Three American Values, and David Brooks

Some time ago (quite possibly two or three years ago) on an episode of the Observations Podcast, the Q and O guys pontificated about what they considered to be the three American values: Justice, Liberty, and Equality. Their discussion has stuck with me.



These three values are are displayed with prominence in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, ...

In fact, beyond simply showing up as words, the values resonate through out that paragraph (and the rest of the Declaration for that matter). The securing of rights deals further with Justice, their unalienable status with Liberty, our right to life with Equality.

The values of Liberty and Justice also appear in the Pledge of Allegiance ("with liberty and justice for all"), and Equality was considered as being added to these before the pledge was finalized.

Each of these three values resonates through the American ethic today and has since our country's founding. But the three necessarily interfere with one another.

Before I get too far discussing the tensions between the three I should define what I happen to mean by each, because each is fairly nebulous with many options for interpretation.

Justice

By Justice, I mean "maintenance or administration ... by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments" if I can borrow part of a Merriam-Webster definition.

An instance I would consider to be within the realm of Justice would include if you are promised some amount of compensation for some amount of work, and you complete the work, that you are properly compensated, and that others then can't also lay claim to your compensation. Or, in another instance, that others are prohibited from causing you physical harm, and if do so, receive a suitable punishment.

I should mention that as a socially concerned Evangelical, I often hear the term "social justice" bandied about. "Social justice" has nothing to do with the Justice I am talking about here (and, I think, little to do with what our Founding Fathers were talking about in the Declaration.) That's to not say that "social justice" proponents have goals I disagree with - but I do dislike their terminology (and often I also dislike the means they propose to achieved their desired ends). So called "social justice" deals with what the Catholic Encyclopedia terms a "claim in charity" as opposed to a "claim in justice" (or likewise, "charity leads us to help our neighbour in his need out of our own stores, while justice teaches us to give to another what belongs to him.")

Again, charity is important, but it is not Justice as I'm defining it for the purpose of this post.

Liberty

To explain what I mean by liberty, I'll again cherry pick from M-W: "the quality or state of being free", "the power to do as one pleases", "the positive enjoyment of various ... rights and privileges".

This is all about being able do that which you desire without impediment by others, to "be free". If you want to paint your house red, and you have the means to do so, you can paint your house red. If you want to engage in an open market exchange, you are able to do so. If you want to share your wealth out of charity, you can do so. Etc, etc, etc.

Equality

I mean two related but perhaps slightly different concepts by Equality.

The first deals with impartiality. We should be impartial about things beyond someone's control and which aren't relevant when making decisions. So, one should not be able to able to discriminate based on race or ethnicity or creed because that violates equality in terms of impartiality. In this sense we are all "equal" in that we all, by virtue of being human, have access to the same set of unalienable rights.

The second deals with egalitarianism. This incorporates both the desire to provide equal privileges to all and to address the "gap" of "inequality" between individuals. We educate all children in this country out of this egalitarianism, so all persons have some degree of "equality of opportunity." Our progressive tax code is also based on this egalitarianism such that those with much are taxed more to give aid to those without (this is an attempt to achieve "equality of results/ends").


Now that you hopefully have some sense of what I mean by these concepts, I can get into how they conflict. Justice necessarily requires the State (or whomever is administering Justice) to be able to violate one's Liberty. Locking someone in jail clearly violates their Liberty, but punishing those who commit crimes is Just. Equality also conflicts with Liberty. Anti-discrimination laws violate a person's Liberty to discriminate on various criteria to achieve the goal of Equality in terms of impartiality.

Equality and Justice can also conflict. Progressive taxation, for example (and - to come back to my previous point on "social justice," which often involves calls for progressive taxation), takes away the merited rewards that should be protected by Justice for the sake of achieving the egalitarian ends of Equality.



Within the conflicting tensions between these values is where different political philosophies pop up. Referencing back to the Q and O podcast, the participants discussed how (typically) Liberals emphasize Equality above the other two, whereas Conservatives broadly champion Justice, and conservatives who would identify as Libertarians primarily care about Liberty.


