Fighting back: left and right and the press
It may seem almost funny to those on the right who’ve been complaining for years (pre-Trump, anyway) about how the right never fights back—but people on the left often say the same thing about the left: that is, that the left doesn’t fight hard enough.
Yeah, tell me another one, you say.
But I get this information from visiting blogs or other sites on the left, which I do fairly often. The subject comes up there now and then, and is met by a chorus of “Yes, we don’t fight back enough. The right knows how to fight. We’re much too nice, too noble. We’ve got to get tougher and even sometimes fight dirty.”
Mirror image of what a lot of people on the right have been saying about themselves, or at least about their elected officials on the right. That’s one of the reasons Trump was elected, of course: as Lincoln said of General Grant, “he fights.”
Which brings us to one of the many current ruckuses at the NY Times:
The mothership of fake news is now complaining that conservative activists are scrutinizing journalists for signs of bias that can be found on the Internet and social media. The lead paragraph in the Times’ front-page story of lament is:
A loose network of conservative operatives allied with the White House is pursuing what they say will be an aggressive operation to discredit news organizations deemed hostile to President Trump by publicizing damaging information about journalists.
The most prominent member of the media exposed thus far is Tom Wright-Piersanti, editor at the political desk of the Times itself. After Breitbart exposed this bigot for mocking Jews and Indians, Wright-Piersanti was demoted by the Times (but not terminated). His excuse for his bigotry was that he was in college.
There are others. And through it all, the Times confesses that, although the information released so far is stripped of context – “context” meaning the excuses liberals give for themselves but not for others — it has been authentic and harmful to its targets.
And apparently there are hundreds of other media people on the left who have likewise implicated themselves on social media, mostly as bigots and haters of various kinds.
It often puzzles me why people would be so dumb as to publicly air such comments and sign their names to them. Bigotry certainly exists, but it’s been a no-no in polite society for many decades in this country, hasn’t it? That even includes anti-Semitism cloaked as hatred of Israel, which appears to be the left’s current favored bigotry (hatred of white people is even more favored, but I don’t think that’s considered bigotry these days as long as it’s expressed by someone in a favored minority group or by a virtue-signaling white person on the left).
More:
What is happening is that the bigots in the media are being exposed. And if they are purged, then there may be a chance that the public will get some unbiased reporting. But the liberals don’t like this. It’s okay for them to smear any conservative they want with immunity, but it’s not cricket for the opposition to hit back. Such have been the rules for the longest time. No more.
The difference between Schwartz’s operation and what the media regularly does is that Schwartz’s information is factual. The media, on the other hand, often makes things up out of thin air. Anyone remember Sarah Palin, Brett Kavanaugh, or a boatful of others? This is why Rush Limbaugh coined the term ‘the drive-by media.’ The media will slime a conservative with innuendos and falsehoods, call it news, and then when facts later come out to refute the original charge, walk away as if nothing happened. .
One of the many things wrong with so-called journalists today is that they think very very very highly of themselves. Speaking truth to power, shining a light in the dark places, all the news that they decide is fit to print, and so on and so forth. Why don’t we appreciate them more, these selfless toilers for us all?
An esoteric analysis of social media following patters is how Team Antifa was exposed. Another phenomenon that saw some modest public discussion in the Obama years was the number of prominent journalists who were first degree relatives (or sharing a bed) with one or another among the administration’s patronage appointees. And did someone mention the McCabes and the Ohrs?
David Broder once offered a complaint about opinion journalists taking positions as PR officials (targeting Pat Buchanan, natch), but that’s comparatively above-board. The media is part of the social nexus of which the Democratic Party is the electoral vehicle, so its among Democrats you will see this phenomenon.
…but people on the left often say the same thing about the left: that is, that the left doesn’t fight hard enough.
neo: Boy, howdy, that’s true!
I read the left blogs for nostalgia and due diligence and that’s the way they talk all the time. You would think they were Trumpists going on about RINOs and the “National Review.”
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Hello Ms. Edit! Why don’t you come more often? We can’t keep meeting this way.
While journalists think highly of themselves, those who deal with journalists do not always share such assessments. Recall what Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Adviser in the Obama Administration, said about the press:D.C. reporters can’t get enough of Ben Rhodes’ echo chamber.
