Circular logic

I am reeling over this weekend's "liberal media bias" conservative talking point BS. What a cynical load of crap. It sounds to me like nothing so much as that classic rant from the backseat of the station wagon: "Mom! Make her stop touching me!"

After years of making a fortune on the claim that there is such a thing as an MSM (mainstream media) monolith, and that it is evilly biased against such homespun values as truth, justice, and the version of the American Way best represented by a Leave it to Beaver set, the right wing twit 'verse is promoting a study that claims that only 9 percent of Americans trust the media, and that more people think the media has a liberal bias than a conservative one.

Looks like a big circle to me. Wasn't it the radical right that first claimed there was a liberal media conspiracy? Now they've convinced enough people to look over their shoulders for the looming shadow of the MSM, they promulgate a factoid from their echochamber. We lie, you believe us, we lie more outrageously, you get more outraged over nothing, we lie some more - cha-CHING! This co-opting of reality, which is just like getting to write history except it's subject is NOW, has so many obvious advantages. Let's see...

Start by making the juvenile claim that there's such a thing as journalistic objectivity, then pretending that we're the only ones that have it. Then you can wildly distort reality with a perfectly straight face. After that, you can call it patriotic to quash dissent. And if you're lucky, maybe you can find a country with oil reserves to invade to distract everyone from the fact that you've lost all sense of direction -- not to mention imagination -- and that all you can think to do is whine about what the other guy is doing.

I'm tired of being a bleeding heart liberal. Where are my demagogues? It sucks to belong to a demographic whose defining political characteristic is reasonableness and understanding. Thank god for the patron saints of irony: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Without them we'd all either be rocking in the corner or, more likely, looking in the corners for rocks to throw.

When the media is forced to give airtime and space to a lunatic fringe for whom such concepts as equal rights, the big bang and evolution of species are as threatening as Kim Jung Il, it sets up a dynamic that is ridiculously out of whack. Now centrists like Barak Obama and the Clintons represent the left, while the right tips farther and farther into insanity.

Because - and I blame A&E's campaign of a few years back on this front for selling this concept - conflict is drama. And we all know that these days, the cheapest, most tawdry drama sells like gangbusters. Jon & Kate Plus 8 anyone? Let's face it - the potential to sell advertising relies heavily - solely - on the ability to deliver eyeballs and auditory canals. And whoever gets the most body parts wins.

So these dangerous nutjobs make ludicrous claims, say anything that will get the bright lights to shine on them, in order to pump up the volume of the "he said, she said" cacophony. And the "liberal" media, being nothing if not painfully reasonable, not only pay an ounce of attention to such ridiculousness, they give that stance a level of play equal to that of REALITY.

And it goes something like this:

Rightwing Crackpot: The sky is orange.

Leftwing Media Elite: If you say so.

The media: In a showdown for the ages, the left and the right squared off today with differing opinions on the hue and coloration of our atmosphere.

What I wish would happen when the politically deluded issue statements: NOTHING! Why would anyone pay attention to that claptrap? I mean, if some stranger on the street told you that the sky was orange, would you give them a second thought? But if Rush Limbaugh says it, we not only have to report it, we have to at least muster up some academic to give an opposing view.

I guess all this could have been said much more concisely: the reasonable person always loses. But I've always been a sucker for the screed.

'm out.