Hopefully by this point you've come away from this post with something to think about, but I'm really just setting up the framework of these values for the purpose of evaluating a recent New York Times article by David Brooks - his Feb. 19 piece, "Money for Idiots". Keeping in mind that Brooks described himself as a "conservative moderate" on March 3 in his later article "A Moderate Manifesto", and he's the token conservative on PBS's NewsHour, let's consider exactly how "moderate" and exactly how "conservative" Brooks is.

"Money for Idiots" starts:

Our moral and economic system is based on individual responsibility. It's based on the idea that people have to live with the consequences of their decisions. This makes them more careful deciders. This means that society tends toward justice — people get what they deserve as much as possible.

So far so good. That's conservative red meat. It's Liberty (make your own decisions) and Justice (live with your decisions) all over the place.

Then:

Over the last few months, we've made a hash of all that. The Bush and Obama administrations have compensated foolishness and irresponsibility. The financial bailouts reward bankers who took insane risks. The auto bailouts subsidize companies and unions that made self-indulgent decisions a few decades ago that drove their industry into the ground.

The stimulus package handed tens of billions of dollars to states that spent profligately during the prosperity years. The Obama housing plan will force people who bought sensible homes to subsidize the mortgages of people who bought houses they could not afford. It will almost certainly force people who were honest on their loan forms to subsidize people who were dishonest on theirs.

These injustices are stoking anger across the country, lustily expressed by Rick Santelli on CNBC Thursday morning. "The government is promoting bad behavior!" Santelli cried as Chicago traders cheered him on. "The president ... should put up a Web site ... to have people vote ... to see if they want to subsidize losers' mortgages!"

After reading just the intro, I started thinking "Hey - Brooks is back!" After all his Palin bashing and what seemed to be his secret glee over the Obama win, I was hoping to be breathing a fresh breath of Brooks by the time I made it that far through the article — individual responsibility, apparent sneers at bailouts and the stimulus, Liberty. Justice. And, low on egalitarian Equality. He's a conservative again!

But, wait! Unfortunately, there's more:

Well, in some cases we probably do [have to subsidize irresponsible people's mortgages]. That's because government isn't fundamentally in the Last Judgment business, making sure everybody serves penance for their sins. In times like these, government is fundamentally in the business of stabilizing the economic system as a whole.

Sigh. He's back to his liberalism. He just chucked Liberty and Justice out the window to welcome in egalitarian Equality.

It's more anti-Justice, anti-Liberty through the rest of the article and Brooks concludes:

The nation's economy is not just the sum of its individuals. It is an interwoven context that we all share. To stabilize that communal landscape, sometimes you have to shower money upon those who have been foolish or self-indulgent. The greedy idiots may be greedy idiots, but they are our countrymen. And at some level, we're all in this together. If their lives don't stabilize, then our lives don't stabilize.

Which, is basically a more elaborate way for Brooks to make a bad parody out of Patrick Henry's famous quote ... changing it to: "The government needs to give egalitarian Equality to the entire economy, or you get death."

David Brooks doesn't share a common outlook on these three American values with conservatives. He's willing to do away with the conservative push for Justice and Liberty for a little Equality. That's not the balance of a conservative, it's the balance of a liberal. Now if only the mainstream media would bring Brooks on their programs under the right label.

Related:
1. Bruce McQuain makes similar points to the above over at Q and O.
2. Brooks wins the "2009 Beclownment in Journalism Award". (H/T The Other McCain).
3. David Brooks: insane. Count me stuck on Reagan. (Also, H/T The Other McCain).

Update, 3/11: Michael Wade over at Q and O critiques the latest nonsense to come out of David Brooks which is continued criticism of faux capitalism from a faux conservative.

Bill Moyers, Hypocrite

I make it no secret that I strongly dislike Bill Moyers.

What bothers me most about Moyers is how he presents himself as compared to the reality of what he is.