Speaking of knowing nothing, Ben Rhodes combined his undergraduate degree in Poli Sci with a Masters in Creative writing, which suggests to me that he knew a lot more about spinning news releases than he did about national security. Methinks Henry the K was somewhat better qualified in that area, as shown by his doctoral dissertation on nuclear weapons and foreign policy.
Art Deco made the point of social media research discovering Obama appointees with close relatives who were journalists.
Not coincidentally,David Rhodes , Ben Rhodes’s brother, was President of CBS News from 2011-2019.
I watched a movie just two nights ago, a George Clooney vehicle titled The Ides of March, made in 2011, about a Democratic governor of some state running for the nomination for president. His opponent has just discovered some bad stuff about him and so his staff have some hard work to do. That’s when this incredible little pep talk happens:
I think the credits said Clooney wrote the script along with someone else. Does he really believe that stuff? Or is he simply a knave through and through?
(By the way, I don’t have some magical total recall — I found the subtitles file for the movie. )
Ann:
I think they really believe it.
It goes something like this:
We (the left) are the good guys.
Sometimes we lose.
We are good in terms of our morals, our intentions, and our intelligence.
Therefore whenever we lose it’s because the opposition cheats, plays dirty, is nasty, are street fighters.
Therefore we need to get tougher.
Yes, the Dems believe they are not fighting hard enough.
They can’t believe that their policies are lousy, and get lousy results because they are lousy policies. Their “pure” intentions, unicorn loving fantasies, are enough to make them believe they should win and only evil is stopping them.
They suffer from Democrat Derangement Syndrome. Before Trump it was Bush (and Reagan before that) – and whichever Rep follows Trump will get the same treatment, or possibly worse if unwilling to fight back.
They need to lose their anti-Rep discrimination power in the US colleges — the situation will get worse in many ways until colleges accept Reps as professors.
At the risk of repeating myself, the following is a semi-literate quote from Nancy Pelosi where she describes “the wrap-up smear:”
If I remember the context correctly, she was claiming that this is such a common tactic that “everybody does it.” In other words, nothing to see here, move along.
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I was recently discussing political things with a friend who considers himself oh-so-informed because he reads many of the NYC media elites, and I brought up something having to do with “astro-turf.” He had never heard of it, so I had to explain it to him. While I believe it is almost exclusively a Dem/union tactic, these people who are their base really seem to live in a bubble of obliviousness.
Oh, they do indeed believe it, with all their hearts. I know too many personally to have any doubt of that. I’ve seen it over and over again in trying to communicate to lefties that their side is just as nasty in its rhetoric as the right. They just can’t see it.
One component of that sincerity is the natural human impulse to excuse in oneself and one’s tribe behavior that one would condemn in others. I am plain-spoken, you are mean.
Another major component is that they don’t believe it’s nasty if it’s true. It’s unconscionable, uncivil, etc. for a right-winger to say that a Democrat is a wicked person. It’s a lie, because the Democrat is, objectively, a good person. But if a left-winger says that a Republican is a wicked person, it’s a simple statement of fact, not mean-spiritedness. And it’s not mean to tell the truth.
“Mirror image…”
Yes, it is precisely that.
Except that it’s really not; since the Democrats believe that they are on the side of the angels, they never—almost never—would see what it is they’re doing. Those that do see it, and express what they see, are ignored or black-balled.
It’s pure, naked projection.
(And if they do sense that they might be in trouble, they double down and ignore, deny, hide, pooh pooh as they go on the attack and lie, lie, and lie some more. Until it become “Truth”.
It’s disgusting and, were they ever able to feel shame, shameful. (But they’ll attack Trump for what they consider doing the same thing…. As they go out and buy “1984” to try to understand what is happening to the country they claim they so dearly love and need to protect. How sick can you get? (Rhetorical question.))
See the recent smear job against JD Vance, and the attempt to smear the pro-life people as white nationalists.
https://nypost.com/2019/08/28/j-d-vance-just-the-latest-right-thinker-to-be-smeared-by-leftist-lies/
“We are good in terms of our morals, our intentions, and our intelligence.”
So true Neo. My same friend constantly harps about his politicos “really care about people and society unlike those nasty profiteering capitalists.”
As others have mentioned democrats project their faults on to others except well meaning but not very critical souls.
