POLITICS: Frustrated and Dizzy - presence of conservative media bia

'The media is kind of weird these days," said Al Gore. Let us interpret that for you: There are some conservative voices getting through, and that's not at all what Gore and other liberal Democrats are used to. From birth, they expected a thoroughly liberal media: It was an entitlement. And now there are all these . . . interlopers (or "fifth columnists," about which more in a minute). In the weeks following the Republicans' surprise victory in the November election, there's been a whole lot of whining going on. Pardon us if we don't get teary-eyed over these charges of conservative media bias.

The former vice president went on to list "Fox News Network, the Washington Times, Rush Limbaugh -- there's a bunch of them, and some of them are financed by wealthy ultra-conservative billionaires who make political deals with Republican administrations and the rest of the media." As WFB has pointed out, "Non-wealthy billionaires are presumably too busy trying to become wealthy billionaires to give much time to politics." Continued Gore, "Most of the media has been slow to recognize the pervasive impact of this fifth column in their ranks." No one could have said it more revealingly: that non-liberal media constitute a "fifth column," that is, a secret group of collaborators with the enemy, subverting the nation from within.

Tom Daschle, too, revealed his frustration, now that he has been returned to minority status. He went for a familiar Democratic target: Big Bad Rush, scourge of the Republic (though not of the Republicans). Daschle accused Rush Limbaugh of inciting crazies against him and other Democrats, comparing him to fundamentalist zealots abroad (you-know- who). You will remember that Bill Clinton, as the Oklahoma City federal building lay in ruins, took the occasion of a collegiate address to blame conservative talk radio for creating a climate in which mass murder can take place. It may have been the lowest moment of the Clinton presidency -- and that's not to exclude anything that happened in hallways near the Oval Office.

Rush, as usual, got it right. In response to Daschle, he noted the new prominence of some conservative or right-leaning news outlets, and said, "Suddenly these liberal politicians have to fight in the arena of ideas . . . I'm sure Sen. Daschle would love it if nobody were out there" contradicting him on points of policy, but "that's not how free speech works."

Then there's the case of Fox News. It was Christmas morning -- early -- for Democrats when Bob Woodward revealed that Roger Ailes, the Fox chief, had sent President Bush a letter nine days after September 11, urging him, basically -- in the language of Margaret Thatcher -- not to go wobbly. He advised the president that Americans would be patient in this new war as long as they were confident that Bush, ultimately, would do the necessary.

Good advice. But wasn't this proof that Ailes was not a real newsman but a Republican party toady? Ailes had a (typically) smart answer to this: "I don't give a damn [for a start]. American citizenship is a big concept. If I had to give that up to be in journalism, I wouldn't do it. What I wrote was completely nonpartisan. I would have written the same letter to FDR after Pearl Harbor. If Bill Clinton had been president, I probably would have sent him the same memo."

Liberal critics enjoy listing the conservative outlets (or outposts, you might even call them): Fox, the Washington Times, the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Drudge. (It doesn't take long to go through them, which is why critics list them all the time.) Fine. How about a trade? We'll take the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, CBS, NBC, ABC (news and entertainment divisions, thank you very much), Time, Newsweek, NPR, PBS . . . And then there's the movies, the teachers unions, the universities . . .

Again: Pardon us if we don't tear up.