As Commentary Magazine describes:

Moyers is among the most sanctimonious individuals on television (quite a feat, given the competition). He presents himself as a champion of good government, an intrepid voice for integrity and honesty, ever on the lookout for people who would degrade our public discourse or act in a dishonorable manner.

I'd add to that that he's always pushing himself as an independently minded "journalist" who's only interested in the truth.

But the reality is that Moyers is a partisan hack. That doesn't mean he doesn't occasionally bring some important issue to light or that he's always wrong. But he does have an agenda. It's liberal. And his typical modus operandi is trying to make Republicans look foolish or corrupt.

And, this week, we're reminded that Moyers has been doing this since his days of working for the Johnson administration. Specifically, the Washington Post is reporting that:

Even Bill Moyers, a White House aide now best known as a liberal television commentator, is described in the records as seeking information on the sexual preferences of White House staff members. Moyers said by e-mail yesterday that his memory is unclear after so many years but that he may have been simply looking for details of allegations first brought to the president by Hoover.

A 2005 Wall Street Journal article sheds additional light on this:

Only a few weeks before the 1964 election, a powerful presidential assistant, Walter Jenkins, was arrested in a men's room in Washington. Evidently, the president was concerned that Barry Goldwater would use that against him in the election. Another assistant, Bill Moyers, was tasked to direct Hoover to do an investigation of Goldwater's staff to find similar evidence of homosexual activity. Mr. Moyers' memo to the FBI was in one of the files.

When the press reported this, I received a call in my office from Mr. Moyers. Several of my assistants were with me. He was outraged; he claimed that this was another example of the Bureau salting its files with phony CIA memos. I was taken aback. I offered to conduct an investigation, which if his contention was correct, would lead me to publicly exonerate him. There was a pause on the line and then he said, "I was very young. How will I explain this to my children?" And then he rang off. I thought to myself that a number of the Watergate figures, some of whom the department was prosecuting, were very young, too.

And that's who Moyers is. Not a open minded "journalist." A man with an agenda to smear conservatives. Wether it's alleging a scandal without any evidence or trying to "out" gays in 1964, it's all for the same purpose with Moyers.

And, of course this "outing" business isn't the only example of Moyers acting badly during the LBJ years. As Mark Hemingway notes:

Moyers and J. Edgar Hoover worked together to illegally bug Martin Luther King jr. as well as leak unflattering information about political enemies to the press.

And, returning back to returning to the fore-quoted Commentary Magazine article:

Mr. Moyers was a key figure in the creation of the notorious “Daisy” ad, dubbed by the New York Times at the time as “probably the most controversial TV commercial of all time.” The ad featured a young girl plucking daisy petals as a countdown leads to her annihilation in a nuclear blast. The message was clear: this was the fate of the earth if Barry Goldwater were elected.

Moyers was, and is, a hypocrite and political hatchetman. He is no journalist.

On the Tube, In the Tank

Tomorrow's inaugural coverage:



Fox, quite reasonably is devoting 2 1/2 hours. PBS seems somewhat even keeled with 3 hours.

It's hard to believe that "hard to stay objective" NBC doesn't have the longest coverage, starting only at 10:30 AM and cutting off at 3:30 PM for a mere 5 hours.

So just how cool is he?", "Does it get any better, or more beautiful, or more spectacular, than this?" CBS comes in next. They're kicking things off at 9:30 AM and running until 3:30 PM for a total of 6 hours.

Finally, ABC, will get to lay claim to it's initials standing for the "Always Barack Channel," with their 7 hour love fest from 9:30 AM to 4:30 PM. I suppose ABC taking the cake is fitting given how they dishonestly made Palin look like a fool to help seal the deal for Obama.



Oh, and it's worth mentioning tomorrow's Prime Time line up as well:

NBC has their 59 minute special, "NBC News Special: The Inauguration of Barack Obama".

PBS (on a sub-channel) will re-air their earlier coverage, and on their main channel present the 1 hour show "Frontline: Dreams of Obama."

CBS has their 61 minute special, "Change and Challenge: The Inauguration of Barack Obama".

