Friday,
December 6, 2002
MEDIA BIAS:
The first
step in dealing with any problem in life is to admit there is
a problem. Until liberals admit they have been coasting on the
backs of a left-leaning national press for years, they have little
hope of figuring out how to deal with the battle of ideas that
occurs everyday via TV, radio, cable, print and the internet.
E.J.
Dionne's column in the Washington Post is a perfect example
of just how much in denial liberals are today.
Incredibly,
like the drunk who insists he doesn't have a drinking problem,
Dionne professes that the "conventional wisdom" that
there is a left-leaning media bias is, "roughly, 180 degrees
off." He then goes on to suggest that this idea of a left-leaning
press is all the creation of "a large network of conservative
institutions" that spawns this myth to the America public
via talk radio and cable TV.
Well, this
BS may sell to Bob Schieffer, Judy Woodruff, Howell Raines, and
all the other media elite liberals and those who think like them.
But for the other 85% of the country that is to the ideological
right of these folks who dominate the national press, those people,
the bulk of the country, see right through this nonsense.
Dionne decries
Rush Limbaugh's invitation for "lengthy and respectful interviews
on CNN's "Reliable Sources" and Tim Russert's show on CNBC."
As if Limbaugh on once or twice a year is crime, but Paul Begala
and James Carville on CNN everynight is just fine. The evidence
of a left-leaning national media bias is so overwhelming I'm not
going to waste time proving it. If people are convinced 2+2=5
there is only so much you can do.
As someone
who is usually 180 degrees opposed to what liberals believe I
hope the left in this country continues to remain in a time warp
and in utter denial to the changes that have occurred the past
ten years in how the public gets its information.
Sitting around
and waiting for the next depression so that you can enact more
New Deal and Great Society programs is not a real positive vision
for America. And until liberals wake up and realize the gravy
train days of having CBS, NBC, ABC and CNN do their heavy lifting
are gone, and gone for good, they will not confront the question
of what they need to do, TO COMPETE, in the battleground of ideas,
for the hearts and minds of the America people. John
M. 9:49 am
Thursday,
December 5, 2002
LOUISIANA: A new Mason-Dixon
poll shows the race extremely close with Landrieu ahead 47%-45%,
but the poll also shows a big bump for Terrell from Bush
visit's on Tuesday. The poll results which were taken after
Bush's appearance in the state show Terrell ahead 49%-46%. Click
here for our analysis of the race. John
M. 10:39 am
Wednesday,
December 4, 2002
BILL CLINTON'S SPEECH: "When
people are feeling insecure, they'd rather have someone who is
strong and wrong rather than somebody who is weak and right."
It's a catchy line
by the former President, and he is exactly right. For in times
of crisis people DO want leadership, and they will gravitate to
the party or leader that offers a strong vision for the future.
The problem with Clinton's analysis is while it is true people
will prefer "strong and wrong" to "weak and right"
in times of crisis, they will ALWAYS prefer "strong and right"
to "weak and wrong."
That is the
heart of the Democrat's problem, that Clinton and the rest of
their leaders want to whitewash. After the peacenik/McGovern fringe
of the Democratic Party took control in the late '60's and early
70's the Democratic Party was "weak and wrong" on the
number one security issue to the nation, the war against communism
and the USSR. Except for Jimmy Carter's post-Watergate, razor
thin victory in 1976 the Democrats didn't come close in the presidential
elections of '72, '80, '84 and '88.
The collapse
of communism during the first President Bush's term removed that
issue and gave the Democrats an ability to compete on the presidential
level. No Cold War, Ross Perot and a mild recession gave us Bill
Clinton in 1992. September 11, 2001 has returned the country to
a Cold War type of footing when it comes to national security
and foreign policy. And quite simply, the public has no tolerance
for the Democratic Party's touchy feely "why can't we all
get along" approach to our national security. The pathological
need on the left to not be "unilateralist," the need
to seek approval from Kofi Annan and the French and the Swedes
and whoever else - isn't going to fly after 3,000 Americans were
murdered on 9/11.
