Why Broadcast Journalism is Unnecessary and Illegitimate

The framers of our Constitution gave carte blance protection to “speech” and “the press”. They did not grant that anyone was then in possession of complete and unalloyed truth, and it was impossible that they should be able to a priori institutionalize the truth of a future such human paragon even if she/he/it were to arrive.

At the time of the framing, the 1830s advent of mass marketing was in the distant future. Since that era, journalism has positioned itself as the embodiment of nonpartisan truth-telling, and used its enormous propaganda power to make the burden of proof of any “bias” essentially infinite. If somehow you nail them dead to rights in consistent tendentiousness, they will merely shrug and change the subject. And the press is protected by the First Amendment. That is where conservatives have always been stuck.

And make no mistake, conservatives are right to think that journalism is their opponent. Examples abound so that any conservative must scratch his/her head and ask “Why?” Why do those whose job it is to tell the truth tell it so tendentiously, and even lie? The answer is bound and gagged, and lying on your doorstep in plain sight. The money in the business of journalism is in entertainment, not truth. It is that imperative to entertain which produces the perspective of journalism.

And that journalism does indeed have a perspective is demonstrated every day in what it considers a good news story, and what is no news story at all. Part of that perspective is that news must be new--fresh today--as if the events of every new day were of equal importance with the events of all other days. So journalism is superficial. Journalism is negative as well, because the bad news is best suited to keep the audience from daring to ignore the news. Those two characteristics predominate in the perspective of journalism.

But how is that related to political bias? Since superficiality and negativity are anthema to conservatives there is inherent conflict between journalism and conservatism.. By contrast, and whatever pious intentions the journalist might have, political liberalism simply aligns itself with whatever journalism deems a “good story.” Journalists would have to work to create differences between journalism and liberalism, and simply lack any motive to do so. Indeed, the echo chamber of political “liberalism” aids the journalist--and since liberalism consistently exacerbates the issues it addresses, successful liberal politicians make plenty of bad news to report.

The First Amendment which protects the expression of opinion must also be understood to protect claims by people of infallibility--and to forbid claims of infallibility to be made by the government. What, after all, is the point of elections if the government is infallible? Clearly the free criticism of the government is at the heart of freedom of speech and press. Freedom, that is, of communication.

By formatting the bands and standardizing the bandwiths the government actually created broadcasting as we know it. The FCC regulates broadcasting--licensing a handful of priveledged people to broadcast at different frequency bands in particular locations. That is something not contemplated in the First Amendment, and which should never pass constitutional muster if applied to the literal press. Not only so, but the FCC requires application for renewal on the basis that a licensee broadcaster is “operating in the public interest as a public trustee.” That is a breathtaking departure from the First Amendment.

No one questions the political power of broadcasting; the broadcasters themselves obviously sell that viewpoint when they are taking money for political advertising. What does it mean, therefore, when the government (FCC) creates a political venue which transcends the literal press? And what does it mean when the government excludes you and me--and almost everyone else--from that venue in favor of a few priviledged licensees? And what does it mean when the government maintains the right to pull the license of anyone it does allow to participate in that venue? It means a government far outside its First Amendment limits. When it comes to broadcasting and the FCC, clearly the First Amendment has nothing to do with the case.

The problem of journalism’s control of the venue of argument would be ameliorated if we could get them into court. In front of SCOTUS they would not be permitted to use their mighty megaphones. And to get to court all it takes is the filing of a civil suit. A lawsuit must be filed against broadcast journalism, naming not only the broadcast licensees, but the FCC.

We saw the tendency of broadcast journalism in the past election, when the delay in calling any given State for Bush was out of all proportion to the delay in calling a state for Gore, the margin of victory being similar--and, most notoriously, the state of Florida was wrongly called for Gore in time to suppress legal voting in the Central Time Zone portion of the state, to the detriment of Bush and very nearly turning the election. That was electioneering over the regulated airwaves on election day, quite on a par with the impact that illegal electioneering inside a polling place would have. It was an enormous tort.

And it is on that basis that someone should sue the socks off the FCC and all of broadcast journalism.

