"He talks about something that has always confused me, which is why liberals don't seem to see what is right in front of their noses and he makes an interesting case."
We watched "Shattered Glass" on DVD last night. It's the true story of Stephen Glass a young (24) reporter on The New Republic magazine in the late nineties.
You probably heard about this guy; he wrote stories for the magazine that were completely false -- fake incidents, fake names. He made up his notes to fit his stories; checking the reporters' notes is one way editors fact check. Glass had been a fact checker; he knew all the angles -- and played them.
The Stephen Glass story provides an answer to why liberals don't see what's right in front of their noses.
Despite a flood of e-mails from people questioning and outright denying the false stories Glass wrote and The New Republic printed, the editors at the time, first Michael Kelly, and after his firing for unrelated reasons, Chuck Lane (not sure of this name, will "fact check" later) continued to see Glass as a valuable asset to the century old magazine.
Glass was "exciting" and "entertaining" and had ingratiated himself with the NR staff. When questioned or challenged he would whine, "Are you mad at me?" and said "I'm sorry; did I do something wrong?" over and over which prompted his superiors to immediately attempt to assuage his hurt feelings instead of concentrating on why there were so very many complaints about his work.
The liberals placing "feelings" above all other considerations is one reason they cannot see what's in front of them. Their "feelings" that Dan Rather, a liberal news icon should not have been brought down by something as trivial as the truth, is why Rather is given face time and listened to as if he were an honest broker of the news.
It is why Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, William (money in the freezer) Jefferson, and the rest of the criminal enterprise known as the Democrat Party are not on trial or serving time. It is why Sandy Berger has not yet submitted to a lie detector test, agreed to as part of his plea bargain, and why you will not read or hear about this in our corrupted media. "Hasn't he suffered enough? Gee, the poor guy."
The primary reason that Glass succeeded was that the stories, fake, and in some cases, transparently so, fed right into the Liberals' belief system.
Liberals believe that, yes, conservatives are drunken, whoremongerers with no true conservative convictions and that they hide behind a facade of respectability. So when Glass turned in a story about a Conservative conference that portrayed his subjects as depraved and licentious louts, the Liberals at New Republic burbled with satisfaction. "See, See, didn't we always say this about Conservatives?"
Well, yes, they did. And Glass knew exactly what Liberals "believed" about the scary world outside of Liberalism's cozy fortress. He knew the Liberals' complacency in their own belief system, a faith that all that is Liberal is good; all that is not Liberal is evil, or better yet, ridiculous and vulgar and contemptible.
So that when Glass made up stories about religious people, or conservatives, or business people, they were always evil, or ridiculous, ignorant, vulgar, and yes, contemptible, and G-d, were they funny! How the Liberals at NR laughed and laughed.
Glass's last big story, "Hack Heaven" about a young hacker who hacked into a business and was paid by the business not to do it anymore, was shot down by reporters on the internet magazine, Forbes Online. It is considered the first big internet news blockbuster -- this was before Rathergate.
Glass had made up the hacker, the comapany (even creating a website that the least savvy computer novice would have questioned) but when a conference call between the Forbes Online editor and reporters and the New Republic editor and Stephen Glass the story began to unwind.
But the New Republic editor could not bring himself to believe that one of their own, a fellow Liberal, could have played them all like bongo drums.
Staff members threatened to quit if the editor fired Glass. "He (Glass) needs help," the blonde editrix screams at the editor. For Liberals, there are no Liberal wrongdoers, only victims.
The editor at first suspends Glass, then after learning that Glass had used his brother to call the editor at home pretending to be a key figure in Glass's fake story, the editor fires Glass.
But the editor could not convince his Liberal staff that Glass had to go. Glass himself, as well as staff members, harangued the editor that it was his "duty" to stand behind his reporters. The editor appeared to waver but eventually, according to the movie, persuaded the staff not to resign, even though every article Glass had written had to be vetted and an apology to New Republic's readers was printed in the magazine.
It is not mentioned whether or not apologies were made to the people and institutions that Glass had trashed in his articles.
The editor tells the blonde that Forbes Online is publishing the expose of Glass's "Hack Heaven" and that "things are going to blow" and that it might mean the end of the magazine.
At no time does the editor state that it is the editor's duty to stand behind, not a lying reporter nor the magazine which harbored him, but that it is the editor's duty to stand behind the truth.
If you're a Liberal, Pilate's question, "What is truth?",is your set of convenient blinders which makes it easy to miss what's in front of your nose.
Unfortunately, following one's world-view instead of reason is not limited to liberals. It may anger some, but right here on this forum, all one need do is read one of the myriad pro Duncan Hunter threads to see the same thing.
It hardly matters that Hunter has as much chance of becoming President as Bugs Bunny, many will defend him and tear down others who MIGHT have a shot, and call it 'convictions', which is a joke.
...and read the tag line.
Wonderful post.
WOW...another super duper post, Barset.
Thanks for letting us know about that. I have to be honest and say that I didn't follow that story.
I can surely see the twisted way that libs see things...but, since they are so intractable...I see danger in our future more every day.