Saturday, April 18, 2009

Shut up, they explained - Two stories on the tolerance of the Left when it comes to the marketplace of ideas: first, David Horowitz details how "Campus leftists don't believe in free speech." Then Washington Post political reporter Dana Milbank acts surprised that the Left is in a perpetual state of outrage: "It made sense for them to be angry when George W. Bush was in the White House. But now, even under Obama, the anger on the left is, if anything, more personal and vitriolic than on the right."

Extra - Flashback to this study indicating how the Left uses language and logic to make their philosophy clear to everyone.

7 comments:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection said...

Ooooh, such bad timing for this "angry, angry left" premise. It comes on the heels of the Fox/FreedomWorks teabagger revolt against fascist/socialist incursion, and the 12-week-old curse of federal overspending.

But then, there's never time for good timing when it comes to David Horowitz. He needs to provoke a reaction the same way Dracula needs blood. Without a constant fresh supply, neither can survive.

But even as we consider the liberals' high dudgeon and kneejerk suppression of dissent, let us not forget that we're still a nation at war. There are reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do, and this is not a time for remarks like that. There never is. So let's zip it, and scuttle off to our respective Free Speech Zones.

Anonymous said...

Re: Stockpiles of personal vitriol, and who's got 'em.

The Dept. of Homeland Security just released its warning about growing rightwing extremism. The report was written during the Bush administration.

Eric said...

I missed most of the tea party stuff while I was traveling but I'm really put off by the rhetoric of the Obama White House, repeated by David Axelrod this morning, that we should all be grateful for all the swell stuff we're gonna get. Nobody really believes that taxes will only rise on the "rich" and - as Ross Douthat pointed out - the long-term debt is a legitimate concern.

Our free press didn't cover themselves with glory. And if Fox News went overboard (once again, didn't see it) then OTOH the Boston Globe couldn't deign to print a single word about the protests in Boston. Also the behavior of that woman from CNN was equally disgraceful.

Hey, who needs free speech, when you've got an unbiased media like this?

Yerds4 said...

The Boston Globe ran the AP's coverage on Feb. 16.

Paragraph #1:
FRANKFORT, Ky. - Whipped up by conservative commentators and bloggers, tens of thousands of protesters staged "tea parties" around the country yesterday to tap into the collective angst stirred up by a bad economy, government spending, and bailouts.

Paragraph #4:
In Boston, a few hundred protesters gathered on the Common - a short distance from the original Tea Party protest in 1773 - some dressed in Revolutionary garb and carrying signs that said "Barney Frank, Bernie Madoff: And the Difference Is?" and "D.C.: District of Communism."
--

Slight coverage, but it's not zero coverage. The Globe's not obliged to give intensive attention to a Boston event that wasn't as well attended as many Newbury Comics in-store signings.

Perhaps the crux of the alleged "media bias" can be spotted in the article published by the Vancouver Sun, a non-U.S. paper without a notable partisan axe to grind. In fact, the Sun's fairly conservative. Also, the latter part of the article provides some detail about the Fox News promotion you missed:

Turnout tepid in U.S. for modern-era 'tea parties'Anti-tax protests elicit few 'tea-baggers' A Fox News-hyped U.S. anti-tax movement has failed to bring about the "popular uprising" its creators had hoped for.

The day of "tea parties," pushed by Republican operatives and partisan advocacy groups such as FreedomWorks, which sought to protest U.S. President Barack Obama government's tax and stimulus policies by encouraging people to "wave tea bags," brought about only a few hundred "tea-baggers" in most parts of the U.S., despite relentless promotion by Fox News TV hosts.

Participants had hoped to rally hundreds of thousands of people to begin a grassroots movement that would force Obama to change government policy. But the turnout was far from what was hoped for, especially compared to the 2006 immigrants' rights rallies or the 2004 pro-choice march on Washington, both of which attracted millions.

About 4,000 people are reported to have shown up in Cincinnati, Ohio, while Chicago drew an estimated 5,000 protesters and Des Moines, Iowa, drew 3,000. Farmingville, N.Y., drew 50 hardy souls.
[--gap--]
The involvement of a news channel in promoting a partisan event has caused many to give the political tilt of Fox News a second look.

In the lead-up to the event, Fox News featured nine segments and 40 promos over just two days, according to the watchdog website Media Matters. Over a one-week period, 10 in-show promos were given by Fox presenter Sean Hannity, while Neil Cavuto and Glenn Beck delivered five each. Cavuto did seven news segments on the event.

All Fox News shows featured commercials advertising the protests during that time, and they were regularly described as "FNC (Fox News Channel) Tax Day Tea Parties" by on-air personalities.

Fox News anchor Cody Willard, reporting from one of the protests, even went so far as to say on the air, "Guys, when are we going to wake up and start fighting the fascism that seems to be permeating this country?"

In yet another tea-bag day controversy, Fox anchor Cavuto was captured on an open microphone discussing the crowd numbers with an on-location producer, estimating the turnout at 5,000 people.

But minutes later Cavuto told viewers that "They were expecting 5,000 here, it's got to be easily double, if not triple that."
-30-

(Of course, if the Globe had run this kind of expanded coverage, it would have inflamed the "monitors" on the right just as much as the Globe's relative inattention did. What they want is sympathetic copy.)

Eric said...

Well, I'm glad we've set the benchmark for the number of protesters that will cause the Boston Globe to dispatch a cub reporter all the way down to Boston Common.

I'll keep this in mind the next time Code Pink or PETA or Captain Planet & the Planeteers make a ruckus.

Eric said...

Why are my fonts always so screwy when I publish from Google Chrome? Hells bells, they own Blogger!

Yerds4 said...

The Boston Globe gave cursory wire service coverage to a contrived media event that fizzled. The online echo chamber claiming "not a word!" is objectively wrong.

It's not a lot of press, but why should it be? Where is the argument that the protest was entitled to more attention than it got?