Journalism has a simbiotic relation with liberal Democrat politicians, journalists and liberal politicians are interchangable parts. Print journalism is only part of the press (which also includes books and magazines and, it should be argued, the internet), and broadcast journalism is no part of the press at all. Liberals never take issue with the perspective of journalism, so liberal politicians and journalists are interchangable parts. The FCC compromises my ability to compete in the marketplace of ideas by giving preferential access addresses to broadcasters, thus advantaging its licensees over me. And broadcast journalism, with the imprimatur of the government, casts a long shadow over elections. Its role in our political life is illegitimate.

The First Amendment, far from guaranteeing that journalism will be the truth, protects your right to speak and print your fallible opinion. Appeal to the First Amendment is appeal to the right to be, by the government or anyone else’s lights, wrong. A claim of objectivity has nothing to do with the case; we all think our own opinions are right.

When the Constitution was written communication from one end of the country to the othe could take weeks. Our republic is designed to work admirably if most of the electorate is not up to date on every cause celebre. Leave aside traffic and weather, and broadcast journalism essentially never tells you anything that you need to know on a real-time basis.

You effort has to be difficult at times in that you have to assume certain people (MSM) are acting in good faith, though misguided or misinformed, when you know they aren't.

The main difficulty I perceive is credulousness - falling into the hayseed mode and assuming that the MSM are acting in good faith. We've grown up being bombarded with a fantastic barrage of propaganda to the effect that journalism is objective, and I find I have to constantly remind myself that the conceit of journalistic objectivity is a degree foolishness which makes buying the Brooklyn Bridge from a seedy character on the street look like "due diligence." As Adam Smith put it, "It is age and experience alone that teaches incredulity. And they seldom teach it enough."
We should all strive for virtue, yet one of the virtues we should strive for is humility. And what does humility consist of but restraining ourselves from boasting of the virtues to which we aspire. The trouble, for those who work in journalism, is that there's no money in humility. Journalists are a bunch of carnival barkers. And the freak show that they are selling is the length to which they will go to hype bogeymen. They strain at gnats and swallow camels in order to sustain the pretense that we should trust them rather than the businesses and other institutions on which we do and must depend.
Rush parodies journalists beautifully when he boasts of "talent on loan from God" - which is actually humility pretending to be arrogance - and rants about how perfect he is. But the crucial point is that he doesn't con anyone that he is objective, he is openly conservative. And although the old Fairness Doctrine and the only-too-new Bush-McCain-Feingold "Campaign Finance Reform" horse hockey put a premium on the pretense of objectivity - actually denigrated humility - Rush and the other openly conservative commentators are consistently more reliable sources of information than "objective journalism."
What is the standard by which a source of information should be judged? Well, the Old Testament says that if someone declares themself to be a prophet and says that God will do something, then if the prophesy doesn't come true the speaker was a false prophet (and must be executed). These days we don't execute commentors (or, more's the pity </hyperbole>, reporters) whose words consistently fail to hold up in the light of time and experience. But we can and must do the virtual equivalent, with our remotes. CBS, Newsweek, et al are on notice.
THE MENTALITY BEHIND THE MSM
RCP ^ | Thursday, May 19 2005 | Tom Bevan

The Establishment which wishes to be thought of as "objective journalism" coheres in the idea that nothing matters but PR, and PR is under the control of journalism - that journalism can sell anything so long as journalism sticks together. To be a member in good standing of the Establishment you not only must refrain from attacking the credibility of another Establishment propaganda organ, you must actively attack the credibility of anyone who questions the objectivity of any other member of the Establishment. The Establishment is not merely an non-agression pact but a mutual defense organization.
IOW, it behaves as a political party is expected to behave - because, de facto, it is the head of the Democratic Party. The "objective journalism" Establishment does not itself have a mastermind at the top, and it is a "pact" only in the sense of a tacit agreement. But the Establishment is the wind beneath the wings of the Democratic Party, which has no other principle than to go where that wind takes it. Howard Dean is the Chairman of the DNC - but that is not a leadership position any more than Democratic Presidential Candidate is a leadership position. Would Kerry, Gore, or Clinton have been nominated for president by the Democratic Party if they were leaders? All they were was political operatives. The very last thing the Democratic Party wants is a leader.
GIVING NEWSWEEK COVER(John Podhoretz on the NY Times article)
National Review Online ^ | John Podhoret

1. In my very first column I identified myself as "an absolutist" on the First Amendment. Apart from having come to realize that absolutism in the pursuit of self-definition can be a bit reckless, my thoughts on journalism and the First Amendment have changed considerably. I still cherish the First; I still think it's the cornerstone of democracy. But I would love to see journalists justify their work not by wrapping themselves in the cloak of the law, but by invoking more persuasive defenses: accuracy, for instance, and fairness.

