From ContraObama:
Krauthammer, Fox Wars, Townhall:
Fox News is no monopoly. It is a singular minority in a sea of liberal media. ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR, CNN, MSNBC vs. Fox. The lineup is so unbalanced as to be comical -- and that doesn't even include the other commanding heights of the culture that are firmly, flagrantly liberal: Hollywood, the foundations, the universities, the elite newspapers.
Fox and its viewers (numbering more than CNN's and MSNBC's combined) need no defense. Defend Fox compared to whom? To CNN -- which recently unleashed its fact-checkers on a "Saturday Night Live" skit mildly critical of President Obama, but did no checking of a grotesquely racist remark CNN falsely attributed to Rush Limbaugh?
Fox and its viewers (numbering more than CNN's and MSNBC's combined) need no defense. Defend Fox compared to whom? To CNN -- which recently unleashed its fact-checkers on a "Saturday Night Live" skit mildly critical of President Obama, but did no checking of a grotesquely racist remark CNN falsely attributed to Rush Limbaugh?
Ann Coulter, The Grating Communicator, Townhall:
The strangest thing about all the invective against Fox is that it is happening in a world that contains MSNBC. At least Fox News primetime hosts, and many of their guests, know something about politics. MSNBC's primetime lineup presents an array of people who sound like earnest college kids who just walked up to a Common Cause table, and the sum-total of what they know about politics is what they read in the brochures.
Kim Strassel of the WSJ writes of the Obama team's tactics in her opinion piece, The Chicago Way: The Chamber of Commerce is only the latest target of the Chicago Gang in the White House.
Fox, like MSNBC, has its share of commentators. But according to Obama Communications Director Anita Dunn, the entire network is "opinion journalism masquerading as news." Many previous White House press officers, when faced with criticism, try this thing called outreach. The Chicago crowd has boycotted Fox altogether.
What makes these efforts notable is that they are not the lashing out of a frustrated political operation. They are calculated campaigns, designed to create bogeymen, to divide the opposition, to frighten players into compliance. The White House sees a once-in-a-generation opportunity on health care and climate. It is obsessed with winning these near-term battles, and will take no prisoners. It knows that CEOs are easily intimidated and (Fox News ratings aside) it is getting some of its way. Besides, roughing up conservatives gives the liberal blogosphere something to write about besides Guantanamo.
What makes these efforts notable is that they are not the lashing out of a frustrated political operation. They are calculated campaigns, designed to create bogeymen, to divide the opposition, to frighten players into compliance. The White House sees a once-in-a-generation opportunity on health care and climate. It is obsessed with winning these near-term battles, and will take no prisoners. It knows that CEOs are easily intimidated and (Fox News ratings aside) it is getting some of its way. Besides, roughing up conservatives gives the liberal blogosphere something to write about besides Guantanamo.
James Taranto, Gelt Trip, WSJ:
Of course it delights us to see the president and his most unsavory supporters promote Fox as the only TV news network that isn't in the tank for the administration. Although this isn't entirely fair to the other networks--in particular, ABC News's Jake Tapper has shown a strong independent streak--it is well-deserved recognition for the work Fox has done in bringing to the fore such stories as the Van Jones and Acorn scandals, which many other news organizations ignored for as long as they could.
On the other hand, we are an American, and Barack Obama is our president too. It cracks us up when MoveOn.org cheers on the president for "fighting back" by "not appearing" and "staying off." "Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about, and gallantly he chickened out."
But it scares the hell out of us to think that this also seems to be Obama's approach to dealing with America's enemies.
On the other hand, we are an American, and Barack Obama is our president too. It cracks us up when MoveOn.org cheers on the president for "fighting back" by "not appearing" and "staying off." "Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about, and gallantly he chickened out."
But it scares the hell out of us to think that this also seems to be Obama's approach to dealing with America's enemies.
Speaking of The War on Terror:
Taranto again - Karn Evil, lead paragraph:
President Obama's promise to empty the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has run into a little obstacle: It turns out the place is full of terrorists! Like everything else, this is not Obama's fault. The terrorists are there because George W. Bush put them there, leaving poor Obama once again stuck cleaning up someone else's mess.
American Thinker author Andrew Thomas explores the hatred of the left in his article, The End Game of the Left. A great write-up that (purposely?) leaves out the words "envy" and "communism". Despite these omissions, you may detect a pattern...
In the leftist utopia of social justice, wealth is no longer created. The capitalist goose that laid the golden eggs is spread like pâté. Income and property are confiscated, housing and employment are assigned, as in Cuba and Venezuela. Scientific advancement and medical breakthroughs are ground to a halt, as in the old Soviet Union where technology was frozen in the 1950s. Entrepreneurship, personal advancement, and wealth creation are violently quashed, as in the Chinese Cultural Revolution under Mao Tse Tung. Hunger, disease, and death become familiar houseguests, as in all repressive regimes.
The end game of the leftist poweratti is to rule the nation and eventually the world by bringing us down to the lowest social common denominator through the manipulation of those who obsessively despise wealth.
The end game of the leftist poweratti is to rule the nation and eventually the world by bringing us down to the lowest social common denominator through the manipulation of those who obsessively despise wealth.
And in a related American Thinker article, Joseph Ashby exposes the "permanency of decline" in When Tyranny Calls.
It's not that socialism is in decline in Europe; it's that socialism no longer has any opposition.
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The catalyst to this permanent leftist political climate is health care.
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If health care passes, it will not represent the beginning of the end -- the beginning took place long ago. But it may signal the end of the beginning, the end of the period in which liberty has its chance to beat back statism.
American freedom has been bent, and bent, and bent for nearly 100 hundred years. Like post World War II socialization of England, health care may prove to be America's breaking point.
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The catalyst to this permanent leftist political climate is health care.
---
If health care passes, it will not represent the beginning of the end -- the beginning took place long ago. But it may signal the end of the beginning, the end of the period in which liberty has its chance to beat back statism.
American freedom has been bent, and bent, and bent for nearly 100 hundred years. Like post World War II socialization of England, health care may prove to be America's breaking point.
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