A prophecy come to pass?

Allen Drury was a reporter in the New York Times' Washington bureau who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1960 for "Advise and Consent," still the greatest novel about the doings and undoings in Powertown USA. He was a passionate anti-Communist and highly critical of liberal group think long before Ronald Reagan made his presence known here. That in itself is a commentary on how far the New York Times has fallen over the years, although Drury left The Times after the success of "Advise and Consent."

In the last few days, I've been reading one of Drury's subsequent novels, "Anna Hastings," the story of the rise to power of a Washington newspaperwoman. Like its famous predecessor, the book is rich with the kind of detail about Washington that still rings true more than 30 years after he wrote it.  Warning to Senator Obama: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

But given the increasing evidence of how the major media has largely sold its historic birthright to ensure Obama's election, it was startling to read this passage from Drury circa 1977:

"It is a different language: words do not mean the same. Partisanship, vindictiveness, personal antipathies, deliberate slanting, deliberate suppression of opposing viewpoints - censorship, in fact, though the word is vastly abhorred by those who practice it - all these now masquerade with a bland self-righteousness as honesty, lack of bias, fairness, compassion and objectivity.

"When challenged hard enough, those who argue this will eventually admit that perhaps these terms no longer apply; but, then they ask, why should they? What is the advantage of really being honest, unbiased, fair, compassionate and objective? Are not the times so evil that we of the media must be partisan, vindictive, personal, deliberately biased, deliberately censorious and suppressive of the other fellow's point of view? How else are we to defeat the monsters of our age?

"It is an argument ... that forms a perfect circle - a circle that is rolling the media inevitably toward destruction of the First Amendment and with it all those who so loudly claim its easy protections as they busily violate its honorable intentions. We think a monstrous reaction could come, from a people made so cynical and so hopeless by the media that not even the media itself will be able to withstand the withering wind, consuming all institutions of stability great or small, good or bad, that its members have unleashed."

A bit apocalyptic perhaps, but Drury was like that in his later works. Then I click on Drudge and see the latest plummeting newspaper circulation figures and read about the latest layoffs in the newspaper industry. Newspaper readers, it seems, have no loyalty anymore. The traditional TV network news programs are losing viewers too, as Americans opt for their favorite cable news networks and divide into warring camps. It seems we don't even share a love of country anymore and certainly not a common language. How far we've fallen since my father's generation.

Of course, the bias and cynicism of the news media aren't all to blame, but they deserve much of the "credit." What is truth, after all, if even news reporters don't report what they really see. Now, as Drury warned three decades ago, the bill's come due. Some say we have more media than ever, but I see chaos.

 

 

It's a bird, it's a plane ...

It's SuperObama. Is there nothing this man can't do? Now actor Daniel Craig, out promoting the new James Bond movie, says Obama would make a better 007 than John McCain “because—if he’s true to his word—he’d be willing to quite literally look the enemy in the eye and go toe-to-toe with them."

So much for Joe Biden's worries that America's enemies will test Obama in his first six months in the White House. We've got 008 in Washington (Get it? Like Election Year 2008). John McCain, says Craig, "would probably be a better M [because there's] a kind of Judi Dench quality to McCain.”

From reading and watching much of the media, you wonder why we're even going through the formality of an election since everyone in America is going to vote for Obama. Why not just declare him president by popular acclamation?

After Election Day, those claiming to have voted for Obama will be as common as Baby Boomers who say they went to Woodstock. The first-ever mega-festival drew a huge crowd, but if every Boomer who has since claimed to have been there had actually gone, the entire Eastern Seaboard would have been a muddy, messy campground.

Unless, of course, Obama doesn't live up to his advance notices, which admittedly would be tough for anyone. Then look for a flood of "Don't blame me, I voted for McCain" bumperstickers and Oliver Stone's plans for a gutsy new movie, "O."

Welcome to the gulag

A voter asks Barack Obama a question on a rope line and tells the candidate he doesn't like the answer he's hearing. John McCain picks up on his answer, and the voter -- now known universally as Joe the Plumber -- gets his 15 minutes of fame.

But wait. Now the vicious left with Obama's allies in the media are in overdrive to destroy the guy. Publishing his home address on the internet, poring over his business records, doing everything in their power to ruin him, his business and his life. Just because he asked a question of a political candidate. The KGB would be proud.

A businessman in a Washington, D.C. suburb dares to display his support for the McCain-Palin ticket and is instantly accused of disrespecting African-Americans because he is opposing Obama. He takes the sign down. Opposition will not be tolerated in the new America.

These are scary times, my friends. As usual, the voices of tolerance are the most intolerant, and they're emboldened because they know they're coming into power. These are the people who have imposed politically correct speech codes on campuses nationwide and periodically make a pass at restricting our constitutionally-guaranteed right of free speech, usually in the guise of hate crime laws. But they don't hesitate to viciously go after anyone they disagree with, posting anything online they can think of (just ask the Palin family) and circulating it as widely as they can. Then their friends in the used-to-be-respectable media pick it up as if it were gospel.

The internet gives distance and anonymity to many of these cowardly character assassins. In South Korea, these kind of postings have become such a problem that a number of recent high-profile suicides are attributed to it. Be prepared. Many of these people will stop at nothing to silence those who disagree with them.

 

Fear works

Here are my current thoughts on the "financial meltdown."