Posted on 05/26/2004 1:39:31 AM PDT by kattracks
People ask whether the media is "liberal"? They should be asking how far left it will eventually become. The recent appointment of Harold Meyerson -- an obscure radical and quaint believer in working class radicalism -- to one of the most coveted jobs in American journalism provides a troubling answer. Meyerson, a political editor for The L.A. Weekly, a leftist throwaway tabloid, and Editor-at-Large for Bill Moyers’ ideological journal, The American Prospect, has been made a regular columnist for the Washington Post. Meyerson also has an activist career as Vice-Chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, and refers to George W. Bush “The Most Dangerous President Ever,” frequently describes America as “belligerent” and “xenophobic,” and openly yearns for a European superstate to “prevail” in blocking American interests and power. “We need Europe to save us from ourselves,” Meyerson recently wrote.
The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), by its own admission, is “the largest socialist organization in the United States, and the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International.” Meyerson is so well respected by the DSA that he was the honored guest at their annual 1995 dinner and is a featured speaker at the Socialist Scholars Conference, an event which annually gathers intellectuals of the hard left including indicted terrorist, Lynne Stewart.
On Sept. 12, 2001, before the smoke of the Twin Towers cleared, before a single mound of rubble had been moved – before most Americans were even completely sure who attacked us – the Left was already knee-deep in plans to oppose America's efforts at self-defense with Meyerson inthe lead. Less than 24 hours after the attacks, Meyerson set the template for the next three years of left-wing talking points on the attacks:
If Bush uses the attack to send Pentagon spending soaring, the Dems have to muster the gumption to say that even with Tuesday's attack, our defense budget is still indefensibly high. If the Administration sees the attack as a graceful way to back out of an open-border policy with Mexico, and the extension of rights and citizenship to million of illegal immigrants, the Dems still must persist in their pro-immigrant line. If John Ashcroft's Justice Department sees this as the perfect pretext to squelch anti-globalization protests and to get more billions for the FBI to monitor the protestors, the Dems must fight the security apparat's consistent inability to distinguish between threats to public safety and threats to conventional wisdom. (Emphasis added.)
“By night, we drop bombs; by day, we drop peanut butter and jelly,” Meyerson wrote of the short Afghanistan campaign that followed, one of the most humane in the history of warfare. “Our daytime rounds, at least at the outset of the campaign, seem more symbolic than our nightly ones; the amount of food we're delivering from the sky does not make up for the amount of food that no longer can be delivered on the ground now that our counterattack has begun.”
As the war on terror moved on, he was soon was begging Europe to rescue humanity from the Great Satan. “Americans must hope that, in this era of global integration, we are not at the brink of the American century. If anything, the Europeans should take some time out from perfecting Europe to project their values more forcefully on the wider world.” Clearly Europe is political home for Meyerson. “At the outset of the 21st century, the battle between Europe and America for the power to shape the century, and on behalf of different models of social organization, is already joined,” Meyerson lectures. “And may I gently suggest that the best possible outcome for the American democratic republic – for the America of Jefferson, Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt – would be an American (or more precisely, Bushian) defeat.”
Meyerson was not so decisive in describing Saddam Hussein's defeat. Genuflecting to the obvious he wrote that the United States was safer now that Saddam Hussein was behind bars.” But he quickly added a laundry list of other things that would make us “safer” than capturing Saddam. Among them, having John Ashcroft step down as attorney general.
It would also make the world safer, according to Meyerson, if Iraq were handed over to the United Nations. “The fact that it's our blood that has been shed among allied forces in the war does not necessarily mean that we are therefore the best qualified, the most experienced or the most politically legitimate force to be in charge of post war Iraq.”
In keeping with his 19th Century class prejudices, Meyerson thinks that investment is not work.
Take a quick look, or a long one, at the tax code as Bush has altered it during his three years as president, and you're compelled to conclude that work has become a distinctly inferior kind of income acquisition in the eyes of the law. Bush tax policy rewards investment and inheritance. Relying on work for your income, by contrast, turns you into a second-class citizen. Republicans are projecting themselves as an inclusive, moderate party, even as their platform snarls at gays and W’s economic plan declares war against the poor.
As a reflector of the paranoid, Marxist fantasies of the Democratic Party left, Meyerson is on target. But as a columnist for the most politically influential paper in America his presence is truly troubling.
Shawn Macomber is a staff writer at The American Spectator and a contributor to FrontPage Magazine. He also runs the website Return of the Primitive.
Good lord!
Do NOT miss this; it falls under "Know Thy Enemy!"
Oh oh........thanks for the ping. I'll read all of it later. I just scanned a bit and HOLY COW.
I guess the Compost needed to bring in a lefty to balance all the conservatives they already have on staff.
Thanks for the ping. I wonder what color the sky is outside his windows.
Yellow?
Someone needs to tell this assclown that in his perfect People's Republic of Socialist Utopia, he would not be allowed dissent. In America, he is allowed to spew whatever he wants.
Well, that recent Pew poll found not only was the press Leftist, but that these Leftists thought they were taking it to easy on Bush.
Well, laying it on as thick as they are already, going the extra mile and bringing in the likes of this guy can't help but show the average American how out of wack the press has become.
Propaganda loses much of its effect when people know that they are getting propaganda. In this regard the Left has really been shooting itself in the foot with the sheer level of press bias in the last couple of years.
But, they only really seem to care about the hear and now, and the one sidedness of the press is the only thing keeping they and Kerry in it.
The only reason I subscribe to newspapers these days is that I need a steady supply of birdcage liner for my conures.
They need to include the CPUSA (Communist Party of the United States).
They endorse Kerry.
They should at the very least change the name of the Washington Post. The DNC Journal would be a good name.
Sickening. The Towers were barely down and the Democrats had a PLAN and it didn't include how to save lives but how to get re-elected and defeat Bush.
Sickening. The Washington Post has joined the enemy.
The shocker really is that this man found a job at the WP during an election-year. Not.
There were rumblings like that about 3/4 of a century ago, and we still have troops in Germany because of it.
Not surprised that he worked for Bill Moyers. He wants Europe to save us from ourselves? (Gag)
Geez, these people really do live in dark, dark, places. They lack even glimmers of optimism - is this mass depression? Maybe I was wrong to think depression is overly diagnosed.
When you can't even find something good to say about PB&J, you should recognize you have a problem.
For instance, I was talking to someone last week. She asked, "If the media doesn't acknowledge an economic recovery, does that mean it didn't happen?" Her theory is "yes" because most of the economic indicators are very upbeat, but some of the recent polls show that a majority think the economy is our biggest problem. We might change the "economic recovery" question to one about a victory in Iraq. Would it be a victory in most people's minds if the media never acknowledge it? Scarey, huh?
Propaganda has some effect, in some cases a a huge impact, on public opinion. While the media has always leaned well to the left, I can recall no time when they were so blatant about it.
I hope that, as some suggest, this will cause people to distrust them entirely, but I also know that for some people, the evening nitwitness network news is their only source for news. They get home from work, turn on the tube while fixing a quick dinner and herding the kids, and believe that what they hear must be true, because after all, it comes from news organizations they've always known.
Sometimes, I truly fear for the future of this country.
Hiring this guy might bring the WAPO closer to the middle...(snicker)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.