The Decline and Fall of the Liberal Media

Last night PBS aired "An Unreasonable Man" — a brilliant documentary about Ralph Nader, the man responsible for seat belts, air bags, food labeling and safety, and a host of other humanist causes. Over time, however, America grew tired of this tireless advocate. His efforts to contain corporate power is a trajectory of liberal causes that sadly, ultimately fell on deaf ears. By the time he ran for President in 2000, the electorate — thanks to Bill Clinton and others — had turned not moderate but right so that he became in the minds of many extraneous.

Many were upset because, they said, his candidacy would help defeat Gore, which in fact it didn’t do. Gore and Clinton’s inability to openly support Gore defeated Gore. But how great and how different would Gore have been if elected? Don’t forget, his running mate was Joe Lieberman, who has openly supported the Neocons and now endorses John McCain, and is itching for war with Iran. And, moreover, as Nader asserts, the big corporate money had already spoiled the Democrats.

Indeed, they were liberal, i.e., humanists, in name only. The fix was in, and yet the media still played it as if it were a battle of distinctly different candidates. This was the beginning of corrupt political coverage that skewed the issues and the candidates in favor of those chosen behind closed doors while democratic inquiry was severely disabled

First, liberals were deceived by the Clinton Administration, which was effectively Republican in nature, i.e., pro big business, including the junk bond crowd, and anti social programs. The Free Market advocates claimed, welfare was draining the coffers, affirmative action providing unfair advantages, free cheese robbing people of the opportunity to work for themselves. And those arguments aren’t without some merit, but only if society is prepared to assist the unfortunate, the mentally ill, the broken and shattered with transformative aid if the government isn’t going to help.

The problem was, as Nader repeatedly found out battling Big Business, that aid isn’t provided without government mandates as a general rule. Indeed, welfare increased considerably for corporations — the rewards they sought for campaign contributions and effective lobbying — affirmative action was, according to Charles Murray’s Bell Curve, now rewarding the Skull & Bones members under the auspices of meritocracy, and the money that would’ve gone into free cheese plus a few hundred million more went to radically expanding military expenditures and prisons. In the end, after the Neocons had brilliantly decimated liberal policies dating back to FDR by 1984, the benefits didn’t disappear, as they argued for, but instead went to the top 10%.

And over time the media — both Mainstream and second tier, and then eventually the bloggers — sat on their hands without much protest with few exceptions. Instead they busied themselves earnestly defending the Clintons, particularly Hillary’s "right wing conspiracy."

So where does that leave us today? Lost. Befuddled. And taken for a ride. It’s almost 25 years since Reagan’s revolution and the Democrats haven’t yet recovered. Exhibit A: the best hope for Democratic change, at least until recently, was Hillary.

Listen closely, you can hear the right wing, particularly the Neocons, licking their chops, hoping that Hillary will win if one of their candidates doesn’t. They’re busy, such as Romney in his commercials, and Rudy’s asides, trying to convince America she’s a "liberal." What a joke. But what’s worse is that the media is doing the same, including Chris Matthews, Wolf Blitzer, Paul Krugman, numerous writers at Salon, Kevin Drum at washingtonmonthly.com, and a host of others who are persistently attacking Obama - either with overt critiques or slanted questions — while basically ignoring the other candidates, in an effort to elect Hillary President.

Their motives appear to be self-serving, such as hoping for a job (the next Tony Snow perhaps?), or a night or two in the Lincoln bedroom. But, no doubt, there’s also numerous hidden agendas at work. None of them that will benefit the American people who are being blinded by the corrupt coverage of their political races.

It’s time the American public woke up to the fact of the basic bankruptcy of the Democratic party, e.g., its continued support for lobbyists, corporate financing, the Military Industrial Complex, the AMA, insurance companies, etc., etc., etc. Kucinich is the most distinct exception but he didn’t even open an office in Iowa in order to qualify for the Des Moines Register debate. The rest of the group, except for Hillary, has merit. But how are the people going to be made aware of the state of affairs if the media is similarly corrupt?

Wake up. You’re being denied the truth. You’re being, effectively, asked to drink the Kool Aid so that the entrenched powers can continue their affairs unimpeded, regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican is elected, especially if that Democrat is Hillary.

The springboard for this rant was a Kevin Drum bit used recently to illustrate Hillary’s superiority over Obama, but like many of the brief pieces he features on the Washington Monthly site, it only represents a fraction of the entire story, sufficient enough to frame his bias but not comprehensive enough to illustrate the whole truth. This is the piece he excerpted: http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/ar... .

The basic contention is that Hillary attends the meetings of the committee she chairs (where she oversees the Superfund) but Obama doesn’t initiate meetings for his (he chairs the Foreign Relations’ Subcommittee on Europe). If you’re looking for productive legislators, and Senators who judiciously show up at committee meetings, don’t overlook Biden or Dodd. They have far more impressive Senatorial records than the leaders. But does that qualify them to be President? Drum doesn’t think so, having already picked Hillary at early point in the race, like many of her "objective" "liberal" followers.

Aside from the apples-and-oranges contrast to the dispute (Is there really an outstanding issue needed to be addressed in Europe now?), let’s consider not who attends the meetings but how effective is the individual attending them really is.

Check out a recent Hillary speech re: Superfund issues:
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.... .

It’s virtually the same platitude-filled, amorphous template she uses for nearly every speech and every response. However, what about the details? She mentions that 1,246 sites remain on the Superfund list that haven’t been cleaned up yet. In an American Progress report: http://www.americanprogress.org/iss... there were 1,244 sites that still required a cleanup in ’06. Is Hillary - the Chairwoman of the committee — not responsible in some way for such incompetence, or is it all W’s fault?

Hillary may be attending the meetings and impressing Mr. Clemons with her enormous intelligence, but what has she actually done with all those brains? Has she addressed the Superfund problem caused by Katrina that still exists:
http://www.americanprogress.org/iss... ? Nope. But that doesn’t stop her from scapegoating W for having neglected Katrina.

The problem most of us skeptics have regarding Hillary isn’t necessarily that we’ve already picked a candidate, though that’s happening more frequently now in reaction to rejecting her. It’s that we’re sick and tired of seeing the gilded lilly, and knowing it’s merely a plastic rose. We’re tired of hearing about how 8 years of being married to a President, a few years of being a semi-active lawyer, and a second term Senate seat equals 35 years of experience. We’re fed up hearing about how intelligent she is and then searching high and low for the remarkable results. (Stop kidding yourself; they’re all intelligent.) And last but not least we’ve had it with all the obsequious pundits and pollsters who have insisted she’s unstoppable.

Since the meltdown in Philly, she’s shed more skins than a snake does in a decade. And, amazingly, her revisionist husband now promises that when she’s elected he and W’s father will tour the world together and proclaim, "America’s open for business." Sort of like Crosby and Hope. Wow. At the rate they’re going, no one’s going to hurt them more than they’re hurting themselves. Please, give us our Christmas gifts early this year and keep it up.

The internet’s a glorious thing, as are sites like bellaciao, allowing the curious to go beyond the company line to find the facts required to make sound judgments. As many on this site have said many times, forget about the mainstream media, the pundits, and many if not most of the bloggers. You’re only a few clicks away from the true facts.

For more on Nader see:
http://www.nader.org/template.php?/...