And ABC again makes sure to take the cake with a 2 hour "The Neighborhood Ball: An Inauguration Celebration" featuring "an exclusive look inside the Presidential Inauguration Ball, from the President and First Lady's first dance of the night to President Obama's initial speech of the evening, along with appearances by celebrities and musicians." This to be followed by yet another hour of Obamarama in "ABC News Special: A Moment in History: The Inauguration of Barack Obama."

Refreshingly, Fox is leaving Prime Time alone.


Over the next four years, it certainly looks like we are going to need a larger tank.

In The Tank

NBC's Lee Cowan: It's Hard To Stay Objective Covering Sen. Obama.

By 5-to-1 Public Thinks Most Journalists Trying to Help Elect Obama.

Media: Wanted, Larger Tank.

AP reporter e-mails: Yeah, it’s all Palin’s fault.

The Media's Palinizing

To Palinize:

To slander and caricature a working-class female public figure for the noble advancement of liberalism

I'm traveling for business this week and so I have the very mixed blessing of having access to cable television.

Watching cable news channels - all of them, from MSNBC to CNN to Fox News - has been painful. I thought doing so might be fun, fairly insightful, and buy me extra opportunities to see the Republican Convention. What I've found is that the only cable channel covering the convention that I can stomach is CSPAN (which just airs the convention sans-commentary.)

The reason is the media's "palinizing".

If I hear a cable-news pundit spout off that "there are a lot questions still surrounding Sarah Palin" one more time, I may pull my hair out. Reporting on the "existence of questions" is pathetic - they're the media - they are supposed to ask - and then research and report on answers to those questions.

And, if the media bothered to do said research into the "Trooper-gate" story, the story about how Palin is "under investigation" for firing Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan - which it seems they feel necessary to mention about every 15 minutes, they might find the facts about this "controversy", and report them, which would utterly dismiss everything controversial about the "controversy."

Palin "fired" Monegan because Monegan refused to go along with Palin's budget plans. I use "fired" in quotes because the "firing" was asking Monegan to change positions from Public Safety Commissioner to the head of the Alcoholic Beverage Control. Monegan only found himself out of a job because he refused the job change.

Furthermore, being that the position of Public Safety Commissioner is a gubernatorial appointment, Palin was well within her rights to dismiss Monegan for whatever reason she might want.

And finally, on this topic, let's do a mental experiment that assumes the premise that would make this "controversial:" that Palin fired Monegan because Monegan refused to fire her ex-brother-in-law, Mike Wooten.

A few facts to weave in even if you believe that:

The complaints by Palin about Mike Wooten started well before she was Governor. The complaints include that Wooten was an abusive husband. That he would drive drunk on a regular basis, including while behind the wheel of his police vehicle. That he tasered his (young) son-in-law. And, to boot, that he made death threats against Palin's father.

An independent investigation found Palin's complaints accurate enough to suspend Wooten. And since his suspension, Wooten has continued his harassing / aggressive behavior towards Palin's family.

Wooten is clearly a scum bag with no business being a police officer. If Palin was using her political influence to try to get Wooten fired, good for her - Wooten, clearly, should be fired.

The other "controversial" stories the media keeps blasting about Palin are equally base-less.

Clearly, Palin's daughter being pregnant was newsworthy. But responsible reporting on that story should have been a simple noting of the situation and moving on, to keep the matter as private as it possibly could be. But the news channels all brought on talking heads to talk about and debate the pregnancy at length -- despite a hurricane hitting our coast!

Even Obama realized that Brisol Palin's pregnancy should be left as a private matter. When the media realized how they were covering it was a disgusting display, they change the story so they could keep pushing the story while pretending to be honorable by changing the story line to "did McCain vet Palin thoroughly enough." As I write this, some pundit on The O'Reilly Factor is continuing to push this story and use it to raise Bristol Palin's pregnancy to slander Sarah Palin.

Last night, flipping through the news channels, I landed on Headline News's Showbiz Tonight, which was more brazenly reporting the story as "Palin's Pregnancy Shocker." Obnoxious. Disgusting.