I dare to say that I am more of a "First Amendment Absolutist" than any MSM reporter, and than this columnist in particular. I believe that. with the caveat that the 14th Amendment extends its applicability to states as well as the federal government, it can be profitably applied just as it was written.

A "press" is something which prints ink on paper. "Speech" is in-person verbal communication. "Freedom" is what people can do whether the governor or president, or the chairman of the FCC or of the FEC, likes it or not.
Freedom of the people to worship (or not) according to their own choice is as important as freedom of the people from government religion (or the government as a religion).
Freedom to petition the government is freedom of political speech. That is as important as freedom of religion, and vice versa.
Freedom of speech and press buttress freedom of religion and freedom of politics. And freedom of religion buttresses freedom of politics and freedom of speech and press. And freedom of politics buttresses freedom of religion and freedom of speech and press. Each facet of freedom of expression is given equal weight in the First Amendment, and no facet is neatly separable from the rest.
A "press" can be part of a political party. I view the papers Hamilton and Jefferson sponsored to wage their partisan battles as the start of political parties in US. But papers can if they choose claim (may even think that they are not part of a political party, and yet may de facto act as such. Indeed The New York Times and the rest of what wants to be called "objective journalism" does, IMHO, function as part of the Democratic Party. Simply because Democratic politicians do not choose to follow any other principle than to curry PR favor from "objective" journalism.

As a corollary, in some arenas the First Amendment may not even be the most effective legal defense. The idea that Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine's Matthew Cooper may soon be imprisoned for not naming a source is nausea-inducing - especially since the source remains free. (No one is suggesting that Miller and Cooper may have broken the law; the source may well have.) Reporters Glenn Kessler and Walter Pincus, both of The Washington Post, were represented by criminal lawyers in the same case and are today going on with their lives, while those who have depended on a First Amendment defense may soon be packing for jail.

The source may have broken the law. Miller and Cooper are protecting the lawbreaker (if such he be) from the law. That makes a mockery of the law.
If Miller and Cooper have the right to do that because they use a printing press, I have the right to do the same thing because I'm a speaker; freedom of speech is not different from freedom of the press. What could be more plain than that the writer is pleading that journalists are priests who have more rights than you or I? What could be more plain than that only the establishment could make such an argument and expect free people to agree with it?
13 Things I Meant to Write About but Never Did (NY Times Ombudsman Farewell)
NY Times ^ | May 22, 2005 | DANIEL OKRENT

Don't ask me why I left this article out of the index. But I did, and think now that it belongs here:

To: I Gig Gar

The [American Mainstream Media Party], meanwhile, is regarded with ever growing suspicion by American voters, viewers and readers, who increasingly turn for information and analysis only to non-AMMP outlets that tend to reinforce the sectarian views of discrete slices of the electorate.
. . . as opposed to the MsM, which reinforces the sectarian views of - the MsM. Specifically, the view that nothing actually matters except PR.
Yes, I know: A purely objective viewpoint does not exist in the cosmos or in politics.
What's with the "purely?" Claiming to be objective is claiming to be wise, and claiming to be wise is arrogant, as only a journalist writing in his own paper or on his own radio station can be.
Yes, I know: Today's media foodfights are mild compared with the viciousness of pamphleteers and partisan newspapers of old, from colonial times forward. Yes, I know: The notion of a neutral "mainstream" national media gained a dominant following only in World War II and in its aftermath, when what turned out to be a temporary moderate consensus came to govern the country.
When your opposition is politically crippled, you think you are moderate because nobody points out limitations in your thinking.
Still, the notion of a neutral, non-partisan mainstream press was, to me at least, worth holding onto. Now it's pretty much dead, at least as the public sees things.
Story selection - what's the lead, and what's on page A13, and what's not even in the paper - is in the eye of the beholder. And there's nothing "neutral" about those decisions. That makes a mockery of "the notion of a neutral, non-partisan mainstream press."
36 posted on 01/12/2005 11:16:38 AM EST by conservatism_IS_compassion
The 'Media Party' is over (CBS' downfall is just the tip of the iceberg)
MSNBC ^ | Updated: 5:12 p.m. ET Jan. 11, 2005 | By Howard Fineman

