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Liberal and Conservative as Defined by the Media
The American Enterprise ^ | March 2005 | Chris Weinkopf

Posted on 02/01/2005 7:31:29 AM PST by Valin

Everybody loves Viktor Yushchenko, and why not? The plucky populist stared down Ukraine's corrupt oligarchs to become his country's president, surviving an attack on his life in the process. Even members of the establishment media love him. You can tell because they call him what is, to them, the highest compliment in the English language--a liberal.

"Liberal Leader From Ukraine Was Poisoned," reads a page one, December headline in the New York Times. Most every major media outlet has described Yushchenko similarly.

But Yushchenko is no liberal in the modern American sense of the word. He supports free markets, NATO membership for Ukraine, and a closer relationship with the U.S.--staples of the American Right's agenda for Europe, and exactly the kinds of policies that drive the American and European Left crazy.

By extension, the media widely depicted the other Viktor Y--former Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, a thug who ham-handedly tried to steal the election--as the "conservative" in the race. Never mind that Yanukovych is a former Communist Party member who ran on an explicitly anti-Western platform, advocating closer ties with the Kremlin. He disdains capitalism and free trade, and throughout the campaign accused Yushchenko of being a running-dog lackey of the Yankee imperialists.

If Yanukovych is conservative, then so is the Berkeley Sociology Department.

Obviously American notions of "liberal" and "conservative" don't translate well to the complicated muddle that is politics in the former Soviet Union. Yet that doesn't stop the American media from pretending as though they do. Why?

Because to the establishment press, "liberal" and "conservative" aren't so much ideological descriptions as moral ones. "Liberal" is the literary equivalent of a white hat for the good guys, while "conservative" is a black hat for the bad. In the defeated Yanukovych, media elites saw a backwards kleptocrat who rigs elections and uses his office to enrich his cronies--a real-life embodiment of their fantasy of George W. Bush. Yushchenko, on the other hand, was a man of the people, the reformer who could stir the masses to action--Howard Dean without the embarrassing shrieks.

So Yanukovych got grouped with fellow bogeymen Newt Gingrich, John Ashcroft, and Dick Cheney, while Yushchenko got bumped up to that sanctified realm that includes the likes of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bobby Kennedy, and Jimmy Carter.

One might assume, with goodwill, that members of the press are simply applying the less partisan understanding of the term "liberal," which traditionally referred to classical liberalism--the commitment to free markets, constitutionalism, inalienable rights, pluralism, and democracy. Or maybe they have a more basic notion in mind, one in which "liberal" merely means open to change, whereas "conservative" suggests a dogged determination to preserve some status quo.

But by either of those standards, the two most liberal figures on the international scene today are Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who are fighting impossible odds and risking their lives to promote political freedom, property rights and free markets, religious tolerance, and democracy in places where those concepts are anathema. Yet you'd be hard-pressed to find any major media outlet using the "l"-word to describe either of those two men.

That's because Allawi and Karzai are closely associated with the Bush Posse. They'll never get white hats in Western media morality plays as long as Sheriff Dubya is in town. Meanwhile it's not uncommon to see the mullahs in Iran, the Wahabi imams in Saudi Arabia, or Tali- ban terrorists called "conservative," even though the conservative Bush and company have declared them sworn enemies.

It was the same in the final days of the Cold War. The media slapped the "conservative" label on hard-line Eastern bloc Stalinists as easily as on the anti-communist American conservatives committed to their downfall. The Soviet dissidents who bravely opposed Moscow were called "liberals"--as were the American leftists who cowardly made excuses for Moscow.

As for Yushchenko, by valiantly resisting creeping totalitarianism, the new Ukrainian president has made himself a modern-day folk hero to all those who favor democracy and human rights. So let the establishment press call him what they will; he's a good guy.

Chris Weinkopf is editorial page editor of the Los Angeles Daily News.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: conservative; liberal; mediabias
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To: satchmodog9
PS: I am not calling any Ukrainian Conservative or Liberal - the diff between the two men was slight - the big diff was in what alliance they favored EU vs Russia. Pundits and think tanks then try and pigeon hole them for propaganda purposes as left and right.
21 posted on 02/01/2005 8:48:08 AM PST by Destro (Know your enemy! Help fight Islamic terrorism by visiting johnathangaltfilms.com and jihadwatch.org)
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To: Valin
Bingo! I just basically want to be left alone. I'm all growed up I can tie my own shoes and know how to cross the street and everything.