I notice in my life time people who have had views of themselves other than reality. I don’t even mean the way democrats assume that they are on the side of angels. I mean I’ve known people who thought they had a different hair color than they do. In junior high, there was a really vain kid who was always checking himself out in the mirror. He was horse faced but he did not know that.
Oldie (very oldie!) but goodie from a Bob Hope film from 1940: why Democrats are like zombies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a6YdNmK77k&ab_channel=asbrand
“It goes something like this: We (the left) are the good guys. – We are good in terms of our morals, our intentions, and our intelligence.” neo
That’s what they consciously tell themselves but that’s merely their biggest, deepest lie. Because the truly good are deeply uncomfortable with lies. Truly good people are incapable of ignoring the left’s 100+ MILLION death count in the 20th century. And are incapable of supporting the continuance of policies that demonstrably destroy lives.
To paraphrase Col. Jessup; they can’t face the truth because deep down in places they never talk about to others… they know they lack the moral fortitude to do so. They know they are unworthy of the freedom that those who gave that, “last full measure of devotion” bequeathed to them.
And that is the source of their hate for the truth.
They hate the right because we support objective truth.
“It’s pure, naked projection.” Barry Meislin
Willful denial springs from moral cowardice and the cowardly always place the blame upon others.
@neo:It often puzzles me why people would be so dumb as to publicly air such comments and sign their names to them.
Why would teens post cellphone videos of crimes they commit on Facebook? Why do academic bureaucrats write emails at work talking about how much they hate conservative students and how they’re going to find a pretext to deny them something?
Same reason. They think only their friends are paying attention.
hatred of white people is even more favored, but I don’t think that’s considered bigotry these days as long as it’s expressed by someone in a favored minority group or by a virtue-signaling white person on the left
Why Don’t We Murder More White People?
San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is a large museum next to the Moscone Convention Center downtown. This non-profit is funded by the City of San Francisco, the National Endowment for the Arts, Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the James Irvine Foundation. From July 23 to August 25, YBCA screened Jonathan Garcia’s movie Why Don’t We Murder More White People? It was on an endless loop and each cycle lasted 11 minutes and 17 seconds, and is now on Youtube.
“I think if you’re not supporting people of color and to end white supremacy, and you’re neutral, or you are that person that’s perpetrating it, then you shouldn’t—I think you deserve harm.”
“I think that harm is radical. But I think sometimes radical is needed.”
“And, sometimes I feel like non-violence is not the best route.”
YBCA describes Miss [Deborah] Cullinan [CEO of YBCA] as “one of the nation’s leading thinkers on the pivotal role arts organizations can play in shaping our social and political landscape, and has spent years mobilizing communities through arts and culture.” What does she hope to “mobilize communities” to do by screening a video about murdering whites?
Case in point: an excerpt from a Washington Post story (I didn’t go to the WaPo original because I won’t register or pay them to read their rag).
https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/08/29/conservatives-say-weve-abandoned-reason-and-civility-the-old-south-said-that-too-to-defend-slavery/
I think this is a good exemplar of the general cluelessness of the Left / Dems that Neo & others have outlined, and a serendipitous find, because yesterday I was reading about Southern slavers’ rhetoric and the opposition to it by the Republican Party (represented by Abe Lincoln).
https://www.thenewneo.com/2019/08/28/the-recent-history-of-press-bias/#comment-2453511
neo on August 29, 2019 at 4:23 pm said:
Ann:
I think they really believe it.
It goes something like this:
We (the left) are the good guys.
Sometimes we lose.
We are good in terms of our morals, our intentions, and our intelligence.
Therefore whenever we lose it’s because the opposition cheats, plays dirty, is nasty, are street fighters.
Therefore we need to get tougher.
* * *
Ooohhh-kaayy.
When you are ignorant of — or deliberately ignore — reality, you can generate a really vicious feed-back loop.
This “getting tougher” may explain lots of things about the Democrats, considering the actual base-line of dirty fighting that they started from.
FWIW, the Left is selective about who they will throw under the bus.
I don’t know this guy Tom Wright-Piersanti, but it looks like he is “above the fold” for the Times.
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2019/08/29/new-york-times-editor-keeps-job-after-antisemitic-racist-messages-exposed/