A worldwide campaign begun in 1988 to eradicate the polio infection was on the verge of success when, early in 2003, a conspiracy theory took hold of the Muslim population in northern Nigeria. That conspiracy theory has single-handedly returned polio to epidemic proportions. fear of polio vaccines caught on, explains a doctor with the World Health Organization, because of the war in Iraq. “If America is fighting people in the Middle East,” goes the Islamist logic, “the conclusion is that they are fighting Muslims.” Local imams repeated and spread the sterilization theory, which won wide acceptance despite vocal assurances to the contrary from the WHO, the Nigerian government, and many Nigerian doctors and scientists.
The polio-vaccine conspiracy theory has had direct consequences: sixteen countries where polio had been eradicated have in recent months reported outbreaks of the disease – twelve in Africa (Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Sudan, and Togo) and four in Asia (India, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen). Yemen has had the largest polio outbreak, with more than 83 cases since April. The WHO calls this “a major epidemic.”
This is what a public-relations campaign can do to people. And not only to backward people in third-world countries. It can happen here. Only instead of parents not giving a vaccine, here we give Hillary control of the production of vaccine to make it cheap and plentiful. With the result that the vaccine becomes unavailable - until suddenly there's a glut of it, after people have been convinced that they won't bother trying to get it.
Daniel Pipes: A Muslim Conspiracy Theory Keeps Polio Alive
Frontpagemagazine ^ | 5-24-05 | Daniel Pipes

I'm put in mind of The Iliad. In that story, the Greeks and Trojans battle at Troy - and when a captain of the Greeks is killed, the two sides fight over the body. Back in the 1950s that seemed strange to me. But look at what's going on here - the MSM and FR are battling over, not the actual body per se, but the memory of the fallen.
The MSM wants to reduce the memory of the fallen to the flag-draped coffin as an emblem of futility. OTOH we want the fallen to be remembered as part of an ongoing, and very much alive an kicking, army of liberation. An army engaged, at painful cost, in defeating the philosophy that the end justifies the means. The philosophy, that is, of which suicidal assassination is the ultimate expression.
The victory of that liberation is expressed in the fact that the assassins are reduced to murdering not presidents but mere Iraqi voters - and that Iraqi voters are legion.
In seeking to promote the flag-draped coffin, the MSM seeks to promote not the fallen hero but the fallen schlub - the fool who went into danger to implement the policies of "Shrub" Bush. We promote the living soldier, in faith with his fallen comrades, as heroic actor on the world stage. Making a difference in a way far more meaningful than the propaganda of the MSM.
Journalism promotes the negative and the supericial because that is its stock in trade. Virtue is not superficial, and memory of virtue is the opposite of journalism. Journalism has to try to undercut Memorial Day.
Good Morning America Blows it Again (Another anti-American, Bush hit) beyond the sea | 5/29/05 | self

Right on. We don't have to float huge bond issues andreinstitute the draft for this. All we really have to do is not succumb to the quislingism of Big Journalism.
If the Republicans in the Senate were determined, they could undercut Big Journalism by changing the FCC statutes to eliminate the FCC's fundamental flaw - the promotion of broadcast journalism. The promotion of broadcast journalism is philosophically wrong because "objective" journalism is inherently cynical - inherently negative, inherently superficial, and inherently arrogant.
The cynicism of "objective" journalism is matched by its natural offspring - "liberal" politicians who operate on the "principle" that nothing matters but PR. To describe Bill Clinton's MO, Rush coined the phrase "symbolism over substance," which is another way of saying the same thing. In speaking to the Republican National Convention, Dick Cheney said ". . . they have not led. We will." What could be a plainer description of the campaign of John Kerry than an absolute refusal to lead? The man would not take an unambiguous stand on anything.
And that is typical of the liberal (and there is no longer other kind) Democrat; the Democratic Party doesn't want politicians to lead. The Democrats' leadership is Big Journalism. Democratic politicians merely follow.
Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

Dissatisfaction with the media ranges from disgust and outrage to general suspicion.

