[conservatism_IS_compassion]

determining exactly who or what "gets to" play the part of the evil cardboard villain quite often becomes a political decision.

I actually think that the "cardboard villian" is fixed. The "villain" is anyone who raises his profile by actually accomplishing something. Accomplishment threatens the primacy of the criticizing class - reporters most especially, Democrat politicians, unionists, plaintiff lawyers, and (all too often) teachers. People who actually accomplish things set themselves up for second guessing; it is always possible to see in retrospect "where," as Teddy Roosevelt put it, "the doer of deeds could have done them better."

So in that sense the "political decision" of who gets mercilessly criticized by journalism is not so much driven by the desire of the reporter for a particular outcome as by who makes the juciest target for being knocked down a peg or two. And that is always the businessman or the doctor - or the cop or the soldier. Hence, "objective" journalism and its running dog, "liberalism," attack those targets.

[Milhous]

I actually think that the "cardboard villian" is fixed. The "villain" is anyone who raises his profile by actually accomplishing something.

With exemptions for old mass media "pets" such as The Tribune Company who is currently stealing its employees' pension fund right under the very noses of media watchdogs. As we all know The Tribune Company also enjoys yet another exemption from criticism (a double indemnity so to speak) as one of the good old boys in big old mass media.