And, this all follows the original push by the Daily Kos to start a rumor that Palin's youngest child, Trig, was actually Bristol's baby.

In all fairness, there has been some criticism of Palin that's been fair. She was apparently "for the Bridge to Nowhere before she was against it." And her fiscal record, though much more fiscally conservative than say that of Obama or Biden, is not perfect. (Ironically, I found out about this criticism of Palin by reading the conservative blogosphere, not watching cable news.)

And again, I come to even more of the drivel from the media. Last night McCain refused to go on Larry King because of n nasty interview CNN's Campbell Brown conducted.

In what I can only assume was a sneaky way to slander Palin and McCain further, when CNN self-reported about the King cancellation, they showed an except of the Campbell Brown interview. But they only showed part of the interview. In the part they showed, Campbell Brown rather embarrassingly tears apart the McCain staffer sent to talk with her. Not because the facts weren't on his side, but because he clearly hadn't been prepared for the interview.

In any event, it's abundantly clear to me that McCain didn't cancel the King interview because his staffer got his hat handed to him by Brown. But rather it was due to a disgusting exchange in the interview that included these loaded, slanderous, questions from Campbell Brown:

You know, this is a presidential campaign. Nothing is private. The world is watching. And if we, you know, as much as everyone might want to give this young woman her privacy, you know that's not going to happen. And so you do risk putting her through an incredibly difficult process by accepting this job if you're her mother. You can't deny that, right?

and

Tucker, though, this obviously putting this young woman, Bristol Palin smack in the media spotlight at what's already got to be a very challenging time in her life. I mean, how do you respond to people who wonder why her mother would have subjected her to this scrutiny by accepting this high-profile position?

Way to keep the pregnancy story from being anything but a "private matter" and then question Palin's credentials as a good mother, Campbell.

Disgusting.

My final gripe, since this post is all ready way too long and too ranty, is that I'm sick of liberals and the media calling Palin "mayor." She's no longer a mayor. She's been a governor since December 4, 2006 - which is as close to two years as it is to the dismissive "year and a half" I keep hearing.

Questions about if her nearly two years of being governor are sufficient are valid. But I've already answered them to my satisfaction.

And, to those saying "but McCain is old - he might die - and then she'd have to become president!" -- it's worth noting that:

1. Having a two-year governor be elected the Vice President of the United States


2. Having the president die just months after that Vice President be elected


3. Having that elected VP become one of the greatest Presidents of the United States

is a formula that's been successful in the past. Read up on Theodore Roosevelt.

(Oh, and did I mention that TR was also a Republican and reformer? And, I don't wish any harm on McCain, and hope (and expect, given his 90-something mother) that if he is elected that he will lives through his full term. But, in any event, TR pretty clearly shows two years of state governorship can well prepare you to lead this great country of ours!)

Update: More worthwhile debunking of the palinizing here. More coverage of CNN's hitjobs on Palin here here, and here. More info on general hit jobs here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Finally, maybe the worst display of palinizing - which deserves it's own special call out - comes from the Daily Kos:

"Are you telling me that you would not use character-destroying lies to ensure a war against Iran does not occur? . . . What choice do we have? When faced with monsters, we have to be monstrous ourselves."

... and Democrats claim it's Karl Rove that's the master of dirty politics?

The P Word

Olbermann Watch brings us the latest in liberal-media hypocrisy:

(H/T: Sister Toldjah)

If you don't think there is liberal media bias...

... pay attention to the Iowa coverage.

One Rochester news station tonight didn't even bother saying who the 2nd and 3rd place Republicans were tonight after spending several minutes covering how all of Obama, Clinton, and Edwards did. Another spent several minutes airing Obama's live victory speech, but no coverage of Huckabee's. Now, watching Nightline, they interviewed Huckabee and asked him if he thought he got votes largely because of Romney's mormonism. (Why can't the media get past seeing all Republicans as bigots? It's getting old.)