LOL!

22 posted on 02/01/2005 9:35:43 AM PST by FreeKeys ("Patrick Henry did not say, 'Give me absolute safety or give me death.' " -- John Stossel)
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To: Destro
think of it as a circle - extreme right and extreme left tend to converge as they go further out.

But I don't LIKE thinking of it as a circle; it's a TRAP. Again, the left-vs-right spectrum is mostly used to ask this question: "WHICH KIND OF DICTATORSHIP DO YOU TEND TO PREFER, AND WHICH KIND OF CONTROL FREAK WOULD YOU RATHER MAKE YOUR DECISIONS FOR YOU?"

DO check out why Valin responded that way at http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1333435/posts?page=11#11 (above).

23 posted on 02/01/2005 9:41:30 AM PST by FreeKeys ("Patrick Henry did not say, 'Give me absolute safety or give me death.' " -- John Stossel)
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To: Destro
It helps that so many Sheeple want to be fooled. They've been taught from birth that the Soviets were evil (and in many instances they were), the problem now is seperating the Soviets from Russians, onto which it has all been laid. The "false" issue of humanitarianism is being used against Russia, which while far from perfect, is not bad. On the other hand, that same issue is ignored on China in exchange for cheaper plastic crap.

In other words, the sheeple want an arch enemy, it makes the world easy to understand: here stand the white guys and there the black (clothing): good vs evil. Makes the complicated and scary world much easier to deal with.

In exchange for this simplicity of view, they allow the elites to pull them around by the nose and get them worked up into 1984ism hours of hate. Who do we hate? Whom ever you tell us.

Note the decrease in importance of critical thinking, historical knowledge, geography, economics and social studies in what passes for our skuls. We need producers who know their jobs but don't think outside their brackets. Let the elites think for you on the high ground.

24 posted on 02/01/2005 11:29:16 AM PST by jb6 (Truth = Christ)
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To: Valin; Destro; A. Pole; MarMema; Mount Athos; Lion in Winter; GarySpFc; eluminate; FairOpinion; ...
He supports free markets, NATO membership for Ukraine, and a closer relationship with the U.S.--staples of the American Right's agenda for Europe, and exactly the kinds of policies that drive the American and European Left crazy.

Is that why he's beating down the door for the EU, particularly France and Germany? Is that why his number one issue has been quiting Iraq ASAP? Is that why one of his top men is the head of the Socialist party while his PM is an oligarch worth $11 billion, whose husband is wanted by Interpol and who's closest allies are UNA-UNSO, the Ukrainian Nazi party that celebrated (look up their website, english version) America getting what it deserved on 911 and called for Ukrainian troops in Iraq to turn their bayonets on Americans?

Yup, between allies like this and China, we can just shoot our selves, it'll be quicker.

25 posted on 02/01/2005 11:34:38 AM PST by jb6 (Truth = Christ)
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To: jb6

I said it once and I will say it again - this is neocon garbage.


26 posted on 02/01/2005 11:37:54 AM PST by Destro (Know your enemy! Help fight Islamic terrorism by visiting johnathangaltfilms.com and jihadwatch.org)
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To: Horkster
I'd love to see the definition of "conservative" and "liberal" more clearly defined

It's the role of liberals to make mistakes: it's the role of conservatives to keep mistakes from being corrected.

27 posted on 02/01/2005 3:57:13 PM PST by Oztrich Boy (Here to help)
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To: libs_kma

"But does anyone have the story on why Soros wanted Yuschenko?"

Soros was actively promoting democracy in Eastern Europe during the 90's, he formed the Open Society Institute etc. I guess this is important for him because he lived under dictatorship and soviet occupation as a teen. So I guess it's pretty logical he would be supporting democratic reform in Ukraine too.


28 posted on 02/01/2005 11:34:30 PM PST by Bill72
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