Before and After: The Media Mechanism for Personal Destruction

As predicted, the Tom DeLay situation is in full meltdown, even taking a rather interesting twist in that DeLay is (finally, in the opinion of this writer) trying to shut down Earle's corrupt operation. Let us hope that Earle suffers at least as much as his victims have.

The key here, however, is that the damage that Earle and his Democrat handlers have hoped for has already been done. This is the result of a corrupt party and its willing accomplices, the major news media. Their goal was to knock out DeLay (relatively easy given the Republicans' high standards of conduct) and smear his name. Mission accomplished ... and it will turn out that none of it is true ... but trust me you will hear the chorus of "corrupt republicans" (unchallenged by the media) throughout 2006.

The illusion of speculation

As I have pointed out time and again, when going after Republicans the news media attacks in full force, and speculation runs wild. In the past this practice was generally limited and highly qualified ... reporters felt compelled to make it clear what was fact and what was speculation, even when quoting somebody else. However, in the media today only somebody well versed in "weasel-words" is capable of discerning what is provable and what is speculation on the part of the (liberal) reporter.

A critical aspect to this ... in modern news media, the liberals (redundant) get as much of their reporting (i.e. speculation) out there as they possibly can BEFORE the facts become clear ... that way they can paint as ugly (against conservatives) or as pretty (on behalf of liberals) a picture as is possible without being challenged by the facts. Later, when the facts come out and the truth is known ... they quietly report what *really* happened, if at all ... and generally it is nowhere near what was painted earlier.

Now, pay close attention here please: this is another place where the whole "we might be liberal, but that does not mean we cannot be objective" argument of the media falls apart. When challenged about bias, you hear this argument as much as you hear the outright denial that the media is biased. The pundits will argue that reporting of the facts as the facts effectively "balances" their 90-95% liberal biases ... and as long as nothing is held back, the facts are "unbiased". Let us ignore for the moment how repulsively stupid that claim is, as anybody that has ever engaged in the "points-of-view" exercise in high school English class knows. The fact is that the media now push out as much left-wing speculation as is possible before the facts are known (and mask it so that readers think they are reading facts), and in some cases prevent themselves from getting to the truth so that they can continue to speculate when it serves their purposes.

If you do not believe this, ask yourself how hard would it have been for a reporter standing in front of the Superdome to open the door and walk in and see all of the "bodies" that they were reporting about? Think about that for a minute ... they were standing right there ... why didn't they go in??? I promise you ... some (all?) of them did go inside ... and when they did not find all of the bodies they were "promised", they went back outside and reported on the rumours, but did not bother to tell you that they went inside but could not find any.

The filter of summation

In addition to speculation, another tactic for adding bias by the media is "summation". When reporting a political response, you will see or hear direct quotes from liberals, but receive media "summations" about Republican statements. Again, the liberal reporter will claim that they are accurately reporting what the person is saying ... and I will even grant them that one, IN THEIR MIND they are being accurate.

Think about that one for a minute ... and let us illustrate with an example. If you were in a capital murder case ... would you want the victim's family to "accurately" state your position on the matter, even if they "reported it" 100% accurately? And yet, in the eyes of the news media, it makes sense that THEY can do this. I would even argue that when a liberal reporter embellishes the "quotes" from Republicans, they believe that they are being accurate ... very few people are *really* Clintonesque in their souls (i.e. able to lie without any sense of wrong).

Note again that this works both ways ... the news media will also distort the radicalism of liberal heroes both by summation as well as exclusion. How many people have heard the most fanatical statements of the Sheehan woman? How many people know that this Farrakhan freak claims to be "taken up" to some kind of a mother ship? Has anybody reported on what this Soros guy believes is right for America? Trust me, if a conservative / Republican had said such bizarre things as these clowns say every day, and done so as a teenager 30 years ago, this would be re-emphasized from now and forever whenever that person is quoted (how many times have you heard about Cheney / Halliburton?).

So what can be done?

Actually, I am not sure what can be done at a high level. In some senses, the american public is already doing the damage by turning it off and no longer buying their products. In addition, the blogs are out there challenging a lot of this and setting the record straight. Also, to a large extent, the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys of the world are exposing the blatent bias and outright lies straight up.

At an individual grassroots level ... I believe the key is to get the truth out there. I know it is difficult ... the Democraps are masters of the 30-second sound bite lie. But you know what? I feel like people (all but the most radical kool-aid drinkers) hate being lied to. You make somebody realize how they have been lied to and generally speaking, they are pissed off at the person / party that is doing the lying.

I was in a discussion (har har, yeah right ... I thought the hotel workers were going to call the cops) with a Teacher's Union rep in the hotel lounge one time. This guy was harping on the "unfunded mandates" line about "No-Child left behind". I asked him if he knew who wrote the law? "Yeah but ..." Then I nailed him with the failure to meet qualifications ... how plenty of money was there but the schools were not achieving their targets so they were not getting the money (by the way, most americans agree with this ... they are sick of good money chasing bad by paying for things that do not work). "Er ... um ..." ... I buried him with the facts. Now, this guy is in the union ... so there's no way he was going to be a convert ... but a bunch of other people in the room came out from under their chairs after the guy left, and I basically ended up ahead about 5-1 ... and I promise you none were going back because they were annoyed. These people were now inoculated against the liberal spin ... they were not going to be infected by the left-wing disease coming at them from the media. Best part ... this was in Ohio!!!