Limbaugh throne are still broadcasting, and they're often utterly, shamelessly ridiculous. Case in point: Even Al Sharpton lamely used his radio show to defend Joe Biden's anti-Republican "they want to put y'all in chains" race baiting in front of a black audience. Another case in point: Liberal radio hosts adore Harry Reid for making utterly unsubstantiated ugly charges that Mitt Romney evaded taxes for a decade. Bill Press has routinely declared his love for the tactic -- even on CNN, where someone might have noticed. On "Reliable Sources," Press taunted the journalists who might want to play by the rules of evidence.
The only thing that will ever convince Comedy Central to stop perpetuating its disgusting celebrity roasts are poor ratings. Taste, decency, talent -- none of these has bearing on this network's decisions. Nor do they care about the damage they're inflicting on youngsters. They care only about the numbers. So the good news is that their Aug. 12 roast of Roseanne Barr flopped, bringing in only 2.6 million viewers. That's almost a million less than their roast of the day- before-yesterday's news, David Hasselhoff. It came in far below the 6.5 million they drew last fall for their wish-you-were-dead roast of Charlie Sheen, but that was just capturing Sheen's lightning of insanity in a bottle.
Floyd Corkins, a volunteer for the last six months at the D.C. Center for the LGBT Community, marched into the Family Research Center with a gun and serious ammunition, denounced FRC's policy positions and shot a security guard in the arm before being subdued. Another hate crime, but this time against, perhaps, the pre-eminent pro-family organization in America. CBS gave the story 20 seconds. NBC spent 17 seconds.
Mitt Romney made a smart executive decision selecting Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate. Ryan's genial personality, serious policy wonkery and political courage have dazzled conservatives and won respect even in a few liberal circles. Romney scores points for political courage as well. He knew liberal politicians and journalists would talk in punishing terms about Ryan's budget ideas. They did not disappoint. It took only minutes for the onslaught to begin. At the same time liberal media outlets acknowledge the country now faces two opposing visions of government, why is *only* the Romney-Ryan vision "polarizing" and "extreme"? To be sure, Ryan's early press clips weren't terrible when compared to the immediate viciousness that greeted Sarah Palin four years ago. Still, reporters predictably unloaded with the Freddy-Krueger talk of "budget-slasher" and Ryan "ripping" into the middle class.
On Aug. 6, that pseudo-conservative satirist Stephen Colbert utterly failed to pretend to play a right-winger on TV. Colbert invited on "legendary" radical-left folk singer Pete Seeger and treated him with deep reverence. "It's an honor to have you on. You are a living legend. You are a giant. It's like having Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseed on," he oozed. This is the same sultan of snark that exudes zero reverence for his allegedly Catholic beliefs, calling himself the "Pope of basic cable" as he has rudely joked that Cardinal Timothy Dolan uses Viagra and mocked Pope Benedict for having "the face of an angel ... that got caught in a food dehydrator."
On Aug. 5, Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post announced he was playing with a "somewhat controversial idea" that Mitt Romney should be the favorite to win the presidential election. Debatable, maybe. But controversial? Well, yes. It violates the pro-Obama mandate of our national press corps. The usual political measures look terrible for Obama, he noted. "The unemployment rate has been over 8 percent for 42 straight months, a streak unparalleled in American history." Obama must win despite the crippled economy -- the most important issue for the voters. The numbers are political red alerts. The Post's polling in July showed 44 percent approved of how Obama was dealing with the economy, while 54 percent disapproved, and 41 strongly disapproved of the job he is doing on the economy, while only 21 percent strongly approved. Six in 10 said the economy was getting worse, not better, in a Gallup poll.
From our seats in front of the television, it certainly feels like the TV network programmers have all the power to entertain us. But the press gatherings of the Television Critics Association in Tinseltown suggest that others audaciously think they should be in the driver's seat, and they're not shy about saying so. The latest TCA press tour showed off the intimidating power of the television critics flailing away at young, shy Bristol Palin, who's returning to ABC for an all-star version of "Dancing with the Stars." Look, there's no doubt that Sarah Palin has figured out a way to benefit from all the media attention -- mostly negative, often vicious -- after the 2008 presidential race. The enemy of my enemy is my friend -- and her support has grown by the millions. Her supporters across America made Bristol a fan-favorite on "Dancing," even if she was hardly Ginger Rogers on the season debut. But the Palin-haters who dismissed her as being on the show only because of her famous mother proved their real agenda when Chastity "Chaz" Bono took a turn (as a "male") on the program, and the crickets chirped.
