Chow down, FReepers. This is good stuff.
Reaching into one's own mind for answers and solutions, in total ignorance of the history of the nation and the history of a free press, produces nothing but trach and twaddle. That's why most of the talking heads on TV, and typing heads in the print media are worse than useless, They are an active danger to the survival of the Republic.
Congressman Billybob
"Many of these sites are livelier, smarter and more informative
than the old media they hope to supplant."
Think he was talking about us??? Go Tony!!
"All Americans have a deep interest in maintaining the Constitution. This might seem especially true of journalists, who owe their livelihoods to the founding document that frames our freedoms. Yet for some reason, American journalists in recent decades have assailed that document with startling vigor - and have seemed blissfully ignorant of their treachery. Fortunately, the Constitution itself supplies a cure for this malady.Wow. I just read this in my copy of IMPRIMIS, and was VERY impressed with the writing of Tony Snow....Before I consider how and why the Constitution does this, consider a few of the fundamental ways in which it safeguards liberty...
...Free expression, virtue, capitalism and limited government were four of the main pillars that upheld America through its first two centuries.
...Yet here we return to a source of wonder: America's journalistic establishment, which owes its existence and authority to the Constitution, fails to appreciate the Constitution's intellectual architecture. Indeed, that establishment has mounted a sustained assault on each of the pillars of the American system I have just discussed.
I always thought that he was a "lightweight" when he guest-hosted for Rush, but it appears that I was WRONG.
This article is GREAT!
"Fortunately, the Constitution - the forgotten document in the journalism biz - has come to the rescue. Court decisions have chipped away at old media monopolies, and now a profusion of new media has risen to supply facts and points of view the old elite brazenly ignored. Talk radio, the Internet and cable television have shattered the "mainstream" media's grip on the distribution of facts and ideas...Bravo, Tony Snow!...The great and fitting irony is that the modern media establishment, in reviling America's constitutional principles and established institutions, broke its traditional links to the public, creating a market for its successor and bringing forth a tantalizing prospect: a full-fledged revival of the free, open, and spirited public debate, facilitated by a free and pluralistic press, that Americans took for granted throughout most of our nation's history."
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(If you want OFF - or ON - my "Hugh Hewitt PING list" - please let me know.)
I've tried so many times to say this clearly.
Bookmarked thread!
Tony had these really important remarks in this thread:
Better Days Ahead
Fortunately, the Constitution - the forgotten document in the journalism biz - has come to the rescue. Court decisions have chipped away at old media monopolies, and now a profusion of new media has risen to supply facts and points of view the old elite brazenly ignored. Talk radio, the Internet and cable television have shattered the "mainstream" media's grip on the distribution of facts and ideas. Rush Limbaugh became the most successful radio personality of his generation, not just because of his great gifts as a broadcaster, but also because he was saying things people couldn't hear elsewhere. The Internet also has become a public square for conservatives. One can find dozens of Web sites devoted to supplying points of view still absent from ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and NPR. Many of these sites are livelier, smarter and more informative than the old media they hope to supplant. The Constitution's protections of free speech - reiterated in dozens of Supreme Court decisions over the years - have given protective cover to a new pluralism that bids to reinvigorate the business of journalism and sharpen public discourse.
The great and fitting irony is that the modern media establishment, in reviling America's constitutional principles and established institutions, broke its traditional links to the public, creating a market for its successor and bringing forth a tantalizing prospect: a full-fledged revival of the free, open, and spirited public debate, facilitated by a free and pluralistic press, that Americans took for granted throughout most of our nation's history.
Since we still have freedom of choice thanks to our capitalist society, something else happened here.
For a comparison go back to our American Auto industry in the late 1960's and most of the 1970's. The American Auto Industry became arrogant and the union workers became arrogant and forgot their pride of workmanship. This combination resulted in terrible cars. Cars that weren't safe, that were shoddy made and expensive to keep running.
The auto industry like the arrogant left wing maggots who control our media did not listen to our complaints about their terrible products.
Then, Japan enters our Auto Market with reliable and great little cars. These Japanese cars became even more reliable and bigger while our Auto makers and their unions became more arrogant and refused to listen to us!
One day they woke and started the long turn around to building quality cars with good workmanship and a reliable product.
The maggots who own and control the media will either wake up and offer a better product or they will disappear in this decade! We have choices like we did when Japan entered our auto market. We have the internet and Free Republic. We have Rush, Sean, and the conservative people on Fox News for our news choices. Many of us never go over to the Dark Side mediot maggots any more! They have lost us as audience members, and their advertisers have lost our buying power!
Personally, I hope that they don't wake up as payback for what they have done to this country with their politicians like the Clintoons, the Kennedys, the Gorons, the Da$$hole and ___________ (you fill in the blank)! Their anti America and anti Church and pro radical homosexual agendas in my view puts them in a non salvageable domain!
The day that most Conservatives stop buying newspapers and watching left wing mediots on tv, they will lose even more audiences and power!
Regardless the surviving left wing fishwraps and CNNCBSNBCABCCSPAN are probably like the Dinosaurs who survived the first part of the ice age, only to become petroleum later on! I believe that they picked the wrong side and have doomed themselves. Their side/audience will not even be able to read, listen to a talk show or watch a news show and understand anything by the time this decade is over. That can be blamed on these left wing mediots and what they have done with our school and university systems with the diversity/perversity and PC focus!