catching up with SlateSlate Explainer details the administrations latest US attempt to stop the Israeli security fence, threatening the reduction of loan guarantees. Chatterbox does a double-take on media bias, declaring conservatives to be much bigger brown-nosers than liberals: Tomasky's findings are quite striking. The percentage of editorials in Tomasky's liberal sample that criticized Bush (67 percent) was 22 points less than the percentage of editorials in Tomasky's conservative sample that criticized Clinton (89 percent). Particularly dramatic are what Chatterbox will label the Praise Gap and the Self-Criticism Gap. The Praise Gap reflects the liberal papers' general reluctance to praise anyone, ideological friend or foe. Thus the liberal sample praised Clinton a mere 30 percent of the time while the conservative sample praised Bush 77 percent of the time. The Self-Criticism Gap shows that liberal papers are well able to criticize ideological friends while the conservative papers really aren't. The liberal sample criticized Clinton 30 percent of the time while the conservative sample criticized Bush a mere 7 percent of the time. The Wall Street Journal has a particularly strong aversion to self-criticism. Of the 40 Bush editorials Tomasky surveyed, only one criticized Bush. This was an editorial arguing against Bush's support for steel tariffs, which violated the editorial page's core principle of free trade but was discussed at the absurdly minimal length of 123 words. Timothy Noah concludes, with the help of David Frum, that these results reflect the fact that liberals are loyal to causes, while conservatives are much more likely to be loyal to individuals. I believe what they actually represent is the difficulty of being a mainstream liberal these days. The Liberal Conscience of America has situated itself in such a position that it's very difficult for a democrat to be identified as liberal and hold a position of national significance. It's that old high school paradox, if being told that you're cool is proof that you're uncool, how do you know when you're cool? (I'm paraphrasing a Simpsons scene here, but for the life of me I can't recall the exact quote) FNC keeps telling me that Howard Dean is crazy left-wing anti-war liberal, but wouldn't their core audience be interested to know Dean's position on gun control? Do Dean's liberal supports know that he swings right on this issue? And has anyone informed Gary Trudeau? (I'm ranting off-subject, aren't I?) The real problem with the democratic party is that the term liberal has been aged and consumed by "progressive" bacterias to such an extent that it resembles a french camembert, taxing on the nose and tart in the mouth. The "progressives" have been allowed to define for the public what it means to be liberal while the Bush administration was left unopposed to redefine and capture The Center on foreign policy issues alone. The "liberal" party, like a fine cheese, is working for those of us who appreciate it (or who can convince themselves that they do). It has become an aquired taste generally unappealing to the masses, direly in need of a new recipe. |
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