Mitt Romney might have thought it was eminently sensible in an NBC interview in London to repeat exactly what the TV networks had already reported on security at the London Olympics, namely, that there was room for concern. Romney succeeded only in demonstrating how unbelievably shameless and partisan our "objective" media can be. The networks and national newspapers aggressively declared Romney had committed a diplomatic fiasco overseas and repeated London tabloid headlines heckling Romney with insults, such as "Mitt the Twit."
The latest solid proof that Hollywood really can't stand traditional Christianity has arrived in an unfolding boycott of Chick-fil-A, a Georgia-based fast-food chain that's rapidly spreading franchises across America. Chick-fil-A demonstrates a public faith by closing all its stores on Sundays and on Thanksgiving and Christmas. It's something the left ridicules but something anyone of any faith respects. It's the company's donations through its WinShape Foundation that have launched the intolerant gay left into action. Chick-fil-A has dared to donate their profits to groups like the Fellowship of Christian Athletes (Horrors!) and the Marriage and Family Foundation (No!). Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy told the Baptist Press that, "We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that." This man just has to cut it out. Who does he think he is?
The so-called prestige media have built this arrogant sense of professionalism around themselves. They are not just fair and objective, they're also *accurate*. The great amateurish unwashed shouldn't sit at keyboards in their pajamas and attempt the marvelous feats that only they perform. But when these reporters see an opportunity to discredit conservatives, all that goes out the window. Shortly after the Batman premiere began at midnight in Aurora, Colo., (Mountain time), police say Jim Holmes opened fire in a crowded theater, killing 12 and wounding many more. Six hours later, early in the second hour of "Good Morning America" in New York, ABC host George Stephanopoulos announced that investigative reporter Brian Ross had "found something that might be significant."
Network television is a pretty dreary place in the summer time. It's somehow the perfect time for Hollywood executives to throw millions of dollars at ever-dumber sexualized content. It's hard to tell what offends more, the raunch or the sheer stupidity of it all. The network calling itself "the CW" is barely noticed at any time of the year, if quality were a determinant. So instead they seem to be competing for some kind of Nobel Sleaze Prize this summer with a Miami-based "reality" show called "The Catalina." Hotel owner Nathan Lieberman developed the show simply to promote bookings at his own hotel. That is how pedestrian our "entertainment" media have become. Illogical, too: Lieberman told one interviewer his audience is too young to book rooms with him. "The CW is a good fit for us because their demographic is very young. Even though at The Catalina the rates aren't inexpensive enough for the spring-break-type crowd, eventually they will grow up and have memories of the place they would like to visit again."
Back in 2007 and 2008, it was remarkable watching Barack Obama treated to one puffball interview after another, courtesy of Steve Kroft on "60 Minutes." Kroft compared him to Abe Lincoln and oozed about his "political poetry." But it's simply irresponsible, after three and a half years of President Obama wrecking the economy, that CBS -- now with anchor Charlie Rose -- is still in puffery mode. There's a certain level of contempt on the part of CBS. It could and should focus its attention on the plight of every family struggling with unemployment or a house that's underwater financially or facing its loss of religious liberties with a federal government drunk with power. CBS chose instead to waste most of the interview asking the Obamas about summer vacations, where they'd like to travel in the world and whether there's still mystery in their marriage.
On July 9, Washington Post media reporter Paul Farhi composed a puff piece to honor Stephen Colbert, "fake news" commentator and satirical fake conservative. It turns out Colbert is becoming an "obsession in academia," with a new collegiate submersion in "Truthinessology." Let us agree that he can be very funny. Let's also agree that his satire being taken seriously by academia says something about the state of academia. It also says something about those in the press who agree. Farhi winked in his story that this obsession is a problem, but then unfurled a long list of academic tributes. Parents are now paying tens of thousands of dollars each year for their children to skateboard around boring old Aristotle and Locke and instead immerse themselves in the study of smirking liberal TV wise-crackers.
