Posted on 09/20/2005 10:53:44 PM PDT by nickcarraway
It is now almost a weekly ritual: a member of the ossifying liberal establishment, looking very defeated and victimized, complains vaguely about some lost privilege. The person will couch his narcissistic complaint in the form of accusing someone of "turning the clock back," not sufficiently respecting "precedent," disregarding "scientific consensus," and so on. All they mean is: the monopoly power liberals once enjoyed across the culture is now gone, and that the public should regard the left's erosion of power as a great loss to the republic.
Dan Rather has performed this week's lament to an expiring liberal era. According to Reuters, he fought back tears on Monday as he spoke bitterly of a "new journalism order" before a crowd at Jesuit Fordham University in New York (add Rather to the long list of pro-choicers the modern Jesuits have entertained).
The night before Rather and a vainglorious Tom Brokaw had soaked up some bafflingly prolonged applause at the Emmy awards during a tribute to the nation's departed triumvirate of news readers. Rather seemed on the verge of tears then. He had a largely nonspeaking role during the tribute; the Emmys gave Brokaw control of the mike as if to acknowledge that he was the less tarnished of the two. The crowd treated this moment with misty-eyed solemnity too, perhaps realizing that the passing of what Brokaw called the "brotherhood" (perhaps one day he will call it the "greatest generation") represents a real danger to the left's future designs on culture.
The "new journalism order," said Rather at Fordham, is defined by a climate of "fear." This is just another euphemism for the loss of liberal monopolistic power and emergence of conservative competition. By "fear," what he means is that liberal journalists who could once spread their propaganda without looking over their shoulders now have to.
That Rather is fighting back tears these days is due to the shock of ending his career on a forgery ferreted out by the new journalistic order, and the unwillingness of CBS to back him up on the bogus report. As far as I know, he still hasn't disclaimed the forgery; O.J.-like, he is apparently still in search of letters confirming the "core truth" of his story. Through his tears, he is in effect saying to CBS: you guys didn't check my work for decades. Then you sideline me because of the complaints of some right-wing bloggers and media outlets?
Rather recalled for the Fordham crowd the glory days of old when conservatives couldn't drive a wedge between him and management. "There was a connection between the leadership and the led...a sense of, 'we're in this together,'" Rather said.
Speaking at Fordham alongside Rather, reports Reuters, was Sheila Nevins, an HBO documentary chief. She, too, misses the days when Rather could pass off propaganda as news and management would clap him on the back. "When a man is close to tears discussing his work and his lip quivers, he deserves bosses who punch back. I feel I would punch back for Dan," she said.
Then she spoke of her own troubles. It annoys her, for example, that the public wouldn't view a Charles Darwin documentary she might make with proper deference. "If you made a movie about (evolutionary biologist Charles) Darwin now, it would be revolutionary," she said. "If we did a documentary on Darwin, I'd get a thousand hate e-mails."
That controversies now have two or more sides instead of just one is at the heart of the left's complaint about the new media. This is what they mean by the loss of "objectivity." Since liberals can no longer determine by themselves what can be debated, and who should be permitted to speak during it, "objectivity" has given way to "fear," reporters who are worried that they can no longer escape scrutiny.
George Neumayr Ping
Ever since his oddball appearance on the Emmys on Sunday night, this pinhead has been on a quest to get back into the good graces of society. It's galling.
"By "fear," what he means is that liberal journalists who could once spread their propaganda without looking over their shoulders now have to."
I wondered what the heck that old fool Rather meant by "fear" - it's the "journalists'" fear that they'l be caught in their lies.
Dan, you ain't NOBODY... and you never were except in your own over-inflated ego.
Besides lamenting the death of the liberal Democrat propaganda monopoly, another reason Rather whimpered like a baby is because he is a pariah and he knows it. Nobody - - including his old buddies at CBS - - will touch him. The remainder of his days will be spent looking for speech gigs at liberal venues (mostly colleges) and hoping for the occasional interview request.
That pig resigned in disgrace just as surely as Nixon did.
Of course he is somebody - a spitting image of Baghdad Bob, an identical twin or a body double, probably.
LOL! I wouldn't want to have to draw that many either!
Main Entry: vain·glo·ry
Pronunciation: 'vAn-"glOr-E, -"glor-, "vAn-'
Function: noun
1 : excessive or ostentatious pride especially in one's achievements
2 : vain display or show : VANITY
Works for me.
He has every reason to FEAR us.
Fred: You beat me to it. I have that cartoon on my desktop.
Everything about it makes me smile...wish I could remember who drew it...
The old media needs some fear introduced back into the system. Over the past 40 years they have been given the indulgence of running over anything they choose and the clearance to embellish anything they say. Hey, old media, welcome to the real world and in the real world we have something called accountability.
It takes no particular courage to be such as Rather has been. In the United States journalists do not go to jail for speaking their minds, they are not "disappeared," they do not see the inside of an Iraqi torture chamber or stand in front of a Cuban or a Chinese firing squad. Rather's disgrace is that at some point he ceased to discriminate between the latter and his own cushy life. That may be a lot of things, but honesty and integrity it isn't.
Precisely!
I would imagine it is upsetting to Blather to come to the end of his tainted career without being able to hide behind the fig leaf of honor, honesty, and respectability he crafted out of obscene, self absorbed, nihilist, moral relativity. Now he stands naked and exposed for what he is. The reality of it would shame a man with an ounce of conscience, but not this s**t heel. After spending his career harming American and Americans he whines that he has been wronged because he has been found out. What POS.
These liberals would like everyone to believe that if you disagree with them and make it known, then you are a minister of "hate". Since it is now illegal to express ill will for despicable people spewing dispicable ideas, they want us to feel guilty and afraid to stand up for what WE believe in. It's all liberal rubbish.
Like the sunset casting its rays through the prism of clouds on the horizon, the liberals reveal their colors as they fade over the hill, one-by-one. But unlike the sunset, their epilogue is not a poetic pageantry of inspiring light, but a bitter wailing of self pity and rage. Good riddance to you, Dan Rather, and to all the rest of your comrades.
Courage.
bttt
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