I disagree.
The attitude of the public toward journalism ranges from the liberal Democrat position of abject credulousness through general suspicion to disgust and outrage - to my own position, contempt.
Big Journalism is negative, superficial, and arrogant:

Big Journalism is negative because it's hard to ignore bad news - even speculative, "Is Your Drinking Water Safe?" bad news,
Big Journalism is, superficial because "the show must go on" - journalism has deadlines and inevitably reports something as if it were reliable and of earth-shaking importance,
And Big Journalism is arrogant in claiming the virtue of objectivity.
"Arrogance, superficiality, and negativity." That's a pretty good description of political liberalism, as manifested by Democratic slander of America's servicemen doing demanding and dangerous work. It is also a fine definition of "cynicism." I am not ashamed to react to cynicism with contempt.
Journalism "Systems" Go Critical - (former "kings of the hill" now recognizing grievous faults!)
A.I.M.ORG ^ | JUNE 24, 2005 | SHERRIE GOSSETT

The First Amendment doesn't require journalism to be fair, balanced, objective, wise, or have any other virtue. In fact, just the opposite - the First Amendment requires the government to keep hands off of print journalism (and book publishers as well) no matter how unfair, unbalanced, unobjective, or unwise the government may suppose a given print journalism to be. The First Amendment codifies the right to be, by the lights of any administration, wrong.
In fact, it makes no constitutional sense at all for the government to be in the business of saying whether any journalism is "in the public interest" or not. For if the government is virtuous enough to be able to judge that, it makes no sense at all for the government to have to submit to the judgement of people who are not, in general, wise and virtuous. Elections would then make no sense. But what we know beyond peradvernture is that if the government is allowed to define wisdom, it will define "wisdom" in terms of eternal incumbency. It is for the people, and only for the people, to decide what is wisdom, and whose speech is in the public interest.
And that implies not only that the government has no buisiness sponsoring NPR or PBS but that the govenment has no business censoring broadcasting. Which means that broadcasting - the transmission of radio signals by licensees only, and the censorship of those who do not have the imprimatur of the government to broadcast "in the public interest as a public trustee" - is illegitimate and fundamentally unconstitutional.
The mistake that people make when they criticize efforts to measure the leftist slant of PBS is, quite simply, the error of selfrighteousness. They assume that because everyone they know who is intelligent agrees with their perspective, that what they think is just what is - and any attempt to hold their own perspective up to measurement is inherently illegitimate. That is an easy mistake to make, but it it arrogance.
Such people actually assume that they do not need the First Amendment because they are always right. But the First Amendment exists because the people who know they are right just may happen to be wrong.
Keep PBS Free of Political Meddling (WI Liberal Op/Ed)
Wisconsin State Journal ^ | June 23, 2005 | Uncredited Editorial

The First Amendment doesn't require journalism to be fair, balanced, objective, wise, or have any other virtue. In fact, just the opposite - the First Amendment requires the government to keep hands off of print journalism (and book publishers as well) no matter how unfair, unbalanced, unobjective, or unwise the government may suppose a given print journalism to be. The First Amendment codifies the right to be, by the lights of any administration, wrong.

Indeed,

newspapers sponsored by Hamilton and Jefferson were the heart of the first political parties.
the party of big government is in fact the party of self-proclaimed objectivity.
The party of big government is the party of the rich.
The party of "objective" big journalism masquerades as the party of the little guy.
All that is protected by the First Amendment. It is egregious for the government to be allowed to favor the party of big government, which is precisely what PBS/NPR, all other broadcast journalisms except explicitly conservative ones (talk radio), and "Campaign Finance Reform" do.
I saw Herman Cain (sp?) on C-Span last night, and he bemoaned the difficulty of raising money for his recent Senate run - noting that he could have easily gotten the money from big donors if that had been allowed. Instead the (black) political outsider was excluded from the process.

The point, Keller wrote, "is not that we should begin recruiting reporters and editors for their political outlook; it is part of our professional code that we keep our political views out of the paper.

. . . and the fact that you think you possibly could - never mind think that you actually do - " keep our political views out of the paper" is sufficient to assure that you in fact project insufferably selfrighteous leftism.
O'Sullivan's Law
John O'Sullivan, columnist and former editor of National Review offers this proposed Sullivan's First Law: "All organizations that are not actually right wing will over time become left wing."

The point is that we want a range of experience. We have a recruiting committee that tracks promising outside candidates, and that committee has already begun to consider ways to enrich the variety of backgrounds of our reporters and editors.

