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It's now well known that Communist agents imbedded in high-ranking positions included White House confidant Lauchlin Currie, State Department official Alger Hiss and Treasury Department official Harry Dexter White. Evans quotes FBI files identifying atom bomb scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer as a secret Communist as early as 1942.
Taking on the anti-communist mission locked McCarthy in mortal combat against powerful forces: two U.S. presidents, the vast federal bureaucracy, malicious adversaries in Congress, left-wing lobby groups and the left-wing media who made him their daily target.

I do think journalism went through a period of about 100 years (1860-1960) where the majority of reporters and editors tried to be "objective" and adopted codes of conduct to try to ensure objectivity (always get more than one witness; get the other side of the story; no unsourced stories; etc.) In other words, I do think for a while most reporters attempted to be "fair and balanced" and "objective." Whether they succeeded is a different question.

One of the problems is that if you ALWAYS get the "other side of the story," it does introduce the notion that there always IS another "side of the story." What was the other side of the story to the Holocaust? Should we "get Hitler's take?" In other words, it legitimizes falsity.

The Market for Conservative-Based News

One thing to suggest that there was a good-faith attempt at objectivity by the Associated Press and the papers associated with it at the start of the institution of the AP. Quite another to believe that "the news" ever was actually objective. IMHO the novelty of the AP newswire and its ability to inform the width and breadth of the nation instantly created journalism as we know it. And journalism as we know it is inherently demagogic, so that it is naturally easy and gutless to align yourself with journalism's negative, superficial perspective. And thus, it requires courage and unusual acuity to be able to stake out a non-demagogic political position in opposition to the AP and Big Journalism.
At some point the parties divided on that basis. Politicians who aligned themselves with demagogic so-called "objective" journalism are designated by journalists as "liberals" - and those who refuse to do so are designated by journalists as (evil) "conservatives." "Maverick John McCain" attempts a straddle whereby he retains the "conservative" label while pandering to the demagogic tendencies of "objective" journalism by, among other heresies, demagoging the pharmaceutical companies as "the enemy."

the scripts prove that Reagan was a one-man think tank, well versed in political philosophy and history

Reagan also invented a method to keep a perfect crease in your work pants that personally helps me stay dapper looking. :) Allow me to explain. An excerpt from Seinfeld's The Doll episode gives you the general idea.

(The Maestro gets up. Realizing that he isn't wearing pants, Kramer and Frank stare in bewilderment)
MAESTRO: (Noticing the expressions) Ohh, my pants. (Begins putting on a near-by pair of pants) It's an old conductor's trick I learned from Leonard Bernstein.
KRAMER: Really?
MAESTRO: You keep a perfect crease by not sitting in them before the performance.
(Kramer and Frank are obviously impressed)
KRAMER: That's good thinking.

An Air Force One pilot reveals that Reagan changed into sweat pants during flights aboard Air Force One. Before touchdown Reagan would change back into suit pants with a perfect crease.

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