Also, much talk about how a record number of attendees went to the Democratic caucuses. The same is true for Republicans though, despite the fact I'm sure you won't hear that from the mainstream media.

My prediction: there will be at least three times as much TV news time devoted to how democrats did in Iowa than how republicans did.

Update: Leave it to the New York Times to lend itself as a case study for bias... One of winning candidates "triumphs", the other winning candidate simply "rolls". One "was lifted to victory", and again, the other, simply "defeated [a] better funded [candidate]".

Wallace Slams Moyers Over Rove

On this past Sunday's Fox News Sunday, FNS host Chris Wallace took Bill Moyers to task over Moyers's nasty diatribe against Karl Rove which claimed Rove was an agnostic.

I'm was no particular fan of Rove. I find criticisms regarding his politicizing the war accurate and deserved. In my opinion, Rove's approach harmed public debate on the topic and brought about new political divisions within the country. And for the all the talk of his great political strategies, Bush barely won in 2000 and 2004 and the Democrats are now in control of both houses of Congress. And, now, nearly the entire country disapproves of Bush, and Republican chances of the presidency in '08 are not looking very good. Genius political strategist, eh? I think not.

However, Bill Moyers just drives me crazy. He goes around as though he is this enlightened reporter with nothing but the most pure journalist integrity. But that's hardly the case. As I blogged about months ago, Moyers' journalistic "integrity" even contradicts itself.

Well, recently, Moyers made the claim while "reporting" on Rove's resignation that Rove was an agnostic who mis-represented himself as a member of the Christian-right to gain their support for Bush.

First of all, as a member of the Christian-right, I care much more about what Rove accomplished than what he actually believes. And, despite Rove's above mentioned failures, I do have to commend Bush/Rove for two excellent supreme court appointments and the end of legalized-infanticide, a.k.a. "partial-birth-abortion." Plus three-points on the Christian-right score board.

In any event, attacking a person's religious beliefs is a low-blow and certainly does not square against the supposed image of journalistic integrity that Moyers purports to having. Especially when such an attack is false. But that's exactly what Moyers did with Rove in the recent television story editorial.

Now, without further ado, a video montage showing just show wrong Moyers was to make such comments, and how wrong he was on his facts. (Also, will played, Chris Wallace.) :

Two final items.

One, per Moyers' letter to Wallace, statements like "version of reality is undermined" have NO business in serious journalism. Once you invoke phrases about a persons "version of reality" you are no longer reporting facts. Rather, you've made ideological judgments that you are simply spinning as "journalism."

Two, it's good to see that PBS's own Ombudsman's is also taking Moyers to task on these obnoxious comments about Rove. Some of the better letters the Ombudsman received:

Bill Moyers is, as they say in the south, losing his “religion.” This is a bitter and totally off base journalist. The latest salvo was his commentary on Karl Rove. What creditability he held in the past has run dry.

- Gary Clower, Narvon, PA


My question is should a public TV station allow such one sided critique of Bush and Rove? In the past I never heard any one sided critique of Pres. Clinton. I am offended by this for I look to public TV as one place an individual can be told facts without a man’s personal bias so blatantly expressed. I ask PBS to look into this matter and advise me how this will be changed in the future. I do not want my tax dollars used to express any individual’s biased point of view. We get enough of this on regular TV broadcasts.

- Patricia Sommerkamp, Crestview Hills, KY


My wife and I watch PBS more than any other network, having 3 stations in our area from which to choose. I am appalled at the sloppy, rude, arrogant, and inaccurate nature of Bill Moyers’ nasty commentary upon Karl Rove’s resignation. Moyers played loosely with the facts, or with no facts at all. I appreciate objective journalism that deals with all sides of issues, but I deplore the tone and nastiness of Moyers’ diatribe about Rove and the President. For a man who once worked for a President, he shows amazing immaturity and very lazy research habits about the facts. He is embarrassing to those of us who revel in the wonderful programs on PBS.

- Richard Palmer, Springboro, OH

Fairness Doctrine

Bringing back the "Fairness Doctrine" seems to be getting mainstream attention, which I find surprising and perhaps (if this leads to popular support) unfortunate.

