According to a new Gallup poll, 55 percent of Americans say they have little to no confidence that they can rely on mass media to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly.”

Forty-six percent say the media is too liberal and just 13 percent think it’s too conservative.

Justification for this public sentiment is evident as the budget and debt-ceiling issues heat up and the press can hardly restrain its disdain for Tea Party Republicans and the idea that our nation may really be in crisis.

New York Times columnist David Brooks does a regular political commentary feature along with Mark Shields on the “PBS NewsHour.” It’s hard to believe that this feature is supposed to be balanced, with Brooks the alleged conservative and Shields the liberal. But for PBS, like The New York Times where Brooks writes his column, anyone not on the far left is a conservative.

In a recent “NewsHour” segment about the budget debate, Brooks talked about “the rise of Ted Cruzism.”

According to Brooks, the Republican freshman senator from Texas is not a “normal” senator who sees himself in Congress to form alliances and pass legislation. Rather, per Brooks, Cruz is more a “media protest person.”

The same thing is happening in the House, says Brooks. House Republicans are “not normal. … They just want to obstruct.”

My organization, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, held an event in Washington two weeks ago titled “Reversing the Urban Plight.”

About 100 black pastors and community leaders from around the country listened as black conservatives such as Dr. Ben Carson, economist Walter Williams, Louisiana State Sen. Elbert Guillory and CURE chairman and Family Research Council senior fellow Ken Blackwell talked about how freedom and conservative principles hold the key to resolving our urban crises.

At dinner, Cruz dropped by.

In stark contrast to what the PBS viewing audience heard from Brooks, this audience heard remarks from Cruz that everyone in the room found refreshingly normal.

Cruz had a crisp, clear message about getting America back on track and about what it will take to save our low-income urban communities.

He talked about the importance of school choice and personal retirement accounts for low-income Americans.

Only in Washington is it considered abnormal and obstructionist for a member of Congress to ring the alarm about the loss of freedom in America, to take a stand to restore it, and suggest that Americans, particularly low-income Americans, should be able to decide what kind of school they send their child to and to keep and save more of their hard-earned income.

In Cruz, the black pastors heard someone who wants to liberate, not obstruct. They understood that the obstructionists, whose agenda is holding onto and expanding their own power, come from the political class in Washington.

While the median American family income dropped 6.6 percent from 2000 to 2012, median family income in Washington, D.C., grew 23.3 percent – by far the highest in the nation, new Census Bureau data show.

Let’s recall that the tea party movement got going when it was clear in 2009 that America’s new president saw more government rather than less as the answer to America’s crisis.

The 2010 health care reform commonly called “Obamacare,” which passed without a single Republican vote, has only gotten more unpopular. A USA Today/Pew Research Center poll this week shows 53 percent of Americans disapprove of the new law and 42 percent approve. Forty one percent strongly disapprove and 26 percent strongly approve.

It’s Washington that is abnormal, not Ted Cruz and tea party Republicans.

Only a left-wing press can conclude that the abnormal obstructionists are those taking a stand for freedom in a country that is supposed to be free.