GOP at the crossroads: Successfully challenging the lies of the mainstream media

By Carol Devine-Molin

web posted March 27, 2006

 

When I saw Pat Boone – singer/entertainer and famous evangelical – on the Fox News Channels' "Your World with Neil Cavuto" a few days ago, my initial reaction was "What's this all about?" I figured he was plugging an upcoming oldies show or another musical release.  Well, it turns out that Boone is something of a conservative political pundit himself, writing a regular column for the website World Net Daily. Who knew? Clearly, this guy has a penchant for reinventing himself and changing with the times. On Cavuto's program, Pat Boone spoke informatively about our travails in Iraq, "fair weather conservatives", the consequences of mercilessly pummeling President Bush in the public arena, and the considerable failings of the mainstream media.

 

Essentially, Boone found the "ideological prejudice" and incessant Bush-bashing by the mainstream media to be very problematic since it had the effect of: a) undermining the president's war policies, and, b) abetting the enemy. Regarding members of the Left-leaning Big Media that vilify Bush at every turn, Boone quite accurately stated, "They (the Leftist media elites) don't want this president to be right about anything." Similarly, Boone wasn't about to cut any slack to some conservatives - the "fair weather conservatives" as he's dubbed them - who are already taking pot-shots at an embattled President Bush. Pat Boone's current column at World Net Daily dovetails quite nicely with his remarks on the Cavuto program. As to those in the media who see blood in the water and are willing to partake in the feeding-frenzy against our president during this time of war, Boone wasn't above calling their patriotism into question. I thoroughly agree with Boone on all points noted here.

 

Moreover, Pat Boone's willingness to come forward and be part of the debate is heartening since conservatives – and here I'm citing mainstream GOP conservatives – with any kind of influence, any ability to hold sway with the public, are needed to promulgate the GOP message, which has always been systematically suppressed by the mainstream media. Since the early 1960s, starting with direct mailings, conservatives have utilized alternative media to circumvent the partisan mainstream media and educate the American populace about the various issues, including the pernicious nature of Leftism (whether is called liberalism or socialism, it's all Leftist in nature) that represents the ideological engine that runs the Democrat Party. I'll amplify more upon alternative media, and conservative use of it, latter in this piece.

 

The good news is this: Big Media journalism is in trouble and now everyone knows it, including the media elites. The Washington Times notes that the just-released "The State of the News Media 2006" report, which is "a massive series of surveys and analyses by the Project for Excellence in Journalism", does not bode well for major news outlets such as the New York Times, once considered the flagship of news organizations. "Overall, the public increasingly sees their press as slanted, with 72 percent thinking the press favored one side or another, according to a poll of 1,464 adults. The number is up from 66 percent two years earlier." Is it any wonder that the partisan mainstream media continues to lose market-share? 

The Right-leaning crowd (Republicans and conservatives) were more prone than Democrats to cite press-bias in the aforementioned study. No surprise here. However, amazingly, "55 percent of journalists from national news organizations say the coverage of the Bush administration has not been critical enough."  Yep, the mainstream media is only eager to lambaste Bush and the GOP further. Just last week, the Drudge Report got hold of an email by an ABC news executive stating "Bush makes me sick". And ABC purports to be fair-minded in their news coverage?  

So what's the real deal, the unvarnished truth, on the mainstream media? Members of the mainstream media are fellow liberals who are nothing more than proxies for the Democratic Party that consistently displays an anti-war, anti-military, "Blames America First" stance. This is precisely what they're all about, despite their attempts to obfuscate and hide their true colors. Just examine their position on the war in Iraq: The political Left wants America to cut-and-run from Iraq, which is absurd on the very face of it. If an American president acquiesced to that policy, Iraq would become a hardened terror state – Jihad Central – posing a significant threat to neighboring Middle East countries (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, etc.) and to the West, too. Moreover, our troops would have died in vain, and our allies would never trust us again, realizing that our words are empty ones. It would wreak devastation upon our international relations. By seeking to smear Bush and his policies in every possible manner, the political Left is seeking to thwart the war effort as well. That said, we have every right to challenge the patriotism of the Leftists, whether they like it or not.

And the mainstream media, working in tandem with the Democratic Party, depends on repetition of its message: "Bush Lied", Bush is "incompetent", Iraq is a "quagmire", it's another "Vietnam".  Why have Bush's polls suffered? That's not complicated. There's been a steady drumbeat of negativity and partisan rhetoric by the Left that's finally taken its toll on President Bush's approval rating and support for the war in Iraq. Any time I watch MSNBC or CNN, they're rabidly anti-Bush and anti-war, espousing pure propaganda. In reality, the Iraq situation continues to improve, albeit slowly. Democrats, who are a patently unworthy bunch, have exhibited no plan and no leadership to grapple with this war on terror, and only carp about the job President Bush is doing. As Vice President Cheney has said, "If they are competent to fight this war, then I ought to be singing on American Idol."

Moreover, the press refuses to write about the good that's happening in Iraq, or state the facts in any type of substantive context with historical perspective. Make no mistake, with the exception of some of the Sunnis who lost power when Saddam was ousted, the Iraqis on the whole are happy to have been rescued by the coalition forces. Sure Iraqis are dying due to sectarian violence, but the numbers are rather limited compared to the million-plus Iraqis killed and gone missing during the reign of Saddam Hussein. Where are the ongoing press stories about the mass graves of Iraqis that contained young and old, and the torture and rape chambers of the Ba'athist regime? Saddam is on trial, and you would think we would be hearing more about this.  How about the multitude of Iraqis – many of whom were children – who were starved to death because Saddam Hussein usurped the Oil for Food program for his own ill gotten gains, including the bribing of UN officials and other foreign dignitaries?  Also, salient to note is that we've only been in Iraq three years, which is not an adequate amount of time to nation build and establish a viable government. In the post WWII era, rebuilding Japan and Germany was a monumental task.  Japan was granted its sovereignty in 1952, Germany in 1954, and to this day we still have troops in place in these nations.    

To continue, the mainstream media are a partisan bunch of hypocrites, the same group that failed to call Bill Clinton on the carpet for failing to properly confront the scourge of terrorism, despite the fact that our assets and citizenry were attacked both at home and abroad on a number of occasions during his tenure in office. Clinton did nothing to roll back terrorism, and he passed along a "ticking time bomb" to President Bush, according to Clinton advisor Dick Morris. Moreover, in his bestselling book, Losing Bin Laden, investigative reporter Richard Miniter stated, "Early in the Clinton administration, it would have been comparatively easy to smash bin Laden's emerging network. Instead, the arch-terrorist's strength, reach, and lethality were allowed to relentlessly build over the course of the eight Clinton years." This is important information, but the mainstream media never seems to tackle it.

Lastly, how can we, GOP conservatives, more effectively market our message and challenge the falsehoods of the Left? We engage in what we always do. First, we bypass the "gatekeepers" of the mainstream media and continue to utilize various forms of alternative media, including Direct Mail, Talk Radio, the Fox News Channel, and the Internet. Clearly, we as conservatives need to expand our horizons with other modes of alternate media as new communications technologies become available. And we have to expand the cadre of individuals willing and able to effectively communicate our message to the public. Conservatives, who are always under siege by the mainstream media, can't afford to get fat and lazy.

Carol Devine-Molin is a regular contributor to several online magazines.