The latest episode of the CNN "Special Programming" Podcast is about "Reviving the Fairness Doctrine." It begins:

Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) (Guest): The people of this country should have the opportunity to hear all points of view.

Announcer: Reviving the Fairness Doctrine.

Maurice Hinchey: You're jeopardizing the basic principles of the Constitution.

Announcer: A CNN Podcast.

Dick Uliano (Host): Here's an issue that may soon move from back to front burner in Washington. A bid to rein in one-sided talk radio.

I guess we know where CNN stands.

Granted, there is a Constitutional issue here. But it's not at all what Hinchey's trying to claim. It's called the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. You know, the very reasons the FCC did away with the Fairness Doctrine back in 1987 -- from Wikipedia:

In August 1987, the FCC abolished the doctrine by a 4-0 vote, in its Syracuse Peace Council decision. The FCC stated, "the intrusion by government into the content of programming occasioned by the enforcement of [the Fairness Doctrine] restricts the journalistic freedom of broadcasters ... (and) actually inhibits the presentation of controversial issues of public importance to the detriment of the public and the degradation of the editorial prerogative of broadcast journalists", and suggested that, due to the many media voices in the marketplace at the time, the doctrine was perceived to be unconstitutional.

QandO has excellent commentary on this going back to as early as January:

• The False Assumption Underlying the Fairness Doctrine (January 17, 2007)


• Why I don’t buy the liberal argument about Talk Radio (June 26, 2007)


• Gearing up to pass the Fairness Doctrine (June 27, 2007)

Additionally, the Heritage Foundation's analysis from October 29, 1993 continues to be spot-on.

For those interested in a less intellectual evaluation of the issue, just give this your consideration:

Hasselbeck Shows Rosie For the Bully She Is

Elisabeth Hasselbeck finally found her spine. And apparently, as a result, Rosie is leaving The View three weeks before her contract is up. I guess when yelling over your opponents stops being an effective tactic, it's time to go.

Nicely done, Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

Rosie: you won't be missed.

Addendum: In writing up this post, I had to ask myself why I even care about Rosie O'Donnel. Or The View. It's not as though I watch The View. Although, with the amount of media coverage the Hasselbeck-O'Donnel exchanges get, it's almost like I do watch it...

I've come to the conclusion that I care for two reasons.

One, when Rosie slammed Christians with her statement that "radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America", I took that personally. I'm a the-Bible-is-true kind of Christian, which I'm sure is the kind of Christian she meant by "radical". But I'm no terrorist, and being likened to such is down right offensive. And of course, that was far from the only offensive thing she said about people of faith.

Two, I've been in arguments where the person I'm debating tries to win by being a bully. I hate those situations. And when I see someone doing that same kind of thing to someone, it makes me sick. Yelling your opinion doesn't make you right. Talking over someone else doesn't make you right. And yes, I'd hope other media personalities would learn this lesson as well. O'Donnel, O'Reilly, Stewart, Coulter, Moore, Limbaugh, Frankin, ... the list goes on ... they are all bullying bomb-throwers to one degree or another and I submit that their bomb-throwing is ruining public discourse.

Update: Not being able to move away from this story as quickly as it would be good for me to, I wound up on Rosie's blog. Wow. It reads like a 13 year old sending angry, haiku-style, text messages.

Update x2 (5/28): Picking up from the "Wow" in my first update... Double Wow. Triple Wow.

Bill Moyers - Attacking Journalism

In Bill O'Reilly's "Culture Warrior," there a section about Bill Moyers which quotes Moyers as saying "I declined [appearing on 'The O'Reilly Factor'] for the simple reason that I do not believe journalism is about journalists attacking each other" (emphasis mine).

This archived copy of a LA Daily News article dated January 2003 backs up the authority of Moyers having said just that:

Moyers was asked for his reaction to Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly's recent on-air criticism of his reporting as having a liberal bias. Moyers said he does not usually watch other networks' newscasts, but he answered an O'Reilly column on the subject in the New York Daily News with an ad responding to "the false statements he made" about Moyers.