So it's a
cute little spin by Clinton that the problem isn't the Democrats
policy, but only how forcefully it is articulated. He is correct
in suggesting that being weak is a liability, but the real problem
for the Democrats is that when it comes to our national security
the majority of elected Democrats are just plain wrong. John
M. 10:02 am
Tuesday,
December 3, 2002
RACE AND
POLITICS: Charlie
Cook's most recent
column focuses on the Democrats need to re-energize black
voters. While there is no question that the African-American vote
is critical to the Democrats chances in many statewide elections,
I think Cook and many political pundits may be taking the wrong
message from the 2002 elections by focusing on the African-American
vote. The problem the Democrats are beginning to experience, especially
in the south, isn't with getting out the African-American vote,
but rather their ability to compete for white votes.
I spoke about
this several
weeks ago after the
NY Times ran an article about how "the Democratic Party
apparently lost thousands of moderate white voters who supported
Bill Clinton and helped elect Southern Democratic governors in
1998 and 2000." The reality is the Democrats have effectively
maxed out their African-American votes. Gore beat Bush 90% - 8%
among black voters, the most lopsided performance in history,
and the cost of trying to increase that vote to 92% or 95% becomes
prohibitive and self-defeating for the Democrats. They have no
where to go but down (long-term) when it comes to the African-American
vote.
But the real
change in election 2002 wasn't that blacks didn't turnout for
Democrats, the early evidence seems to indicate that they did
turnout in large numbers for a mid-term election, though the lack
of credible VNS exit poll data makes it hard to precisely measure
voter turnout. The real difference in 2002, was the turnout in
the white community, especially in the South.. As
I speculated several weeks ago the Democrats may be paying
a price for their deliberate tactics of racial polarization in
the last several elections. (Republicans burning down black churches,
the NAACP James Byrd ad, the lies about a coordinated GOP effort
to prevent blacks from voting in Florida, etc....)
With Bill
Clinton gone and a very popular wartime President as the face
of the Republican Party the Democrats play book that worked well
in the late '90's may not be as effective. The real problem for
the Democrats isn't with their base in the African-American community
that still appears to be turning out in large numbers and voting
85% -90 % plus for the Democrats, but rather with non-black voters,
especially whites, who increasingly seem to be leaving the Democratic
Party, again, especially in the South. And that could be a real
problem for the Democrats, at least for a while, in a country
that is 75% white. John
M. 11:53 am
Monday,
December 2, 2002
WORLD AIDS DAY: A couple of
quick observations about yesterday's World
AIDS Day. In addition to Bill
Clinton's op-ed in the New York Times , we had Senators Dick
Durbin of Illinois and Joe
Biden of Delaware taking to the editorial pages to address
the issue of AIDS.
I may be
wrong, but in the two and a half years we've been scouring online
editorial pages I can't remember another instance where we've
had a former President and two sitting Senators pen op-eds on
an issue and have them published on the same day. It's more than
a little telling that of all of the possible "days"
over the last two years to choose to comment on (including Veteran's
Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Independence Day and
the aftermath and anniversary of September 11) that "World
AIDS Day" elicits the biggest single-day reaction from prominent
Democrats in the editorial pages.
This isn't
to say that AIDS isn't an issue of vital concern, it is. But as
these articles make clear, the issue of HIV/AIDS represents another
classic example of where liberals think money equals compassion.
To Durbin in particular, President Bush's commitment to the issue
is only measurable in terms of dollars, irrespective of the effectiveness
or practical application of the United States' financial contribution.
Anything less than massive increases in spending at the international
level - despite the fact that the single most effective thing
America could do to help address the AIDS crisis is spend money
on developing a vaccine here at home - is seen as unacceptable.
The UN wants
$10 billion a year to fund their AIDS program. Even five times
that amount isn't going to dramatically change the the cultural
and logistical barriers that exist in many AIDS-ridden countries
preventing effective education and prevention of the disease.
But with half that amount ($5 billion) spent annually in the United
States we could probably develop a cure within the next decade.
- TB 6:37 am