But that fails to work in practice, for the simple reason that you are recruiting "good" journalists - and your idea of a good journalist is the root of the problem, recruit them in whatever city and of whatever color you will. Journalism is superficial because of its deadlines, negative because of its imperative to attract attention, and arrogant because it believes in its own virtue ("objectivity").
Arrogant, superficial negativity is cynicism. When you are cynical yourself, and you are trying to hire good cynics, it's remarkably unilikely that you will hire people who are not leftists.
Keller Says 'N.Y. Times' Must Look Beyond Its Urban, Liberal Base
Editor and Publisher ^ | 06/26/05 | E&P Staff

Do you think [O'Sullivan's] simplistic reasoning sufficiently explains the phenomenon?

IMHO:

Free commercial journalism, under competitive pressure, will bully society at large.
Journalism is superficial because of its deadlines, negative for the same reason that the boy cried "wolf" - and in love with its PR power. Each individual journalist both loves his own PR power and fears the PR power of journalism as a whole.
That is why journalists are bullies - and why it requires courage to take the positive, long-range perspective of conservatism. Organizations for conservative purposes will therefore be bullied - and given dismissive labels such as "right wing" - by journalism.
Organizations which do not have explicitly conservative purposes will therefore distance themselves from conservative organizations to gain access to the protection of the cowardly, bullying herd of journalists and fellow travelers. Sullivan's First Law: "All organizations that are not actually right wing will over time become left wing" follows.

WSJ: Jailing Reporters - The press corps unleashed a prosecutor on itself.

The 500 pound gorilla in this issue is the fact that the Constitution does not presume that journalists are objective. Hamilton and Jefferson sponsored competing newspapers in which to wage their partisan battles, and there is no crime in that at all - as the First Amendment clearly implies.
There is no crime in a newspaper being partisan, even to the point of proclaiming its own objectivity(!), straining at gnats and swallowing camels all the while. I view those sponsored newspapers as being the start of political parties, which the Framers styled "faction" - and had hoped to avoid (the 12th Amendment was necessitated by the reality of political parties).
But if you view newspapers as having the motive and opportunity to be partisan, it makes no sense to give the perpetrators of journalism special rights. The idea that the newspapers should have the right, codified in law, to demand a special prosecutor (a law, now lapsed, which Clinton advocated and self-righteously signed) or to be able to refuse to testify about a crime about which a particular journalist patently has relevant knowledge, is ridiculous.
And if it is ridiculous to propose that newspapers should have such authority, what is one to say about the idea that government sponsored entities like licensed broadcasters or even PBS and NPR should have such authority!? And what should be said about the idea that we should accept such imposture on the basis that when the government does so it uses a novel and unrepresentative branch of government completely divorced from the framework by which even judges are selected!?
If the government is presumptively wise and objective, we need no elections which might dispossess the wise and objective solons who populate it. But if we do in fact need elections to keep the government even minimally honest and public-spirited, is it appropriate that we allow the government to favor the few among us whom the government deigns to favor with its imprimatur that their words are "broadcast in the public interest"???
WSJ: Jailing Reporters - The press corps unleashed a prosecutor on itself.
opinionjournal.com ^ | July 1, 2005 | Editorial
Posted on 07/01/2005 8:03:49 AM EDT by OESY

O’Sullivan’s First Law" states that "All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing."

And although O'Sullivan himself gives some examples as a lame "proof," his law is demonstrably true. My proof follows:

Journalism is negative (if it bleeds, it leads)
Journalism is superficial (because of deadline pressure)
Journalism is arrogant (in claiming the virtue of objectivity, and also in its belief that "you never get into an argument with someone who buys ink by the truckload").
Journalism is cowardly (in that each journalist fears all the others - taking the "you never get into an argument with someone who buys ink by the truckload" warning to heart when journalism in general needs to be opposed by a courageous voice.
It follows that journalism is cynical and bullying.
It follows that any organization or individual such as a SCOTUS justice - which is courageous and principled will be labeled "right wing" - or, perhaps, "out of the mainstream." Anyone who lacks courage and principle will be pulled to conformity with the left wing by the flattery and derision of journalism - and be praised as "moderate' and "mainstream" (and, before they ran the word into the ground, "liberal").

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