Fox News will crush you all

You know it’s just sad to hear a left-winger complain about an alleged conservative tilt in the media. It’s equal parts self-delusion and sour grapes. Is Fox News (alone!) really so powerful and pernicious that it’s single-handedly responsible for the rise of the Republicans? Amazing! Anyway, Jeff Jacoby charts the annual liberal complaint about the press in “The Right’s Balance”:

If nothing else, the Kerry-Stein-Alterman-Gore-Clinton complaint makes it clear that the paranoid style in American politics is alive and well. Thirty years ago, it was Richard Nixon who fumed at the media and compiled an enemies list. Today it is in the upper ranks of the Democratic Party that unflattering news coverage is blamed on ''conspiracies" and subversive ''fifth columns."

But there is a difference. Nixon really did a face an overwhelmingly hostile press corps. Kerry, Gore, and Clinton, by contrast, benefit from a news media that is overwhelmingly liberal, as countless surveys have shown. To cite just one: When a New York Times reporter polled journalists covering the 2004 Democratic National Convention, those from around the country favored Kerry over Bush by a ratio of 3 to 1. Among the Washington press corps, the results were even more lopsided -- 12 to 1 pro-Kerry.

. . . . .

But for Kerry, Gore, and Clinton, even a few conservative outlets are too many. They grew up in the era before cable TV, talk radio, and the Internet -- the age when liberal dominance was unquestioned. Now Democrats have to compete in the marketplace of ideas, and voters don't seem to be buying what they're selling. Is it any wonder so many are grumpy?

Hey, if it wasn’t for Fox News, who would the Democrats blame their losses on? Rupert Murdoch is providing a public service.