Moyers would like the issue to end because, he said, "I do not believe journalism is about journalists attacking each other."

So, my question to Mr. Moyers is how he reconciles that "simple reason" - that "journalism is about journalists attacking each other" - with his new PBS documentary, "Buying The War", which is nothing more than a giant attack on the press as a whole and conservative media in particular?

Although I don't think I would particularly enjoy Moyer's documentary, I think America was over-due in looking at the media's investigative failures prior to and during the beginning of the Iraq War. However, if you are going to play the "it's wrong to criticize other journalists" card when someone criticizes you, you've got a lot of explaining to do when you start criticizing other journalists en-masse.

Good recent coverage of Moyers over at NewsBusters:

• (April 19, 2007) PBS Helps Bill Moyers, Dan Rather Team Up to Denounce Right's 'Slime Machine'


• (April 22, 2007) Moyers and Maher Avoid Facts as They Attack President Bush on ‘Real Time’


• (April 24, 2007) On Hannity & Colmes, MRC/NB's Bozell Targets Bill Moyers and PBS Hypocrisy


• (April 25, 2007) Bill Moyers Said Conservatives Smeared His Show 'For a Bias That Didn't Exist'


• (April 25, 2007) O'Reilly Staffer Catches Bill Moyers Trying to Lie About His Attacks on Fox News 'Venom'


• (April 25, 2007) Moyers the Flamethrower: Bushies Were Basement 'Burglars' and 'Arsonists'

Goodbye, Rosie

What do I and "[Donald] Trump, Catholics, Christian[s], Naomi Campbell, Kelly Ripa, and [...] the people of China" have in common?

We aren't going to miss Roise O'Donnell, who "couldn't reach a contractual agreement" with ABC to continue being on The View.



About. Time.

Update: In depth coverage of the insulting and/or far left things Roise has said from the Media Research Center.

Oversight Can Prevent Hurricanes!!

Ronald Brownstein opines on the L.A. Times opinion page:

At times, President Bush's second term has resembled a laboratory test of what happens to a large institution when all mechanisms of accountability are disabled.

The results have not been pretty.

Hurricane Katrina, the chaotic occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, the breakdown at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the FBI's abuse of Patriot Act powers, the troubling dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys — everywhere, the administration has been plagued by an epidemic of incompetence.

...

The Republican majority so completely abdicated its responsibilities to conduct oversight on the executive branch that its governing motto might have been "don't ask, don't tell."

Key House and Senate committees sometimes went months without oversight hearings on Iraq.

...

Many of the decisions now causing Bush grief could have been made only by a politician who did not believe anyone was looking over his shoulder.

I'll grant Bush has made a multitude of mistakes while in office. And I wish the Republican Congress had been more aggressive with oversight while they had power. But this is over the top moonbat-ery.

First of all, which is it, Brownstein? Incompetence, or lack of oversight?

If you are as arrogant and ignorant as I'm sure Brownstein believes Bush to be, I really don't see how all the oversight in the world would make any difference.

Second, Brownstein makes it sound like the only way the Congress could have been keeping Bush in check is with "oversight hearings". What a bunch of bunk. The intelligence comittees regularly meet with the Whitehouse for briefings. You know, those briefings Silvestre Reyes apparently slept through?

Third, even though the Republican Congress didn't do much in adversarial oversight, the press sure did. Your paper has been criticizing Bush since he took office.

In fact, your paper's whole excuse for running the terrorist banking data surveillance program story was:

But we also have an obligation to cover the government, with its tremendous power, and to offer information about its activities so citizens can make their own decisions. That's the role of the press in our democracy.

But Bush hasn't had any oversight, right?

Fourth and finally, oversight can't stop hurricanes. And your choice of wording — "The results have not been pretty. Hurricane Katrina, the chaotic occupation and reconstruction of Iraq, ..." — makes it sound like you either believe it can, or you're just out to get Bush as best you can.

via digg ...